A method and apparatus for positioning a cell in a cell placement for an integrated circuit chip such that a total wirelength for interconnect nets that are connected to said cell is substantially minimum includes constructing bounding boxes around the interconnect nets with the cell excluded respectively. A median interval of the bounding boxes within which the total wirelength is substantially invariant is computed, and the cell is positioned in the median interval. Another optimization methodology, such as for minimizing interconnect congestion, is then applied to compute and position the cell in an optimum location in the median interval.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the art of microelectronic integrated circuits, and more specifically to a method and apparatus for computing a minimum wirelength position (MWP) for a cell in a cell placement for an integrated circuit chip.
2. Description of the Related Art
Microelectronic integrated circuits consist of a large number of electronic components that are fabricated by layering several different materials on a silicon base or wafer. The design of an integrated circuit transforms a circuit description into a geometric description which is known as a layout. A layout consists of a set of planar geometric shapes in several layers.
The layout is then checked to ensure that it meets all of the design requirements. The result is a set of design files in a particular unambiguous representation known as an intermediate form that describes the layout. The design files are then converted into pattern generator files that are used to produce patterns called masks by an optical or electron beam pattern generator.
During fabrication, these masks are used to pattern a silicon wafer using a sequence of photolithographic steps. The component formation requires very exacting details about geometric patterns and separation between them. The process of converting the specifications of an electrical circuit into a layout is called the physical design. It is an extremely tedious and an error-prone process because of the tight tolerance requirements and the minuteness of the individual components.
Currently, the minimum geometric feature size of a component is on the order of 0.5 microns. However, it is expected that the feature size can be reduced to 0.1 micron within several years. This small feature size allows fabrication of as many as 4.5 million transistors or 1 million gates of logic on a 25 millimeter by 25 millimeter chip. This trend is expected to continue, with even smaller feature geometries and more circuit elements on an integrated circuit, and of course, larger die (or chip) sizes will allow far greater numbers of circuit elements.
Due to the large number of components and the exacting details required by the fabrication process, physical design is not practical without the aid of computers. As a result, most phases of physical design extensively use Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools, and many phases have already been partially or fully automated. Automation of the physical design process has increased the level of integration, reduced turn around time and enhanced chip performance.
The objective of physical design is to determine an optimal arrangement of devices in a plane or in a three dimensional space, and an efficient interconnection or routing scheme between the devices to obtain the desired functionality. Since space on a wafer is very expensive real estate, algorithms must use the space very efficiently to lower costs and improve yield.
Each microelectronic circuit device or cell includes a plurality of pins or terminals, each of which is connected to pins of other cells by a respective electrical interconnect wire network or net. A goal of the optimization process is to determine a cell placement such that all of the required interconnects can be made, and the total wirelength and interconnect congestion are minimized.
Prior art methods for achieving this goal comprise generating one or more initial placements, modifying the placements using optimization methodologies including Genetic Algorithm operators such as simulated evolution, or simulated annealing, and comparing the resulting placements using a cost criteria.
A prior art method of minimizing the total wirelength of a net is based on computing a "gravity point" of the pins in the net and moving a selected cell to the gravity point. Typical examples of this method are described in articles entitled "INITIAL PLACEMENT OF GATE ARRAYS USING LEAST-SQUARES METHODS", by J. Banks, 21st Design Automation Conference, 1984, and "Efficient Final Placement Based on Nets-as-points", by X. Zhang et al, 26th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference, 1989.
Although the gravity point method is computationally easier to implement than the Steiner tree method, it produces a numerical result consisting of a single point to which a cell is to be relocated. There are often other variables to be considered when determining a new position for a cell, such as the number of interconnects passing through a particular interconnect routing channel. Computation of a single gravity point does not allow these additional variables to be considered when relocating a cell to improve the placement.

Method and apparatus for computing minimum wirelength position (MWP) for cell in cell placement for integrated circuit chip


A system and method for managing media quality is provided. The system includes a data store with a computer readable medium storing a program of instructions for the managing of media quality; a processor that executes the program of instructions; a media analysis unit to receive transcoded media from a media store, and to detect for a phenomena affecting the transcoded media; a media quality manager, in response to the media analysis unit detection of the phenomena, determining a parameter for transcoding media; and a re-transcode unit to re-transcode the transcoded media based on the parameter.

A variety of online services may retrieve videos from a source, such as a video sharing web site or a service that delivers videos to an application on a user device. The online services may distribute the videos to users who access the online services. For example, blog web sites, social networking web sites, and the like, may host videos in order to augment the content that the web sites already provide.
The videos may be sourced from users of the video sharing web site, or from publishers of content. The videos may be produced and captured in a large variety of formats and conditions. The videos may be professionally produced via, high definition technology, or alternatively, captured via a user's personal camcorder device. Thus, the quality of the video may differ from source to source.
The source of the video may upload the video in a raw data form. Often times, the raw data may contain various video attributes that may cause the video to be presented in a degraded manner.
Further, once the videos are uploaded, the videos may be transcoded. Transcoding is the process of converting a digital file into a digital file of a different format. The transcoding into various formats may be performed to ensure that the videos are in a format compatible with a variety of video player applications and user devices.
The uploaded video may contain interlacing. An interlaced video is designed to be captured, transmitted, or stored, and displayed in the same interlaced format. Because each frame of an interlaced video is composed of two fields that are captured at different moments in time, interlaced video frames will exhibit motion artifacts known as "interlacing effects", or "combing", if the recorded objects are moving fast enough to be in different positions when each individual field is captured, These artifacts may be more visible when the interlaced video is displayed at a slower speed than it was captured or when still frames are presented.
Interlaced videos introduce a phenomena called interline twitter. The interline twitter may show up when the subject being shot contains vertical detail that approaches the horizontal resolution of the video format. For instance, a person on television wearing a shirt with fine dark and light stripes may appear on a video monitor as if the stripes on the shirt are "twittering".
Interlacing effects described above may cause the digital reproduction of videos to become frustrated. For example, if a user uploads a video to the video storing web site, and the video is subsequently accessed by another user, if the combing artifacts exist in the video, the other user may not be able to clearly watch the video, or the other user's experience may be lessened due to the distraction caused by the interlaced artifacts.
In addition to the interlace issues discussed above, several other phenomena may occur or be included in the uploaded video, such as video blocking. Video blocking is caused by the uploaded videos having blocked borders around an active portion of the video. If a video is uploaded with video blocking, and then subsequently viewed, the blocking may prevent the video from being displayed at a maximum size. This may occur because significant resources on a video player may be devoted to reproducing the blocked borders.
A video sharing web site may host numerous videos. For example, as the video sharing web site becomes more popular, the number of videos uploaded to the video sharing web site may reach the millions, if not more.
Further, the video sharing web site as discussed above may be relied upon to transcode the videos into numerous formats. This may be performed because the video sharing web site's videos may be shared through various services. A blogging web site may display a high quality, data intensive version of the video. Conversely, the social networking web site may display a low quality, compressed version of the video.
Additionally, the video sharing web site, and the videos sourced from the video sharing web site, may be accessed by a variety of user devices, such as a personal computer, tablet, or smart phone. Thus, the videos sourced from the video sharing web site may be displayed and transcoded in various formats based on the user device employed to access the videos.


Systems and techniques for routing frames in one or more radio access networks based on a physical addressing scheme involve assigning a unique identifier to a virtual local area network that includes a path connecting an access point to a radio network serving node. For each of multiple nodes in the radio access network, the virtual local area network is associated with a port for routing frames towards the radio network serving node and/or a port for routing frames towards the access point. Frames that include a destination address associated with a mobile station associated with the access point are unicast from the radio network serving node towards the access point using the virtual local area network.

A wireless network is generally composed of two sub-networks: a radio access network (RAN), which handles radio related issues such as managing and assigning radio resources to a mobile station, and a core network, which performs routing of calls and links a mobile user to other mobile users and to the wireless network. Wireless networks typically support voice calls and other related services, such as caller ID and text messaging. Wireless coverage to the a mobile stations in a RAN is provided by multiple access points (APs) at the periphery of the RAN. As a mobile station moves toward the edge of one AP's service areas during a call, service for the mobile station is handed over to a neighboring AP to avoid service disconnection. Various techniques can be used to provide seamless mobility to the mobile station and ensure communication reaches the mobile station.

Seamless mobility in layer 2 radio access networks


The invention relates to a measuring device for thread-like test samples (3), comprising a measuring slit (2) exhibiting measuring areas (6, 7) for measuring characteristics of a test sample which moves longitudinally, said measuring areas being associated to a measuring device. A coating (8) made of an abrasion-resistant material is applied over the whole measuring slit and its measuring areas (6, 7) in order to define more freely the dimensions of said measuring slit and especially to obtain a narrower measuring slit.

