One aspect of the present invention relates to polypharmacophoric compounds. In certain embodiments, the polyphamacophore compounds comprise individual pharmacophore units selected from the group consisting of D-1 agonists, D-2 agonists, D-3 agonists, D-4 agonists, irreversible monoamine inhibitors, reversible monoamine inhibitors, monoamine transporter inhibitors, COMT inhibitors, MAO inhibitors, and dopamine transporter inhibitors. Moreover, the present invention also relates to combinatorial libraries of polypharmacophoric compounds. Another aspect of the present invention relates to the use of a polypharmacophoric compound in a method of treating a mammal in need thereof. For example, a polypharmacophoric compound of the present invention may be used in a method of treating a mammal afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, depression, attention deficit disorder, autism, obesity, or inflammation.

The degeneration of 50–70% of the population of dopaminergic neurons in the human brain results in the profound disturbances of motor function that are characteristic of Parkinson's Disease (PD). As this degeneration of neurons progresses, the symptoms become increasingly severe, leading not only to loss of motor function but also to an increased incidence of dementia and other neurological disorders. Currently, over a million people in North America are affected by this disease whose single most consistent risk factor is age. Because the population of the elderly is expected to increase over the next four decades, it is projected that neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's Disease, may pass cancer as the second most common cause of death among the elderly. Therefore, the development of therapeutic agents that can delay the onset of disease, slow its progression, or enhance the effectiveness of other drugs, will provide a substantial contribution to reducing the mortality and morbidity due to Parkinson's Disease among the elderly and increasing the quality of life for afflicted individuals.
Treatment of Parkinson's Disease has traditionally been subdivided into three categories: preventive, symptomatic and restorative intervention. The latter intervention, which include transplantation of adrenal medulla cells, intraventricular delivery of dopaminergic neurotrophic factor GDNF, and gene therapy, are in very early stages of safety and efficacy trials. Protective therapy with selective monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) inhibitors, such as selegiline, has been unproductive to date. Early trials, which indicated promise, could largely be explained through amelioration of symptoms rather than by slowing the progression of the disease. As a result, most of the current efforts continue to focus on therapeutic agents that affect symptoms which accompany the disease rather than to reverse or prevent it. This remains an important area for medical research, due to the problems that exist with current therapeutic interventions.
Evaluation of the literature indicates that levodopa (L-DOPA) still remains the agent of choice for the initial treatment of PD. There is clearly a beneficial motor response to this drug during the early states of the disease, however, as the disease progresses, the effectiveness of the drug is reduced and other side effects become more pronounced. Patients may experiece fluctuations in motor response, dyskineasias, or psychiatric disturbances, such as nightmares, hallucinations, psychosis or depression. Alternatives, for example, the use of amantidine, selegiline or anti-cholinergic agents may provide some initial benefit, but in most cases patients still require levodopa or other dopamine (DA) agonists for effective symptomatic relief. Even the DA agonists, when used as monotherapeutic agents, often fail to exceed the effectiveness of levodopa.
The declining efficacy of the major therapeutic agents and the appearance of other manifestations during the course of the disease suggest additional therapeutic strategies. Among the proposed directions are new formulations of levodopa to improve the delivery of the drug to the affected region of the brain, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI's) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAO I) to treat depression in PD patients, dopamine transporter (DAT), and catechol O-methyl transferase (COMT) inhibitors to prolong the effects of DA, and DA receptor (D1) agonists to reduce dyskinesias. All of these approaches utilize separate discrete molecular entities to elicit the desired response, either alone or in combination with other agents. As such, they are subject to limitations often associated with combination therapy, for example, noncompliance due to different dosing schedules and drug-drug interactions.
As shown in FIG. 1, which depicts a model dopaminergic neuron, in addition to having the processes for dopamine synthesis, this region contains the dopamine transporter (DAT) which is responsible for removal of dopamine from the synapse, catechol O-methyl transferase (COMT) and monoamine oxidases (MAO-A and B) which are involved in DA metabolism, and DA receptors (D1, D2, D2, etc.) which mediate dopaminergic responses. Thus, intervention at one site alone or selectively, as is the common for traditional therapeutics, may only produce a partial response because of compensatory mechanisms mediated by the other sites. Because of this decreased response, often a greater dose must be utilized which often results in adverse side effects. In contrast, an intervention strategy which affects several sites at a dose level that may be ineffective if present solely, may produce an additive response that would be therapeutically beneficial, while reducing the possibility for adverse side effects. Although FIG. 1 depicts the dopaminergic neuron, it will be appreciated that other regions having multiple receptor sites in close proximity may be involved in other diseases and conditions, and thus also may utilize this intervention strategy.
Clearly, because of the need to increase the efficacy and safety of pharmaceuticals, it would be beneficial to develop pharmaceuticals which contain multiple pharmacophoric sites capable of interacting at multiple biological sites, preferably for those biological sites which act in concert, implicated in specific diseases and conditions and/or involved in side effects of these diseases or conditions.


A conditional access subsystem is proved which is to reside with an end-user for receiving, decrypting and decoding all programs distributed by a content provider that the end user is entitled to access so that the decrypted and decoded programs are available for display on one or more display devices without use of a set-top terminal dedicated to each of the display devices. The subsystem includes a receiver for receiving and demodulating a multi-program transport (MPTS) stream distributed by the content provider. The MPTS includes a plurality of packets constituting a plurality of programs using one of N different encryption schemes each associated with one of N service tiers, wherein N is an integer greater than one. Each of the N different encryption schemes has a different encryption/decryption key associated therewith. The packet identifiers for the packets associated with programs in any given one of the service tiers are in a consecutive sequence. A decryptor is provided for decrypting each of the programs associated with each of the N service tiers that the end user is entitled to access. A decoder is also provided for decoding each of the decrypted programs.

Information broadcast systems include subscription-based systems in which a user subscribes to a broadcast system that provides programming or other content to the subscriber through a cable network or a satellite dish, for example. Since the programming is broadcast, it is transmitted once for receipt by all eligible receivers. Access to the data, however, is conditional, depending, for example, on whether or not a subscription fee has been paid for a specific receiver. Such conditional access to the content is realized by encrypting the information (usually the encryption occurs in the transmitter) under control of an authorization key and by transmitting the encrypted content to the receivers. Furthermore, the decryption keys necessary for the decryption of the content are encrypted themselves and transmitted to the receivers. Often, symmetrical encryption techniques are used, where the encryption and decryption keys are the same. Only those receivers that are entitled to the content are able to decrypt the decryption key using a first decryptor. The receivers can then decrypt the content using a second decryptor for decrypting the content under control of the authorization key.
Conditional access is provided by conditional access (CA) systems that come as matched sets—one part is integrated into the cable system headend (in a cable broadcast system) and encrypts premium content, the other part provides decryption and is built into the set-top boxes installed in user's homes. Several CA systems are used in the cable industry, including those provided by Motorola (Schaumberg, Ill.), Scientific Atlanta (Atlanta, Ga.) and NDS (Staines, U.K.).
To receive encrypted services a user needs a set-top box for each and every television in his or her residence. Each set-top box must be connected to the cable or satellite system over which the multi-service operator (MSO) provides programming. The more televisions a user has, the more set-top boxes that are required. The only exception today is in cable systems that offer some analog TV channels in the clear (i.e. unprotected). Any television built in the last 20 years can receive such channels directly (i.e., without a set-top box). Without the set-top box, however, such a television could of course only receive analog channels, but most MSOs offer upwards of 80 such channels today.
Long term, these MSOs would prefer to reclaim all currently transmitted analog television channels and replace them with far denser compressed digital services. Unfortunately, a completely digital television system means that the consumer needs a set-top for every television he or she has in the home. This requirement has intensified focus on lower and lower cost set-top boxes, and has also contributed to the drive towards televisions that are digital cable ready, that is, with set-top technology inside them.
Recently, a new architecture has emerged that would avoid the need for a set-top box per television. In this architecture the system operator installs a terminal on the side of the residence, in the path of the cable feed to the residence. The terminal receives the 80 digital channels supplied by the MSO and converts them to 80 analog channels that are modulated conventionally on the in-home coax. The MSO thus has the benefit of carrying all channels in a digitally compressed format, allowing more total services and revenue, while the residence would appear as it does today, with 80 analog channels feeding as many in-home televisions as the user wishes. No set-top boxes would be required until the consumer wished to access encrypted content such as premium programming (e.g., HBO™) or video-on-demand, for example. The user would not even be aware that the residential-side terminal was present, since no special in-home equipment is required and there would be no direct user interaction with the terminal.
A multiple service, residential-side terminal would need to tune, demodulate, decode, and output (as an analog RF signal) many programs simultaneously. Currently, the number of programs might be as high as 80 or more for many cable systems. Proponents of such an arrangement need to find techniques for efficiently performing these various processing steps on such a large number of programs at reduced cost. After all, an architecture requiring a set-top box per television would be the least expensive and therefore the preferable approach if a residential-side terminal were too expensive. Schemes are currently in development for tuning, demodulation, decoding, and upconversion that hold the promise of performing these functions at a reasonable cost. In the case of decryption and CA, residential-side terminal proponents are considering totally new approaches that may be incompatible with (and less secure than) legacy CA systems that are currently deployed in set-top boxes.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for providing conditional access that is compatible with existing conditional access schemes employed in set-top boxes and which can also serve to simultaneously decrypt all the channels that the subscriber is entitled to access so that a complete set of analog channels can be provided to the various televisions in the user's residence, at low cost and complexity.

