A grid type element (1) of fiber composite structure, comprising a plurality of open polygonal cells (5) made of at least three core segments (16), said open polygonal cells (5) being stringed together alongside said ribs (16) to form a grid structure, and an essentially planar skin sheet (4), said essentially planar skin sheet (4) being attached unilaterally to the grid structure. A multipartite core (6) is provided, said core segments (6a, 6b, 6c) with respectively rectangular cross sections being formed of said multipartite core (6). Said at least three core segments (6a, 6b, 6c) are pivotable interconnected with at least two reduced cross sections (9) between two of said at least three core segments (6a, 6b, 6c) and at least one fiber composite layer (8, 7) is provided with said multipartite core (6), said at least one fiber composite layer (8, 7) sheathing at least partly said multipartite core (6). The invention is as well related to a method of manufacturing such grid type elements.

(1) Field of the Invention
The invention is related to a grid type fiber composite structure, particularly to a transverse force resilient grid type fiber composite structure for local load application with the features of claim 1, and a method of manufacturing such grid type fiber composite structures with the features of claim 11.
(2) Description of Related Art
The document US2004140049 A1 discloses a method of manufacturing a hollow section grid-stiffened panel comprising a tool having a surface. The stiffened skin composite panel is preassembled comprising laminating a composite outer skin on the surface, placing a separator outer layer on the composite outer skin, and laminating a composite stiffener on the mandrel, the mandrel being positioned on the separator layer, wherein the separator layer separates the stiffener and the mandrel from the outer composite skin.
The preassembled outer skin composite panel is cured on the tool. The separator layer and mandrel are removed from the preassembled stiffened skin composite panel. The stiffened skin composite panel is reassembled, comprising applying an adhesive between the composite outer skin and the composite stiffener. The reassembled stiffener skin composite panel is cured on the tool to bond the stiffener skin to the outer skin.
The document US2009038744 A1 discloses a cellular composite structure with a grid having groups of angularly intersecting ribs. The ribs of each group are oriented substantially in the same direction to each other and angularly oriented from the other rib groups. An additional rib defines a composite structure outer perimeter wall and can be differently angularly oriented from the other ribs. A contiguous rib wall is created by segments of ribs defined by rib intersections. The contiguous rib wall bounds a cavity. A multilayer sheet cap member with extending walls to engage the contiguous rib wall is positioned within the cavity. The engagement walls extend from individual sheet perimeter portions angularly oriented to the sheet. The ribs and cap member have pre-impregnated resin. Heating the cap member and ribs activates the resin and co-cures the composite structure.
The document EP 0 948 085 A2 relates to high stiffness parabolic structures utilizing integral reinforced grids and more particularly to a high stiffness parabolic structure utilizing an integral reinforcing grid which includes a skin facesheet having a generally parabolic shape; and a grid attached to the skin facesheet and having a triangular isogrid pattern.
The document DE 10 2009 053 053 A1 discloses a component with a rib structure provided with ribs that run along polygon edges, and including laminar grid-like polygons that are arranged next to each other. Two plate-shaped fiber composite structures containing carbon fibers represent the rib structure, where one of the fiber composite structures is fastened at a flat side of the other fiber composite structure and formed based on a flat fiber composite structure by inserting sections into an interior of a polygon and transforming produced structure projections to form the rib structure.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,523 A discloses a lattice type structural panel utilizing the unidirectional character of filamentary epoxy impregnated composites to produce stiff lightweight structural panels for use in constructing large area panels for space satellites and the like.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,012,549 A discloses a grid structure of I-beam members arranged in an integral repeating pattern of substantially equilateral triangles integral with a skin sheet covering the structure. The beam webs are filled with advanced composite materials comprising high-strength fibers in a supporting matrix. Preferably, the fibers run parallel to the beam webs for a structure of improved stiffness with a high strength-to-weight ratio.

Grid type element of open polygonal cells


According to the present invention, a recording film is partially initialized using a first light beam (A) having a wavelength for initialization, focus adjustment is performed using a second light beam (B) having a wavelength corresponding to a wavelength for recording and reproducing information on and from an information recording medium, and then the recording film is initialized using the first light beam (A), thereby it is possible to securely initialize recording films of all information layers of a multilayer information recording medium.