The invention relates to a measuring device having a measuring slit with measuring zones, for measuring the characteristics of a moving thread-type test sample, which are associated with a measuring device.
Such a measuring device is known for yarn, for example from U.S. Pat. No. 3,377,852. In this meaning device, two electrodes are installed in a slit in a plastics block, in such a way that together they form a measuring capacitor, the measuring field of which crosses the slit. The surface of this slit is coated with a thin layer of a material, the electrical conductivity of which is less than that of the electrodes. This is intended to ensure that locally occurring electrostatic charges arising as a result of contact with the moving yarn are distributed over this layer and dissipated.
A disadvantage of such a known measuring device is that defining the conductivity of the thin layer is very difficult, since it is necessary to prevent the layer from effecting an expansion of the surface area of the electrodes. Moreover, it only makes sense to provide this layer if the yarn to be measured is electrostatically charged and frequently touches or might touch the side walls of the slit. In addition, this layer may become worn, which also means that the electrical properties of the slit then change again.
It is further known that optically operating devices are also available for measuring yarn, which likewise form a slit for the yarn. The beam path of an optical system extends over this slit, which optical system opens into the side walls of the slit.
Measuring slits in optically operating yarn measuring devices may be soiled by the yarn to be measured, which impairs optical measurement. This soiling may be counteracted by a degree of self-cleaning by the moving yarn. In order effectively to combat soiling by self-cleaning, the dimensions of the measuring slit must be favourably adjusted. A disadvantage of such an arrangement is that, in the case of narrow measuring slits, undue wear of the side faces or of the elements installed therein has to be expected. However, this restricts freedom of design in relation to such measuring slits and yarn measuring means in general.
The object to be achieved by the invention consists in increasing design options in the case of devices for measuring thread-type test pieces, in particular with regard to the construction of the measuring slit.
This is achieved according to the invention in that at least part of the measuring slit is covered with an abrasion-resistant coating, which is insensitive to wear by the moving yarn. This coating preferably covers electrodes, lenses or windows of optical devices embedded in the side walls of the measuring slit or parts thereof, as well as spaces or joints between the above-mentioned devices or electrodes and the other parts of the measuring slit. The measuring slit is coated by printing, dipping, vapour deposition, sputtering or spraying with a material which preferably enters into chemical combination with the surface of the above-mentioned parts in the slit and remains applied in a layer thickness of for example 20-30 nm.
The advantages achievable thereby are in particular that the service life of the measuring slit may be increased. Another advantage consists in the fact that the measuring field, i.e. the space in which there extends the beam path of an optical system or the electrical field of a capacitive system, may be reduced. This may be achieved on the one hand by a reduced slit width and on the other hand by a smaller surface area of the electrodes or the optical elements which adjoin the measuring slit. A further advantage consists in the fact that the self-cleaning effect of the measuring slit may be better exploited. This may be achieved by a reduced slit width. Soiling or deposits may then be more reliably removed by the test piece itself. This action is the greater, the narrower is the measuring slit and the more probable is contact between the test piece or protruding parts thereof and the side walls. Or, it is possible to dispense with lateral guidance, if the position of the test piece in the slit is of no importance.
A narrower slit also has the advantage that the effect of the shape, i.e. the fact that the cross section of the test piece may not be circular but possibly oval, on measurement of the mass of the test piece is reduced considerably. This is because, in a narrow slit, the yarn no longer appears to the electrodes or the optical elements as a flat body, as in a very wide slit.
The design according to the invention of a measuring slit also creates better conditions for installing an optical and a capacitive measuring system together in a measuring slit.

Measuring device for thread-like test samples


The present invention provides an improved process for the preparation of high purity glucagon comprising the use of Xmb-protected amino acids, wherein may Xmb include, e.g., 2,4,6-trimethoxybenzyl, 2,4-dimethoxybenzyl, or 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzyl. The process also comprises the use of building blocks such as pseudoprolines to avoid aggregation and obtain the product in high yield and purity.

Glucagon is a polypeptide hormone, secreted by the α-cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. Glucagon is a single chain peptide consisting of 29 natural amino acids (SEQ ID NO: 1, glucagon 1-29) and is represented by the chemical structure shown below

Glucagon was first discovered in 1923 by the chemists Kimball and Murlin in the pancreatic extract. Glucagon is indicated for the treatment of severe hypoglycemic reactions which may occur in the management of insulin treated patients or patients with diabetes mellitus.
Earliest isolation of glucagon was from the pancreatic extracts. The extraction from pancreas is difficult and the product is largely contaminated with insulin. The process produces low yield and therefore a large amount of pancreas is required. Moreover, the glucagon of animal origin may induce allergic reactions in some patients making it unsuitable for these patients.
Currently glucagon is produced by recombinant DNA technology or by using Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS). Several patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,826,763 or 6,110,703 describe the synthesis of glucagon using recombinant DNA technology or genetically modified yeast cells.
Recombinant technology, besides being extremely expensive is also an industrially complicated process. It requires the use of specialised equipment, modified organisms during synthesis and elaborate analytical and purification procedures. Apart from the high cost, the biotechnology processes for the production of bio-molecules also suffers from low reproducibility.
These disadvantages suggest that there is a need to develop a low cost, safe, fast and reproducible method for the production of glucagon.
The solid phase peptide synthesis process for glucagon is relatively difficult as the long peptide chains often suffer from on-resin aggregation phenomena due to inter- and intra-molecular hydrogen bonding which leads to several truncated sequences appearing as impurities, reducing both the yield and purity of the final compound.
The U.S. Pat. No. 3,642,763 describes the synthesis of glucagon by condensation of 1-6 and 7-29 fragments in the presence of N-hydroxy-succinimide or N-hydroxypthalimide and subsequent splitting of protecting groups in the presence of trifluoroacetic acid. This document does not disclose the purity of the compound obtained in such a process.
The Chinese patent application CN103333239 describes a process for the solid phase peptide synthesis of glucagon wherein the condensation of amino acids is carried out at higher temperatures and wherein the use of pseudoproline dipeptides as protecting groups is disclosed. However, the purity of the glucagon obtained via the described process is consistently low.
Therefore, there exists a need for an improved process for the synthesis of glucagon which provides the product in high yield and purity and which is also cost effective and industrially viable.

Process for the preparation of high purity glucagon


The present disclosure is directed to a staircase assembly for a vehicle, such as a recreational vehicle (RV). The stair case assembly includes a pair of substantially flat, spaced apart, support brackets that are configured to mount to a vehicle, and define a storage space for a linkage system and associated plurality of steps. The linkage system is configured to move the plurality of attached steps from a vertically orientated stored position to a horizontally oriented deployed position extending outwardly from the vehicle allowing a person to easily enter and exit the vehicle.

Various vehicles, including but not limited to recreational vehicles (RVs), motor homes, campers, vans and the like, include a doorway or other type of portal for accessing an interior of the vehicle's enclosure. The doorway/portal may be located high above ground level, in some cases by several feet, making access to the RV difficult and potentially hazardous. Accordingly, one or more steps may be employed to facilitate ingress and egress to the doorway of the vehicle. Existing designs have realized a preference for steps that compactly store under, within, or close to the vehicle, such that when stowed, the step(s) does/do not affect the overall dimensions of the vehicle and to provide the RV or other structure more sleek and/or aesthetically pleasing appearance when stowed. However, state law may regulate the maximum width of these vehicles, for example, to 102 inches.
One solution is to use a drawbridge-style stair system that pivots up and stores within a doorframe of the vehicle. However, these stair systems require a significant space for swinging the drawbridge-style stair system into a desired position, which may be a concern when parking the vehicle in tight spaces.
Another solution is to use an extendable/folding stair system. However, current folding designs can be cumbersome to deploy and often require multiple user movements, e.g., pulling out to extend a series of stairs and flipping a base stair out. Other designs require the manipulation of locking mechanisms prior to deploying the stair system. Many current designs are also free floating, having at least one stair attached to the vehicle, with no support structure thereof in contract with the ground. Many of these extendable/folding designs are generally not aesthetically pleasing as many are suspended from the base of the RV floor and are observed as a set of internally stacked stairs.
The present disclosure provides certain improvements including but not limited to, easy deployment and retraction, increased stability, and flat vertical secured storage that is aesthetically pleasing.