Conditional access system providing access to multiple programs or services


Methods, systems and apparatuses for an originator publishing an attestation of a statement are disclosed. One method includes obtaining information, wherein the information includes the attestation of the statement, wherein the statement includes at least a portion of the information to be attested to, and wherein the attestation includes a context describing conditions of the attestation, and wherein the attestation includes a cryptographic signature of the context and the statement. The method further includes validating the information. The method further includes communicating after validating the information the information to a destination while maintaining at least one of data privacy or data provenance, including creating a new statement by transforming the statement to a form suitable for the destination, creating, by the computing device, a new attestation by signing the new statement with a new context specific to the computing device, and making available the new attestation to the destination.

Any communication or sharing through the cloud will require any party involved to have convenient and reliable access to the public keys of any other parties that the first party may be communicating with, or the public keys of any service providers. In addition, it may be necessary for that party to have convenient and reliable access to the revocation status of these public keys. There are a variety of solutions that provide directories for looking up these public keys, and then associating attributes such as identities, authorization and roles to those keys. These include X.500 directories, enterprise and cloud directories provided by cloud vendors such as Microsoft and Google. However for business and other reasons there is a trend for these vendors to develop their own silos of solutions that use technologies specific to their business interests. This trend is likely to grow as technologies proliferate. There is a need to create and deploy 'meta directories' that can straddle multiple silos of directories that may use disparate technologies and/or be geographically located in disparate locations. These 'meta directories' need to be constructed in a manner that enhances the convenience of getting access to the aggregate data, but to also improve the reliability and security such that there is a lower likelihood of these 'meta directories' making mistakes or introducing additional threats.
It is desirable to have methods, systems and apparatuses for an originator to publish an attestation of a statement.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Originator publishing an attestation of a statement


A general automated method for synthesizing the design of both the topology and parameter values for controllers is described. The automated method automatically makes decisions concerning the total number of signal processing blocks to be employed in the controller, the type of each signal processing block, the topological interconnections between the signal processing blocks, the values of all parameters for the signal processing blocks, and the existence, if any, of internal feedback between the signal processing blocks within the controller. The general automated method can simultaneously optimize prespecified performance metrics (such as minimizing the time required to bring the plant outputs to the desired values as measured by the integral of the time-weighted absolute error or the integral of the squared error), satisfy time-domain constraints (such as overshoot, disturbance rejection, limits on control variables, and limits on state variables), and satisfy frequency domain constraints (bandwidth).

Controllers (control systems) are ubiquitous in industry. A purpose of a controller is to solicit an actual response of a system that is to be controlled (conventionally called the plant) to match a desired response (called the reference signal or command signal).
There are many different measures of merit that are commonly used for controllers. For example, it is common to want to minimize the time required to bring about the desired response of the plant. For example, the occupant of a chilly room may set a thermostat to request that the room temperature be raised to 70 degrees. The reference signal is 70 degrees. The controller causes fuel to flow into the furnace so as to cause the furnace to heat the room to 70 degrees. As the temperature of the room is rising, the controller may measure the difference between the reference signal (the desired temperature) and the room's actual temperature (the plant response). The measure of merit for this controller may be based on the amount of time it takes to warm the room to the desired temperature.
The measure of merit for a controller typically involves several different (and usually conflicting) considerations. For example, in addition to wanting to minimize the time required to bring about the desired change in the plant, it is also common to simultaneously want to avoid significantly overshooting the desired values for the plant response. For example, although the occupant wants the temperature to reach 70 degrees quickly, he doesn't want to accomplish this goal by first raising the temperature to 110 degrees (overshooting the reference signal) and then letting the room cool to the desired 70 degrees. In fact, it would be ideal if the temperature quickly rose to 70 degrees without any overshoot above 70 degrees.
The cost of energy is often a major additional competing consideration in measuring the merit of a controller. Different strategies for causing a plant to reach a desired state generally have a different cost in terms of the cost of energy. Thus, the measure of merit for a controller may consist of a specified mixture reflecting the time required to bring about the desired change in the plant, the energy required to effect the change, and the avoidance of overshoot.
In addition to the above considerations, it is common to place certain practical limits on the value of the control variable(s) so that the plant is not presented with extreme values for the control variable(s). For example, a limiter would prevent a control variable from heating the room to 110 degrees. Similarly, it is common to place certain practical limits on the plant's internal state variables so that they do not exceed certain prespecified limits.
Furthermore, since all real world plants and controllers are imperfect devices, it is also desirable that a controller operate robustly in the face of perturbations or disturbances in the actual behavior of the plant or controller. It is also desirable to suppress and ignore high frequency noise in the reference signal, the control variable, and the actual plant response.
Real-world controllers must consider the fact that the actual value of a control variable must be finite (e.g., cannot be an impulse of infinite amplitude) and that real-world plants do not respond instantaneously.
Many, if not most, real-world controllers are operated manually. However, the focus here is on automatic controllers—that is, controllers that automatically process reference signal(s) and plant output(s) (and possibly other inputs) in order to create the control signals.
The underlying principles of controllers are broadly the same whether the system is mechanical, electrical, thermodynamic, hydraulic, biological, economic, etc. and whether the variable of interest is temperature, velocity, voltage, water pressure, interest rates, heart rate, humidity, etc. Moreover, many controllers incorporate elements from several different engineering domains. For example, the variable of interest for a home heating system is temperature, the setting of the thermostat and the room's current temperature are usually converted into an electrical signal, these electrical signals are usually processed by an electrical controller (analog or digital), the control mechanism is usually a mechanical valve that permits oil to flow into the furnace, while the furnace is a thermodynamic system.
In spite of the multidisciplinary aspects of control engineering, there are several reasons why it is often convenient to discuss controllers in purely electrical terms. First, many real-world sensors, reference signals, control variables, and controllers are, in fact, electrical. Second, regardless of whether the controller or plant is actually electrical, control engineers often use electrical terminology as a common language for modeling plants and controllers. Third, it is possible to use electrical simulators, such as the SPICE simulator (described in SPICE 3 Version 3F5 User's Manual by Thomas Quarles, A. R. Newton, D. O. Pederson, and A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.:1994) for solving control problems. Electrical simulators are useful because the systems of simultaneous integro-differential equations used in electrical engineering also apply to many aspects of control engineering.
Design is a major activity of practicing engineers. Engineers are often called upon to design controllers that satisfy certain prespecified high-level design goals. The creation of a design for a complex structure, such as a controller, typically involves intricate tradeoffs between competing considerations. Design is ordinarily thought to require human intelligence.
Controllers can be composed of a variety of types of one or more signal processing blocks that process signals in the time-domain, including, for example, but not limited to, gain, lead, lag, integrator, differentiator, adder, inverter, subtractor, and multiplier. Each of these processing blocks has one or more inputs and a single output. The input to a controller typically consists of the reference signal(s) and the plant response(s) or, sometimes, just the difference (error) between each reference signal and the corresponding plant response. The output of a controller consists of control variable(s) that are passed to the plant.
One or more parameter values are required to completely specify many of the signal processing blocks used in controllers. For example, the complete specification of a gain block requires specification of its amplification factor (e.g., 100-to-1 or 40 decibel amplification). The specification of these parameter values (which are typically numerical values) is sometimes called the "sizing."
The individual signal processing blocks of a controller are coupled to one another in a particular topological arrangement. The topology of a controller entails the specification of the total number of processing blocks to be employed in the controller, the type of each block (e.g., gain, lead, lag, integrator, differentiator, adder, inverter, subtractor, and multiplier), and the connections between the input point(s) and the output point of each block in the controller.
The design (e.g., synthesis) of a controller requires specification of both the topology and parameter values (sizing) such that the controller satisfies certain user-specified high-level design requirements.

Method and apparatus for automatic synthesis of controllers


An integrated circuit assembly includes a first substrate and a second substrate, with active layers formed on the first surfaces of each substrate, and with the second surfaces of each substrate coupled together. A method of fabricating an integrated circuit assembly includes forming active layers on the first surfaces of each of two substrates, and coupling the second surfaces of the substrates together.

