An image forming apparatus, which executes printing according to a print request based on an instruction by a user of a client terminal, includes a print time calculation unit that calculates a required time for printing according to the print request; and a display unit that displays a plurality of contents on a display device during an execution of printing in accordance with a content list including the plurality of contents for the user, the content list being generated based on the calculated required time for printing.

1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein generally relate to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system and a display control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an information providing service for business purposes utilizing digital displays has become popular, owing to the recent price reduction of large-sized display devices, such as liquid crystal displays, and the recent improvement of network infrastructures, which deliver contents to a display device. The information providing service for a business purpose is, for example, a service to set up a display device at a place where a wait time occurs, such as at a front desk, an elevator, in a rest stop, or the like, and to deliver an advertisement or the like to the display device, to display the content during a spare time.
However, the above-described information providing service originally aims at providing information to unspecified users, but does not provide detailed content corresponding to the needs or the preference of each individual. Moreover, a wait time varies for each individual. In a case where a user has to leave before a delivered content (e.g. a video) finishes, the user cannot watch the content to the end. Accordingly, the information providing service in the related art has a problem whereas a content provider cannot obtain the intended effect for the advertisement, the viewer may not watch the content until the end, or the viewer may have to watch uninteresting content.
On the other hand, from a viewpoint of information security, in operating an image forming apparatus, such as a printer or a multifunction peripheral (MFP), a user authentication function by IC card authentication or biometric authentication, such as fingerprint authentication, vein authentication, iris authentication, or the like, is becoming utilized more and more. By conducting the user authentication, loss of information, such as illegally viewing information written on printed matter by a third party, or stealing the printed matter, is prevented, and thus the user authentication contributes to the enhancement of the information security. Restricting the operation of the image forming apparatus by user authentication is, for example, after the user issues an instruction for printing from a personal computer (PC), the user moves to the image forming apparatus, and conducts user authentication to execute the printing. In the above example, wasted time occurs from the beginning of user authentication to the end of printing, when the user merely waits for the printing to finish.
Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2011-028437 discloses an image forming apparatus which displays data related to at least one of user information and image data to be printed on a display unit of the image forming apparatus during printing of the image data to be printed, in order to utilize the user's wait time effectively.
However, although the image forming apparatus described in the Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2011-028437, utilizes the user's wait time until the end of printing, a length of the display time of the display data (content) to be provided to the user is not taken into account. Accordingly, the provided content does not always correspond to both the content provider's needs and the user's needs, and thus the above problem is not solved. Furthermore, if the data to be displayed is related to the image data to be printed, which includes highly-confidential information, such as "for internal use only", or the like, a third party may view the confidential information, and thus the image forming apparatus disclosed in the Japanese Published Patent Application 2011-028437 also poses a problem of information security.

Image forming apparatus, image forming system and display control method for displaying content based on a required amount of time for printing


A system for administering an on-line financial-aid service for a plurality of post-highschool education facilities includes a centralized computer, a plurality of school computer servers for a plurality of post-highschool education facilities and at least one user computer of a borrower. Each school computer server includes a Web-site software program providing a graphical user interface representing a Web-site for the respective post-highschool education facility on the computer network, including an address link for connecting the user computer to the centralized computer server. The centralized computer server includes a financial-aid-service software program providing a school-access graphical user interface accessible by each of the post-highschool education facilities and a student-access customizable graphical user interface for each of the post-highschool education facilities, accessible by the borrower. The school-access graphical user interface enables a given post-highschool education facility to establish an account that causes the financial-aid-service software program to enable customization of the corresponding student-access graphical user interface for the given post-highschool education facility.

The present application is directed to a system and method for administering financial-aid information and services to potential and existing students of post-highschool education facilities and/or their parents, and more particularly, to a system and method for administering financial-aid information to such parties, where the content and operation of the system and method are customizable by the post-highschool education facilities that utilize the system and method of the present application.
Internet users over the age of 16 in the United States and Canada have reached numbers in excess of 90-million the date of this application. Therefore, it is clear that Internet access is becoming universal. Parents and potential students are increasingly using the Internet to communicate and research topics of interest. In fact, 77% of parents polled in a recent research study by the applicant had indicated that they would be interested in obtaining information about financial-aid for post-high school education facilities over the Internet. Additionally, students are increasingly using the Internet while at college. At the time of the present application, 80% of all college students own computers and 60% of all college students check or browse the World Wide Web daily.
It is clear, therefore, that parents and potential students are increasingly using the Internet to research colleges as their first research stop. As a result, most colleges and universities include their own Website on the Internet, from which parents and potential students can find virtually anything they need to know about the institution. It is obvious that parents and potential students will begin to expect that colleges and universities to include a dynamic Internet site that provides financial-aid information and services to the students.
A problem with this expectation is that many financial-aid offices of universities and colleges do not include the substantial time, money and resources involved with creating such a dynamic Web-based financial-aid information and service product.

System for administering an on-line financial-aid service for a plurality of post-highschool education facilities