The invention provides a wire saw in which wire tension fluctuations occurring in swinging of a row of wires can be accommodated to thereby increase a velocity of the wire and to carry out cutting with efficiency and precision by utilizing swinging of the row of wires even with thin wire. In the wire saw having the row of wires formed by winding the wire about a plurality of work rollers provided to a swinging disk many times, for pushing a workpiece against the row of wires caused to reciprocate or travel in one direction at high velocity to cut the workpiece into a plurality of pieces, and for swinging the row of wires in cutting of the workpiece, a feed side pulley for guiding feed side wire going into the work rollers to the work rollers and a retrieving side pulley for guiding retrieving side wire going out of the work rollers to an outside are disposed coaxially on an axial center of rotation of the swinging disk so that the tension fluctuations do not occur in the wire even if the row of wires swings.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wire saw having improved cutting efficiency and accuracy by swing row of wires in pushing a workpiece against the row of wires reciprocating or traveling in one direction at high speed to cut the workpiece and more particularly to a wire saw in which occurrence of tension fluctuations in wires at a time of swinging of the row of wires is prevented to prevent occurrence of cuts of the wire to obtain stable traveling performance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a wire saw in which a row of wires are swung in cutting a workpiece, as shown in FIG. 9, wire A drawn out from a feed side reel 1 is led via a feed side traverser 3 driven by a motor 2 and a plurality of guide pulleys 4 to a tension mechanism 7 formed of an encoder 5 and a tension arm 6, a load cell 8 for measuring tension in the wire A, and a plurality of guide pulleys 9 and then wound around three work rollers 11 mounted to a swinging disk 10 many times to form a row of wires. Then, the wire A passes through a plurality of guide pulleys 12, a load cell 13 for measuring tension of the wire A, a tension mechanism 16 formed of an encoder 14 and a tension arm 15, a plurality of guide pulleys 17, and a retrieving side traverser 19 driven by a motor 18 and is taken up by a retrieving side reel 20.
Each of the work rollers 11 is formed in its outer periphery with grooves and a workpiece fixing table 21 is disposed to be properly moved up and down by driving means (not shown) right above an upper row of wires wound by utilizing the grooves around an outer periphery between the work rollers 11 to thereby push down a workpiece B mounted to a lower face of the workpiece fixing table 21 toward the row of wires.
As the above-described wire saw, there are a loose abrasive grain wire saw in which slurry liquid including hard abrasive grains such as SiC, diamond, and the like is supplied to a vicinity of a workpiece cutting position of the row of wires by a nozzle 22 and a fixed abrasive grain wire saw for cutting by using the wire A to which diamond grains are fixed through resin or the like and while supplying coolant to the workpiece cutting position of the row of wires.
The vertical swinging disk 10 mounted with the work rollers 11 are rotatably supported on a machine base 23 through a cross roller bearing 24 and is rotated in a reciprocating manner through a constant angle at a time of cutting of the workpiece and is fully rotated at a time of winding of the wire about the work rollers by a driving motor 25 through a pulley and a belt provided to a rear end.
A swinging mechanism of the row of wires swings the row of wires in a reciprocating manner through a constant angle at a time of cutting of the workpiece by rotating the swinging disk mounted with the work rollers in a reciprocating manner by using the different motor 25 from a spindle for driving the work rollers for rotation. In the mechanism, the wire A comes in contact with the workpiece B in an arc shape to thereby reduce contact resistance to improve bringing in of the slurry liquid to enhance cutting performance.
Conventionally, to guide the wire A to the work rollers 11 of the above-described kind of wire saw, the feed side guide pulleys 9 for guiding the feed side wire going into the work rollers 11 to the work rollers 11 and the retrieving side guide pulleys 12 for guiding the retrieving side wire going out of the work rollers 11 to an outside are fixed and disposed in positions outside and isolated from an axial center of rotation of the swinging disk 10 (see Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 6-35107, for example)
In a structure in which the feed side guide pulleys 9 and the retrieving side guide pulleys 12 are fixed and disposed in the positions outside and isolated from the axial center of rotation of the swinging disk 10 with respect to the work rollers 11, distances between the work rollers 11 and the feed side guide pulleys 9 and the retrieving side guide pulleys 12 fluctuate in swinging of the row of wires and therefore the wire A is pulled or loosened.
Moreover, in recent cutting of a silicon ingot or the like, there are tendencies to reduce a thickness of a wafer to increase the number of wafers obtained from a work ingot and to reduce a diameter of the wire A to minimize cutting loss from a viewpoint of reduction in manufacturing cost. Therefore, challenges in the wire saw are to reduce the diameter of the wire A and to increase a linear velocity of the wire A from a viewpoint of improvement in manufacturing efficiency.
However, in the swinging mechanism in the above-described prior-art wire saw, fluctuations in the wire tension are large in swinging of the row of wires. If the wire diameter is reduced, a load on the wire increases in swinging and the wire may be cut in some cases.
Moreover, in increasing the linear velocity of the wire, the wire may be broken in the swinging in some cases similarly to the above case.
Furthermore, in a wire saw in which work rollers are directly driven in normal and reverse directions to cause wire to reciprocate at high velocity, it is conceivable that rotation of a wire reel is caused to follow tension fluctuations in the wire by a driving motor for the wire reel. However, such a method requires a high-precision driving motor, which results in high cost.
In the fixed abrasive grain wire saw, there is a tendency to increase a swinging angle so as to enhance the cutting performance, which results in large tension fluctuations in the wire at the time of swinging.


Poinsettia `702` is a new cultivar, distinguished by dark red flower bracts, dark green foliage, self-branching characteristics and 9-week flowering response time. The new plant produces a very desirable branched flowering pot plant for the mid-season holiday market. Poinsettia `702` is resistant to epinasty after being confined to shipping containers. The post-production foliage and bract retention is excellent even under low light intensities in the consumer's home.

This new poinsettia cultivar, `702`, originated as an induced self-branching sport of a seedling known as "K-06" (not patented) in my greenhouse in Encinitas, Calif. It was selected because of its dark red flower bracts, dark green foliage, self branching characteristics, and mid-season flowering response; traits that distinguish it from other poinsettia cultivars, and seem to make it a desirable plant for commercial greenhouse production. After selection, `702` was vegetatively reproduced from stem cuttings for test purposes in Encinitas, Calif. "K-06" is a proprietary plant and there are no specimens in the public domain. Poinsettia "K-06" is not self-branching in that no axillary branches develop as long as the apical bud is not removed (pinched). `702` is self-branching in that during development axillary branches elongate without removal of the apical bud. If under short day conditions, the axillary branches will develop inflorescences. Poinsettia `702` most closely resembles poinsettia `725` (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,951), but differs in these aspects: `702` has darker red bracts, darker green foliage, more flower bracts and cyathia and a more open center to the bract presentation than `725` under the same cultural conditions. By subjecting clones of this plant to successive generations of vegetative propagation, it was demonstrated that the distinctive characteristics of `702` held true from generation to generation.


A pad for supporting a transformer is described, which comprises: a molded polymer body having front, rear, left and right surfaces, canted top surfaces, a sill adapted to engage a transformer cabinet door, and a pedestal to support and elevate a transformer tank. In one embodiment, the sill is formed integrally with the body, the sill being generally U-shaped, including a front section and left and right side sections and extending between about 0.5 and 6 inches above said top surface of the body. The pedestal may also be formed integrally with the body, the pedestal being generally rectangular in shape, incorporating transformer mounting flanges, and extending between about 0.5 and 6 inches above said top surface of said body. The body includes a first opening inside of the sill capable of allowing the passage therethrough of electrical cables for connecting the transformer, a second opening sized to provide drainage for a portion of said canted surface that is under the transformer and within the boundaries of the pedestal when the transformer is in place on said pad, and canted surfaces surrounding the sill and pedestal that provide drainage off of the exposed top surfaces of said pad.

In electrical power distribution systems, distribution transformers are used to step down voltage between the high voltage power line and the user. Hence, transformers are present at virtually every distribution point. Transformers are typically mounted above ground on a junction pole, or at ground level on a pad or platform. Increased use of underground power distribution systems has resulted in a corresponding increase in the number of padmounted transformers. The electrical connections between padmounted transformers and the power distribution system must be contained in a manner that will prevent tampering by unauthorized individuals. Typically, this is accomplished by enclosing the transformer connections within a metal cabinet. Hence conventional transformers include a tank, which contains the core and coil assembly immersed in oil, and a cabinet enclosing the front of the tank. Connections for incorporating the transformer into the power distribution system extend through the front plate of the tank and are enclosed by the cabinet. The cabinet typically includes a door hingedly attached to the tank and a sill, or riser, that extends forward from the front plate of the tank and is in contact with the pad. Typically, the tank front plate is attached to the transformer pad. The sill is typically attached to the tank front plate and transformer pad and provides support for the cabinet door when closed as well as supporting a latch and/or lock for retaining the cabinet door in its closed position. The sill further serves to exclude some insects, small animals and moisture from the inside of the cabinet. However, because the sill is bolted to the pad, there is always some clearance between the sill and pad through which insects and moisture can find ingress.
Typically, transformer pads are fabricated from concrete, fiberglass or plastic. Concrete pads can be poured in place, or preassembled off-site. In addition to being heavy and relatively difficult to transport, an additional assembly step is required at the transformer site, wherein the transformer tank and the sill are affixed to the transformer pad. This assembly step takes time and may result in paint damage to the various parts of the transformer enclosure that come in contact with or are being affixed to the transformer pad. Paint damage is undesirable in transformer enclosures, as they are typically exposed to the elements and paint damage can result in increased corrosion.
Similarly, the cabinet sill is conventionally a separately fabricated piece from the rest of the transformer, i.e. the transformer tank and the cabinet door. Therefore, the sill must be affixed to the front plate of the transformer tank, as well as to the transformer pad. This step also requires additional labor and may result in paint damage to the sill itself, the tank or the door.
Transformer pads typically have predominantly planar upper surfaces. Some pads incorporate ridges and raised bosses on the top surface to facilitate location, placement, and attachment of the transformer on the pad and to provide a degree of tamper resistance. Ridges are typically located inside the transformer sill walls. Cabinet doors close over the top of the ridges to prevent the accumulation and containment of potentially corrosive liquids and airborne particles. Placement of the ridges inside the sill walls also provides an obstacle to objects inserted between the walls and pad and intruding into the transformer interior. The degree to which the ridges succeed as a barrier to intrusion is dependent on the flexibility of the inserted object. A flexible object might bend and skate around the ridges.
When installed, transformer pads are typically flush or very close to flush with ground level. Often the pads become buried after installation. The placement of the pad at ground level or below-grade allows the accumulation of chemicals and liquids, which causes corrosion at the base of the transformer enclosure. Ground level corrosion of the sill and tank is frequently accelerated by paint damage caused by yard care tools and equipment.
Recently, pads for transformers, switch boxes, junction boxes and the like have been developed that are lighter and easier to transport. These may be formed of plastic or fiberglass, and may include a foam core or other internal structural members. Although these pads are more easily installed at the pad site than concrete pads, they still require the additional assembly step wherein the cabinet sill is attached to the transformer tank and pad, and the pads still become buried. Hence, it is desired to provide a transformer pad that eliminates some of the assembly steps for a transformer enclosure by reducing the number of parts required. It is further desired to provide a transformer enclosure having enhanced corrosion resistance and increased resistance to tampering. It is further desired to provide a transformer with a pad that is easily transported and installed at the power distribution site.