As one example of an information recording medium, there is a phase change type information recording medium including a recording film on which recording, erasure and rewriting of information are performed by optical means using laser light. The recording, erasure, and rewriting for the phase change type information recording medium are performed using the occurrence of reversible change in a phase change material between a crystal and an amorphous material in the recording film. To be more specific, generally, the recording of information is conducted by amorphizing part of the recording film to form a recording mark, and the erasure is conducted by crystallizing the recording mark. The amorphization is performed by heating the recording film to a temperature which is equal to or more than a melting point, and then rapidly cooling the same. On the other hand, the crystallization is performed by heating the recording film to a temperature which is equal to or more than a crystallization temperature and is equal to or less than the melting point or heating the same to a temperature which is equal to or more than the melting point, and then gradually cooling the same.
As one example of the phase change type information recording medium, there is an information recording medium such as a "Blu-ray Disc" currently commercialized. This "Blu-ray Disc" is used as an information recording medium corresponding to digital hi-vision broadcasting (High definition television broadcasting), and some of them have recording densities of 25 GB (one layer), and 50 GB (single-side double-layer), and a transfer rate of 36 Mbps (regular speed). As a material for a recording film in a regular-speed rewriting-type Blu-ray Disc, for example, a solid solution of GeTe and Sb2Te3 (refer to Patent Document 1) or a solid solution of GeTe and Bi2Te3 obtained by replacing Sb by Bi (refer to Patent Document 2) is used.
In the "Blu-ray Disc", a sputtering method is typically used to form the above-described recording film, a reflection film, and a dielectric film. The phase change thin film formed by this sputtering method, in most cases, is in an amorphous state. Accordingly, in the "Blu-ray Disc", before recording information, the entire recording film in the data region of the information recording medium needs to be crystallized. Processing for crystallizing the entire recording film in the amorphous state is referred to as initialization.
In the information recording medium, recently, shortening of a light beam for recording and reproduction has been advanced to process more information at a higher speed to accumulate a large amount of information. This leads to the use of laser light of 405 nm (400 to 410 nm) as in the foregoing "Blu-ray Disc". Moreover, in order to reduce manufacturing cost, a reduction in time required for the initialization for crystallizing the entire recording film has been demanded. For this reason, a configuration is necessary, in which a wide range of the recording film can be initialized in a short time using the light beam in a large spot shape having a predetermined power. Accordingly, laser light having a wavelength of 810 nm (800 to 820 nm) which easily brings about high output is used as the light beam for initialization.
FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram showing a general configuration of a conventional initialization apparatus. As shown in FIG. 9, an information recording medium 209 is irradiated with a light beam A from an optical head 200, so that a recording film of the information recording medium 209 is initialized. In FIG. 9, in a light source 201 emitting the light beam A having a wavelength of 810 nm, an output power of the light source 201 is controlled by a laser drive circuit 208. The light beam A emitted from the light source 201 passes through a light path correction means 206 and a collimator lens 207, and is reflected in a beam splitter 203. The light beam A reflected in the beam splitter 203 passes through an objective lens 205, and reaches the information recording medium 209. The light beam A reflected in the recording film or the like of the information recording medium 209 again passes through the objective lens 205, and enters a focus error detector 210. At this time, an electric signal indicating the light beam A detected in the focus error detector 210 is inputted to a focus error signal generation circuit 211. The focus error signal generation circuit 211 forms a focus error signal, and outputs the focus error signal to a focus servo circuit 212. The focus servo circuit 212 drives a voice coil 204, based on the focus error signal to adjust a position of the objective lens 205. In this manner, the focus servo circuit 212 drives the voice coil 204 to perform the position adjustment of the objective lens 205, so that the light beam A is focused on a predetermined recording film of the information recording medium 209. The laser drive circuit 208 and the focus servo circuit 212 are controlled by a controller 213 (refer to Patent Document 3).
Patent Document 3 discloses an initialization method for an information recording medium including two information layers as an information layer having a recording film, in the initialization apparatus configured as described above.

Initialization method for information recording medium, initialization apparatus for information recording medium, and information recording medium


A system and method of modifying a binaural signal using headtracking information. The system calculates a delay, a first filter response, and a second filter response, and applies these to the left and right components of the binaural signal according to the headtracking information. The system may also apply headtracking to parametric binaural signals. In this manner, headtracking may be applied to pre-rendered binaural audio.

The present disclosure relates to binaural audio, and in particular, to adjustment of a pre-rendered binaural audio signal according to movement of a listener's head.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Binaural audio generally refers to audio that is recorded, or played back, in such a way that accounts for the natural ear spacing and head shadow of the ears and head of a listener. The listener thus perceives the sounds to originate in one or more spatial locations. Binaural audio may be recorded by using two microphones placed at the two ear locations of a dummy head. Binaural audio may be played back using headphones. Binaural audio may be rendered from audio that was recorded non-binaurally by using a head-related transfer function (HRTF) or a binaural room impulse response (BRIR). Binaural audio generally includes a left signal (to be output by the left headphone), and a right signal (to be output by the right headphone). Binaural audio differs from stereo in that stereo audio may involve loudspeaker crosstalk between the loudspeakers.
Head tracking (or headtracking) generally refers to tracking the orientation of a user's head to adjust the input to, or output of, a system. For audio, headtracking refers to changing an audio signal according to the head orientation of a listener.
Binaural audio and headtracking may be combined as follows. First, a sensor generates headtracking data that corresponds to the orientation of the listener's head. Second, the audio system uses the headtracking data to generate a binaural audio signal from channel-based or object-based audio. Third, the audio system sends the binaural audio signal to the listener's headphones for playback. The process then continues, with the headtracking data being used to generate the binaural audio signal.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Headtracking for pre-rendered binaural audio

Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation


A system analyzes one or more search streams to detect one or more associations between a document and one or more queries in the one or more search streams. The system further derives a value for the document based on the detected associations and uses the derived value in evaluating a quality of the document with respect to one or more subsequent queries.