Electronic devices are continuously offering more functionality in smaller packages. This is enabled, in part, by integrating more capability—processing power, memory, etc.—onto individual integrated circuit chips. However, also important in the development of small, powerful devices is the ability to fit more of the integrated circuit chips themselves into smaller packages.
Integrated circuit chips are typically attached to printed circuit boards. These boards contain one or more layers of metal traces and vias, providing electrical connections to chips and other components, thus completing the electronic system. By using innovative ways of attaching their component chips, boards can be made smaller in order to fit into smaller devices.
Integrated circuit chips can be attached to printed circuit boards in several ways. Often they are mounted in packages that have various configurations of pins, which, in turn, are inserted into holes in the printed circuit boards and fixed in place. For a smaller outline, the packaging step can be omitted, and the chip can be mounted directly on the board. A common chip mounting technique—for mounting chips both in packages and directly on boards—is wire bonding. In this method, thin wires connect pads in the package, or on the board, to pads on the chip. Usually, these bonding pads lie along the outside edges of the upper surface of the chip.
Since the board area needed for a wire-bonded chip exceeds the chip area by the length of the wires, other methods are available to replace wire bonding. In a second method, known as flip-chip or C4 (for controlled collapse chip connection), bond pads on the chip are coated with solder bumps, and the chip is mounted face down on the board. In this method, the footprint on the board used by the chip is no larger than the area of the chip. Eliminating the long wires may have performance advantages as well.
Another method of reducing board size is to stack chips on top of each other, while still being electrically connected to the board. Designers often find it advantageous to stack related chips—for example, a memory chip and its controller. In this case, the upper chip is usually connected directly to lower chip, and not necessarily to the board. Such a stacked chip assembly will typically require a vertical connection, such as a through-silicon via, to route signals and/or power to at least one of the chips. Such vertical connections, though expensive, can result in substantial package size reductions, especially if this technique is combined with flip-chip mounting. In these assemblies, both chips are either upside down, with C4 bumps formed on the lower chip; or they are mounted lace-to-face, with the C4 bumps formed directly on vertical connectors.
In some cases, chip stacking may be beneficial but vertical connections are not required. For example, multiple identical memory chips may be connected to one controller chip, so as to increase memory capacity. In this case, the memory chips could be stacked and bonded individually to the printed circuit board, connecting them to the nearby controller chip. In these cases, both chips are typically mounted right side up, and both are wire bonded to the board. However, some of the area savings afforded by chip stacking is lost due to the area consumed by the multitude of wire bonds.
Thus, there is an increasing need to produce small, complex circuit boards in a cost-efficient manner.
As used herein and in the appended claims, the region in which circuitry is formed on a substrate is referred to an active layer. The circuitry referred to by the term "active layer" need not contain any active devices; rather, such a layer may contain a circuit comprising only passive devices. Examples of such passive circuits include bandpass fillers and resistor dividers.

Back-to-back stacked integrated circuit assembly


True time delay silica waveguides and related fabrication methods are disclosed. Also disclosed are true time delay silica waveguides comprising wedged silica structures.

There are a range of applications in which creation of true time delay is desired. True time delay refers to delays realized by actual propagation of light through a waveguide of length necessary to realize a specific transit time (the delay time) as opposed to a delay realized, for example, by recirculation of light through a closed path, such as in a resonator. These applications include the creation of synthetic filters and also applications in biodetection. While optical fiber waveguides can provide the largest possible delays, these devices suffer from being a filamentary structure that is neither compact in size nor can be readily fabricated into precise lengths having micron precision.
A semiconductor-based approach that uses precision lithography to form waveguides on a chip is highly desirable for true time delay devices. According to such approach, time delays can be precisely controlled through lithography and the economics of scale provided by chip-based processing can lower the cost of production. Furthermore, such chip-based, optical delays can be integrated with other optical and/or electronic devices.
However, current technology for creating such chip-based waveguides results in waveguides that have optical losses many orders of magnitude higher than for optical fiber waveguides. As a result, the corresponding time delays possible using these structures are many orders smaller in comparison to what is now possible using optical fibers.

Silica-on-silicon waveguides and related fabrication methods


A system and an article of manufacture for providing a prompt for real-time cognitive assistance include analyzing input from at least one environmental sensor to identify context information pertaining to a user situation, identifying a likely subsequent cognitive task of the user in the user situation based on the context information and use of a learned model, determining an action with respect to information to be suggested to the user via a corresponding prompt, wherein the determining is based on the likely subsequent cognitive task, the context information and information learned from at least to one previous user situation, computing a confidence value to represent a level of certainty in the action, and providing the prompt to the user if the action has a confidence value greater than a threshold value corresponding to the action.

Human cognitive ability, memory in particular, tends to decline with age, although the extent of the decline varies among individuals. Moreover, certain neurological disorders often associated with aging, such as Alzheimer's disease, can significantly affect cognitive abilities (and memory, in particular). For example, in early stages of Alzheimer's, a person can often perform everyday functions involving memory (for example, taking prescription medicine on time, remembering appointments, communicating with people, either face-to-face or over the phone), although such functions may become increasingly challenging as the disease progresses.
At more advanced stages of Alzheimer's, or even in the presence of normal age-related decline of cognitive abilities, a person may require assistance from other people in order to perform everyday cognitive tasks. The need for assistance can be directly correlated with challenge level of the task and the degree of decline in the individual. Commonly used scheduling and planning tools may not be helpful in such situations, because an individual may need a reminder to use the tools themselves. Moreover, such tools are not helpful in dynamically changing situations when a person needs to be reminded to take an action that depends on a previous sequence of actions (for example, going to a particular room to get a particular object and forgetting about this goal en route, etc.). Also, such tools cannot help an individual maintain a conversation in real-time when a person begins forgetting words.
In such situations, therefore, it would be desirable to equip a person with a real-time, adaptive cognitive digital assistant (CDA) that could evaluate the situation, recognize a cognitive task to be performed by a person using sensor inputs, and suggest an action (a word, a reminder about an activity, etc.), while also being able to adapt to the particular person's cognitive issues, behavior, and situations arising in the person's environment.
Moreover, such a need exists in settings beyond those detailed above, because even individuals without cognitive decline (for example, the general population, including young and healthy individuals) can engage in cognitive tasks that are highly challenging, and could potentially utilize such CDA for memory extending reminders and improved decision-making. Existing approaches, however, suffer from a poor ability to recognize the context of a user and deploy assistive aids in an adaptive fashion.

Non-transitory article of manufacture and system for providing a prompt to user for real-time cognitive assistance

International Business Machines Corporation


A railroad switch indicator for visually signaling the position of a pair of railroad switchpoints independently of the mechanism for operating the switch. The indicator includes a sleeve with windows in which is reciprocated a slide with reflectors selected ones of which are visible through the windows of the sleeve for indicating safety conditions of the track. An arm with an upwardly extending finger engages the slide and is attached to the transverse bar that moves the switchpoints for reciprocation of the slide within the sleeve conjointly with movement of the switchpoints by the transverse bar.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a railroad switch indicator positioned between the stockrails for visually signaling the position of a pair of railroad switchpoints independently of the mechanism for operating the switch.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In order to optionally switch a railroad train operating on one track to a second track, it is typical to provide a switch with a pair of switchpoints which are selectively movable horizontally to deflect the train toward one or the other of the tracks. The switchpoints may be driven by a manual or electrical powered mechanism. A signal is usually associated with the mechanism for operating the switch to visually indicate how the switch is lined. If a train runs through the switch or if the switchpoints are moved by vibrations of a train rolling over the track, the switchpoints may be moved into a mid position which is not reflected by the signal associated with the mechanism for operating the switch. Sometimes even a misalignment of merely about 0.05 inch may result in a derailment which may be disastrous. Even sophisticated electrically powered switch mechanisms with sensors for open and closed switchpoints may give false signals.
In view of the above, it would be desirable to have a backup railroad switch indicator for signaling the position of the switchpoints that is mechanically linked to the switchpoints and operates independently of the mechanism for operating the switch.


A ferromagnetic memory circuit (10) and a ferromagnetic memory device (15) which has a substrate (42). Within the substrate (42), a first current electrode (44) and a second current electrode (46) are formed. A control electrode (50) is formed to control current flow between the first and second current electrodes (44 and 46). A ferromagnetic region (68) is used to store a logic value via magnetic flux. Two conductive layers (62 and 70) and a conductive spacer (78) form a sense conductor for device (15). The sense conductor is used to externally provide the logic value stored in the device (15). A conductive layer (82) forms a program/erase line for altering the logic value stored in the device (15). A logic one or a logic zero is stored in ferromagnetic region (68) depending upon a direction and a magnitude of current flow through conductive layer (82).