Transformer pad with molded sill and pedestal


Briefly, the present invention provides a system and method for high throughput processing using sample holders. The system has a plurality of work perimeters, with a rotational robot preferably associated with each work perimeter. At least one transfer station area is provided between adjacent work perimeters to facilitate robotic transfer of sample holders from one work perimeter to another area. Each work perimeter typically includes a plurality of defined station locations, with each station location positioned to be accessible by the robot associated with that area. In addition, each station location is typically configured to receive a device, such as an automated instrument or a holding nest. Device components are arranged at selected station locations according to specific application requirements to provide a flexible, robust, reliable, and accurate high throughput processing system.

Automated processing systems are useful in many applications and fields. For example, automated laboratory systems are used in biotechnology and biomedical industries, e.g., for producing large numbers of samples and screening these samples for a desired property. Such samples include, but are not limited to, chemicals, cells, cell extracts, or genetic material such as cDNA, retroviruses, or anti-sense oligonucleotides. To facilitate faster processing, samples are typically processed together on a multi-well specimen plate, such as a 384 or 1,536 well plate.
Automated systems using specimen plates generally provide faster processing of samples as compared to manual processes. High throughput automated systems typically involve rapid, repetitive manipulations of individual elements. One deficiency in existing technology is that as processing throughputs increase there is a degradation of reliability.
One example of an automated processing system is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,985,214, which relates to a system having several workstations. A conveyor transport moves specimen plates holding samples between the workstations. Accordingly, the specimen plate moves in a linear fashion from a first processing workstation to the next sequential processing workstation. To move to any workstation, a specimen plate is first retrieved from a central storage rack, and then transported down a long linear track until the plate reaches one of the several workstations. When the plate is at the desired workstation, the plate leaves the first linear track and is placed on a second orthogonal linear track that presents the plate to an automated instrument. This system, however, suffers from a lack of flexibility. The plates must proceed in a linear fashion along the entire track, thus limiting throughput. Further, once the rack, workstation, and cooperating transports are in place, it is difficult to reconfigure the system. In addition, samples in the specimen plates are subjected to an open and unprotected environment for an extended period of time as the plates move from the sample racks to the workstations. Thus, the samples may become impermissibly dry or contaminated.
Another known automated processing system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,928,952, which relates to a system having a series of processing units arranged to sequentially receive specimen plates holding samples or products. In this system, each individual unit performs a specific task using the specimen plates. Further, each unit has an associated robotic device for receiving a plate from an adjacent unit. The system uses plural robots to perform automated process having several steps. For example, for a unit performing a step in the process, a robot associated with the unit retrieves a specimen plate from the previous unit and moves the specimen plate to the processing position in the unit. When the unit has completed its step, the robot moves the specimen plate to where the next robot can retrieve the plate. In such a manner, the system is cumbersome to operate in a process having many steps and using several different workstations.
Disadvantageously, current high throughput processing systems are limited to unidirectional workflow and inflexible testing regimes. For example, once the testing samples are delivered to a workstation in U.S. Pat. No. 5,985,214 or the interchangeable unit in U.S. Pat. No. 5,928,952, the samples proceed inexorably from one workstation to the next workstation in only one direction. Current systems do not allow for a sample to proceed, for example, from an assaying step, to a dispensing step, and then back to the previous assaying step. Instead, an entirely new workstation must be built subsequent to the dispensing step in order to perform the assay step that was provided two workstations ago. As each workstation is capable of performing only one function, every additional step in current systems involves adding another robot and another workstation, thereby entailing additional alignment, integration and calibration with the overall system.
Therefore, there exists a need for an efficient automated processing system such as a high throughput processing system that is accurate, reliable, and flexible. The demand for high throughput systems with decreased reconfiguration needs that are prone to less contamination and can process samples multi-directionally within the system is as yet unmet. The present invention provides improved high throughput processing systems that fulfill these needs and many others that will be apparent upon complete review of the following disclosure.

High throughput processing system and method of using


A conveying device comprising a conveyor belt, a conveyor belt speed sensor, at least one extending roller selectively extendable from the device, an extending roller speed sensor, a hydraulic motor operatively engaged with the conveyor belt, a proportional valve operatively coupled with the hydraulic motor for modulating the speed of the motor, and a controller operatively connected to the proportional valve for modulating the output thereof, the controller in communication with the belt speed sensor, and in communication with the extending roller speed sensor, the controller thereby controlling the speed of the motor to obtain a desired belt speed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to conveying devices, and more specifically to vertically adjustable portable conveyors, and particularly to aircraft belt loaders having extendable rollers as well as a conveyor belt.
2. Background Information
Baggage loading devices are common. A typical device includes a vehicle equipped with an endless belt upon which luggage or other items are placed. Movement of the belt conveys the luggage from one end of the vehicle to the other end. The endless belt may be engaged with a bed that raises or lowers for easier elevational movement of items. Attached to or extended from the endless belt may be a roller or series of rollers. Such extending devices may be retracted to a position beneath the endless belt and may include mechanisms to power the individual conveying rollers. Once extended, the conveying rollers receive items such a luggage or baggage and convey the items to a cargo hold of an aircraft, for instance. The individual roller elements articulate with respect to each other so the items may be transported to a variety of places depending on where the plurality of roller elements is positioned.
Applicant has found it desirable to have a conveyor maintain a generally constant or uniform belt speed which matches the speed of the individual extending roller conveyors. Having a matching speed allows items to more smoothly transition from the endless belt to the roller elements, and vice versa. If an operator desires to increase or decrease the speed of the individual extending roller or roller elements, a corresponding increase or decrease would ideally be made to the conveyor belt. Making a corresponding increase or decrease automatically would reduce time and effort of an operator and reduce the risk of mismatched speeds which might otherwise create a hazard or other problems. The present invention provides a novel conveying device and advantages over prior designs.
The device includes a control system and a sensing system to automatically adjust the conveyor belt speed of the conveyor, and preferably to adjust the belt speed to match the speed of an extending roller. The device may include a hydraulic system to power the belt, and preferably is configured with an elevating conveyor bed that is affixed to a vehicle. The device is well suited for use in the aircraft cargo loading and unloading industry, or the postal and handling industries. Numerous other advantages and novel features of the present invention are disclosed.

Conveyor with belt to roller synchronization mechanism


A stable affixation system for dental implantation includes a fixation tray having, for rapid placement, a housing defining a chamber whose inner surface is configured to house a flowable or malleable material (configured to harden) and be placed over one or more teeth during guided dental implantation surgery. A mechanism for urging the material against the teeth may comprise side walls having an inwardly directed extra flexible arm extension or an inwardly directed step. A lock mechanism may comprise a wedge positioned over the fixation tray to reduce or eliminate freedom of movement of the tray. For rapid removal, the system may include mechanisms (for example an element rotating inside the tray) for applying force on the tray and material and for ensuring that the material adheres more strongly to the tray than to the teeth. The system is sturdy enough to withstand forces including from various angles and leverage.

The invention relates to affixation systems and more particularly to affixation systems for guided dental implantation surgery including a fixation tray configured to house a hardening material and including a lock.
Dental implants are used in cases where natural teeth are missing or have to be extracted. Dental implantation surgery involves drilling a hole and enlarging it to a specific size in the maxilla or mandible (upper or lower jaw bone) and then screwing in an implant, a screw-like object into the jaw. After the implant surgery, an abutment and crown are then placed.
The correct and accurate placement of the implant is very important for various reasons. There are anatomical structures which one does not want to drill into such as the inferior alveolar and mental nerves, maxillary sinuses or perforating bone. In addition, one does not want to drill into a tooth root or another implant. It is not easy to accurately position the implant "blindly" (only seeing the original access opening) around 8-13 mm deep into bone. Ideally, implants should be placed in a position and orientation so as to have biting forces in the long axis of the tooth. Improper placement might prevent achieving this Implants should be placed so as to leave a minimum of 2 mm of bone to prevent bone resorption. There is also an aesthetic component for the placement of implants especially in the anterior of the mouth, where the final aesthetic result is affected by the precise placement of the implant.
Originally, the only way to perform any surgery in general was freehand, without any guidance relating to the anatomical structures which one may encounter during surgery. In order to compensate for this, surgical access openings had to be large enough to allow visual verification. Laparoscopy as well as other guides has helped with this aspect in many types of surgeries.
In dentistry, utilizing guided dental surgery helps the surgeon follow the preplanned treatment plan. It makes the surgery minimally invasive, which reduces the risk of tissue damage and facilitates achieving the precision needed. Guided surgery is therefore a preferred approach for dental implant surgery.
During dental and certain other kinds of guided surgery there is a need for real-time computerized measurement of spatial position and orientation of specially marked objects, such as surgical instruments and implants to be implanted in pre-planned positions. The orientation and location of the surgical instruments is monitored by position sensors and the real-time location of the instruments can be displayed on previously acquired patient image data. The orientation and location of the patient is also typically tracked separately, to allow for sensing of anatomy movement relative to the tracked instruments during the operation. In dental surgery and in certain other surgeries, the various orientations and locations of the tracked objects need to be determined with great precision—in the case of dental surgery typically within an accuracy of less than a quarter of a millimeter.