Field of the Invention
Implementations described herein relate generally to information searching and, more particularly, to deriving and using document quality signals from search query streams.
Description of Related Art
Existing information searching systems use search queries to search through aggregated data to retrieve specific information that corresponds to the received search queries. Such information searching systems may search information based locally, or in distributed locations. The World Wide Web ("web") is one example of information in distributed locations. The web contains a vast amount of information, but locating a desired portion of that information can be challenging. This problem is compounded because the amount of information on the web, and the number of new users inexperienced at web searching, are growing rapidly.
Search engines attempt to return hyperlinks to web documents in which a user is interested. Generally, search engines base their determination of the user's interest on search terms (e.g., in a search query provided by the user). The goal of the search engine is to provide links to high quality, relevant results to the user based on the search query. Typically, the search engine accomplishes this by matching the terms in the search query to a corpus of pre-stored web documents. Web documents that contain the user's search terms are considered "hits" and are returned to the user.
To return the "best" results of a search, it is important to measure, in some fashion, the quality of documents, such as web documents. One existing document quality measurement technique calculates an Information Retrieval (IR) score that is a measure of how relevant a document is to a search query. The IR score can be weighted in various ways. For example, matches in a document's title might be weighted more than matches in a footer. Similarly, matches in text that is of larger font or bolded or italicized may be weighted more than matches in normal text. A document's IR score may be influenced in other ways. For example, a document matching all of the terms of the search query may receive a higher score than a document matching one of the terms. All of these factors can be combined in some manner to generate an IR score for a document that may be used in determining a quality of the results from an executed search.
Scores derived from an existing link-based document ranking algorithm may additionally be used in conjunction with IR scores. PageRank is one existing global, link-based document ranking algorithm that derives quality signals from the link structure of the web. Often, however, link structure may be unavailable, unreliable, or limited in scope, thus, limiting the value of using PageRank in ascertaining the relative quality of some documents.

Deriving and using document and site quality signals from search query streams


A process for increasing light olefin yields from the fluidized catalytic cracking process. The process combines small units to treat the paraffinic components in the product streams from the fluidized cracking process. The paraffins are dehydrogenated and light olefins are separated. Heavier olefins are passed to an olefin cracking unit for increasing the yields of ethylene and propylene.