A plurality of memory circuits is currently being manufactured by the semiconductor industry. One memory circuit is known as a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). DRAMs are made of many DRAM cells. A popular DRAM cell is known as the one transistor DRAM cell. This popular DRAM cell has a single transistor and a single capacitor connected in series. The capacitor stores a logic one or a logic zero known as a bit, and the transistor allows for both selective reading and writing of the capacitor. The capacitor in a DRAM cell slowly discharges over time and must be occasionally "refreshed" or rewritten to a logic zero or logic one in order to hold a logic value for a long period of time. DRAM cells, due to the fact that only one transistor and one capacitor are needed, tend to take up a small surface area. A cell with a small surface area allows for memory integrated circuits with millions of bits of storage.
Another form of a semiconductor memory is a static random access memory (SRAM). An SRAM is formed by connecting two inverters in a ring configuration. The output of a first inverter is connected to the input of a second inverter, and the output of the second inverter is connected to the input of the first inverter. A pair of pass transistors allows for selective read and write access to the SRAM cell. The SRAM cell, unlike the DRAM cell, is internally stable and therefore needs no refreshing. SRAM cells require a minimum of six elements, for example six transistors, and therefore have a larger surface area than a DRAM cell. Both DRAM cells and SRAM cells lose all stored information if power is lost or removed from the memory cell.
Another form of memory is referred to as a nonvolatile memory. Two popular forms of nonvolatile memory are erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM) or electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM). An EPROM or an EEPROM memory cell has a transistor with a floating gate and a control gate. The floating gate controls current flow between a source and a drain of the memory cell. The control gate programs the floating gate to an "on" or "off" state, also referred to as a logic one or logic zero state, via predetermined voltage settings. Both the EPROM cell and the EEPROM cell are physically larger than the DRAM cell in terms of surface area, but the EPROM and EEPROM cells retain all stored information if a power supply voltage fails or is removed.
Magnetic memory has been used for computers and like applications for many years. Ferromagnetic cores, rings, or cylinders are positioned in a predetermined array. The ferromagnetic cores, rings, or cylinders are physically large and are most likely much larger than any of the previously mentioned semiconductor memory devices. Three conductive lines pass through the center of each of the ferromagnetic cores in the predetermined array. A first conductive line runs horizontal and is a row decoder line. A second conductive line runs vertical and is a column decoder line. A third conductive line senses the stored polarity in a predetermined ferromagnetic core.
To program and erase a ferromagnetic core to a logic zero or a logic one, a current I.sub.1 having a direction (polarity) is flowed through the row decoder line and a current I.sub.2 having a direction (polarity) is flowed through the column decoder line. Usually, I.sub.1 is equal to I.sub.2. All cores not on the row or the column which is carrying the current I.sub.1 or I.sub.2 are subjected to a net current of zero and are not affected. All cores on either a row or a column but not both are subjected to either a current I.sub.1 or I.sub.2 and are not affected. The core that has both row and column decoder lines through it is subjected to a current of I.sub.1 plus I.sub.2 and is either programmed or erased depending on the direction (polarity) of the currents I.sub.1 and I.sub.2. Therefore, by respectively applying a row and column current I.sub.1 and I.sub.2, only one ferromagnetic core is selected with a large enough current to store or alter information. The magnetic cores tend to be physically large but are robust and more error-free than DRAMs for example.


Real time location system functionality is provided in conjunction with bar codes and other coded information devices to provide location information in transaction processing systems. A system and method of the present invention may be used to track the location of objects which are coupled to coded information devices.

The present invention relates to systems and methods for transaction processing which combine bar code scanning with wireless network real time location functions to determine the location of a transaction. In particular, the present invention may be used to determine the locations of data transactions such as bar code scans or RFID reads, and as a result the locations of the items scanned.
Current transaction processing systems generally involve the use of barcode scanning or RFID reads and some form of wireless communications to transmit transaction information, either over a wireless local area network ("LAN") or over a wireless wide area network ("WAN"), or alternatively, batch mode operations that involve docking a hand-held scanning device and downloading the transactions together in batches. However, these systems are limited only to transmitting transaction information, and are not capable of determining or providing the location of a transaction.
The use of mobile data communications systems to perform location functions for locating mobile units is described in articles entitled Enhancements to the User Location and Tracking System, by Paramvir Bahl and Venkata N. Padmanabhan, and User Location and Tracking in an In-Building Radio Network, Microsoft Technical Report MSR-TR-99-12, dated February 1999, by the same authors, both published by Microsoft Research. As described therein signal strength of signals of the wireless data communications system, such as a system using the protocol of IEEE Standard 802.11, are used for locating mobile units within an area serviced by the system. Other techniques for locating mobile units using wireless data communications systems are possible.
In co-pending application Ser. No. 09/926,516, filed Nov. 14, 2001, which is owned by the assignee of the present application and fully incorporated herein by reference, there is described a system for identifying and locating wireless assets in a wireless communication network using time differences of arrivals of a communication sequence at different network receivers arranged at different locations.
In co-pending application Ser. No. 10/679,524, filed Oct. 6, 2003, which is owned by the assignee of the present application and fully incorporated herein by reference, there is described an improved method and system for locating mobile units using a wireless data communications system.
It would be advantageous to combine real time location system functions with bar code scanning, RFID reads and other transaction processing techniques to determine to the location of a transaction.

System and method for providing location information in transaction processing


An LCD panel turning device (100) includes a panel turning unit (30), a lift unit (40), and a shifting unit (50). The panel turning unit has two opposite panel holding faces, and can turn about a central axis thereof. The lift unit connects with the panel turning unit, and can raise or lower the panel turning unit. The shifting unit connects with the lift unit, and can move the lift unit and the panel turning unit back and forth along a linear path in unison. When the LCD panel turning device is used in an LCD panel repair system, placing and removing of each LCD panel on and from the repair unit is accomplished by means of only the single panel turning unit. Thus the space taken up by the LCD panel turning device is relatively little.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to industrial robots for manipulating liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, and especially to an LCD panel turning device used for an LCD panel repair system.
2. Description of Prior Art
An LCD panel is an important component of an LCD device. The cost of the LCD panel is higher than that of other components of the LCD device, such as a light guide plate, a frame or a light source. When a mass produced LCD panel is found to be defective, it is usually diverted for repair work in order to remedy the defects.
The LCD panel must be turned upside down, because the repair work can only be done from the back face of the LCD panel. To automatically turn over the LCD panel, an LCD panel turning device is used.
Referring to FIG. 6, a conventional LCD panel repair system 1 with a turning device is shown. The LCD panel repair system 1 comprises a loading unit 11, a first turning unit 12, a first transfer unit 13, a repair unit 14, a second transfer unit 15, a second turning unit 16, and an unloading unit 17. The above units are arranged side by side in the above sequence. The first turning unit 12 and the second turning unit 16 constitute the turning device of the LCD panel repair system 1.
The loading unit 11 is used to load an LCD panel (not shown) on the first turning unit 12 such that the front face of the LCD panel faces upwardly. Then the first turning unit 12 turns over the LCD panel, so that the back face of the LCD panel faces upwardly. The first transfer unit 13 transfers the inverted LCD panel to the repair unit 14. In the repair unit 14, the repair work on the LCD panel is performed. After the repair work is finished, the LCD panel is transferred to the second turning unit 16 by the second transfer unit 15. On the second turning unit 16, the LCD panel is turned over again. Finally, the unloading unit 17 unloads the LCD panel to a storage device (not shown), thereby completing the repair work of the LCD panel.
The LCD panel is processed along a linear path of the repair system 1, so that the repair system 1 can maintain a continuous run of successive LCD panels. However, this makes the repair system 1 unduly large. Each side of the repair unit 14 has the turning unit 12 or 14 and the transfer unit 13 or 15, in addition to the loading unit 11 and the unloading unit 17.
Thus, a new LCD panel turning device that overcomes the above-mentioned space disadvantages is desired.

Liquid crystal display panel turning device


A hearse assembly includes a support frame that has a substantially rectangular shape and has a forward end and rearward end. A tricycle frame includes a motor and has a back portion and a front portion. The back portion is integrally coupled to the forward end. A steering column and wheel combination is coupled to the front portion. A first axle is mounted on the support frame and is positioned nearer the forward end. A first differential is mechanically coupled to the first axle. A first drive shaft mechanically couples the motor to the first differential. A second axle is mounted the support frame and is positioned nearer the rearward end. The first and second axles each have a pair of free ends each having a wheel attached thereto. A housing is mounted the support frame. A door is positioned in the housing for selectively opening or closing the housing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hearse devices and more particularly pertains to a new hearse device for transporting a casket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of hearse devices is known in the prior art. While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the need remains for a device that resembles a motorcycle for allowing casket to be transported within a vehicle that resembles a motorcycle. This provides additional options over traditional caskets and allows a person to be transported in a manner that may be more meaningful to them.