Circuits and methods for a zero setup time storage element are disclosed. A storage element having a data input terminal, a clock input terminal and a data output terminal is able to capture a logic value of a data signal on the data input terminal with a substantially zero setup time at an active edge of a clock signal. Furthermore, some embodiments of the storage element are able to drive the captured logic value until the next active edge. One embodiment of the storage element includes a control circuit coupled to an output driver circuit. Depending on the state of the data input signal during an active edge, the control circuit can drives a first control signal to the output driver circuit or a second control signal to the output driver circuit. The output driver drives a data output signal on the data output terminal of the storage element based on the values of the control signals.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to storage elements and in particular to preventing violations of the setup time requirement of flip-flops.
2. Description of Related Art
Storage elements, such as latches and flip-flops, are ubiquitous in complex digital circuits. The D-type flip-flop is perhaps the most popular type of storage element. FIG. 1(a) shows the logic diagram of D-type flip-flop 100 having data input terminal D, clock input terminal CLK, data output terminal Q, and inverted data output terminal |Q. Many embodiments of D-type flip-flops, for example CMOS implementations, also have an inverted clock input terminal |CLK (not shown) which receives an inverted clock input signal |CLK. Furthermore, some embodiments of D-type flip-flops do not provide inverted data output terminal |Q. To avoid confusion, signals on the various terminals are given the same names as the terminals themselves, whenever possible. Typically, for D-type flip-flops, rising edges of clock input signal CLK are active edges and falling edges are inactive edges. However, in some circuits falling edges are active edges, and rising edges are inactive edges.
FIG. 1(b) shows the timing diagram of D-type flip-flop 100. On active (rising) edge 110 of clock input signal CLK, D-type flip-flop 100 passes signal V1 on data input terminal D to data output terminal Q, which changes to signal V1 after a time delay T.sub.-- cq (clock-to-out), representing the propagation delay of D-type flip-flop 100. D-type flip-flop 100 ignores changes to data input signal D, such as the transition from signal V1 to signal V2, until active (rising) edge 120 of clock input signal CLK. At active (rising) edge 120, data input terminal D is receiving signal V3. Therefore, after time delay T.sub.-- cq, data output signal Q is also signal V3.
For D-type flip-flop 100 to function properly, data input signal D must satisfy two timing constraints, a setup time and a hold time, with respect to active edges of clock input signal CLK. Setup time T.sub.-- setup is the minimum time that data input signal D must be at the proper signal level before the active clock edge. Hold time T.sub.-- hold is the minimum time that data input signal D must remain at the proper signal level after the active clock edge. If either the setup time or hold time is violated, data output signal Q of D-type flip-flop 100 is undeterminable.
The D-type flip-flop can be implemented using many well known circuits. The exact details of each implementation are dependent upon the process technology and available semiconductor area. The important characteristics of a D-type flip-flop are given by the timing relationships among the signals on data input terminal D, data output terminal Q, and clock input terminal CLK.
FIG. 2 shows a well known static D-type flip-flop 200 constructed with two transmission gates and four inverters. Data input signal D is coupled to the input terminal of transmission gate 210. Transmission gate 210 is coupled to clock input terminal CLK and inverted clock input terminal |CLK so that transmission gate 210 transmit data only when clock input signal CLK is in an inactive state (a logic low). When a transmission gate is transmitting data, the transmission gate is said to be ON. If the transmission gate is not transmitting data, i.e. if clock input signal CLK is at a logic high for transmission gate 210, the transmission gate is said to be OFF. Inverter 220 and inverter 230 are coupled with transmission gate 210 to form a storage element commonly called a D-type latch. Transmission gate 210 is constructed to provide more driving power, i.e. more current sourcing strength when driving a logic high and more current sinking strength when driving a logic low, than inverter 230. Thus, transmission gate 210 can overpower the signal from the output terminal of inverter 230 and force a new logic state to the input of inverter 220 when transmission gate 210 is ON. When transmission gate 210 is OFF, inverter 230 provides a feedback path so that the signal level on the input terminal of inverter 220 is maintained by the output terminal of inverter 230. Thus inverter 220 and inverter 230 form a storage element for the value of the signal which was driven by transmission gate 210 before transmission gate 210 is turned OFF.
The output terminal of inverter 220 is coupled to the input terminal of transmission gate 240. Transmission gate 240, inverter 250, and inverter 260 form a second D-type latch. However, transmission gate 240 is coupled to clock input terminal CLK and inverted clock input terminal |CLK so that transmission gate 240 is ON when clock input signal CLK is in the active state (a logic high). The functionality of static D-type flip-flop 200 is explained with reference to the timing diagram of FIG. 1(b). Before active (rising) edge 110, clock input signal CLK is at a logic low. Therefore, transmission gate 210 is ON, but transmission gate 240 is off. Data value V1 on data input signal D is transmitted through transmission gate 210 and stored by inverter 220 and inverter 230. Since transmission gate 240 is OFF, data value V1 does not propagate to data output Q of static D-type flip-flop 200 before active edge 110. After active edge 110, clock input signal CLK is at a logic high. Therefore, transmission gate 210 is OFF, and transmission gate 240 is ON. Since inverter 220 and inverter 230 maintains data value V1 at the input terminal of inverter 220, an inverted version of data value V1 is transmitted through transmission gate 240 to the input terminal of inverter 250. Inverter 250 then drives data value V1 to data output terminal Q of static D-type flip-flop 200.
Since transmission gate 210 is off while clock input signal CLK is at a logic high, static D-type flip-flop 200 ignores the transition of data input signal D from data value V1 to data value V2. After inactive (falling) edge 115, transmission gate 210 is ON so that data value V2 is transmitted to inverter 220. However transmission gate 240 is OFF so that inverter 250 is isolated from inverter 220. Therefore, inverter 250 and 260 maintain data value V1 on data output terminal Q, until active edge 120 of clock input signal CLK.
For static D-type flip-flop 200 to function properly, data input signal D must satisfy the setup and hold time constraints of static D-type flip-flop 200. Referring to FIGS. 1(b) and 2, if an inverted copy of data value V1 is not driven by inverter 220 before active edge 110, inverter 230 drives whatever previous data value was being stored by inverter 220 and inverter 230, onto the input terminal of inverter 220. Therefore, inverter 220 may never properly drive an inverted version of data value V1. Accordingly, data value V1 must be present on data input terminal D before an active edge long enough for inverter 220 to drive an inverted copy of data input signal D on the output terminal of inverter 220. Therefore, the set up time for static D-type flip-flop 200 is the worse case propagation delay of transmission gate 210 plus the worse case propagation delay of inverter 220. Similarly, data input signal D should remain valid long enough after an active edge to insure no spurious signals are driven onto the input terminal of inverter 220 by transmission gate 210. Therefore, the hold time of static D-type flip-flop 200 is the worse case propagation delay of transmission gate 210.
Faster flip-flops can be created by using dynamic circuits. Dynamic circuits have two distinct functional periods: a precharge period and an evaluation period. During the precharge period, typically when clock input signal CLK is low, certain nodes within the dynamic circuit are precharged to specific precharged states. During the evaluation period the input signals to the circuit are evaluated to generate the output signals of the circuit by discharging one or more of the precharged nodes. The primary disadvantage of dynamic circuits is that the output signal of the dynamic circuit is not valid during the precharge period.
FIG. 3 shows a well known dynamic D-type flip-flop 300 constructed with three PMOS transistors and three NMOS transistors. Data input signal D is coupled to the gate terminal of PMOS transistor 310 and the gate terminal of NMOS transistor 330. Clock input signal CLK is coupled to the gate terminal of PMOS transistor 320, the gate terminal of PMOS transistor 340, and the gate terminal of NMOS transistor 360. During a precharge period, PMOS transistor 340 precharges data output terminal Q to a logic high state, regardless of the value of data input signal D or the previous value of data output signal Q.
During an evaluation period, if data input signal D is at a logic high, NMOS transistor 330 is ON to pull the signal on node 325 to a logic low. Since node 325 is coupled to the gate terminal of NMOS transistor 350, NMOS transistor 350 is turned OFF during evaluation periods in which data input signal D is at a logic high. Therefore, data output terminal Q is not discharged and remains at a logic high.
If data input signal D is at a logic low prior to the evaluation period, node 325 is pulled to a logic high by PMOS transistor 320 and PMOS transistor 310. The setup time of dynamic D-type flip-flop 300 is determined by the time necessary to precharge node 325 through PMOS transistor 310 and PMOS transistor 320. Since node 325 is at a logic high at the beginning of the next evaluation period, NMOS transistor 350 is turned ON. Therefore, data output terminal Q is discharged to a logic low through NMOS transistor 350 and NMOS transistor 360 at the beginning of the evaluation period when clock input signal CLK is at a logic high. Although dynamic D-type flip-flop 300 has very good setup time characteristics the inability to of dynamic D-type flip-flop 300 to maintain data output signal Q valid for an entire clock period limits the usefulness of dynamic D-type flip-flop 300.
As the frequency of integrated circuits and electronic systems have increased, the time allowed to generate and propagate a signal to the input terminal of a storage element has decreased. Therefore, satisfying long setup time requirements for storage elements is an obstacle to increasing clock frequency and therefore performance of integrated circuits and electronic systems. Hence, there is a need for a storage element with only minimal setup time requirements which provide valid outputs for an entire clock period, i.e. until after the next active edge of the clock input signal.


An apparatus for providing convenient transforming of electrical energy from a first voltage level to a second voltage level, includes a housing having an end wherein the end includes a conductive threading and a contact for making an electrical connection with a light bulb socket. The apparatus also includes a transformer electrically connected to the electrical connection for receiving power through the light bulb socket and transforming the received electrical energy from the first voltage level to the second voltage level. There is a connection electrically connected to outputs of the transformer to provide power at the second voltage level. The converted power can be used to power a DC-driven device such as an LED.

The present invention relates to providing convenient access to power. More particularly, but without limitation, the present invention relates to providing a screw-in transformer for accessing a voltage source through a light bulb socket and converting the voltage to a different level through use of a transformer or related circuitry.


The presently disclosed subject matter relates to a peptide composition for non-covalently localizing fibrous connective tissue-inducing growth factor to a surface of an implant, the composition comprising a peptide having binding affinity for a surface material of an implant coupled to a peptide having binding affinity for a fibrous connective tissue-inducing growth factor. Methods are provided for delivering fibrous connective tissue-inducing growth factor GDF-7 in an amount effective to promote fibrous connective tissue repair and fibrous connective tissue formation. Also provided are methods of applying the peptide composition to an implant by contacting the composition with a surface of the implant; and kits comprising the compositions.

Annually in the U.S., of the nearly 5 million individuals who visit a physician for tendon pain, approximately 200,000 individuals elect to have a surgical repair. Injuries to tendons and ligaments are quite common, and the frequency of these injuries is expected to rise as the population ages and continues to remain active. Tendon repair surgeries are especially common in the U.S., including rotator cuff tendons (51,000 per year), the Achilles tendon (44,000 per year), and the patella tendon (42,000 per year).
Long periods of immobilization and rehabilitation are required because healing of fibrous connective tissue, such as tendons and ligaments, is a time consuming process. Immobilization of injured fibrous connective tissue allows for the healing process to initiate, while minimizing movement which could disrupt the healing process and/or re-injure the healing fibrous connective tissue. However, as soon as the healing process provides enough mechanical strength in, and integrity of, the healing fibrous connective tissue, the individual is generally encouraged to "rehabilitate" the tissue. Rehabilitation of healing fibrous connective tissue is generally accomplished by promoting an active range of motion, which is believed to promote better return of tissue function, accelerate tissue healing, and improve quality of the tissue repair. Further, a decrease in the immobilization period of a limb or joint is desired, as even a period of 6-8 weeks of immobilization can lead to muscle atrophy, joint stiffness, tendon adhesions, risk of osteoarthritis, and other complications. Thus, any treatment that can shorten this time period by improving the rate of healing (and, hence the strength of the repaired tissue), will also improve care by allowing the individual to resume activity sooner.
Although current surgical procedures for repair of injured fibrous connective tissue are generally fairly successful, complications including failure of the repair are not uncommon. For example, chronic degenerative rotator cuff tears present a significant challenge to orthopedic surgeons. Due to tissue loss and retraction, the rotator cuff tears can generate excessive tension following primary repair, and cause failure of the primary repair. Primary repairs of large chronic tears can fail up to 38% of the time because of tendon degeneration and muscle atrophy.
Growth and differentiation factors (GDFs) are members of the family of growth factors belonging to the family of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). GDF-5, GDF-6, and GDF-7 (also known as BMP-14, BMP-13, and BMP-12, respectively) are clearly involved in fibrous connective tissue development and healing, as they stimulate production of fibrous connective tissue in vitro and in vivo. For example, GDF-5 knockout mice have shown this growth factor is essential for normal tendon development. GDF-5 deficiency has also been shown to alter the ultrastructure, mechanical properties, and composition of the Achilles tendon, and significantly delay its healing in an injury model. These GDF proteins are closely related to each other, with amino acid homologies of at least between 80 to 86%. Additionally, the amino acid identity between rodent and human GDFs is 97% for GDF5, 99% for GDF6, and 97% for GDF-7.
In vivo experiments of tendon repair have raised concerns regarding dosage of GDF. GDFs are capable of driving the differentiation of a range of cell types, including osteblasts and chondrocytes, in addition to tenocytes. Therefore, application of GDFs in a dosage other than a proper dose range to a tendon repair site, or application of GDF outside a tendon repair site, runs the risk of inducing the formation of unwanted bone and/or cartilage. Islands of cartilage have been seen in preclinical animal models investigating GDF-7, especially at the higher doses used. Thus, while growth factors often exert potent therapeutic activity on tissue, they can also trigger ectopic or unwanted responses from healthy or untargeted tissue. Of particular concern, growth factors such as GDFs, and particularly at high or unextended dosages, are capable of driving ectopic differentiation of joints, tendon, cartilage and bone. Therefore, delivery of these growth factors must employ a minimal effective dosage of growth factor which is tightly restricted to a particular region. Although few techniques have been explored for delivering growth factors (e.g., polymers eluting growth factor) and to satisfy these delivery demands, there remains a lack of success.
Thus, there remains a need for a system for localized delivery and retention of growth factors to a site of fibrous connective tissue to be treated for promoting healing and/or growth of fibrous connective tissues.