Ethylene and propylene, light olefin hydrocarbons with two or three atoms per molecule, respectively, are important chemicals for use in the production of other useful materials, such as polyethylene and polypropylene. Polyethylene and polypropylene are two of the most common plastics found in use today and have a wide variety of uses both as a material fabrication and as a material for packaging. Other uses for ethylene and propylene include the production of vinyl chloride, ethylene oxide, ethylbenzene and alcohol. Steam cracking or pyrolysis of hydrocarbons produces most of the ethylene and some propylene. One of the disadvantages of steam cracking is the low ratio of propylene to ethylene. Hydrocarbons used as feedstock for light olefin production include natural gas, petroleum liquids, and carbonaceous materials including coal, recycled plastics or any organic material.
An ethylene plant is a very complex combination of reaction and gas recovery systems. The feedstock is charged to a cracking zone in the presence of steam at effective thermal conditions to produce a pyrolysis reactor effluent gas mixture. The pyrolysis reactor effluent gas mixture is stabilized and separated into purified components through a sequence of cryogenic and conventional fractionation steps. A typical ethylene separation section of an ethylene plant containing both cryogenic and conventional fractionation steps to recover an ethylene product with a purity exceeding 99.5% ethylene is described in an article by V. Kaiser and M. Picciotti, entitled, "Better Ethylene Separation Unit." The article appeared in HYDROCARBON PROCESSING MAGAZINE, November 1988, pages 57-61 and is hereby incorporated by reference.
Methods are known for increasing the conversion of portions of the products of the ethylene production from a zeolitic cracking process to produce more propylene by a disproportionation or metathesis of olefins. Such processes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,935 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,936 wherein a metathesis reaction step is employed in combination with a catalytic cracking step to produce more propylene by the metathesis of C2 and C4 olefins obtained from cracking. The catalytic cracking step employs a zeolitic catalyst to convert a hydrocarbon stream having 4 or more carbon atoms per molecule to produce olefins having fewer carbon atoms per molecule. The hydrocarbon feedstream to the zeolitic catalyst typically contains a mixture of 40 to 100 wt-% paraffins having 4 or more carbon atoms per molecule and 0 to 60 wt-% olefins having 4 or more carbon atoms per molecule. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,522, it is disclosed that the preferred catalyst for such a zeolitic cracking process is an acid zeolite, examples includes several of the ZSM-type zeolites or the borosilicates. Of the ZSM-type zeolites, ZSM-5 was preferred. It was disclosed that other zeolites containing materials which could be used in the cracking process to produce ethylene and propylene included zeolite A, zeolite X, zeolite Y, zeolite ZK-5, zeolite ZK-4, synthetic mordenite, dealuminized mordenite, as well as naturally occurring zeolites including chabazite, faujasite, mordenite, and the like. Zeolites which were ion-exchanged to replace alkali metal present in the zeolite were preferred. Preferred alkali exchange cations were hydrogen, ammonium, rare earth metals and mixtures thereof.
European Patent No. 109,059B1 discloses a process for the conversion of a feedstream containing olefins having 4 to 12 carbon atoms per molecule into propylene by contacting the feedstream with a ZSM-5 or a ZSM-11 zeolite having a silica to alumina atomic ratio less than or equal to 300 at a temperature from 400 to 600° C. The ZSM-5 or ZSM-11 zeolite is exchanged with a hydrogen or an ammonium cation. The reference also discloses that, although the conversion to propylene is enhanced by the recycle of any olefins with less than 4 carbon atoms per molecule, paraffins which do not react tend to build up in the recycle stream. The reference provides an additional oligomerization step wherein the olefins having 4 carbon atoms are oligomerized to facilitate the removal of paraffins such as butane and particularly isobutane which are difficult to separate from C4 olefins by conventional fractionation. In a related European Patent No. 109,060B1, a process is disclosed for the conversion of butenes to propylene. The process comprises contacting butenes with a zeolitic compound selected from the group consisting of silicalites, boralites, chromosilicates and those zeolites ZSM-5 and ZSM-11 in which the mole ratio of silica to alumina is greater than or equal to 350. The conversion is carried out at a temperature from 500° C. to 600° C. and at a space velocity of from 5 to 200 kg/hr of butenes per kg of pure zeolitic compound. The European Patent No. 109,060B1 discloses the use of silicalite-1 in an ion-exchanged, impregnated, or co-precipitated form with a modifying element selected from the group consisting of chromium, magnesium, calcium, strontium and barium.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,867,341 to Abrevaya et al. teaches naphtha cracking using a catalyst comprising a molecular sieve having 10-membered rings with channels of length 0.1 to 0.3 micrometers and having a silicon to aluminum atomic ratio of about 20 to about 200. In particular, examples are presented showing that a high Si/Al2 ratio Ferrierite catalyst is more effective for naphtha conversion and gives higher yields of the desired products ethylene and propylene than other zeolites examined. Preferred operating temperatures in the range 650 to 670 C are indicated, and operating pressures should be as low as can be economically achieved.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,288,298 to Rodriguez et al. teaches cracking of a naphtha stream that contains a mixture of paraffins and olefins (for example, a product stream from a steam naphtha cracker or a FCC process) using a high silicon content SAPO-11 catalyst with AEL structure. Preferred operating temperatures in the range 500° C. to 600° C. are indicated. The SAPO catalyst is shown by example to have higher activity and selectivity for propylene than conventional FCC catalyst additives such as ZSM-5. U.S. Pat. No. 6,300,537 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,521,563, both to Strohmaier et al. (and both assigned to ExxonMobil) show similar results using a different preparation of high silicon SAPO-11 designated ECR-42.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,258,257 to Swan et al. teaches a two stage process for producing C2 to C4 olefins from gas oil in which the gas oil is first contacted with an FCC catalyst to produce an olefinic naphtha stream and this naphtha stream is then contacted with ZSM-5 or other small or medium pore zeolites at a temperature in the range 630° C. to 650° C.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,791,002 to Abrevaya et al. teaches use of a plurality of riser reactors attached to a common regenerator, allowing each riser reactor to contact an oil stream at different conditions of temperature and residence time. Unconverted intermediate products from catalytic cracking of naphtha are recycled to different riser reactors where they are contacted with catalyst under the appropriate reaction conditions.
With the increasing demand for light olefins, improvements that can increase the yields without significantly increasing the capital expense or increasing the utility costs are important. Improvements and integration with other processes can improve yields of light olefins by increasing the utilization of other process streams. Also, improving the use of processes that yield intermediate process streams which can be diverted for conversion to light olefins can result in significant yield increases.

Integration of cyclic dehydrogenation process with FCC for dehydrogenation of refinery paraffins


An infrared fluorescent particle comprising a functional group or a substance that is capable of binding to an analyte, wherein fluorescence at infrared wavelength is emitted from the particle upon exposure of the particle to excitation light at infrared wavelength. The infrared fluorescent particle of the present invention is capable of binding to the analyte. Due to a high penetration of the fluorescence and the excitation light into biological substances; the infrared fluorescent particle of the present invention can reduce an influence of luminescence, light absorption or light scattering which is occurred due to the analyte and the surrounding substances.

At present, there is a technology called "imaging" or "imaging technology". In the imaging technology, some fluorescent material is injected into a biological body followed by the aggregation of the fluorescent material near a particular area of the body, and then the aggregated fluorescent material is observed from outside the body. For this reason, the fluorescent material is expected as a useful material in the imaging technology. In this technology, not only safety and stability are required for the fluorescent material, but also a high penetrating power of excitation light and fluorescence to biological materials is required. From this point of view, an organic fluorescent material that emits light having from ultraviolet wavelengths to visible wavelengths as well as a quantum dot-substance, for example, has problems with a fluorescent stability, a toxicity and a penetrability of fluorescence.
The present invention is directed to solve the above problems. That is to say, an object of the present invention is to provide a favorable fluorescent particle in terms of a penetration of fluorescence and excitation light into biological materials so that the particle can be suitably used in the imaging technology and the like.