Printing over a network by inputting print data to be printed and associated credit card information at a host terminal, uploading a print job comprising the print data to be printed and the associated credit card information to a print data storage server, inputting credit card information at an input device that communicates with the print data storage server, transmitting print data stored in the print data storage server having associated credit card information that corresponds to the credit card information input at the input device, and printing the print data on a printing device. The uploaded print job may be marked as ready for printing such that the print data transmitted to the printing device is that which has been marked as ready for printing. In addition, a display of pending print jobs may be provided for a user to select a print job to print prior to the print data being transmitted to the input device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing over a network using a credit card as a means of identification. More specifically, the present invention relates to uploading a print job consisting of print data and associated credit card information onto a network server and retrieving the print job from the server at a printer by using a credit card as a means of identifying the person printing the job.
2. Description of the Related Art
Uploading print data over a network such as the Internet to have the print job printed at a remote location has become increasingly popular. For instance, some computer users desire to submit print jobs over the Internet to a print shop to have the print job printed out by the print shop. This may be the case where, for example, a computer user may not have a printer at home or in his office to print his work or, where he may have a printer, but the printer is not capable of producing the type of printout he wants. For instance, a user may have a printer that only prints black and white printouts but the user may want to print a color image, or he may want to print a large volume of printouts but does not want to expend his own printer and paper resources doing so. In either case, one option may be for the user to submit the print job over the Internet to a print shop that has the capability of producing the desired printout.
One example of an Internet print shop is provided by Kinkos®. In a print shop approach such as Kinkos®, a user logs-on to the Kinkos® website and uploads a file so that it can be printed and delivered by a selected Kinkos® store. The user first generates a file to be uploaded using an application program (e.g. a word processing or spreadsheet program) and after having saved the file, the user activates a web browser application on his computer to access the Kinkos® website.
In order to submit a print job for printing over the Internet with the Kinkos® system, the user selects a print option in the Kinkos® website and navigates a series of steps for submitting the print job. These steps include inputting information for uploading, inputting finishing options, specifying the recipients, specifying how the finished product is to be delivered and providing payment information. In the uploading step, the user selects the file or files that are to be uploaded to Kinkos® for printing. Once the user has selected the file or files to be uploaded, the user is prompted to enter various finishing options. Some of the finishing options include a black and white printout, a color printout and various binding options.
After the user enters at least one finishing option, he is prompted to either register with Kinkos® (i.e. create a new account) or input his existing account information such as an email address and a password. In registering to create a new account, the user provides identification information such as an email address, first and last name, a password, and a company name and address. Once the user has registered or entered their existing account information, the user is prompted to enter the recipients of the finished product. The user can select one or more recipients from an address book or he can enter a new recipient.
After having specified the recipients, the user is prompted to specify a delivery option. Various delivery options may be selected such as in store pickup of the hardcopy print job at a specified Kinkos® store, or to have the hardcopy print job delivered to a recipient's home, office or to some other specified location.
After having selected a delivery option, the user is prompted to input payment information such as a credit card number. Once the user has entered the payment information, he confirms his purchase, whereby the designated file to be printed is uploaded to Kinkos®.
Finally, after having uploaded the file and payment information to Kinkos®, the selected Kinkos® store processes the print job to generate the finished hardcopy product. After the hardcopy is printed, it is either held at the Kinkos® store until the recipient arrives to pick it up, or it is delivered to the specified recipient, depending on the delivery option selected.
Thus, in the Kinkos® system a user uploads a file and credit card information for payment to Kinkos® whereby the file is processed by a Kinkos® store to generate a hardcopy printout that is either picked-up by a recipient at the store or delivered to a recipient's home, office or some other location. Accordingly, the Kinkos® system requires that the user wait until Kinkos® can process the print job before it can be retrieved and as such, the user has no control over when or where he can retrieve his print job. That is, the user can not simply retrieve his uploaded print job at a printer any time he wants, but must wait for Kinkos® to process the print job and have the job delivered or go to the store to pick it up.
Additionally, if the user changes his mind after he has uploaded his print job and decides not to have the print job printed out (for example, if the user has made a change to the file that was uploaded), he must contact the Kinkos® store that he has selected to process the job and cancel the print request before the job is processed. Otherwise, the user may be charged for processing the print job.
Further, once the recipient uploads the print job and specifies the delivery options, if he changes his mind and wants the print job delivered to a different location, he must contact the Kinkos® store that he has selected to process the print job and notify them of the change.
As can readily be seen from the foregoing, the Kinkos® system has very little flexability for the user once the print job has been uploaded. That is, once the user uploads the file for printing, the user is not able to simply retrieve the printout at a location convenient to him at a time that is convenient to him.
Another system which provides for a user to submit a print job for printing over a network has been described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/411,665 entitled "Authenticated Secure Printing", filed on Oct. 4, 1999 (hereinafter referred to as the '665 application). The '665 application describes a system in which print data and recipient identification information (commonly known as a distinguished name contained in a digital certificate) are transmitted from a personal computer to a print node via a secure transmission protocol such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security). As described in the '665 application, the recipient's identification information is obtained either from a smartcard or via a public key infrastructure. Upon receipt of the print data and recipient identification information, the print node performs an encryption algorithm to encrypt both the print data and the identification information and securely stores both without printout until the print node receives authentication from the intended recipient.
In order to retrieve the print data and have it printed at a printer, the person holding the proper recipient authentication information (such as the smartcard as described in the '665 application), presents the authentication information to the printer. Once the smartcard is presented at the printer, the recipient's identification information is used to authenticate the recipient and the stored encrypted print data is decrypted and printed on the printer.
Thus, the system of the '665 application provides a way for the user to upload a print job and recipient identification information using a smartcard and for the recipient holding the proper authentication information to retrieve the print job at a printer using a smartcard. However, smartcards are not generally available to or used by the general population and therefore, the '665 application's system is somewhat limited in its practicality. That is, smartcards are generally available only to employees of companies that may utilize such a system and are not carried by the general public. As a result, the number of users who can take advantage of the '665 application's system is somewhat limited.
Moreover, implementation of a smartcard system such as that described in the '665 application requires that a public key infrastructure be implemented and that a smartcard reader or other means of inputting a digital certificate of the recipient be implemented at each computer for which the print data is to be submitted from. Accordingly, while the system described in the '665 application may be sufficient within a corporation where the number of users is limited to a few hundred or even a few thousand, the cost of such a system may be prohibitively high for worldwide implementation for use by the general public.

Printing with credit card as identification


An image forming apparatus including a photosensitive drum unit (photosensitive unit) including a photosensitive body, a fixing unit for fixing a toner image transferred from the photosensitive body onto a recording material, and a vertical conveying path for conveying the recording material between the photosensitive drum unit and the fixing unit. Rails (guiding members) for guiding the removable photosensitive drum unit in a longitudinal direction are provided on the fixing unit. The rails are constituted of resin material capable of blocking heat transmitted towards the photosensitive drum unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus employing electrophotography or electrostatic recording and, more specifically, relates to an image forming apparatus, such as a copy machine, a printer, or a facsimile machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional vertical-path type image forming apparatuses having an image-forming unit disposed in a paper-conveying path (hereinafter referred to as 'vertical path') for conveying a sheet of paper from a lower side to an upper side of the image forming apparatus and then ejecting the sheet of paper from the image forming apparatus are discussed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 09-297440 and 2004-151568.
Such image forming apparatuses, as illustrated in prior art FIG. 8, were realized as a result of digitalization. Digitalization has enabled a document image reader 1 that is a scanner for reading a document and an image-forming unit 2 that is a unit for carrying out an image-forming process in the image forming apparatus to be optically separated in the image-forming unit 2.
In such an image forming apparatus, optical information read out by the document image reader 1 is converted into an electronic signal at a photoelectric conversion unit, such as a charge-coupled device (CCD), and is sent to the image-forming unit 2. The electric signal is converted into an optical signal at a predetermined unit. In this way, image information is transmitted to a photosensitive drum 11 and a latent image is formed on the photosensitive drum 11.
Since the emission position of the optical signal may be any predetermined position, the flexibility of the position for the writing on the photosensitive drum 11 is increased. To correspond to this increased flexibility, a laser beam 12 has been used as a writing unit.
A vertical path type image-forming process has become possible to be employed in image forming apparatuses because of the technical development in draw-up systems and downward cleaning systems. A draw-up system is provided to supply toner upwards from image-forming units, such as a development unit 13 and a toner supplying unit 14, to the photosensitive drum 11 disposed above the image-forming units and to supply toner upwards from a developer or toner storage container to a development sleeve 17 disposed at a position higher than the developer or toner storage container. A downward cleaning system is provided to reliably clean the photosensitive drum 11 using a cleaning unit having an opening on the bottom that is contacts the photosensitive drum 11 for cleaning.
Since it has become possible to employ the vertical path system in an image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus can employ a short-path structure wherein a paper conveying unit 18 and a fixing unit 19 are disposed above the image-forming units and an ejecting unit 5 and an ejecting slot 21 are disposed above the paper conveying unit 18 and the fixing unit 19. Image-forming units, including a paper-feeding unit 3 having a paper cassette, a registration unit 4, the photosensitive drum 11, the development unit 13, and the cleaning unit, are disposed in this order from the bottom in the image forming apparatus. According to this structure, the conveying path from the paper-feeding unit 3 to an ejecting unit 5 can be formed without extreme curving. In this way, the conveying path becomes short and the number of components included in the conveying path can be reduced.
Furthermore, since the conveying path passes through the image forming apparatus relatively linearly, the space required for the conveying path is reduced. In this way, the size and cost of the image forming apparatus is reduced and the amount of time required for a sheet of paper to pass through the conveying path is reduced. Since the flexibility of the layout of each component in the image forming apparatus increases, the components can be disposed in a highly dense manner. As a result, the space required for disposing the components is reduced, and thus the size of the image forming apparatus is reduced.
However, the vertical path passing through a photosensitive drum unit 20 and the fixing unit 19 cannot be shortened in a conventional image forming apparatus since rails 22-a and 22-b configured to guide the photosensitive drum unit 20 during mounting or dismounting are disposed on the frame of the image forming apparatus. In other words, the size of a conventional image forming apparatus cannot be reduced by shortening the conveying path disposed between the photosensitive drum unit 20 and the fixing unit 19.