Stable affixation system for guided dental implantation


A rail road car has draft sills, and draft gear mounted in the draft sills, by which loads are passed along the train line of cars. The draft gear is mounted to the drafts sill webs between front and rear draft stops. The front and rear draft stops have portions that protrude beyond the plane of the inner face of the draft sill webs. The rear draft stops have a boss that extends past the plane of the inside face of the draft sill web, such that the peripheral weld about the boss may tend to be placed in stress in the plane of the web.

This description discusses draft components for railroad cars, and in particular, draft stops and their relationship to the draft sills in which they may be mounted. The discussion is made and the terminology herein is used, in the context of freight car construction and operation in North America, and, most typically, in interchange service, and in compliance with standards of construction established by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).
By their nature, railroad cars tend to be releasably linked together end-to-end in a string drawn (or pushed) by one or more locomotives. The parts of a railway car that link one car to another and permit the longitudinal loads of the train to be passed from one car to the next define the draft equipment of the railroad car. Typically, a rail road car has a body that has a center sill, whether a stub center sill or a straight-through center sill. The portion of the center sill that lies longitudinally outboard of the truck center (or last truck center, in an articulated car) may be referred to as a draft sill. The draft sill is usually a hollow column, or beam, that lies beneath a deck or shear plate of the railroad car. It usually has two parallel lengthwise extending vertical webs. A coupler, draft gear, and draft gear stops are usually mounted within the draft sill. The draft gear, as it is called, may be a sliding sill, a hydraulic end-of-car-cushioning unit (EOCC), a standard draft gear or a short travel "MiniBuff" gear. One type of draft gear may weigh about 1100 lbs, and may have, for example, about 3 inches of travel at 500,000 lbs load. The coupler is mounted to push and pull upon the draft gear. The draft gear is retained by the draft stops. The draft stops are typically mounted to the inside of the draft sill webs, and provide a means by which the force on the draft gear (received through the coupler) can be carried along the car.
There are front draft stops and rear draft stops. The front and rear draft stops are spaced apart a longitudinal distance along the draft sill corresponding to the length of the draft gear employed in the car. Rear draft stops are located within the center sill or draft sill, longitudinally inboard of the front draft stops, typically immediately outboard of the centerplate casting. Rear draft stops receive longitudinal loads from the draft gear when the coupler shank is in longitudinal compression, such as in a "run-in" condition on a descent or during humping. Rear draft stops transmit these loads into the draft sill, and most typically into the draft sill webs. The front draft stops are located further outboard toward the striker at the distal end of the draft sill whence the coupler extends. Front draft stops receive loads from the other end of the draft gear when the coupler is run out, and the coupler shank is in tension and draws on the draft gear yoke. The front draft stops transmit these loads into the draft sill, most typically into the draft sill webs. A striker, or "the striker" is the part of the car that forms the end face fitting of the draft sill. According to Railway Age's Comprehensive Railroad Dictionary, (Simmons-Boardman, Omaha, 1984) the striker is designed to be the first point of contact in the event the coupler is driven back far enough to strike the car body. The striker's function is to absorb the resulting impact and prevent damage to the center sill and surrounding area. The inventor believes that the foregoing definitions of front draft stop, rear draft stop, and striker are the customary and ordinary meanings of these terms as understood by persons skilled in the art.
This document also discusses weld fillets. The term "fillet" may be used in either of two contexts. In the first context, the "fillet" may be the empty groove, or linear notch, or angle, into which a passes, or several passes, of weld metal may be laid down. In the second sense, the term "fillet" may refer to the resulting fillet weld, or the weldmetal of that fillet weld, after the weld has been made. Although successive fillets may be laid down repeatedly to form a plug weld, the resulting accumulation of welding passes in a plug weld is usually referred to as a plug weld. Similarly, the resulting weld between two abutting plates is usually referred to as a butt weld, rather than as a fillet weld, notwithstanding that the weld may have been made by welding passes on one or both sides of the plate that were laid down as fillets.
So that the invention herein may better be understood the Applicant has included illustrations of a prior art draft gear assembly, those Figures being labeled 2a-2h. In one known assembly, the striker 58 and the front draft stops 80, 82 are formed of a single integral casting.
An example of existing rear draft stop design is shown in FIGS. 2a, 2b, 2g and 2h. The existing rear draft stop 90, 92 may tend to have a leg, or face 94, that is substantially planar, and that may tend to lie in planar abutment against the inside planar face of the side sill web 53. Web 53 has a series of parallel slots 57. The connection between web 53 and face 94 is made by clamping rear draft stop 90 or 92 in place and filling the three large, longitudinally running slots 57 with plug welds. In use, the longitudinal loads imposed on the rear draft stops are transferred through the weldmetal in shear, and into the side sill webs.
An example of an existing key slot design is shown in FIGS. 2c, 2i and 2j. In these illustrations, the monolithic combination striker and front draft stop casting, 100, includes a striker portion, identified as striker 58, and integrally formed front draft stop portions, identified as front draft stops 80, 82. The walls 85, 87 of the front draft stop that define the upper and lower boundaries of the key slot are (a) of comparable thickness to the thickness of the side sill webs, and are formed with a sharp internal corner as at 83.
In some cars there has been a tendency toward cracking of the draft sill webs at the draft stop fittings. This suggests to the inventor that attention to fatigue details and load paths in the draft stop assembly, and in the draft sill in general, may be helpful.


Jet aerator apparatus and method. The apparatus can include a jet body including a passageway, water conduits, and an air conduit. The jet aerator can include an exit nozzle received in the passageway. The exit nozzle can include lock clips, locking tabs, and stabilizing tabs. The jet aerator can include a jet head coupled to the exit nozzle by the lock clips. The jet head can include a locking rib. The jet aerator can include a jet cover coupled to the exit nozzle. The jet cover can include slots to receive the locking tabs, stepped portions to receive the stabilizing tabs, and lock grooves to receive the locking rib.

In the hot tub and spa market, various types of jets are known for introducing a jet or spray of water and air into the interior of the tub. Conventional jets include those having an apertured ball or sphere, known as an 'eyeball,' that can be adjusted by the user to spray water and air in a desired direction. Other conventional jets include a rotor body having sub-nozzles that spray several water/air jets into the tub. The rotor body rotates about an axis to provide a multi-stream water/air jet pattern that swirls about the axis of the rotor.

G-G Distribution and Development Co., Inc.


The picture image forming apparatus of a type which performs a light exposing on an image holding surface charged at a constant voltage by a charging device having a grid electrode to form an electrostatic latent image and then supplies a toner from a developing device to change the latent image into a visible image, including a voltage division and adjustment circuit for dividing a voltage applied to the grid electrode of the charging device and for adjusting the divided voltage to a predetermined bias voltage for the developing device, a modification and drive circuit for absorbing and modifying a fluctuation of the bias voltage which has been divided and adjusted by the division and adjustment circuit and for driving the division and adjustment circuit, and an operating circuit for operating the drive circuit.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for forming an image and, more particularly, to an image forming apparatus of a type which is mounted on an electrophotographic printer and has a predetermined bias voltage-applied developing device.
2. Background Art
FIG. 3 of the accompanying drawings shows a schematic view of a typical image forming apparatus of the above mentioned type. An image formation process of this apparatus will be described below with reference to FIG. 3. As a photosensitive drum 102 rotates in a direction indicated by the arrow K, a main charger 101 charges a surface of the photosensitive drum 102 uniformly. Then, a light is irradiated onto the surface of the charged photosensitive drum 102, in correspondence with an image part, from a light exposure unit 103 which may have an LED array. At this time, the charged electric charge is removed from an exposed part corresponding to the image part (by a photoconduction phenomena) and parts other than the exposed part hold the charged electric charge whereby an electrostatic latent image is formed on the photosensitive drum 102. After that, a toner (a colored fine particle) charged to have the same polarity as the electrostatic latent image is supplied onto the surface of the photosensitive drum 102 to allow the exposed part to electrostatically absorb the toner. Accordingly, the toner image (visible image) is obtained.
Further, a paper P is fed to contact the toner image formed on the photosensitive drum 102 while the electric charge having a polarity opposite the charged electric charge of the toner is being applied onto the back face of the paper by a transferring charger 105. Consequently, an electrostatic force is produced and the toner image on the photosensitive drum 102 is transferred onto the front face of the paper P. Then, the paper P is given heat and pressure by a fixing unit (not shown). As a result, the toner image is fused on the paper P to be a permanent image. On the other hand, after the transferring, the electric charge is removed from the photosensitive drum 102 by a charge removing lamp 106. The toner still remaining on the photosensitive drum 102--some electric charge is not transferred and remains--is removed by a cleaner 107.
A high voltage is applied to the main charger 101, the developing device 104 and the transferring charger 105, respectively. A high voltage source device A applies a high voltage (about -5 KV) to a wire portion 110 of the main charger 101. In the illustration, a scorotron charger having a grid electrode 111 is used as the main charger 101. As compared with a case employing an ordinary charger, the illustrated case can reduce the unevenness of the charge potential (or charging voltage applied) on the surface of the photosensitive drum 102. Generally, about -700 V (bias voltage) is given to the grid electrode Ill to control the charge voltage at the surface of the photosensitive drum 102.
About -300 to -600 V (bias voltage) is given to the developing roller 140 of the developing unit 104 by a second high voltage source device B. The developing roller 140 is a magnet roller having a development sleeve on its surface.
A high voltage (about +5 KV) is given to a wire portion 150 of the transferring charger 105 by a third high voltage source device C.
Incidentally, the high voltage source devices A, B and C are comprised of a number of components, respectively: a DC/DC converter to accept an input from an external DC power source, a voltage raising transducer to raise a voltage of a DC pulse output from the DC/DC converter, a rectifier to rectify the voltage-raised pulse, a controller to control the DC/DC converter, the transducer and the rectifier, and other equipments. Therefore, each of these high voltage devices has a large dimension. Accordingly, the space occupied by these high voltage devices is considerably large. Further, since the high voltage devices have a large number of equipments, the cost ratio of the high voltage devices to the entire image forming apparatus is high.