Functional infrared fluorescent particle


A novel disposable container and method is used for cleaning and lubricating a standard dental handpiece. The disposable container completely encloses a head of the dental handpiece. When the handpiece is cleaned or lubricated with cleaning or lubricating agents, the container collects cleaning or lubricating agents and any other materials that are expelled therewith from the handpiece to prevent these materials from entering the atmosphere.

The present invention generally relates to method for cleaning and lubricating a dental handpiece and to an apparatus which may be employed in this method. More specifically, the invention relates to a disposable container that prevents materials that are expelled from the handpiece during cleaning or lubrication from entering the atmosphere.
Current standards of dental practice require sterilization of dental handpieces between patients. However, the handpiece must be cleaned before going into the sterilizer. This usually includes cleaning the turbine and internal parts. In normal procedures, a cleaning fluid is circulated throughout the dental handpiece by connecting the handpiece to a suitable supply of cleaning fluid and energizing the handpiece. The cleaning fluid and any residue which are expelled through the head of the handpiece escape into the atmosphere. Additionally, after the sterilization of the handpiece has been completed, the handpiece will usually require lubrication. Again, the handpiece is connected to a suitable supply of lubricating fluid and energized. Any excess lubricating fluid which is expelled through the head escapes into the atmosphere.
Dental professionals have started using elaborate devices that flush, disinfect and lubricate the handpiece. However, this merely creates another device which must be cleaned and disinfected or sterilized. Furthermore, such devices are often expensive.
The present invention presents a novel apparatus and method intended to minimize these problems, as well as to present several other improvements.

Method for cleaning and lubricating a dental handpiece with a disposable container


A method of controlling a plurality of light fixtures. The method includes detecting the light outputs of a plurality of light fixtures and detecting a reflection of light from a surface. The light outputs and the reflection of light are analyzed. Differences among the light outputs of the plurality of light fixtures are determined, and a difference between the reflection of light and a desired reflection of light is determined. New or updated values for output color, output brightness, and output spectra are determined for the plurality of light fixtures such that the light outputs of the light fixtures are consistent and correspond to a desired light output, and such that the reflection of light corresponds to the desired reflection of light. Each of the plurality of light fixtures is then driven using respective light source output values to produce the desired light outputs.

This invention relates to controlling an output of a light fixture.
Among a plurality of light fixtures, each light fixture may generate a slightly different light output than the other light fixtures. Different light fixtures generate different light outputs for a variety of reasons. For example, one light fixture may include incandescent light sources and use gels to generate outputs of different colors, another light fixture may include four light-emitting diode ("LED") light sources, and a third light fixture may include seven LED light sources. Each of the light fixtures may be capable of producing outputs that are similar to one another, but different control settings may be required for each lighting fixture in order to produce a desired, consistent output among the light fixtures.
Additionally, as light sources age, the color output or color and the brightness of the light sources can be adversely affected. For example, as LEDs age, the brightness of the output generated for a given input setting may be lower than it was when the LEDs were new. These and other issues can adversely affect the appearance of the light produced by an individual light source or individual light fixture. Light sources or light fixtures that are only calibrated for color bin variances at the time of manufacturing are not compensated for these changes that occur over time.

System and method for controlling a plurality of light fixture outputs


A production method for an organic EL display comprises sticking an anti-static sheet 2 onto the first main surface of a glass substrate 11 on which a metal hat 13 is formed and etching the second main surface 11c of the glass substrate 11 stuck with the anti-static sheet 2.

An organic EL display has features that the simplification of a drive circuit can be achieved because of being driven by a direct current voltage, dependency of viewing angle like a liquid crystal display can be reduced, and a bright image can be obtained owing to self luminescence. Furthermore, because of having an advantage of fast response time or speed, the organic EL display is paid to attention as a flat display panel.
In a producing method of such kind of the organic EL display, anodes, organic films, and cathodes are firstly laminated using a vapor deposition on a transparent electrode glass as a glass substrate thereby forming organic EL elements and wiring patterns. Next, each of the organic EL elements formed on the transparent electrode glass is covered by a metal cap (protecting plate or protecting member) formed of SUS, Al and so forth, and the metal caps are fixed adhesively on the transparent electrode glass. Finally, the transparent electrode glass is divided with each organic EL element, thereby producing organic EL displays (refer to Patent Document 1).
Incidentally, in order to reduce the thickness of the organic EL display, a method of etching is adopted in which the glass substrate as a transparent substrate is etched using an etching liquid, such as a hydrofluoric acid solution.
However, there is a fear that the metal cap corrodes when the metal cap is immersed into the etching liquid. On the other hand, in case that a masking sheet is adopted to mask a main surface of the glass substrate to which the etching is unnecessary in order to protect the metal cap from corrosion due to the etching liquid, there are fears that the wiring patterns might be damaged by being contacted with the masking sheet, and static electricity charged in the masking sheet causes adverse effects on the organic EL elements.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Gazette No. 3,626,728

Method for producing an organic EL display


Reactor for producing silicon by chemical vapor deposition, the reactor comprising a reactor body that forms a container, at least one inlet for a silicon-bearing gas, at least one outlet, and at least one heating device as a part of or operatively arranged to the reactor, distinctive in that at least one main part of the reactor, which part is exposed for silicon-bearing gas and which part is heated for deposition of silicon on said part, is produced from silicon. Method for operation of the reactor.