Image forming apparatus including a removable unit


A socket includes a socket housing of an insulator to which plural socket contacts to be soldered to a conductive pattern of a circuit substrate, and a fitting metal for fixture to the circuit substrate are attached, in which the fitting metal includes plate-like side plates that are exposed along end surfaces of the socket housing, anchors that are formed by folding the side plates to bite into the housing, and an attachment piece that protrudes from a bottom plate to outside of the socket housing to be fixed to the circuit substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector in which paired connector connecting bodies are fitted and coupled to each other, thereby corresponding contacts are connected to each other, and the connecting bodies thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional connector used for connection between substrates and the like, including a socket (one of connector connecting bodies) having a housing made of an insulator of synthetic resin or the like to which plural contacts are attached, and a header (the other connector connecting body) similarly having a housing made of an insulator to which plural contacts are attached is known (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-19144). In this connector, the socket and the header are fitted and coupled to each other, so that the corresponding contacts are made contact conductive. Consequently, conductive patterns of the circuit substrates to which the corresponding contacts are connected are electrically connected to each other.
In an example of such a connector, a fitting metal 30P is embedded in a peripheral wall 13P of a housing 11P made of synthetic resin of a socket 10P, as shown in FIG. 1. The fitting metal 30P has attachment pieces 30aP protruding beyond the housing 11P. The attachment pieces 30aP are fixed to a circuit substrate (not shown) by soldering or the like, so that coupling strength between the socket 10P and the circuit substrate is increased. Terminals 12 TP of contacts 12P are soldered to a conductive pattern of the circuit substrate.
In the conventional connector, however, because the fitting metal 30P is embedded in the peripheral wall 13P, the peripheral wall 13P is divided by the fitting metal 30P into inner and outer portions.
That is, the peripheral wall 13P with a thickness t is divided by the fitting metal 30P into an inner portion with a thickness tin and an outer portion with a thickness tout, resulting in the thinned portions. Particularly, the outer portion with the thickness tout is broken easily due to an external force or the like.
When the fitting metal 30P is embedded in the housing 11P by insert molding, there is a risk of molten resin not sufficiently spreading into the thinned portions during the molding (so-called misrun). Particularly when the misrun occurs in the outer portion with the thickness tout, the fitting metal may be partially exposed.
An object of the present invention is to provide a connector connecting body and a connector that can eliminate a defect caused by embedding of the fitting metal into the housing.


A polyurethane foam and a resin composition that may be used to form the polyurethane foam is provided. The resin composition comprises a first ethylene diamine-based polyol having about 100% ethylene oxide capping present in an amount of from 0.5 to 8 parts by weight based on 100 parts by weight of the resin composition, a second polyol, and a physical blowing agent. The polyurethane foam comprises the reaction product of an isocyanate component and the resin composition. A method of forming the polyurethane foam on a substrate, comprising the steps of combining the isocyanate component, the first ethylene diamine-based polyol having about 100% ethylene oxide capping, the second polyol, and the physical blowing agent to form a polyurethane composition is also provided. The polyurethane composition is applied onto the substrate at an ambient temperature of 0° C. or lower to form the polyurethane foam.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention generally relates to a polyurethane foam, a resin composition that may be used to form the polyurethane foam, and a method of forming the polyurethane foam on a substrate. More specifically, the subject invention relates to a resin composition including a combination of polyols that results in polyurethane foam having low surface friability, especially at low temperatures of less than or equal to 0° C.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Commercial and residential structures may be thermally and/or acoustically insulated by forming an insulating material, such as polyurethane foam, on the structures. The polyurethane foams comprise the reaction product of an isocyanate and a resin composition comprising a polyol or polyols, in the presence of a blowing agent.
To form the polyurethane foam on the structures, the resin composition and the isocyanate are combined in a mixing chamber of a spray gun to form a polyurethane composition. The polyurethane composition is then applied onto the commercial or residential structures to form the polyurethane foam through a polyol-isocyanate reaction. The polyurethane foam typically has an outer surface, a core, and an inner surface, which interfaces with the structures.
Unique problems arise when the polyurethane compositions are applied at low ambient temperatures, for example at less than or equal to 0° C., as is common during construction in cold climates. When the polyurethane compositions are applied at the low ambient temperatures, polyurethane foams have excessive surface friability and do not adhere well to structures. That is, the outer surface of the polyurethane foam crumbles and the inner surface of the polyurethane foams delaminates from the structures, thereby failing to provide adequate acoustic and thermal insulation.
The prior art has recognized various ways to decrease the surface friability of polyurethane foams, in general. For example, one way to decrease the surface friability of polyurethane foams is to increase the amount of catalyst used in the polyol-isocyanate reaction in an attempt to increase the speed of the polyol-ioscyanate reaction. However, the resulting polyurethane foam typically does not have enough cross-linking and will not foam to desired specifications.
Another way to decrease the surface friability of polyurethane foams is to select certain polyols for the resin composition. For example, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,698 to Fuzesi et al., it is known in the art to form polyurethane foams comprising the reaction product of ethylenediamine-based polyols having ethylene oxide capping. Fuzesi et al. provides using from 8 to 50 parts by weight of an ethylene diamine-based polyol based on 100 parts by weight of total polyols used to form the polyurethane foam to achieve improved surface friability. The use of polyurethane foams comprising ethylene diamine-based polyols having ethylene oxide capping in the amounts set forth in Fuzesi et al. increases a polyol-isocyanate reaction temperature and conventional ozone-depleting blowing agents, such as hyrdrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), are required to prevent scorching of the foam. Scorched foam is both aesthetically and functionally undesirable, as the scorched foam has excessive surface friability, separates from the substrate interface, and poses a fire risk. The conventional ozone-depleting blowing agents sufficiently cool the polyol-isocyanate reaction to prevent scorching.
However, new regulations, such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, statutorily mandate the phasing-out of ozone depleting agents, such as HCFCs, in favor of non-ozone depleting agents, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The HFCs do not provide enough cooling to the polyol-isocyanate reaction, and the resulting foam often scorches.
Further, the polyurethane foams of Fuzesi et al. do not exhibit sufficiently low surface friability when the polyurethane composition used to form the polyurethane foam is sprayed at low ambient temperatures of less than or equal to 0° C. As such, there remains an opportunity to provide a polyurethane foam, a resin composition, and a method of forming the polyurethane foam on a substrate to remedy the surface friability and adhesion problems commonly experienced with such polyurethane foams, especially when the polyurethane composition used to form the polyurethane foam is applied at temperatures of less than or equal to 0° C.

Polyurethane foam and a resin composition


A data multicast implementation method, apparatus, and system are provided. In some embodiments, a transmission device receives a standby forwarding path establishment request, where the standby forwarding path establishment request includes a device identifier, has a destination address being an address of a multicast source device, and is used to request to establish a standby forwarding path between a multicast destination device identified by the device identifier and the multicast source device. In those embodiments, when determining, based on the device identifier in the standby forwarding path establishment request, that the transmission device is located on an active forwarding path between the multicast destination device and the multicast source device, the transmission device skips using the transmission device as a device on the standby forwarding path between the multicast destination device and the multicast source device, and skips forwarding the standby forwarding path establishment request.

A multicast technology effectively resolves a problem of single-point sending and multi-point receiving, and therefore, is widely applied to video services such as internet protocol television (IPTV).
On a multicast network, a multicast destination device sends a forwarding path establishment request to a multicast source device to establish a forwarding path between the multicast destination device and the multicast source device. Forwarding paths between the multicast source device and multicast destination devices form a multicast tree, the multicast source device is a root node of the multicast tree, and the multicast destination devices are leaf nodes of the multicast tree.
To avoid service performance deterioration caused by a fault, generally, an active forwarding path and a standby forwarding path are established between a multicast source device and a multicast destination device. Both the active forwarding path and the standby forwarding path can be used by the multicast source device to transmit multicast data to the multicast destination device.
According to the prior art, in a process of establishing the active forwarding path and the standby forwarding path, the multicast destination device sends, to a neighboring upstream device, a forwarding path establishment request used to establish the active forwarding path and a forwarding path establishment request used to establish the standby forwarding path, and the device receiving the forwarding path establishment requests adds the local device to to-be-established forwarding paths, and forwards the received forwarding path establishment requests to a neighboring upstream device until the forwarding path establishment requests reach the multicast source device.
When the active forwarding path and the standby forwarding path are established by using this method, if a fault occurs on a transmission device that belongs to both the active forwarding path and the standby forwarding path, the transmission device affects both the active forwarding path and the standby forwarding path, causing interruption of multicast data transmission.