An on-line service is automatically accessed by the computer as it boots up to determine if a ROM update exists for the system. If so, the updated ROM code is downloaded to the system and the ROM is flashed. The operator of the system is generally uninvolved in this process and the process is preferably performed each time the system initializes. In this manner, the system's ROM is nearly always up to date proactively and the operator or IT administrator need not spend time and energy reacting to a problem, determining whether a ROM update exists, finding the updated ROM, downloading the new ROM code and flashing the ROM him or herself.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to flashing a ROM and more particularly to flashing a ROM with reduced user involvement. Still more particularly, the invention relates to upgrading a ROM from an on-line service during the boot process.
2. Background Information
Computer systems include numerous electrical components that perform various functions. Computers include a central processing unit ("CPU"), memory, input/output devices and various other logic and devices all coupled together according to a system architecture. One of the types of components contained within most, if not all, computers is a read only memory ("ROM") device. A ROM device has the characteristic that the information it contains is not erased when the computer is turned off. This is in contrast to a random access memory ("RAM") device (e.g., main system RAM) for which the contents are lost when power is removed.
ROMs can be used for a variety of purposes and often there is more than one ROM device contained in the computer. One ROM device that is commonly found in most computers is referred to as the "system ROM." The system ROM contains code that is executed by computer's CPU to perform a number of low-level functions. This code is generally referred to as the basic input/output system ("BIOS") code. For example, the BIOS code executes the power on self test ("POST") during system initialization ("boot up"). The POST routines test various subsystems in the computer system, isolate faults and report problems to the user. The BIOS code also is responsible for loading the operating system into the computer's main system memory. Further, the BIOS code handles the low-level input/output transactions to the various peripheral devices such as the hard disk drive and floppy drives. It should be understood that the BIOS code is stored in the ROM and copied to the main RAM memory for execution therefrom during runtime.
Early on, ROM devices were programmed at the factory and could not be reprogrammed by the operator of the computer. If updated BIOS code became available, the operator would either have to live without the update or replace the physical ROM device itself. Since then, it has become possible for operators (even home users) to cause the BIOS ROM to be reprogrammed without removing it from the computer. Reprogramming the ROM is often referred to as "flashing" the ROM. Typically, the process of flashing the ROM involved placing a floppy disk containing the new BIOS code in the floppy disk drive of the computer and executing flash code also stored on the floppy disk. The flash code caused the new BIOS code from the floppy disk to overwrite the older version of the BIOS on the ROM. This process is generally satisfactory, but does require involvement from the operator who may have no technical background or interest in being involved in the ROM flashing process. Also, this process can be very time consuming particularly for enterprises that have dozens, hundreds or thousands of computers.
Today, most ROM updates are reactive which means that the ROM is updated after a problem or other issue has arisen. The ROM is flashed with updated BIOS to resolve the issue or problem. In general, this requires the operator or Information Technology ("IT") administrator in an enterprise to know that a ROM update exists for their system which in turn requires telephone calls or on-line research to find out if a ROM update exists—a time consuming and bothersome task. Once it is known that the ROM update exists, the ROM can then be flashed as explained above or via other mechanisms such as via remote booting or through operating system dependent tools.
Moreover, getting to the point where one knows that the BIOS ROM needs to be flashed, finding a ROM update and flashing the ROM with the update is a cumbersome, time consuming and, for many, a difficult task. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a better mechanism in the art of ROM updating.

Hardware ROM upgrade through an internet or intranet service

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


An ion-conductor for a lithium secondary battery comprising at least an electrolyte and an additive;. wherein the additive contains at least one kind of imido compound selected from the group consisting of compounds of the general formula (I): ##STR1## wherein Z is an optionally substituted alkylene group having 2 to 7 carbon atoms represented by the formula --(CH.sub.2).sub.n -- (n is an integer from 2 to 7), an optionally substituted 1,2-cyclohexylene group or an optionally substituted 1,2-phenylene group; and X is a hydrogen atom, an optionally substituted alkyl group, or an optionally substituted aralkylcarbonyl group.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ion-conductor for a lithium secondary battery and a lithium secondary battery using the same. More particularly, the invention relates to an ion-conductor, to which a specific additive is added, for a lithium metal secondary battery, a lithium alloy negative electrode secondary battery or a lithium ion secondary battery.
2. Related Art
In recent years, primary batteries using lithium as a negative electrode have been put in practical applications, attracting attentions because of their high voltage (3V to 4V) and high energy density. Lithium secondary batteries have also been receiving attentions, because the lithium secondary batteries are promising which will meet portability requirements for personal computers, word-processors, handy phones and the like.
Though the lithium secondary battery has come to spread rapidly in recent years, there is still a problem such that the battery cannot ensure a good charge-discharge efficiency and cycle lifetime. Therefore, there has been a longing for development of an ion-conductor which can provide a battery with improved cycle characteristics such as a charge-discharge efficiency and a cycle lifetime and with improved properties at a low temperature.
As the ion-conductor for a lithium secondary battery, an electrolytic solution form containing an electrolyte and an organic solvent and a solid electrolyte form are known.
As the organic solvent which is contained in the electrolytic solution, a solvent with low viscosity and a solvent with high dielectric constant are known. The charge-discharge efficiency of the battery obtained by using only a solvent with low viscosity is low, so that mixed solvents containing a solvent with low viscosity and a solvent with high dielectric constant are generally used.
As the mixed solvents, for example, conventionally known are a mixed solvent of propylene carbonate (PC) and 1,2-dimethoxyethane (DME), a mixed solvent of PC and benzene or toluene (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. SHO 52 (1977)-109116), a mixed solvent of PC and tetrahydrofuran (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. SHO 57 (1982)-118375), a mixed solvent of PC and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) or diethyl carbonate (DEC) (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. HEI 2 (1990)-148665 and No. HEI 4 (1992)-171674) and the like. Also a mixed solvent of ethylene carbonate (EC) and dimethyl carbonate (DMC) or diethyl carbonate (DEC) (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. SHO 59 (1984)-96666) is known.
As the solid electrolyte, polyethylene oxide (PEO) and the like are known.
In the case of a lithium metal secondary battery using lithium or an alloy thereof as a negative electrode active material, there has been a problem described below if an electrolytic solution containing an organic solvent is used.
That is, the organic solvent and the negative electrode active material react on a negative electrode side of the lithium metal secondary battery while on a positive electrode side thereof the electrolytic solution tends to be decomposed as a result of an electric potential kept at a high voltage. Therefore, there has been a problem such that the battery can not ensure good cycle characteristics.
In the case of a lithium ion secondary battery using a carbon material (e.g., graphite) as a negative electrode active material, there has been a problem as described below if an electrolytic solution containing an organic solvent composed of PC is used.
Namely, though it is preferable to use PC because PC is capable of keeping good low-temperature characteristics, the battery using PC can not ensure good cycle characteristics because PC tends to be decomposed during charging processes. Further, because there is a decomposed product inside the battery, there is a problem such that a danger of explosion or the like increases.
In order to solve this problem, EC can be used in place of PC. However, a melting point of EC is as low as 37 to 39.degree. C., so that there arises another problem such as deterioration of cycle characteristics of a lithium ion secondary battery at low temperatures.
With respect to a solid electrolyte, a lithium secondary battery using the solid electrolyte has a disadvantage such as deterioration of cyclic characteristics because of low conductance thereof.
As mentioned above, the conventional ion-conductors for lithium secondary batteries are not stable enough for any application to the lithium metal secondary battery or the lithium ion secondary battery. Moreover, the conventional ion-conductors can not provide a lithium secondary battery with satisfactory cycle characteristics such as charge-discharge efficiency, cycle lifetime and the like.

Ion-conductor for lithium secondary battery and lithium secondary battery using the same


The invention relates to an improved catalyst based on a tableted molded catalyst body, containing a metal-containing mixture, containing copper, zinc, and aluminum, with calcium aluminate as a binder material with a weight fraction of calcium aluminate in the range of 1.0% to 30.0%, for synthesizing methanol from synthesis gas. The invention further relates to the production of the catalyst and to the use of the catalyst in the synthesis of methanol from synthesis gas.