Silicon is a very important material in the electronics industry and the solar cell industry. Currently, high-purity silicon for use in the solar cell industry can be produced using metallurgical methods. However, silicon of metallurgical quality results in solar cells with limited efficiency. Methods for chemical vapor deposition (CVD) must be used to produce silicon of sufficient purity that gives higher efficiency for solar cells in addition to applications within the electronics industry. Silicon waste from the electronics industry has been used for producing solar cells. However, the growth of the solar cell industry has caused shortage of silicon. The world's huge need for environmentally friendly energy, in addition to the continually growing importance and spread of the electronics industry, involves a great need for equipment which contributes to the production of high-purity silicon at low costs.
The Siemens process is the most widespread method for CVD used to produce polycrystalline silicon. More precisely, a halosilane, like trichlorosilane, deposits onto a resistance heated rod. The energy requirement is high. A more detailed description of the process is described in the patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 3,979,490.
Another method for CVD is fluidized bed pyrolysis, wherein silicon seed particles are surrounded by and kept in an ascending gas flow, as the gas flow comprises silicon-bearing gas, from which silicon can deposit onto the seed particles. The advantage using this fluidized bed is the vast surface area onto which silicon can deposit, which enables the possibility of increased and continuous production as well as lower energy consumption. However, a practical and simple way to bring out particles that has grown sufficiently large is hard to achieve in practice. More precisely, it is hard to control the particle size in a fluidized bed reactor, and it is very hard to control the distribution of the particles in the operating reactor. The uneven distribution of the particles affects the flow state, which again affects the temperature distribution and the depositing of silicon. The method requires adding new particles from outside the reactor or small particles that form in the reactor during operation. The drainage of large particles in the bottom of the reactor as well as the addition of small particles that should increase in size requires at the same time controlling many parameters, which has proven to be very hard in practical operation over time. A common problem in CVD reactors is that particles grow together and gradually block the fluidization. Furthermore, the decomposition of silane or halosilane in a heated fluidized bed reactor can cause deposits of fine particles, which is undesirable, as accessories for particle separation and subsequent melting are required. This causes comprehensive handling and increased risk of contamination and loss of material.
The biggest problem in CVD reactors, however, is usually unwanted deposition of silicon onto the inner surfaces of the reactor and nozzles, which causes the nozzles and the reactor volume to clog. To prevent such undesirable deposits of silicon, the seed particles in a fluidizing reaction zone must be kept at a reaction temperature while the temperature of the reactor walls and nozzles must be kept significantly lower, which is extremely hard to achieve, especially when heating from outside the reactor. The problem is discussed in the patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,495, column 2, line 40, to column 3, line 20, and in the patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,934. A technique that is deployed to be able to loosen silicon from the reactor walls and its nozzles, is to apply a non-stick coating to the surfaces, which simplifies the subsequent manual or automated removal of silicon deposits.
A thorough description of methods for CVD with a fluidizing bed and appurtenant equipment as well as operation parameters for the production of silicon, including gas mixtures, temperatures for deposits and problems and limitations concerning this, can be found in the patent publications U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,495 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,934 which contain detailed information.
There is a need for an alternative technology which is advantageous with regard to one or more of the problems mentioned above.

Reactor and method for production of silicon


In methods for smoothing or polishing a surface of a wafer, such as a silicon wafer, a liquid layer is formed on a surface of the wafer. The liquid layer may be an invisible microscopic layer, or a visible macroscopic layer. A flow of an oxidizing gas is directed over, against or onto the liquid layer of the surface of the wafer, in the presence of an etchant. The flow of gas thins the liquid layer at high points or areas on the surface of the wafer more than at low points or areas on the wafer surface. Consequently, the high points are oxidized and etched away more than the low points. As a result, the wafer surface is smoothed and polished.

Silicon wafer polishing is an important step in manufacturing semiconductor devices, micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS), micro-optical devices, and similar micro-scale devices manufactured on a substrate. Polishing the wafer provides the mirror-like and very flat surface required for the fabrication of micro-scale devices. Conventionally, wafer polishing is a multi-step process using a slurry containing abrasives, and chemical mixtures, such as acids. The wafer is secured on a turntable and is rotated. Polishing heads, such as pads, brushes, sponges, etc. press on the rotating wafer. A combination of chemical and mechanical effects polish the wafer. This type of polishing, known as chemical-mechanical polishing, or "CMP", has been widely used for over 30 years.
In practice, polishing can be a complex process presenting many challenges and complications. Changes in various polishing parameters, including spin speed, pressure, time, slurry composition, wafer flatness, pad wear, uniformity of loading, etc. can affect the outcome. In addition, these chemical/mechanical processes generally require several remedial follow on steps, to reduce stresses in the wafer created by the polishing step, or to remove slurry particles or other contamination caused by the polishing step. Moreover, wafer polishing can be time consuming in the manufacturing process. While extensive research and development efforts have concentrated on trying to reduce these disadvantages, especially in the semiconductor industry, the basic underlying problems with CMP remain. Accordingly, while CMP and other existing polishing technology has achieved various successes, there is vast need for improved polishing techniques.