Data multicast implementation method, apparatus, and system


A silicide method for integrated circuit and semiconductor device fabrication wherein a layer of nickel is formed over at least one silicon region of a substrate and a layer of cobalt is formed over the nickel layer. The cobalt/nickel bi-layer is then annealed to transform the bi-layer to a bi-silicide film having a cobalt-rich silicide portion and a nickel-rich silicide portion.

Self-aligned silicide (salicide) technology is required in modem integrated circuit and semiconductor device fabrication to lower the resistance of polysilicon gates, sources and drains to reduce RC delay, i.e., the gate speed performance index wherein less delay produces increased gate speed performance. On example of a well known silicide technology is cobalt silicide (CoSi2). CoSi2 process are commonly used for sub quarter micron and beyond technology. Unfortunately, the agglomeration effect of CoSi2 on very narrow line polysilicon gates that are less than 65 nanometers, often limits its extendibility to the fabrication of shorter gates.
Nickel silicide (NiSi) technology appears to be emerging as a dominant solution to very narrow line polysilicon gates because it provides better sheet resistance (Rs) for narrow line polysilicon gates, less junction leakage, less silicon (Si) consumption, and can even improve the drive current (Idsat) of an NFET or PFET.
With respect to the NiSi, there are still some concerns about monosilicide phase stability, film thermal stability, and plasma damage resistance of NiSi while implementing this process.
Accordingly, a method or process is needed which allows NiSi to be implemented successfully in very narrow line polysilicon gate technology.

Cobalt/nickel bi-layer silicide process for very narrow line polysilicon gate technology

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company


Devices and methods for capturing biological materials using a potential well. An electrical signal is applied across a nanopipette having one end in a back-fill chamber and another end in a collection chamber containing a suspending medium including one or more types of particles. The collection end of the nanopipette includes a tip having an opening. The electrical signal applied across the nanopipette is configured to generate the potential well proximate to the tip in which the electrokinetic forces acting on the particles are balanced. The potential well may be configured to selectively trap one or the other types of particles suspended in the suspending medium. The particles may be transferred to a sample collection medium by immersing the tip in the sample collection medium and reversing the polarity of the electrical signal.

In the last few decades, considerable efforts have been made to develop new miniaturized technologies for particle manipulation, pre-concentration, and sorting using schemes based on optical, magnetic, acoustic, and electrical phenomena. Among these technologies, dielectrophoretic based schemes have gained significant attention because of their rapid and label-free criteria. Dielectrophoresis has been utilized for sorting, isolating, and manipulating micro- and nano-scale particles and biomolecules based on their dielectric properties using non-uniform electric fields. Conventional methods generate non-uniformity in the electric field by applying an alternating voltage to an array of electrodes, or by placing obstacles such as micro-pillars and rectangular hurdles in microfluidic channels in what is known as an insulator-based approach. Insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) has proven popular because it allows device functionality to be preserved despite fouling effects at the surfaces of the electrodes. Although this approach has shown promising attributes, the majority of iDEP devices require high operational voltages to produce electric fields in the range of 100 V/cm. These high fields can generate excessive heat in the system and cause biological samples to become denatured.
An alternative iDEP approach applies an alternating voltage across a glass nanopipette. Using this approach, the small conical geometry of the nanopore generates a relatively strong non-uniform electric field that creates a dielectrophoretic trapping zone inside of the nanopipette near to the tip. This method has been used to trap DNA molecules and proteins by backfilling the nanopipette with a solution containing the target analytes and concentrating the molecules inside the nanopipette. Although this technique may address the need to lower the operational voltage, because the solution must be introduced into the nanopipette, it unable trap analytes directly from a bulk suspending medium.
Different approaches have been attempted to address the inability of the above method to trap analytics from a bulk suspending medium. In one approach, the inner diameter of the nanopipette was enlarged to 800 μm. Other approaches attempted include utilizing a metal coated glass nanopipette to collect and manipulate molecules from the solution, and initially applying a pressure gradient to the suspending medium to drive the molecules close to the tip of a glass nanopipette. In the latter approach, the electro-osmotic flow, pressure-driven flow, and electrophoresis were balanced to trap DNA molecules. However, each of the above approaches use an alternating electric field.
Exosomes are small membrane vesicles, typically 30 to 150 nanometers (nm) in diameter and having a density of about 1.1-1.2 g/cm3, released by cells into the extracellular space via the exocytosis pathway. Exosomes are thus commonly found in body fluids such as plasma, urine, and saliva at levels of about 106 particles per 10 ml. Exosomes typically include specific surface markers on a plasma membrane, and carry gene regulatory content including proteins, microRNAs, and messenger RNAs. Exosomes act as vehicles for molecular cargo in cell-to-cell communication. Given these attributes, exosomes have potential as biomarkers for diagnosis and as new semi-synthetic drug delivery vehicles for personalized therapy. One challenge associated with exosomal research is the lack of a high throughput and quantitative isolation technology. Conventional methods for separating exosomes from biofluids typically rely on differential ultracentrifugation. However, differential ultracentrifugation is time-consuming and labor-intensive.
Dielectrophoresis has been used to separate target cells suspended in a solution based on the electrical properties of the cell, the suspending medium, and the electric field. For example, insulator-based dielectrophoretic devices have been developed to manipulate and separate biomolecules. While these devices have proven useful for this purpose, they also have certain disadvantages. For example, insulator-based dielectrophoretic devices require complicated fabrication procedures and high operational voltages that can damage the cells being collected. Insulator-based dielectrophoretic devices also normally operate using time-varying voltages, which prevents the devices from trapping particles in a large area.
Glass nanopipettes have been also been developed for DNA and protein molecules trapping. However, conventional methods employing nanopipettes require backfilling of the nanopipette with the suspending medium including the nanoparticles and/or biomolecules to be collected, which increases the likelihood of sample loss during the handling and filling process. Furthermore, these devices cannot be used for real time monitoring of cell secreted analytes in a culture medium.
The lack of good analytical tools for detection and quantification of metabolite and gene harboring membrane vesicles near living cells continues to be an obstacle to biomedical research. Thus, there exists a need for improved methods and devices for extracting microvesicles and/or other particles from suspending mediums.

Using electrokinetic forces to manipulate suspended particles


Communication between an implantable device(s), such as a neural stimulator, and an external remote device(s), e.g., a computer in a clinician's office, a computer in a patient's home, or a handheld patient remote control, is performed entirely via an RF link. In order to conserve power, the RF telemetry system of the implant is only activated periodically; with the period of activation being sufficiently short so as to allow a reasonably prompt response of the implant to a request for a communication session by the external device. In order to assure reliable communication, the RF information may be encoded, as appropriate, with error correction codes.

The present invention relates to controlling an implantable device, e.g., an implantable medical device, and more particularly to using an RF telemetry link to establish and maintain communications with the implantable device.
Due to a multitude of advances in electronics, packaging, sensors, pumps, and pharmacology, implantable devices such as stimulators, pumps, and sensors are becoming increasingly more complex. However, communication with implants has not advanced significantly over the past decade.
Conventional implantable devices (e.g., pacemakers) implement a relatively simple form of establishment and maintenance of communication with external devices. Some devices contain a magnetic sensor, and a communication session is established when an external permanent magnet is brought into close proximity (e.g., within a few centimeters), triggering the magnetic sensor. The magnetic sensor may also be used for communication, e.g., the presence of a permanent magnet for a certain period of time may adjust a parameter or toggle the state of activation of the implantable device. Such a system of establishing and maintaining communication may be triggered erroneously by a strong magnetic field in the environment. Also, the complexity and speed of communication is inherently limited.
Other devices communicate via an inductive link. In these systems, a communication session may be established when an external coil is energized, producing a strong magnetic field, and is then brought into close proximity with an implanted coil contained within or next to the implant. This system has the advantage that the implantable device may be a passive receiver, i.e., the energy received in its coil may provide all of the energy required for causing activation of the implant and initiating a communication session. This allows the implant to expend virtually no energy in its receiver outside of communication sessions. However, such a system also has disadvantages. The inductive magnetic fields decrease rapidly with distance, and thus the external device must be in close proximity to the implant (e.g., within a few centimeters). Also, since the energy to activate the implant may be provided by the external device, the external device requires a relatively sizeable source of power. Such a strong magnetic field may also be difficult to modulate efficiently, and this may lead to either an increased power expenditure or a relatively low limit on communication bandwidth.
Conventional implant systems generally operate in a relatively open-loop fashion. That is, the patient implanted with the device has little or no control over the implant. The patient also has no computer or other automated system that assists in monitoring and/or programming the implanted device. However, implanted systems of increased complexity typically require an increased amount of monitoring and programming by an external user and/or an automated system. Communication to support such increased amount of monitoring and programming must be done more frequently.
By way of example, an implant patient may need to adjust the programmed settings of an implantable stimulator several times throughout the day, or an automated system may adjust the implant every few minutes when it is within communication range.
Complex implantable devices also typically require the exchange of a larger amount of data with an external user and/or an automated system than has heretofore been achievable. For example, an external user may want to frequently sample the readings of a number of implanted sensors as well as the current programmed settings, or an automated system may upload a significant volume of data as a time series of sensor readings. Additionally, rapidly changing signals such as an ECG, EEG, EMG, or ENG require high communication data rates in order to be communicated to an external device in a reasonable period of time.
Representative communication and/or control links with implantable medical devices are as described in the following U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,473: Systems, methods, and apparatus for automatic updating of a programmer for an active implantable medical device; U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,508: Implant communication system with patient coil; U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,932: Implant communication system with frequency shift means; U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,949: Apparatus for monitoring and/or controlling a medical device; U.S. Pat. No. 6,115,636: Telemetry for implantable devices using the body as an antenna; U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,551: Communication method for implantable medical device; U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,887: Medical treatment apparatus and method; U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,513: Implantable medical device for tracking patient functional status; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,024,539: Systems and methods for communicating with ambulatory medical devices such as drug delivery devices. All of these prior art approaches suffer from one or more deficiencies.
It is thus evident that there is a need in the art for an improved communication and control link with an implantable device, particularly implantable medical devices that are more complex and sophisticated than prior art implantable devices.