Methods and compositions for delivery of growth factor to fibrous connective tissue


A system for detecting a drowsy driver includes an axle with a sensor for measuring the movement of the axle and for producing an axle signal. The sensor typically measures any or all of the following: the lateral acceleration of the axle, the fore-aft acceleration of the axle, or the vehicle speed. A central processing unit compares the axle signal derived from the sensor measurements to a pre-determined drowsy threshold and an indicator indicates to the driver that drowsiness has been detected when the axle signal exceeds the pre-determined drowsy threshold.

This application relates to a unique system for detecting a drowsy driver of a vehicle by using axle sensors to measure and monitor the movements of the vehicle and driving patterns of the driver.
Driver drowsiness often progresses in stages. When a driver first begins to feel sleepy his eyes may involuntarily close or his head may begin to tilt forward or backward for a few seconds. As the driver experiences these initial drowsiness stages, the vehicle may begin to slightly weave back and forth on the road or may slow down and speed up. The driver is usually able to wake himself up in time to regain control of his vehicle before an accident results. As the driver becomes more sleepy, the time intervals that occur between the time when the eyes are closed and when the driver wakes himself up increase in length. This causes the weaving and speed changes to become more pronounced. Eventually the driver becomes so tired that he actually falls into a deeper sleep from which he cannot easily wake himself up. Thus, it is important to be able to detect the initial stages of drowsiness and alert the driver to this condition before the driver falls into this deeper sleep.
Various methods have been used to detect driver drowsiness. These methods can be placed into two basic categories, those methods that monitor the physical movements of the driver himself, and those methods that monitor the movement of certain vehicle components. Methods that utilize monitoring devices for the driver himself include mechanisms that are physically attached to the driver's body to monitor eye movement and the angle of the driver's head. As an example, mechanisms have been proposed which are attached to the vehicle within the passenger compartment and use infrared lens technology to monitor driver eye movement. These mechanisms are not practical. Many of these systems encounter difficulties in adjusting to different driver heights and also have difficulty in adjusting to drivers who assume various seating postures while driving.
Methods that detect drowsiness by monitoring the movement of a vehicle component include methods that monitor steering wheel turn angles. Such methods monitor steering wheel angle changes that occur as the steering wheel is rotated by the driver. Drowsiness is detected when the steering wheel is rotated through a specific set of pre-determined steering angles. These systems are often expensive and require additional hardware to be installed on the vehicle.
Thus, it is desirable to have an inexpensive system for detecting a drowsy driver of a vehicle that utilizes current vehicle components and sensors. It is also desirable to have a system that does not require physical attachment to or monitoring of the driver's body, and which is easily installed and maintained.


An object display device includes: an image acquisition unit for acquiring an image in real space; a shade computation unit for acquiring shade information indicating an appearance position of a shadow in real space; an image processing unit for correcting the image in real space or an image of a marker stored in advance, so as to eliminate the effects of a shadow, based on the shade information; a marker sensing unit for extracting the marker from the image in real space using the image in real space and the image of the marker at least one of which is corrected; and a display unit for overlaying a virtual object associated with the marker on the image in real space.

In recent years, services based on AR (Augmented Reality) technology have been developed and provided. For example, a technique is known in which an object arranged around the location of a mobile terminal is acquired, and the object including a variety of information and images is overlaid and displayed on an image in real space acquired by a camera provided to the mobile terminal. Another technique is also known in which a predetermined marker is detected from an image in real space acquired by a camera in a mobile terminal, and an object associated with the marker is overlaid on the image in real space and displayed on a display. In addition, a device is known which generates an image of a marker with the color, brightness, contrast, resolution, and focus being changed from a registered image of the marker and detects the marker based on the generated image in order to detect markers well from images captured in various conditions (see, for example, Patent Literature 1). In a technique of detecting a marker by performing binarization processing on the captured image in real space, a device is known which attempts to detect a marker with a threshold for binarization being changed when a marker fails to be detected (see, for example, Patent Literature 2).

Object display device, object display method, and object display program


A controlled release tablet is disclosed which comprises:

The present invention relates to controlled release unit dose formulations of pharmaceuticals. In the prior art, many techniques have been used to provide controlled and extended-release pharmaceutical dosage forms in order to maintain therapeutic serum levels of medicaments and to minimize the effects of missed doses of drugs caused by a lack of patient compliance.
In the prior art, extended release tablets containing osmotic tablets have been described and manufactured which have had an osmotically active drug core surrounded by a semipermeable membrane. The core is divided into two layers (compositions) one of which contains the active drug and the other contains a push layer of pharmacologically inactive ingredients which are osmotically active in the presence of gastrointestinal fluids. An outer water impermeable coating covers the tablet which is provided with an aperture that is formed by laser drilling an orifice to allow the drug to be pushed out of the tablet. A product of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,783,337; 4,765,989; 4,612,008; and 4,327,725 and is sold commercially as Procardia XL(copyright). Other controlled release compositions include those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,948,254 and 4,036,227.
The osmotic dosage forms that are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,337 are described as having a passageway which includes an aperture, orifice, hole, porous element, hollow fiber, capillary tube, microporous insert, pore, microporous overlay or bore which extends through the semipermeable lamina wall into a drug layer. The patent also states that the passageway may be formed by mechanical drilling, laser drilling, eroding and erodible element, extracting, dissolving, bursting or leaching a passageway-former from the wall of the osmotic dosage form (col. 14, line 35 et seq.) which are pre-formed in the tablet during the manufacturing process. The only exemplified technique of forming a passageway in U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,337 is the use of a laser to drill a hole in the outer layer of the tablet and the dosage forms are all based on a drug layer superimposed on a secondary layer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,987 described an osmotic tablet which had a laser drilled aperture into the core of the tablet. The laser drilled hole was plugged with leachable sorbitol which was leached out in the presence of gastrointestinal fluid.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,030 discloses an osmotic device for delivering drugs to the stomach and the intestine. This device has a shaped wall placed around a compartment which is described as a compartment which maintains its physical and chemical integrity in the stomach but loses its chemical and physical integrity in the intestine. U.S. Pat. No. 4,587,117 describes an oral osmotic device which has a shaped wall which loses its integrity at a pH of 3.5 to 8.0, a compartment and a passageway from the compartment to the exterior of the medical device.
The present invention is concerned with providing an osmotic tablet for highly water insoluble medicaments that avoids the need to have a separate xe2x80x9cpushxe2x80x9d layer in the core which contains no medicament and which avoids the need to have a pre-formed passageway in the tablet to allow the drug to be pushed out of the core.
The present invention is directed to a controlled release dosage form which comprises:
(a) a homogeneous compressed core which comprises:
(i) a medicament which is very slightly soluble to practically insoluble in water at 25xc2x0 C.;
(ii) a water soluble osmotic compound
(iii) one or more osmotic polymers; and
(b) a membrane coating which completely covers said core tablet which comprises a mixture of a:
(i) a water insoluble pharmaceutically acceptable polymer; and
(ii) a pH dependent polymer such as an enteric coating polymer, the weight ratio of the pH dependent polymer to the water insoluble pharmaceutically acceptable polymer being 0.1:1 to 0.75:1.
It is a primary object of the invention to provide a controlled release pharmaceutical tablet which has an osmotic core covered with an external polymer membrane that provides therapeutic blood levels of a medicament with once a day administration.
It is also an object of the invention to provide an osmotic tablet which has a homogeneous core composition.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a controlled release pharmaceutical tablet that has a homogeneous osmotic core and no pre-formed aperture in the external polymeric membrane.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a controlled release pharmaceutical tablet having only a homogeneous osmotic core wherein the osmotic core component may be made using ordinary tablet compression techniques.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the appended specification.