System and methods for polishing a wafer


Provided herein is a method of treating cancer by the administration of binuclear gold(I) compounds in patients in need thereof. The pharmaceutical compounds possess anti-cancer activity such as the induction of cell death, inhibition of cellular proliferation, inhibition of thioredoxin reductase activity, and inhibition of tumor growth in vivo.

The success of cisplatin [cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II)] to treat cancer has stimulated scientists to develop cisplatin analogues [Wong, E. et al. Chem. Rev. 1999, 99, 2451] and other classes of metal-based drug [Sadler, P. J. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 3064; Sadler, P. J. Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 2008, 12, 197]. A variety of gold(I) and gold(III) compounds have been demonstrated to overcome the cisplatin-related resistance and induce DNA-independent apoptosis [Berners-Price, S. J. (2011) Gold-Based Therapeutic Agents: A New Perspective, in Bioinorganic Medicinal Chemistry (ed E. Alessio), Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany. doi:10.1002/9783527633104.ch7]. Nevertheless, one of the major challenges to clinically develop gold compounds as anti-cancer agents is to overcome the stability problem. Various reported gold(III) compounds are unstable under physiological conditions especially in the presence of biological reductants (e.g., glutathione). On the other hand, numerous reported gold(I) compounds would undergo rapid ligand exchanging reaction with physiological thiols (e.g., free cysteine in serum albumin) before reaching solid tumor tissues. As a consequence, the gold(I) compounds, such as auranofin, were found to be only effective to leukemia but display no effects to other solid tumors [Christopher et al. Cancer Res. 1985, 45, 32].
In literature, several physiological stable mono-nuclear gold(I) compounds which are relatively stable against ligand exchanging reactions with physiological thiols have been reported. One of these examples, [Au(dppe)2]Cl (wherein dppe=1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane), which is a phosphine-containing gold(I) compound, was found to be inert to physiological thiols and can effectively inhibit tumor growth in vivo [Berners-Price, S. J. et al. Cancer Res. 1986, 46, 5486]. Yet, this compound displayed severe side effects and toxicity to lung, heart and liver, as a result of mitochondria dysfunction [Berners-Price, S. J.; Filipovska, A. Metallomics 2011, 3, 863]. In a recent study, another anti-cancer gold(I) compound [Au(d2pypp)2]Cl (wherein d2pypp=1,3-bis(dipyridin-2-ylphosphino)propane) has been developed. This compound is relatively less lipophilic and has an increased reactivity towards thiol and may target to mitochondria thioredoxin reductase (TrxR). A cell-based study revealed that [Au(d2pypp)2]Cl could selectively induce apoptosis in cancer cells but not in normal cells [Berners-Price, S. J. et al. Dalton Trans 2007, 4943]. We reckon that the anti-cancer activity as well as its bio-availability of this compound could be further enhanced by appropriate structural modification of the phosphine ligand. Nevertheless, there remains a formidable challenge for chemists to strategically modify this phosphine-containing compound, since modification on phosphine is rather complicated and it commonly requires Schlenk techniques and low-temperature (−40° C.) synthesis.
A series of binuclear gold(I) compounds [Au2(dcpm)2]2+ (wherein dcpm=bis(dicyclohexylphosphanyl)methane) were found to be highly luminescent as a result from the Au(I) . . . Au(I) attraction (Che, C.-M. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1999, 38, 2783.; Che, C.-M. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1999, 121, 4799). Some binuclear gold(I) compounds such as [Au2(dppm)Cl2] (wherein dppm=bis(diphenylphosphino)methane) were found to induce autophagy in cancer cells (Che, C.-M. et al. Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 9318). In addition to the phosphine ligands, N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) and dithiocarbamate ligands have been employed to stabilize various kinds of metal ions in preparing metal-based anti-cancer agents (Che, C.-M. et al. Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 3893; Che, C.-M. et al. Chem. Sci. 2011, 2, 728; Berners-Price, S. J.; Filipovska, A. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 12570; Fregona, D. et al. Int. J. Cancer. 2011, 129, 487). With these successful anti-cancer precedents, we believe that gold(I) compounds containing two different types of bidentate ligands including the diphosphine and dicarbene/dithiocarbamate would have potent prospects for the treatment of cancers.

Method of using binuclear gold (I) compounds for cancer treatment


The subject matter of the present invention is a method for joining at least two portions or sections of clothing or covering materials in the form of pieces of flexible skins, the materials of the two pieces of skin having a similar or different thickness and/or rigidity or folding stiffness, the join being formed between and along two edges folded opposite one another and in contact end to end of said pieces of skin, so as to form a joining line.