Catalytic processes for the synthesis of methanol have great relevance in industry. With an annual consumption of more than 80 million t, methanol is among the most important industrial chemicals and intermediates. On an industrial scale, the synthesis of methanol usually proceeds from a synthesis gas consisting of CO, CO2 and H2 at elevated pressure and elevated temperature.
Suitable catalysts here are systems based on copper and zinc. These are usually present in the form of tablets, extrudates or granules.
WO 2004/085356 describes the production of a catalyst for the hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds, which contains at least one oxide of lanthanum, tungsten, molybdenum, titanium or zirconium in addition to copper and aluminum and into which copper powder or flakes, cement powder or graphite has also been mixed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,020,285 describes the production of a cobalt- or nickel-containing catalyst which additionally comprises calcium aluminate having an Al/Ca ratio of greater than 2.5. The catalyst is suitable for the decomposition of hypochlorite.
WO 98/11985 discloses cobalt- or nickel-containing catalysts which further comprise calcium aluminate having an Al/Ca ratio of greater than 4.0 and also alumina and/or magnesia. The catalyst is suitable for the decomposition of oxidizing substances.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,084,312 describes the production of catalysts based on copper, zinc and aluminum, for which an oxidic mixture of copper, zinc and aluminum is mixed with metallic copper, a cement or a mixture of the two materials and shaped to give tablets. The catalyst is used for hydrogenating organic compounds bearing carbonyl groups.
Yakerson et al. (Scientific Bases for the Preparation of Heterogeneous Catalysts, Preparation of Catalysts, p. 879 ff.) describe the production of cement-containing metal catalysts, for example nickel-, copper- or zinc-containing catalysts. The corresponding metal hydroxocarbonates are used for this purpose.
The filling of reactors for the synthesis of methanol is carried out on an industrial scale by charging the reactor with the shaped catalyst bodies from the upper end of the reactor. As a result, the shaped catalyst bodies experience severe mechanical stress on impingement on the bottom, which sometimes leads to individual shaped catalyst bodies breaking or individual constituents being rubbed off. This leads to partial blockage of the reactor and a significant increase in the pressure drop during synthesis operation. This is associated with a considerably increased energy consumption for the compressors and thus higher operating costs. Furthermore, the increased pressure drop results in greater mechanical stressing of the reactor which goes as far as the design limit of the latter, i.e. a pressure increase to which the reactor can be subjected without damage, e.g. to the reactor walls. This has the consequence that the volume flow in the plant has to be reduced or plant operation has to be interrupted in order to carry out renewed filling. Both results in a considerable decrease in production output, which impairs the economics of the process.
Apart from a fracture strength in the oxidic form, which is of importance for charging of the reactor, the shaped catalyst body also has to have a sufficient compressive strength in its reduced form in which it is present under the reaction conditions of the synthesis of methanol in order to withstand the mechanical stress brought about by the total weight of the catalyst bed in the process reactor. The shaped catalyst body is subjected to further mechanical stresses by the intrinsic weight of the catalyst bed and by the process pressure during the process of methanol synthesis. A lower mechanical stability of the catalyst in its reduced form leads to the proportion of particles from broken shaped bodies increasing over time and leads to a further increase in the pressure drop and a possible decrease in the catalytic activity.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a catalyst for the synthesis of methanol which displays an improved mechanical fracture strength and lateral compressive strength, particularly in the reduced state.
This object is achieved by the catalyst of the invention.

Tableted catalyst for methanol synthesis having increased mechanical stability


A network interconnection device having a router connected by a plurality of links to at least one multiport switch is presented. Each of the plurality of links is connected between one port of the router and one port of the multiport switch such that each link represents a separate path between the router and the multiport switch over which data packets may be transferred. Sets of links are defined as hunt groups, which contain multiple instances of a given resource. Each port has a forwarding engine. When a packet arrives at a router port, the forwarding engine checks if the packet destination port belongs to the same hunt group as the packet sending port. If the destination port and the packet sending port belong to the same group, the packet is sent back through the same port through which it arrived without having to pass through the router backplane, thus transferring the packet efficiently.

The invention relates to routers that are used on computer networks.
A router is a device that is used to interconnect Local Area Networks (LANs) and stations to form large networks. As networks grow in speed to 100 Mbit/sec and higher, the performance of routers has become an important issue. Because the performance of routers is often limited by the fixed overhead of processing the header of a packet, the performance of a router is often measured in packets/second. Currently, there are a few high-end routers with a performance of 60-80,000 packets/second. Depending on the average size of the packets being forwarded, this translates into a forwarding rate of between 16 Mbit/sec (using 32 byte packets) and 100 mbit/sec (using 256 byte packets).
Currently, the next milestone that most high-end router vendors are aiming for is to exhibit a router that can forward 100,000 packets/second. But one major reason why the forwarding performance of many high speed routers cannot reach 100,000 packets per second is that performance is limited by the speed of the router's internal backplane bus. Their performance, however, though limited by the speed of the backplane, is quite adequate for connecting low speed (10 Mbit/sec or less) lines.
Recently crossbar switches have appeared in the marketplace (e.g. the GIGAswitch from Digital Equipment Corporation) that are able to transfer packets at a rate of 1/2 million packets per second. The GIGAswitch, for example, has 22 ports that can connect 22 lines of 100 Mbit/sec or greater. These include FDDI LANs as well as ATM, SONET, and SMDS lines. The GIGAswitch also has a feature called "hunt groups" by which several ports can be grouped together to form a logical port (for further details see U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 07/542,856 now issued as Pat. No. 5,265,257, on Nov. 23, 1993, entitled Fast Arbiter Having Easy Scaling for Large Numbers of Requesters, Large Numbers of Resource Types with Multiple Instances of Each Type, and Selectable Queuing Disciplines, incorporated herein by reference). Packets sent to a logical port are sent by the switch to any of the physical ports that constitute the hunt group. Thus, any packets sent from the high speed lines to the hunt group are distributed among the physical ports according to a load balancing algorithm inside the switch. The result is increased bandwidth communication to the hunt group.
Such switches, however, do not have ability to be a router.

System for achieving scalable router performance


In one embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided a drive tube and swashplate trunnion assembly. The drive tube and swashplate trunnion assembly includes a drive tube having a plurality of grooves formed on an outer surface of the drive tube; a swashplate trunnion having a plurality of grooves formed on an inner surface of the swashplate trunnion, wherein individual grooves of the plurality of grooves on the swashplate trunnion mate with individual grooves of the plurality of grooves on the drive tube to form a plurality of channels; and a plurality of cylindrical bearings, wherein each of said cylindrical bearings is disposed within an individual channel of the plurality of channels.

Traditionally, the vertical flight of an aircraft, such as a helicopter, has been controlled using a swashplate trunnion assembly that provides for collective control in the aircraft. For example, the swashplate trunnion may slide up and down a helicopter's drive tube so that the angle of each of the helicopter rotor blades may be changed simultaneously thereby increasing or decreasing the altitude of the helicopter. In conventional swashplate trunnion systems, the drive tube and swashplate trunnion have coated involute splines that react to torsional and sliding loads. When the coatings on the drive tube or swashplate trunnion wear out, the entire rotor system must be disassembled to replace the worn out part, and replacement parts are costly. Systems and methods providing for an improved drive tube and swashplate trunnion assembly are desired.

Drive tube and swashplate trunnion assembly with cylindrical bearings


A cooling system for at least one mold of a IS type machine for the production of hollow glass articles has a connecting casing connected on the intake side to a cooling air supply pipe and on the outlet side to the axial cooling passages of the mold when the mold is closed and traversed by a vacuum pipe leading outwards from the bottom of the mold. In order to create such a cooling system wherein the conditions at the station enclosure cooling unit have no influence upon the cooling air action in the connecting casing, and thereby on the mold cooling of the IS type machine, the cooling air supply pipe of the connecting casing is connected directly with a cooling supply source of the IS type machine.

A cooling system of the aforedescribed type is shown in DE 38 37 335 C2. In this known cooling system the connecting casing is subdivided into two cooling chambers, each of which is connected on the intake side, via an inlet passage which can be opened and closed by means of a controlled valve, with a supply pipe for cooling air or a cooling air chamber, this being in turn connected to the station enclosure cooling unit assigned to cover the entire IS or RIS sector. Hereby, the cooling air is guided from the station enclosure cooling unit from the side into the cooling-air supply pipe or chamber arranged underneath the connecting casing.
The cooling air impact on the connecting casing, and implicitly on the molds, is basically determined by the conditions existing at the cooling unit for the station enclosure. Therefore, the cooling of the molds can not always be performed within the optimal range. Furthermore, due to the deflection of the cooling air when it enters the area of the cooling air supply pipe, or the cooling air chamber arranged immediately underneath the connecting casing, considerable turbulence occurs, which makes an even distribution of the available cooling air among the cooling passages of the molds even more difficult.

Cooling system for at least one mold of an individual section type machine for producing hollow glass articles


The invention concerns a chip card receiving fields of compressed data encapsulated in frames including an indication of the expected length of decompressed data and a length of compressed data. The frames are received in a storage unit and the processor of the card decompresses each data field according to a decompression algorithm over a length based on the indication of the expected length and writes the decompressed data in another buffer storage unit. Several algorithms and optionally several decompression models are installed in the card storage unit, and a couple thereof is selected by the number read in the heading of each frame received.