Once daily pharmaceutical tablet having a unitary core

Abstract: (ii) a water soluble osmotic compound

Abstract: (iii) one or more osmotic polymers; and

Abstract: A controlled release tablet which comprises:

Abstract: (a) a medicament

Abstract: (i) a medicament;

Abstract: (ii) a water soluble osmotic compound

Abstract: (iii) one or more osmotic polymers; and

Abstract: (b) a membrane coating which completely covers said core tablet which comprises a mixture of:

Abstract: (ii) an enteric polymer.


A method for accurately testing yarn hairiness through stretching one-directionally, belonging to a technical field of textile testing, is provided. A suction pipe is provided on an external side of a laser and connected with an exhausting fan through a sleeve connector and a hose. An air inlet of the suction pipe generates a negative pressure under an effect of the exhausting fan to laterally suck the yarn running at a tension state among the laser, a projection receiver and the suction pipe. The hairiness on a yarn surface stretches straight one-directionally towards an airflow direction at a height of a center of the air inlet of the suction pipe. The one-directional straight stretched hairiness on the yarn surface is accurately projected to the projection receiver of a testing head at an equal length for accurately testing a hair amount and a hair length.

Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method for accurately testing yarn hairiness through stretching one-directionally, which belongs to a technical field of textile testing.
Description of Related Arts
Hairiness is one of the important indexes of the yarn quality. Yarn hairiness is the fiber tail or the fiber loop exposed on the surface of the staple yarn. When the yarn is under a stress, the hairiness lacks holding points for resisting the tensile force and thus the hairiness is unhelpful to the yarn strength. When the yarn has excessive hairs, the friction force of the yarn increases and the yarn is liable to be broken in the subsequent process, which affects the processing efficiency. During the weaving process, the excessive hairs lead to the intertwined yarn and the unclear opening of the warping yarns, lowering the weaving efficiency and the weaving quality. The yarn hairiness further affects the appearance quality of the finished product. Thus, an accurate and fast testing of the yarn hairiness is the basic requirement in the textile enterprise.
The conventional methods for testing the yarn hairiness comprise the visual observation method, the weighing method and the photoelectric method. The visual observation method is to observe the yarn hairiness with the naked eyes after being magnified by the microscope. The weighing method comprises steps of: weighing the yarn, before and after cutting or burning off the hairiness; and then obtaining the weight ratio of the hairiness. The visual observation method and the weighing method are accurate and reliable. However, the visual observation method and the weighing method cost too much time, have a low efficiency and are unable to satisfy the requirement of the large-scale rapid test of the factory. The photoelectric method comprises steps of: converting the optical signal generated by the hairiness into the electric signal; and testing the yarn hairiness rapidly. The main commercial testers for the photoelectric method comprise: Uster hairiness tester, Switzerland; G566 hairiness tester of Zweigle, Germany; SDL098/98 hairiness tester of Shieley, England; and YG172A yarn hairiness tester of Changling, China. The US patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,260, Method and apparatus for examining hairiness of yarn, published on Aug. 14, 1990, disclosed the Uster hairiness tester for testing the yarn hairiness through a diffuse reflection. The testing principles of the Uster hairiness tester are described as follows. A continuous monochromatic light source (laser) is shined on the prominent hairiness of the yarn body; the hairiness scatters the parallel light; the yarn body is non-transparent and dark-colored, and the prominent hairiness of the yarn body leads to a bright-colored scatted light which is detected by the optical sensor; and the hairiness value H is tested, wherein the hairiness value H is the ratio of the total length to the testing length of the hairiness, without any unit. The testing method of the G566 hairiness tester comprises a step of: counting the amount of the yarn hairs for different lengths, through twelve corresponding photosensitive diodes which are arranged at different intervals. However, the G566 hairiness tester is merely able to count the hair amount of a single side of the yarn and has a large testing deviation. Thus, the G566 hairiness tester is not common in the enterprises. The SDL098/98 hairiness tester examines the yarn hairiness through the projection counting method. The projection counting method comprises steps of: adjusting the photoelectric detecting element to the appropriate position distant from the yarn according to the pre-set testing length of the hairiness, wherein the photoelectric detecting element is the photosensitive element; passing the testing point by the yarn at a constant speed; generating a luminous flux variation, due to sweeping over the photosensitive element by the prominent hairiness which is longer than the pre-set testing length; converting the luminous flux variation into the electric signal and then generating a counting pulse; and, obtaining the hairiness index of the pre-set testing hair length, wherein the hairiness index is the total amount of the counting pulses within the pre-set testing length of the yarn. The SDL098/98 hairiness tester has the similar technical principles with the YG172A hairiness tester of China. Both the SDL098/98 hairiness tester and the YG172A hairiness tester adopt the projection counting method.
Currently, the textile enterprises mainly adopt the Uster hairiness tester and the YG172A hairiness tester. The Uster hairiness tester has following advantages of: a fast testing speed, up to 400 m/min; a large sample testing amount; an automatic test; stable testing data and a high reproducibility; no interference caused by the dirt, the yarn guiding method and the testing speed during the test. However, the Uster hairiness tester has fatal defects. The fiber colors and the spatial electromagnetic waves affect the testing results; particularly, the Uster hairiness test is unable to reflect the yarn hair amount and the hairiness distribution, and has very limited information for describing the yarn hairiness. In accordance to the fatal defects of the Uster hairiness tester, the YG172A hairiness tester is able to test the index of the yarn hairs with different lengths ranging from 1 mm to 9 mm. The YG172A hairiness tester is able to intuitionally reflect the distribution of the various yarn hairs, without being affected by the fiber colors and the spatial electromagnetic waves. Unfortunately, it is well known that the hairiness surrounds the yarn; and, the YG172A hairiness tester, through the projection counting method, merely tests the hair amount of the single side of the yarn. Particularly, when the yarn runs at a certain running speed, the running speed induces the lodging of the yarn hairiness, leading to an inaccurate testing result, a poor repeatability and a low testing speed (generally 30 m/min).
With regard to the problem that the projection counting method merely tests the hair amount of the single side of the yarn, the article titled A new hairiness tester, cross section projection type, written by Hiramatsu T., Shimizu T. and Kinoshita K., published on Journal of The Textile Machinery Society of Japan, 22(4): 108-109 (1976), disclosed a method for testing the amount of the hairiness surrounding the yarn through projecting the cross section of the yarn. However, the method has an inconvenient operation and a poor visibility, and is unable to radically improve the testing result of the yarn hairiness. The main reason lies in the key technical problems of the lodging and the bending of the hairiness on the yarn surface during running the yarn dynamically, which remain unsolved. With regard to the above key technical problems, the Chinese patent publication CN101576503A, Electrostatic yarn hairiness tester, published on Nov. 11, 2009, disclosed that: the yarn entering the testing area is applied with the high-voltage static, which induces the mutual rejection and separation among the different yarn hairiness and between the hairiness and the yarn body, thereby stretching the hairiness straight; and, the electric machine is provided parallel with the yarn for attracting the hairiness, in such a manner that the yarn hairiness is almost vertical to the yarn body. According to the experiments, the electrostatic yarn hairiness tester has a good effect for the static yarn within a short time, but fails to vertically stretch the hairiness on the surface of the yarn which runs at a high speed. Particularly, because the yarn hairiness stretches along the different radial directions of the yarn body and stretches vertically to the yarn body, the hairiness of the different radial directions is unable to be all accurately projected to the projection receiver of the testing head at an equal length (i. e., the hair projection cannot be accurately equal to the hair true configuration for the most yarn hairs). Moreover, the high-voltage static causes the potential safety risk. The fiber static seriously attenuates to reduce the radial hair-stretching force in the air with certain humidity. Therefore, the electrostatic yarn hairiness tester fails in the industrial application. With regard to the key technical problems of the lodging and the bending of the hairiness on the yarn surface during running the yarn dynamically, the Chinese patent publication CN101671946A, Device for testing hairiness state of yarn under high-speed airflow, published on Mar. 17, 2010, disclosed a hairiness testing device which releases the high-pressure airflow to the hairiness surrounding the yarn which runs at the high speed, through the annular airflow channel. According to the aerodynamics, the flowing speed is different due to the different distances from the annular airflow outlet; the hairiness of different lengths has different air resistances. Thus, through the hairiness testing device, the hairiness on the surface of the yarn which runs at the high speed fails to fully stretch to be vertical to the yarn body. Similar to the electrostatic yarn hairiness tester, the hairiness testing device has the hairiness stretching in the different radial directions of the yarn body and vertically to the yarn body. The hairiness of the different radial directions is still unable to project the entire hairs' true configurations accurately on the projection receiver of the testing head for an accurately testing. Thus, the above methods and the devices all fail to solve the problem that the projection counting method is unable to rapidly, effectively, accurately and stably test the yarn hairiness.

Method for accurately testing yarn hairiness through stretching one-directionally


The invention relates to a roller conveyer that includes a power rack, a motor drive mounted in the power rack, and two track and roller units bilaterally mounted on the power rack. The track and roller unit includes a track, spaced roller assemblies mounted on the track, and a chain driven by the motor drive to turn the roller assemblies for carrying things forward thereon. The roller assembly includes two symmetrical hollow holder frames, two axle bearings respectively mounted in the axial holes of the hollow holder frames, an axle supported by the axle bearings and freely rotatable relative to the hollow holder frames. A bushing with a collar and a chain wheel is sleeved onto the axle, and the chain wheel meshes with the chain. A roller mounted around the bushing and turning with the bushing to carry things forward thereon.