RF telemetry link for establishment and maintenance of communications with an implantable device


An electrical connector includes a substrate and multiple terminals. The substrate is provided with multiple accommodating holes running through the substrate vertically. A shielding member is provided on a lower surface of the substrate. The terminals are correspondingly accommodated in the accommodating holes respectively. The terminals include multiple signal terminals and at least one ground terminal. An interval exists between the ground terminal and the shielding member. The ground terminal has a conducting portion extending downward out of a corresponding accommodating hole. The conducting portion is soldered to a main circuit board through a solder, and the solder is in contact with the conducting portion and the shielding member. According to the present invention, the conducting portion of the ground terminal is connected with the shielding member through the solder, thereby reducing a spurious charge, reducing the capacitance, and improving a high frequency.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Chinese Patent No. CN200910305610.1 discloses an electrical connecting device used to be connected with a chip module, which mainly includes a circuit board and a plurality of conductive terminals assembled in the circuit board. An upper surface and a lower surface of the circuit board are plated with metal layers, and are provided with a plurality of terminal holes running through a thickness direction thereof. Conductive layers are provided on inner walls of the terminal holes to be electrically connected with the signal path in the circuit board. The conductive terminals are accommodated in the terminal holes respectively and electrically connected with the conductive layers therein. The conductive terminals include signal terminals and ground terminals, and the two types of terminals have identical structures. Each conductive terminal includes a base, a contact portion and a supporting portion extending obliquely upward and downward from the base respectively, and retaining portions located at two sides of the base and extending perpendicularly. The retaining portions are in contact with the conductive layer and retain the conductive terminal in the corresponding terminal hole. In addition, the contact portion of each conductive terminal has a humpback portion protruding backward, which is not co-planar with the retaining portions. The humpback portion abuts the conductive layer to be in contact therewith. The terminal holes include terminal holes for accommodating the ground terminals and terminal holes for accommodating the signal terminals. The conductive layer on the inner wall of each terminal hole is communicated with the metal layers, thereby achieving a parallel effect of the ground terminals. An insulating colloid attached to the circuit board is provided at a top portion of each terminal hole. With the arrangement of the insulating colloid, the conductive layer on the inner wall of each terminal hole is electrically isolated from the metal layers.
However, the conductive layer and the humpback portion are in contact with each other, which results in an increased spurious charge, increasing capacitance and affecting a high frequency.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need to design an electrical connector exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

Substrate electrical connector with terminals in accommodating holes


A method and apparatus for electropolishing a conductive surface of a semiconductor wafer. The apparatus includes a polisher having at least one first electrode and at least one second electrode separated from one another by an isolation region. A moving mechanism rotates the wafer while the conductive surface of the wafer is moved linearly and parallel to a first direction, which varies an exposure of the relative surface areas of the conductive surface to the at least one first electrode and the at least one second electrode.

Conventional semiconductor devices generally include a semiconductor substrate, usually a silicon substrate, and a plurality of sequentially formed dielectric layers and conductive paths or interconnects made of conductive materials. Interconnects are usually formed by filling a conductive material in features or cavities etched into the dielectric layers. In an integrated circuit, multiple levels of interconnect networks laterally extend with respect to the substrate surface. Interconnects formed in different layers can be electrically connected using vias or contacts.
The filling of a conductive material into features, such as vias or trenches to form pads, lines, or contacts, can be carried out by electrodeposition. In an electrodeposition or electroplating method, a conductive material, such as copper, is deposited over the substrate surface, including into such features. Then, a material removal technique is typically employed to planarize and remove the excess metal from the top surface, leaving conductors only in the features. The standard material removal technique that is most commonly used for this purpose is chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). Chemical etching, electropolishing (which is also referred to as electroetching or electrochemical etching), and electrochemical mechanical polishing are also attractive process options for copper removal. Copper is the material of choice, at this time, for interconnect applications because of its low resistivity and good electromigration properties.
Standard electroplating techniques yield copper layers that deposit conformally over large features, such as features with widths larger than a few micrometers. This results in a plated wafer surface topography that is not flat. FIG. 1 shows an exemplary structure after a copper plating step. The substrate 10 includes small features 12, such as high aspect ratio trenches or vias, and large trenches 14. The features 12, 14 are formed, e.g., etched into a dielectric layer 16. The substrate 10 is an exemplary portion of a partially fabricated semiconductor wafer. The dielectric layer 16 has a top surface 18. The features 12, 14 and the surface 18 of the dielectric are coated with a barrier and/or adhesion layer 20 and a copper seed layer 22. The barrier layer 20 may be formed of Ta, TaN or combinations of any other materials that are commonly used as barriers to copper migration. The seed layer 22 is deposited over the barrier layer 20, although for specially designed barrier layers there may not be a need for a seed layer. After depositing the seed layer 22, copper is electrodeposited thereon from a suitable plating bath to form the copper layer 24.
During removal of the excess conductor, employing for example a CMP, etching or electropolishing process, the non-flat surface topography of the copper layer 24 is planarized as the excess conductor is removed from the surface, leaving it only within the features and desirably having a flat surface. As described above, standard electroplating techniques yield conformal deposits over large features and non-planar workpiece surfaces that need to be planarized during the excess material removal step. CMP has a tendency, however, to cause "dishing" of the copper surface within larger features 14.
Newly developed electrodeposition techniques, which are collectively called Electrochemical Mechanical Deposition (ECMD) methods, utilize a WSID (workpiece surface influencing device), such as a pad, a polishing pad, a mask or a sweeper in close proximity of the wafer surface during conductor deposition. Action of the WSID during plating gives planar conductor deposits with a flat surface topography even over the largest features present on the workpiece surface. Such a planar deposit is shown as layer 26 in FIG. 1. Removal of excess conductive material, such as copper from such planar deposits, does not require further planarization during the material removal step. Therefore, CMP, electropolishing or electroetching, chemical etching, and electrochemical mechanical polishing techniques may all be successfully employed for removing the overburden in a planar and uniform manner in this case.
Although much progress has been made in electropolishing approaches and apparatuses, there is still a need for electrochemical removal techniques that uniformly planarize and remove excess conductive films from workpiece surfaces. Preferably, such techniques should apply low force on the surface and without causing damage and defects, especially on advanced wafers with low-k materials.

System and method for electrochemical mechanical polishing


A method for facilitating a reduction in image artifacts is provided. The method includes receiving data regarding a scan of an object, reconstructing a plurality of images using the received data to form a three-dimensional image space, determining an orientation for a maximum intensity pixel operation, locating the maximum intensity pixels within a plurality of ray paths in accordance with the determined orientation, and filtering around each maximum intensity pixel along each ray path.

This invention relates generally to imaging systems and more particularly to methods and apparatus for reducing image artifacts.
When performing a helical scan with a computed tomography (CT) system, the attenuation path through the scanned object can vary. Such variance or non-uniformity in the attenuation path, coupled with using less than 360-degrees of projection data in the image reconstruction process, can result in image artifacts, such as Venetian blind or zebra artifacts, in the three-dimensional reformatted image. Venetian blind artifacts appear as alternating dark and light horizontal, or parallel, bars or lines in an image.
Venetian blinds artifacts can be observed in nearly all maximum intensity projection or volume reduced images. Accordingly, methods and apparatus that facilitate the reduction of artifacts is desirable.

Methods and apparatus for artifact reduction