The invention relates in general terms to the processing of data received in a chip card, also referred to as a microcomputer or microprocessor card (smart card).
The service providers managing chip cards have a greater and greater requirement to store a large number of data in the non-volatile memory of the EEPROM or Flash EEPROM type contained in the chip card. The memory capacity requirements of chip cards also have a tendency to increase because of the use of certain software packages written in programming languages, such as Java, for which parts of programs, such as applets, are to be downloaded into the cards.
In order to give an idea, if 5 kilobytes are transmitted in each of 1 million cards with a single terminal operating 24 hours a day and 7 days a week and whose output is 9600 bits/second, more than 2 months are needed to load these data into the cards.
In radiotelephony, the chip card is integrated as an SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) in the portable radiotelephone terminals. The active state of the radiotelephone terminal and therefore its current consumption and its battery life depend notably on the time taken to transmit the data to be processed by the SIM card.
In more general terms, the reduction in the time taken for transmission of the data to be downloaded into the chip cards is an indisputable gain vis-à-vis both the terminal loading the data into the chip card and vis-à-vis the card itself and the transmission support(s) or channel(s) conveying the data to be downloaded.
In addition the Japanese patent application 08235329 filed on 24 Feb. 1995 proposes downloading compressed data into a memory card, that is to say a "static" card which does not process the data which it receives and serves as a remote memory with respect to an image processing unit which produced the compressed data. The image processing unit writes to two first predetermined addresses in the memory card respectively the length of the data before compression and the length of the data after compression, and then writes the compressed data in the memory card. Conversely, when the compressed data are loaded from the memory card into the image processing unit, the image processing unit reads the length of the data before compression and the length of the data after compression at the respective two aforementioned addresses, and then reads the compressed data so as to decompress them in accordance with a predetermined decompression algorithm installed in the image processing unit.


The present invention relates to trypanosomatid histones in substantially isolated form for use as a protective antigen against trypanosomatid infection. These histones may be either isolated from the corresponding parasite or be produced by means of recombinant DNA techniques. For the latter purpose the invention also provides genes encoding histones and derivatives of the genes like other nucleic acids and gene products like peptides and proteins. The invention further provides diagnostic tests, pharmaceutical compositions and vaccines comprising the usual excipients and/or adjuvants and at least one histone, a histone encoding gene or a derivative thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to genes and corresponding gene products (DNAs, RNAs and proteins) for use in vaccines and diagnostics specific for intracellular infectious agents, in particular for parasite infection, more in particular for trypanosomatids infection, in particular for Leishmania species infection, more in particular for cutaneous lesions inducing Leishmania, more in particular for Leishmania major.
2. Background Information
Leishmania, a member of the trypanosomatid family, is endemic in the tropical regions of America, Africa and the Indian subcontinent, in the sub-tropics of south-west Asia and in the Mediterranean. Infection with different species of the protozoan Leishmania, which is transmitted by sandflies, manifests itself as either self-healing cutaneous lesions, as neurological and cardiac disorders or as fatal visceral infections. The disease caused by Leishmania is generally called leishmaniasis.
Some forms of the disease are anthroponotic (transmitted only between humans), while others are zoonotic (involving a human reservoir). There are over 20 known species of Leishmania of which a dozen are associated with the various forms of leishmaniasis.
Based on the clinical pattern, the leishmaniasis can be classified into three groups. Cutaneous leishmaniasis is the most prevalent, producing skin ulcers which may take more than a year to heal. Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis initially causes similar lesions which may heal but reappear to cause hideous tissue destruction, primarily the nose and the mouth.
Finally, visceral leishmaniasis is a very severe systemic disease which is nearly always fatal if left untreated.
Since the mid-1980s a dramatic increase in the number of opportunistic Leishmania infections has been reported with the spread of the HIV epidemy to areas traditionally endemic for leishmaniasis. Currently the world wide prevalence of leishmaniasis is 12 million cases (see review Liew and O'Donnell, 1993) and 350 millions live in risk areas. The number of new cases of the disease each year being of the order of 1.5 million, of which 500.000 are visceral leishmaniasis.
Visceral leishmaniasis causes large scale epidemics and the number of cases varies greatly between the years. During 1991 there were large epidemics in India and Sudan. The number of cases in India alone may have been of the order of 250.000. It is estimated that visceral leishmaniasis may have killed 75.000 people in 1991.
The impact of cutaneous leishmaniasis is less dramatic, but it causes severe suffering in endemic areas, not least because of the social and psychological trauma associated with disfigurement. The importance attached to this by people in endemica areas is reflected in the old practice of leishmanization, which involves deliberate and risky infection with Leishmania in order to induce life-long immunity at the price of an ulcer and lesion on less exposed parts of the body.
During their life cycle, Leishmania grow in diverse environmental conditions, and differentiate through distinct developmental stages (see reviews Wilson 1990, Smith et al., 1994). In the sandfly vector, they grow as slender, flagellated infectious promastigotes. When the sandfly takes a blood meal, the parasites are transmitted to the human host where they are phagocytosed by resident skin macrophages. Within the macrophage lysosome, the parasites differentiate into round, non-flagellated amastigotes where they replicate until the macrophage is lysed. They are then released to infect other macrophages, or are taken up by a sandfly where they differentiate back to the promastigote stage to repeat their life cycle.
Life long protection achieved by natural or deliberate infection with Leishmania suggests that mass vaccination against this disease is feasible. Progress has been made in human clinical trials using whole killed parasites in vaccines against cutaneous leishmaniasis. However, problems have arisen such as the unavailability of reagents or variations in the host response to challenge infection. Furthermore, subcutaneous vaccination with heat-killed, avirulent or radio-attenuated promastigotes has often been ineffective or worse, exacerbated lesions. Thus, to avoid the risk of exacerbating naturally acquired infections by vaccination, it is essential to develop second generation vaccines, e.g. to use immunologically purified antigen(s) or derivative(s).
The clinical manifestations of human leishmaniasis can be mimicked in various inbred mouse strains following infection with L.major. The majority of strains (eg. CBA, C57BL/6) are relatively resistant to infection, developing only small lesions at the site of parasite inoculation, which are self-healing within a few weeks. In contrast, susceptible strains such as BALB/c mice develop severe-cutaneous lesions with no tendency to resolve and eventual fatal visceralization of the infection. In experimental murine leishmaniasis, it is generally accepted that CD4.sup.+ T cells are responsible for resistance to infection with L.major, although CD8.sup.+ lymphocytes have also been shown to play a role in the immunity against this parasite (Muller et al., 1989, Hill et al., 1989). Animal model studies have led to the delineation of two defined CD4.sup.+ T lymphocyte subsets, Th1 and Th2, which may in part determine the outcome of L.major infection. Detailed discussions on the importance of the Th1/Th2 balance and the cytokine network(s) have been reported in recent reviews (Liew and O'Donnell, 1993; Milon et al., 1995). Briefly, the Th1 response is associated with the production of the cytokines IL-2 and .gamma.-IFN, parasite killing, healing and protection, while the Th2 response is associated with the production of IL-4 and/or IL-10, disease progression and susceptibility (Heinzel et al., 1991; Scott, 1989). This pattern of lymphokine production has also been observed in human leishmaniasis (Reed and Scott, 1993). More recently, involvement of IL-12 in the immune response to Leishmania has been reported. IL-12 facilitates the development of a Th1 response by stimulating the production of .gamma.-IFN and down-regulating that of IL-4 (Heinzel et al, 1993; Sypek et al; 1993).
Many studies using Leishmania major promastigotes derived antigens, such as the surface membranes gp63 and lipophosphoglycan (Russell et al, 1988), soluble extract (Scott et al, 1987) or gp63 epitopes (Yang et al, 1991) have shown that protection can be achieved at various levels in the susceptible BALB/c mice. Similarly, for example dp72 and GP46/M2 have been used against Leishmania donovani and Leishmania amazonensis respectively, but only partical protection has been observed (Rachamim and Jaffe, 1993; McMahon-Pratt et al, 1993).


An active output compensation circuit is adopted for use on a power supply which receives input power and regulates to become a plurality of different output power. The power supply has a transformer to transform the input power. The transformer has a secondary side connecting to a plurality of output regulation units to deliver the output power. The active output compensation circuit includes a voltage difference judgment unit electrically connected to the output regulation units and a plurality of compensation channel switches. The compensation channel switches bridge two output regulation units and the voltage difference judgment unit. The voltage difference judgment unit judges the voltage difference of two output power and determines whether to output an ON signal. The compensation channel switches are driven by the ON signal and set ON so that one output power can compensate another output power.

Power supply providing multiple output power to drive a plurality of electronic devices is a technique known in the art. The multiple output power can have differential potentials to supply electronic devices of different powers. Refer to FIG. 1 for a conventional power supply structure. It is connected to a power source 1 to receive input power. It mainly includes a power factor correction unit 2 to regulate the power factor of the input power, a transformer 3 connecting to the power factor correction unit 2 to receive the input power and generate an inductive power on a secondary side, and a switch circuit 4 electrically connected to the transformer 3 that has a switch 42 and a pulse width modulation unit 41 to drive the switch 42 ON or OFF. Through ON or OFF of the switch 42, the period of current passing through the transformer 3 can be altered, and the power transmitted from the primary side of the transformer 3 to the secondary side can be controlled. The inductive power of the secondary side of the transformer 3 is regulated by a plurality of output regulation units 51, 52 and 53 to become a plurality of output power delivered to corresponding output ends 61, 62 and 63. The output regulation units 51, 52 and 53 can deliver the output power at different potentials. The output regulation units 51, 52 and 53 are independent loops and cannot provide reciprocal compensation of the output power between them. Hence the conventional power supply provides power to an individual grounded load with an individual voltage. There is no energy compensation between two sets of voltages.