The Present invention relates to conveyers, and more particularly to an improved structure of roller conveyer which produce low noise during its operation.
FIG. 1 shows a roller conveyer according to the Prior art which comprises a power rack, two track and roller units bilaterally mounted on the power rack at its top side and driven to carry things forwards. Each track and roller unit comprises a conveying chain, and a plurality of rollers revolvably supported between links of the chain. This structure of roller conveyer has drawbacks. Because the rollers are revolvably supported between links of the chain, the chain directly bears the pressure of the load, and high noise will be produced during the operation of the roller conveyer. Because the rollers must be exposed to the outside for carrying the load, dust and small objects may fall to the inside of the track and roller units , causing the chains to be stuck. Furthermore, this design does not allow the user to change the pitch between the rollers.
The present invention has been accomplished to provide a roller conveyer which eliminates the aforesaid drawbacks. According to one aspect of the present invention, the roller conveyer comprises a power rack, a motor drive mounted in said power rack, two track and roller units bilaterally mounted on the power rack, each track and roller unit including a track, a longitudinal row of equally spaced roller assemblies mounted on the track, and a chain driven by the motor drive to turn the roller assemblies in carrying things forwards, wherein each roller assembly includes two symmetrical hollow holder frames transversely fastened to the track by screws and nuts and having a respective axle hole, two axle bearings respectively mounted in the axial holes of the hollow holder frames, an axle revolvably supported on the axle bearings between the hollow holder frames, a bushing sleeved onto the axle and stopped at one side of one axle bearing and having a collar raised around the periphery and a chain wheel fixedly mounted thereon around its periphery and meshed with the chain, an annular locating member mounted around the axle and stopped outside one hollow holder frame and having an outward flange raised around the periphery, a roller mounted around the bushing and having two opposite sides stopped between the collar of the bushing and the outward flange of the annular locating member and turned with the bushing to carrying things forwards, and a spring mounted between the roller and the annular locating member and spaced around the bushing. According to another aspect of the present invention, a dust cover is covered on each track, having a longitudinal row of openings corresponding to the rollers of the roller assemblies of the corresponding track and roller unit. According to still another aspect of the present invention, the axle bearings, the bushing and the annular locating member are made from rigid material for example engineering plastic or metal; the roller is comprised of a roller body made from rigid material, and a roller shell made from flexible material and covered around the roller body. Because the chain does not directly bear the pressure of the load, less noise is produced during the operation of the roller conveyer. Because the roller assemblies are respectively fastened to the respective tracks by screws and nuts, they can be detached from the tracks and then re-installed subject to the desired pitch.


There are provided an electric cell group of a plurality of electric cells 11 with positive and negative electrode terminals, connecting members for connecting adjacent electrode terminals, and a wiring module assembled to the electric cell group. The wiring module includes a plurality of voltage detection terminals connected to the ends of a plurality of electric wires W for detecting the conditions of the electric cells, a plurality of retainer portions retaining the detection terminals, and interval adjusting device provided between a plurality of adjacent retainer portions for adjusting the intervals between the retainer portions.

In a battery module for electric cars or hybrid cars, a plurality of electric cells having positive and negative electrode terminals are arranged in a row. The electrode terminals of electric cells that are adjacent to each other are connected by a connecting member (bus bar) to connect the plurality of electric cells in series or parallel.
In Patent Document 1, identified below, connecting members that connect electrode terminals and voltage detection terminals placed on the connecting members are contained in a plurality of basic units made of a synthetic resin. A battery connection assembly (wiring module) is fabricated by connecting the adjacent basic units. The electric wires connected to the voltage detection terminals of the battery connection assembly (wiring module) extend through a trough to a battery ECU, where the voltages of the electric cells are detected.


A tape dispenser having a frame, a cutter blade and a non-rotatable pressure pad is disclosed. The dispenser holds a roll of adhesive tape therein. The cutter blade and pressure pad are secured together and are snap-fitted into the frame so that the blade extends a short distance beyond the front edge of the frame. The pressure pad applies pressure to the adhesive tape as it is being dispensed from the tape dispenser. The frame has side walls that each have a tab formed thereon. The tabs are positioned a short distance to the rear of the pressure pad and they do not extend below the lower edge of the side walls of the dispenser. The tabs are positioned and shaped in such a manner that tape from the roll is supported on the top surface of the tabs. The tape is biased into contact with the pressure pad by the tabs so that the tape is ready to be dispensed from the roll and is prevented from curling back onto the roll when cut.

1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to tape dispensers. More particularly, the invention relates to hand-held tape dispensers adapted to dispense adhesive tape. Specifically, the invention relates to a hand-held tape dispenser that includes a tape retainer and a pressure pad for aiding in applying the adhesive tape to a surface and preventing the free end of the tape from curling back onto the roll held in the dispenser.
2. Background Information
There are numerous types of adhesive tapes that have a wide variety of uses. A frequently used type of adhesive tape is packaging tape that is used to secure the flaps of boxes and packages for shipping. This type of tape is typically 2 inches wide and is fairly difficult to pull off a roll by hand and manoeuver into position around a package. Large industrial hand-held tape dispensers have been proposed in the prior art for applying such wide adhesive tape. Many of these devices, however, experience a number of problems in their usage. Most adhesive tapes tend to be flimsy and easily statically charged so that when the tape is cut, the free end tends to curl back onto the roll of tape. One dispenser provided in the art is an industrial-use tape gun that includes a handle with a pivotable flap for keeping the free end of the tape biased onto a rotating roller to prevent the free end of the tape from curling back onto the roll. The flap keeps the free end of the tape locked against the roller when the dispenser is not in use. When the user wishes to apply tape to a second package, the roller is rotated across the second package's surface and the adhesive tape is thereby brought into contact with the second package's surface. While this device functions well, it is cumbersome to use and has a number of moving parts that make it expensive to manufacture and prone to breakage.
A second type of prior art device that clamps the free end of the tape is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,630,765, issued to Samuelson et al. This device relies on the cutting action of the dispenser to stick the free end of the tape to the "land area" 66 of the dispenser. The free end of the tape is then held in position by the top wall 80 of the dispenser. When the user next wishes to apply adhesive tape to a surface, the user pivots the top wall out of contact with the free end and then grasps the free end of the tape with their fingers and applies it to the surface to be taped.
Another type of dispenser, such as the disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,672,238, issued to Samuelson, provides small tabs mounted on the frame of the dispenser to hold the free end of the tape off the roll. These dispensers require that the user position the free end of the tape onto the next package to the taped by way of their fingers. A common problem with these tabs is that they are fragile and tend to break off the frame relatively easily. They are therefore rendered useless fairly frequently.
A second problem experienced in the usage of previously known tape dispensers is that because adhesive tapes tend to be flimsy, if they are not immediately stuck down onto the surface they are being applied to, they tend to partially fold back on themselves. When pressure is applied to smooth out and stick the tape into contact with the surface, they tend to form small pockets of tape stuck to itself instead of to the surface to which the tape is being applied. This results in the surface having a messy appearance and in that less tape is in contact with the surface than may be desirable. This may result in a less secured package.
There therefore still exists the need in the art for a simple, effective adhesive tape dispenser that is adapted to be easily gripped in one hand, that allows the adhesive tape to be easily dispensed therefrom, that keeps the tape in a position where it is ready to be dispensed immediately and that allows the tape to be applied to a surface in a manner that results in the tape having a smooth and neat appearance.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Tape dispenser having a retaining and application area


Provided is a counter-steer condition detecting device which is suited to be used in combination with steering control systems based on the control of the magnitude of the effort required for the vehicle operator to steer the vehicle depending on the behavior of the vehicle. An over-steer condition may be detected by evaluating the signs of the current and previous values of the steering angle and the steering angular speed, and the magnitude of the steering angular speed when the steering angle passes a certain monitor level.

Electric power steering systems comprise a manual steering system for converting a turning angle of a steering wheel to a steering angle of road wheels, and an electric motor incorporated therein to provide an assist steering torque to the manual steering system so as to reduce the effort required for the vehicle operator to turn the steering wheel. However, such conventional electric power steering systems did not take into account changes in the road condition on which the resistance to the steering effort depends, and it is known that the assist torque tended to be excessive when the frictional coefficient between the road surface and the wheels is low such as when the road surface is covered with snow. An excessive steering assist torque tends to cause an excessive steering, and creates some discomfort to the vehicle operator.
To overcome such problems or to control such an excessive steering on slippery road surfaces, it was proposed in the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/704,968, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,107 filed Aug. 28, 1996 and assigned to the same Assignee to control the steering assist torque of a power steering system depending on the road condition, in particular the frictional coefficient between the road surface and the wheels. The contents of this copending application are hereby incorporated in this application by reference.
However, this previously proposed system is effective only when the steering angle and the side slip angle increase or decrease in the same direction. For instance, this relation does not hold when the vehicle has gone into a counter-steer condition or, in an extreme case, into a spin due to the insufficiency of the cornering power of the rear wheels, and the vehicle operator has steered the vehicle in the opposite direction from the turning direction of the vehicle in an attempt to regain the control of the vehicle. When such a counter-steer condition exists, the previously proposed system produces a supplemental steering torque which opposes the effort to counter-steer the vehicle, and may therefore hamper the vehicle operator in his effort to carry out the counter-steer maneuver.

Device for detecting a counter-steer condition


The present invention relates to a process of measuring a cloud point of polyglycerol-fatty acid ester comprising;. adding polyglycerol-fatty acid ester to an aqueous solution of a salt, a polyhydric alcohol, or a mixture thereof to prepare a homogeneous aqueous polyglycerol-fatty acid ester solution; PA1 heating the obtained homogeneous aqueous solution to allow to change the homogeneous aqueous solution into a heterogeneous aqueous solution; and PA1 measuring a temperature at which the homogeneous aqueous solution changes into the heterogeneous aqueous solution.

This invention relates to a process for measuring a cloud point of polyglycerol-fatty acid ester, a process for evaluating properties of the polyglycerol-fatty acid ester based on the results of the cloud point measurement, and a process for producing the polyglycerol-fatty acid ester using the above-mentioned processes.
Polyglycerol-fatty acid esters (hereinafter referred to as "PGE") are widely utilized as surfactants or emulsifying agents for foods, medicines, cosmetics, or the like. A ratio of a hydrophilic moiety to a lipophilic moiety in the PGE, namely a hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (hereinafter referred to as "HLB") is one of important factors for determining a surface activity of the PGE, when the PGE is mainly used as surfactants. The HLB of the PGE is adjusted by controlling the degree of polymerization of polyglycerol (hereinafter referred to as "PG") or selecting a suitable feed ratio of raw materials for controlling an amount of fatty acid ester (average esterification degree) bonded to a hydroxyl group of the PG.
The PGE is mainly produced by esterifying the PG obtained by the polycondesation of glycerol with fatty acid or derivatives thereof in the presence of an alkaline catalyst. The esterified product (PGE) is used as surfactants or the like, directly after the production or after simple purification treatments in which coloring or odor components are removed from the product, for example, by stream distillation.
In order to produce the PGE having a required HLB and average esterification degree, the production conditions are adequately selected in the following manner, that is, PG and fatty acid fed at a particular ratio are first reacted to obtain the PGE. The resultant PGE is then analyzed to determine the esterification degree of the PGE and to simultaneously ascertain whether the PGE exhibits properties such as a surface activity similar to those of an aimed PGE. Accordingly, if the PGE produced differs from the aimed PGE, a number of experiments or tests must be repeated to optimize the reaction conditions including the feed ratio of the fatty acid to PG, the reaction time, the reaction temperature, the amount of the catalyst used, or the like and it takes much time to determine the production condition.
Conventionally, there have been used various chemical analyzing methods for determining properties of the PGE. For example, in order to evaluate the esterification degree and the amount of residual fatty acid, the measurements of acid value, ester value and hydroxyl number of PGE has been used. Further, various evaluation methods such as an analysis of ignition residues has been used to determine amounts of soap and residual catalyst.
However, the PG skeleton which is hydrophilic moiety of PGE is a polycondensate of glycerol and therefore exhibits a particular distribution of degree of polymerization thereof. In addition, the PGE contains not only linear polymers but also branched or cyclic polymers. Since the viscosity of PG generally increases so that the degree of polymerization thereof becomes larger, it becomes extremely difficult to purify the PG by separating the cyclic polymers or the like from the polycondensate. As a result, the PGE which is a reaction product obtained by esterifying hydroxyl groups of the PG with fatty acid, is a mixture composed of the PGEs having different PG skeletons and various esterification degrees, and unreacted PG.
Also, the PGE as the esterified product contains soaps as a by-product produced by the reaction of the alkaline catalyst with raw fatty acid, or unreacted fatty acid which is remained in case where the insufficiently esterification reaction of the PG and the fatty acid is carried out or in case where fatty acids are used in an excess amount relative to a stoichiometric amount thereof.
Thus, since the PGE produced comprises a mixture having a complicated composition, even though the PGEs exhibit similar or same esterification degrees, respectively, the properties such as emulsifying stability of the PGEs may be quite different from each other. As a result, by conventional chemical analyzing methods used for determining average esterification degrees and the amount of unreacted PG, the properties of the PGE produced cannot be evaluated sufficiently.
On the other hand, there have been used another type of evaluation methods for surfactants, by using the properties of the surfactants measured directly. For example, there is known a method for measuring a cloud point of an aqueous solution of a polyoxyethylene-based nonionic surfactant produced from ethylene oxide ("Dictionary of Technical Terms for Fats and Oils" (Saiwai Shobo)). Generally, the "cloud point" in surfactants is determined as a temperature at which an aqueous solution of the nonionic surfactant is separated into two phases with a rise of temperature. Such separated two phases can return to homogeneous phase with a decline of temperature.
In the polyoxyethylene-based surfactants, there is known a correlation in the range of the cloud point and an average degree of polymerization of the polyoxyethylene chain. The cloud point of the polyoxyethylene-based surfactant is increased depending on the increase of average degree of polymerization of the polyoxyethylene. Hence, in order to produce an aimed surfactant, the reaction conditions is adjusted such that the degree of addition polymerization of ethylene oxide is present in an adequate range. Such an adjustment of the reaction conditions is achievable only in the case where a hydrophilicity of an ether group-existing in polyoxyethylene of the surfactant become poor with a rise of temperature.
On the other hand, in the case of the PGE, since a hydrophilic moiety thereof is a polycondensate of glycerol and is different from the polyoxyethylene chain of the above-mentioned surfactant, not only a hydroxyl group and an ether group coexist in the PGE but also the PGE has an extremely complicated composition caused by a branched-chain condensation and cyclic polycondensation due to the existence of the hydroxyl group.
As a result of earnest studies by the present inventors on evaluation process of properties of the PGE, it has been found that under a particular condition, the PGE has a cloud point similar to the known cloud point of the polyoxyethylene-based surfactant, and the cloud point of the PGE can be measured at a temperature of 0.degree. to 100.degree. C. by preparing a homogeneous aqueous PGE solution thereof to which a salt and/or polyhydric alcohol are added a PGE solution. On the basis of these findings, the present invention has been attained.

Process of measuring cloud point of polyglycerol-fatty acid ester, process of evaluating properties thereof, and process of producing thereof using the same


A wearable device and a system that includes the wearable device is provided. The wearable device includes at least one sensor configured to sense a characteristic of a user, a communication interface configured to obtain a first identifier of a vehicle or equipment, and a controller. The controller is configured to monitor the user based on the first identifier or send the first identifier to a monitoring system; determine whether there is a harm possibly occurring to the user of the wearable device based on at least one output from the at least one sensor, or send the at least one output to the monitoring system via the communication interface; and output, after the harm is determined to be possibly occurring, an alarm based on receiving confirmation from the user, or based on not receiving any confirmation from the user within a predetermined amount of time.

A system for safety monitoring people in working trackable environments around trackable equipment is to provide responses for health and safety. Safety issues affect millions of people across the world and add billions of dollars to insurance and mitigation costs annually. Lack of adequate safety tracking continues to present a significant business and personal risk. A variety of efforts have been made to track personal health and report personal status along with associated risks. For example, there is increasing interest in tracking personal activities in daily environments using wearables, including the growing use of personal wearable systems to perform repeated tracking of personal activity and health inputs. There are currently a number of different types of wearable products available on the commercial market. Many conventional wearable products suffer from a variety of shortcomings. For example, localized tracking has a tendency to depend on GPS resolution. As a result, conventional wearable products may have the unintended consequence of not being able to track and locate, with adequate resolution (e.g., within feet), specific activities and locations.


A negative pattern is formed by applying a resist composition onto a substrate, prebaking, exposing to high-energy radiation, PEB, and developing the exposed resist film in an organic solvent developer to dissolve the unexposed region of resist film. The resist composition is based on a polymer comprising recurring units (a1) of formula (1) wherein R1 is H or CH3, R2 and R3 are H, F or a monovalent hydrocarbon group, R4 is H or a monovalent hydrocarbon group, R5 and R6 are a monovalent hydrocarbon group, X1 is a divalent hydrocarbon group, and k1=0 or 1. A fine hole or trench pattern can be formed therefrom.

In the lithography technology, a highlight is recently put on the organic solvent development again. It would be desirable if a very fine hole pattern, which is not achievable with the positive tone, is resolvable through negative tone exposure. To this end, a positive resist composition featuring a high resolution is subjected to organic solvent development to form a negative pattern. An attempt to double a resolution by combining two developments, alkaline development and organic solvent development is under study.
As the ArF resist composition for negative tone development with organic solvent, positive ArF resist compositions of the prior art design may be used. Such pattern forming processes are described in Patent Documents 1 to 3. These patent documents disclose resist compositions for organic solvent development comprising a copolymer of hydroxyadamantane methacrylate, a copolymer of norbornane lactone methacrylate, and a copolymer of methacrylate having acidic groups including carboxyl, sulfo, phenol and thiol groups substituted with two or more acid labile groups, and pattern forming processes using the same.
Further, Patent Document 4 discloses a process for forming a pattern through organic solvent development in which a protective film is applied onto a resist film. Patent Document 5 discloses a topcoatless process for forming a pattern through organic solvent development in which an additive is added to a resist composition so that the additive may segregate at the resist film surface after spin coating to provide the surface with improved water repellency.
Citation List
Patent Document 1: JP-A 2008-281974
Patent Document 2: JP-A 2008-281975
Patent Document 3: JP 4554665
Patent Document 4: JP-A 2008-309878
Patent Document 5: JP-A 2008-309879

Patterning process, resist composition, polymer, and monomer


An engine is interposed between a user and an editor. The engine is configured to receive messages from the editor denying user access to large data files. In response, the engine is configured to communicate a first message to the user asking whether the user desires to open a subset of the file contents using the editor. Upon receipt of an affirmative from the user, the engine is configured to communicate a second message to the user seeking input on a size of the file subset that is to be accessed. The engine then communicates to the editor, a third message specifying a size of the subset of data that is to be provided. In response to receiving the third message, the editor produces the requested subset of the stored data corresponding to the size indicated by the user.

Embodiments of the present invention relate to data storage and handling, and in particular to methods and apparatuses limiting display content in an editor for large data volumes. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
With the advent of smart devices and reduced memory cost, the volumes of data that are stored and accessed in databases, are growing in size. While useful in many contexts, the availability of such "big data" can offer challenges to conventional data handling techniques.
For example, various different editors that can be utilized to open and display the content of a data file. Examples of such editors include but are not limited to those able to access delimited text files (.txt) in which the TAB character (ASCII character code 009) typically separates each field of text, and those editors able to access comma separated values text files (.csv) in which the comma character (,) typically separates each field of text.
Typically, many such editors do not support access to files containing large volumes of data. In such cases, attempting to access a file having a large volume of data, likely results in an error message indicating that the file is too big to be opened by the editor.
In many applications, however, a user does not need access to the entire, complete contents of a file. Instead, the user may be satisfied to access only to a subset of the file content. Under such circumstances, however, the user is still precluded by the editor from accessing even a limited volume of data. Instead, user access to any data remains entirely blocked by the error message.

Limiting display content in editor for large data volumes


An identification device and method which includes adding an identification pattern to an identification object. The pattern is formed by the absence or presence of identification holes located at a plurality of points on the identification object. In addition, the holes are spaced from one another at a specified pitch. Next, the identification object is transferred along a transfer path parallel to the identification pattern. Then light or an ultrasonic wave is transmitted from one side of the transfer path in a transverse direction of the transfer path. Identification of the identification pattern of the identification object is determined on whether or not the light or the ultrasonic wave is received on the other side of the transfer path.

The present invention relates to an identification method, as well as an apparatus therefor for identifying various types of articles such as ID cards of pharmacists or medicine cartridges in a medicine packaging machine.
Conventionally, as the method for identifying various types of articles such at cards, there has been commonly used a method where identification information like individual numbers, position and other information magnetically preliminarily recorded on an identification object is read with a magnetic head. As a more convenient method, also available is a method as shown in FIG. 12. An identification object 41 is provided with an identification pattern 43 composed of a plurality of points (ten points in the figure), which are given by a combination of the presence or absence of identification holes 42. A number of identification sensors 46 corresponding to the number of points of the identification pattern 43 each comprise a light transmitter 44 and a light receiver 45 located opposite each other. When the identification object 41 is inserted between the light transmitters 44 and the light receivers 45, the identification object 41 is identified depending on whether or not the light receivers 45 receive light transmitted from the individual light transmitters 44.
However, with the conventional method shown in FIG. 12, since the number of identification sensors 46 needs to correspond to the number of points of the identification pattern 43, a large installation space is required and necessarily involves a high cost. Furthermore, incomplete insertion of the identification object 41 would make it difficult for the light receivers 45 to receive light from the light transmitters 44, causing such problems as unidentifiable or misidentified cases.

Identification method and apparatus utilizing perforations


A seal pressing device for a pipe coupling including a sealing member having an axial length and an outer curved contour pressable against an inner diameter of a seal, the sealing member having an axial row of mounting apertures for receiving therein mechanical fasteners, and at least one winged extension extending from an end of the sealing member bent inwards from the outer curved contour of the sealing member.

Many kinds of removable band-type couplings for pipes exist in the art. It is noted that throughout the specification and claims, the term "pipe" encompasses any kind of generally cylindrical object.
For example, one commercially available type of pipe coupling has a seal clamp housing. Clamp members are positioned face to face and a tightening element is tightened to press an annular seal element against the outside of the pipe inserted through the seal clamp housing.
In this type of pipe coupling, the seal has integrally formed rings at opposite ends of its axial length. The pipes that are inserted in the coupling contact these rings. The inner diameter of the rings can be adjusted to accommodate different outer diameters of pipes. The seal has an axial split along its length. The edges of the seal along the split either abut each other or overlap, and are pressed against each other when the coupling is tightened on the pipes. However, the rest of the axial length of the seal between the rings is thinner than the rings and does not contact the outer diameters of the pipes inserted in the coupling. Since the pipes do not contact the seal along most of the split, a problem can possibly occur wherein the edges of the seal along the split are not adequately pressed together to form the desired fluid-tight seal.

Eliezer Krausz Industrial Development Ltd.


An electrode assembly and a lithium ion secondary battery using the electrode assembly having reduced winding thickness. Active materials are coated on a first region of a negative electrode collector to which a negative electrode conductive tab is welded, and on an adjacent region overlapping the first region. Active materials are also coated on a first region of a positive electrode collector, to which a positive electrode conductive tab is welded, and an adjacent region overlapping the first region. Parts of the electrode assembly corresponding to the conductive tabs do not protrude from the electrode assembly, allowing for easy insertion of the electrode assembly into a can or pouch.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lithium ion secondary battery, and more particularly to an electrode assembly therefore.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is generally known in the art, a lithium ion secondary battery includes an electrode assembly which has positive and negative electrode collectors coated with active materials of a predetermined thickness and a separator interposed between the collectors and which is wound a number of times into a jelly roll configuration. After being wound a number of times into a jelly roll configuration, the electrode assembly is contained in a cylindrical or square-type can or a pouch and is sealed.
The collectors have conductive tabs welded thereto which extend a predetermined distance to the exterior so that charging electrical power can be applied from the exterior of the battery or discharging electrical power can be applied to the exterior of the battery. Particularly, positive and negative electrode conductive tabs are welded to the positive and negative electrode collectors, respectively. The positive and negative electrode conductive tabs have insulation tape attached to the surface thereof with a predetermined thickness to prevent the separator from being damaged and to avoid a direct short circuit.
The thickness of the collectors is about 10 μm, of the active materials, about 120 μm, of the conductive tabs, about 100 μm, and of the insulation tape, about 40 μm. The total thickness of the conductive taps and the insulation tape is substantially larger than that of the active materials.
When the electrode assembly configured as above is wound into a jelly roll configuration, the wound regions corresponding to the conductive tabs and the insulation tape are substantially thicker than the remaining wound regions. Particularly, the wound regions corresponding to the conductive tabs and the insulation tape protrude further to the exterior than the remaining regions. When the electrode assembly is inserted into a can or pouch, therefore, such irregular thickness makes the insertion of the electrode assembly difficult, sometimes causing the protruding portions to deform. Such deformation may decrease the battery capacity.
Since the electrode assembly is not easily insertable into a can, it may be pressed or squeezed to achieve the desired result. As a result, the active materials corresponding to the lower conductive tap and the insulation tape are then compressed by a strong force and may have degraded usefulness in those parts. In other words, the active materials may have little use but still increase the thickness of the electrode assembly.
Accordingly, there is a need for an electrode assembly having a reduced overall winding thickness and a lithium ion secondary battery using the same.

Electrode assembly and lithium ion secondary battery using the same


A signal is used to form intermediate feature vectors which are subjected to high-pass filtering. The high-pass-filtered intermediate feature vectors have a respective prescribed addition feature vector added to them.

In an ordinary voice recognition system, Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) is used on an analog/digital-converted input signal for the purpose of spectral analysis of the input signal. One considerable problem within the context of voice recognition, generally within the context of pattern recognition, is the suppression of interference noise, expressed another way the suppression of noise signals. The interference noise causes the recognition rate to fall drastically even at relatively low levels of existing interference signals.
To suppress interference noise, it is known practice in A. Adami et al., Qualcomm-ICSI-OGI Features for ASR, ICSLP-2002, Denver, Colo., USA, September 2002 to use a Wiener filter as an adaptive filter in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio during signal analysis.
A drawback of the use of a Wiener filter, generally of an adaptive filter, within the context of interference noise suppression can be seen, in particular, in the very great computation complexity for forming the filter algorithm and in the need for periodically repeated calculation of the filter coefficients.
H. Hermansky et al., RASTA-PLP Speech Analysis, International Computer Science Institute Technical Report (ICSI TR) 91-069, Berkeley, Calif., December 1991 also describes a method for voice recognition in which an analog/digital-converted signal is used to form intermediate feature vectors which are subjected to bandpass filtering.
The method described in H. Hermansky et al., RASTA-PLP Speech Analysis, International Computer Science Institute Technical Report (ICSI TR) 91-069, Berkeley, Calif., December 1991 has, in particular, the drawback of a still relatively poor recognition power within the context of voice recognition for a voice signal which is affected by an interference signal.
In addition, H.-G. Hirsch and D. Pearce, The AURORA experimental framework for the performance evaluation of speech recognition systems under noisy conditions, ISCA IPRW ASR 2000, Automatic speech recognition: Challenges for the next millennium, Paris, France, 18-20 Sep. 2000 describes the "AURORA" experimental framework for ascertaining the performance of a voice recognition system in an environment with interference signals.
DE 35 10 660 C2 describes a method and a device for processing a voice signal in which the voice signal is subjected to frequency analysis, the frequency distribution pattern (obtained in the result of the frequency analysis on the voice signal) in a particular frequency range over which the voice signal extends being repeated alternately along a time axis in order to form a periodic waveform which is subjected to high-pass filtering, which extracts the relatively quickly changing components.
In addition, DE 41 11 995 A1 discloses the practice of logarithmizing feature vectors during Fast-Fourier-Transformation-based spectral analysis prior to the convolution. DE 41 11 995 A1 also discloses the practice of performing intensity normalization of the spectral feature vectors prior to recursive high-pass filtering which is applied to the voice signal.
A. Adami et al., "Qualcomm-ICSI-OGI features for ASR," in Proc. International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP '02). An archive with an additional description of the Wiener filter with associated software can be obtained at the following URL address: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/Speech/papers/gelbart-ms/pointers discloses a Wiener filter.
There is a need for providing pattern recognition which has an improved recognition rate over the method described in H. Hermansky et al., RASTA-PLP Speech Analysis, International Computer Science Institute Technical Report (ICSI TR) 91-069, Berkeley, Calif., December 1991 and requires less computation complexity than the method described in A. Adami et al., Qualcomm-ICSI-OGI Features for ASR, ICSLP-2002, Denver, Colo., USA, September 2002.

Method and device for ascertaining feature vectors from a signal


A method and apparatus for detecting a connection between a peripheral device and a host device is described.

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard was initially offered as a truly easy-to-use universal interface for the PC. Since then, USB has gained widespread acceptance. From the user perspective, the benefits of USB include universal plug-and-play and relative ease-of-use. When a USB peripheral is plugged-in to a USB port on a PC, the system will auto-detect and auto-configure the device. In most cases, there is no user intervention required. This is a significant improvement over the prior technology when a user had to open the PC to install a component. The USB interface also eliminates the need for multiple I/O standards, thereby simplifying PC connectivity for the consumer (as well as simplifying manufacturing for the PC Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).
A USB cable is used to connect a peripheral device with a host device, such as a PC, to enable communication between the devices. A typical USB cable includes a positive voltage (Vcc) line, a ground line, a positive data line, a negative data line, and a cable screen. The Vcc line nominally carries 5 volts and can be used by a host to supply power to a peripheral device. The positive and negative data pins are used to transmit data using differential signaling.
The cable screen is connected to the "shell" of the connector at the host end of the cable. Typically, the corresponding receptacle "shell" is connected to the electrical ground within the host device, but not connected directly to ground inside the peripheral device. In many cases, the screen is connected to ground inside the peripheral via a large resistor and a small capacitor, as this has been found to provide the best compromise between electro-static discharge (ESD) and radio frequency interference (RFI) suppression.

Detecting a connection to an unpowered host


A method for generating interrupt commands for a microprocessor system includes storing interrupts in a pending interrupts register, and storing priority values associated with the stored interrupts in a plurality of priority registers coupled to the pending interrupts register. A plurality of counters coupled in cascade to the plurality of priority registers are loaded with the stored priority values. The loaded priority values are incremented at predetermined intervals, and are compared for identifying the interrupt having a highest priority. The method further includes identifying a respective interrupt service routine to be executed based upon the interrupt having the highest priority.

During the functioning of a processor, it may be necessary to interrupt the execution of a program for carrying out particular instructions. This is done by way of signals called interrupts. An interrupt controller receives these signals, and depending on the received interrupt, sends to the microprocessor an interrupt command and an interrupt vector that specifies the memory address where an interrupt service routine (ISR) to be run is stored.
The microprocessor stops the operation in progress, saves the state of the program that was executing so that it may be resumed later, and carries out the instructions of the respective ISR based upon the received interrupt. When the ISR finishes, the microprocessor restores the state of the program, and if there is not any other pending interrupt, resumes its execution from the point at which it had been interrupted.
Interrupt controllers commonly have priority registers that allow them to establish which interrupt among the many received and pending interrupts is to be processed first. A basic architecture of a known priority interrupt controller is depicted in FIG. 1. The interrupts INT0, . . . , INTm coming from peripherals are loaded in a pending interrupt register INT PENDING REG.
The circuit block IRQ MASK AND PRIORITY LOGIC comprises both the interrupts mask and a priority logic circuitry that receives an interrupt together with its priority level provided by the dedicated registers PRIORITY REGISTERS. The priority logic generates an interrupt request signal IRQ REQ and stores the relative priority HIGHEST PRIORITY INT in the register CURR IRQ PRIORITY REG.
The dashed perimeter delimits the circuit that processes the interrupt request signal and its priority HIGHEST PRIORITY INT. A state machine IRQ SM forms the core of the controller that receives the interrupt request signal and sends an interrupt command nIRQ to the processor. The interrupt request signal IRQ REQ selects an interrupt vector IRQ VECTOR corresponding to the required interrupt read from an interrupt table IRQ VECTOR REG containing interrupt vectors identifying ISR routines.
FIG. 1 shows registers CURR IRQ PRIORITY REG and PRIORITY STACK used for managing the nested interrupts. The register CURR IRQ PRIORITY REG stores the priority of the currently served interrupt. Should an interrupt with a higher priority be generated, the processing of the first interrupt is stopped and its priority is stored in the register PRIORITY STACK, and the new interrupt of the higher priority is processed and its priority is stored in the register CURR IRQ PRIORITY REG.
Once the processing of the interrupt is completed, the previously suspended interrupt is processed provided its priority has remained the highest of the priorities of all pending interrupts. When the processing of any interrupt is completed, its priority is canceled from the stack PRIORITY STACK by a command STACK PUSH/POP of the state machine IRQ SM.
An important parameter of interrupt controllers is the latency time of interrupts, that is, the time that elapses from the instant of reception of the interrupt in the register INT PENDING REG and the instant in which it is processed. It is always desirable that this time lag be as short as possible. Moreover, an interrupt must be processed within a certain maximum time (dead line) from the instant in which it is loaded in the pending interrupt register, otherwise the application managed by the running program may not function properly.
To prevent an interrupt from being processed after a pre-established dead line, the priority registers in known controllers are re-programmed at pre-established intervals. The duration of these intervals vary as a function of the register increasing the priority level of interrupts as a function of their latency in the pending interrupt register. In this way, interrupts with a longer latency are given a higher priority than the interrupts that have just been received, and are eventually processed before their latency reaches the dead line.
In contrast, the priorities of interrupts stored in the stack PRIORITY STACK are not incremented for preventing an interrupt previously suspended in favor of an incoming interrupt having a higher priority from suspending the processing of the incoming interrupt, and so on. Unfortunately, this technique of re-programming is not very convenient because the recurrent task of re-programming the priority registers burdens the microprocessor, thus slowing execution of the program.

Method for generating interrupt commands in a microprocessor system and relative priority interrupt controller


Techniques for detecting an intranet spoofing attack are disclosed. In one embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a system and method for detecting an intranet spoofing attack. For example, the system may comprise one or more processors communicatively coupled to a network. The one or more processors may be configured to: identify an attempt to access an intranet website at a user device; determine that the intranet website is a spoofed intranet website; and perform an action in response to the determination of the spoofed intranet website to protect user.

Spoofing attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent in the digital age. There are many types spoofing attacks, such as TCP/IP spoofing, referrer spoofing, caller ID spoofing, and email address spoofing. In each instance, a malicious party or program successfully masquerades as another party or program in order to obtain sensitive or personal information from an unsuspecting user. An intranet website spoofing attack is no different. Enterprise users are accustomed to entering proprietary information or data on intranet websites. In an intranet spoofing attack, a malicious party may create a wireless access point nearby a corporate office, for example, and host spoofed an intranet website. If the wireless access point generates a sufficiently strong signal, an enterprise user using his or her corporate computing device may inadvertently access the spoofed intranet website believing the website is the real corporate intranet website. As a result, the enterprise user may thereby provide sensitive or personal information to the malicious party or program.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant problems and shortcomings associated with conventional technologies for detecting an intranet spoofing attack.