The present invention relates more particularly to the production of articles or pieces having a covering material consisting of several (at least two) skins of different natures, types constitutions, or different properties.
Its subject matter is a method for joining at least two pieces of different skins, a method for producing an article or component comprising a composite skin and an article or component obtained in this way.
The essential aim of the invention is to improve the aesthetic appearance and the regularity of a joining line or the joint between two pieces of skin with different and/or non-uniform characteristics.
However, when such a composite skin (formed by joining several pieces of skin) is subjected to constrictions, pressure, or tension, particularly during subsequent perfecting procedures, fixing or installing, irregularities and faults are revealed along the linear join area and these reduce the aesthetic appearance of the interface between the two pieces of skin concerned.
Two types of faults can be highlighted: the presence of discontinuity in the structure of the interface in its longitudinal extension (resulting for example from structural discontinuities along the edge of one of the two pieces of skin) and a difference in aspect and/or uncoupling between the two juxtaposed edges at the level of the interface (see FIG. 1).
The problem addressed by the present invention is to propose a solution which makes it possible to eliminate at least the first kind of said fault, and if possible, also the second.
To this effect, the subject matter of the invention is a method for joining at least two portions or sections of clothing or covering materials in the form of pieces of flexible skins, the materials of the two pieces of skin to be joined, as necessary on each occasion, having a similar or different thickness and/or rigidity or folding stiffness, the joining being carried out between and along two edges folded opposite one another and in contact end to end of said pieces of skin, so as to form a joining line, the method being characterized in that it comprises, prior to the formation of the folded edges to be joined and prior to the joining itself, treating at least one or each border edge that is to form a folded edge of one of the two pieces of skin so as to level out its thickness and/or its rigidity or flexibility over the entire longitudinal extension of the border edge(s) concerned, if necessary, by adjusting or adapting it to the thickness and/or the rigidity or flexibility of the other piece of skin to the level of its respective border edge.

Multimaterial stitching skins preparation


A digital image is obtained. A face depicted in the digital image is detected. A set of characteristics is obtained, where the set of characteristics are associated with at least some portion of a face. An attractiveness score is generated based at least in part on the detected face and the set of characteristics.

Digital cameras and other devices that capture digital images are popular compared to older devices, such as 35 mm cameras. For example, digital images can be easily shared with other people by uploading them to a website where other people can access the images or by sending them as attachments to an email. Although there are devices and applications that generate and/or operate on digital images, it would be desirable to develop techniques that, for example, further improve a user's ability to take desirable or quality digital images and/or enable a user to locate quality or attractive digital images in a large collection of images (e.g., a professional wedding photographer's entire portfolio).

Generation and usage of attractiveness scores


Provided is an optical disc apparatus including an interference-type optical disk signal detection system, which allows an optical path difference between two kinds of light to be controlled easily, which has a high signal amplification effect, and which is suitable for miniaturization of an optical system. An interference-type optical system is integrally formed to stabilize an optical path difference between signal light and reference light. At the same time, means for controlling an optical path length of the reference light is attached to a reference mirror, and thereby controls signal amplitude so as to be constantly set the maximum in response to a change in the optical path length with time due to a variation in the thickness of a cover layer of an optical disk, a temperature and the like. Moreover, the optical system is miniaturized by using a Twyman-Green type interference optical system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a higher signal-to-noise ratio of a read-out signal in an optical disc apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As to optical discs, a Blu-ray Disc which is read and written by using a blue laser diode and a high NA (Numerical Aperture) objective lens has been commercialized. With this commercialization, it is considered that the optical discs have almost reached its limit in terms of the resolution of its optical system, and that, hereafter, a multi-layer structure in an optical disc is effective in order to further achieve a larger capacity in the optical disc. In a multi-layer optical disc, the amounts of light detected from respective layers need to be approximately the same. Thus, the reflectance from a specific layer has to be kept small. Meanwhile, along with the achievement in an increase of the capacity in the optical disc, a transfer rate has also been continuously increased because of the need to increase a dubbing speed for a video and the like. Accordingly, a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio of a read-out signal becomes less and less likely to be secured without modification. For this reason, a higher signal-to-noise ratio of a detection signal is required to achieve the multi-layer and the higher speed at the same time in the future.
Techniques related to the higher signal-to-noise ratio of a read-out signal of the optical disc are described, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publications Nos. Hei 5 (1993)-342678, Hei 6 (1994)-223433 or the like. Both of the techniques are related to the higher signal-to-noise ratio of a read-out signal of a magneto-optical disk, and aim to achieve the following. Specifically, light from a laser diode is branched off before irradiation onto an optical disk. Then, light with which the optical disc is not irradiated is combined with and interferes with light reflected from the optical disk. Thus, the amplitude of a weak signal is increased by increasing the amount of the light with which the optical disc is not irradiated. In a case where a differential detection between transmitted light and reflected light is performed by a polarizing beam splitter heretofore used in a signal detection for a magneto-optical disk, the detection is performed essentially in the following manner. Specifically, original incident polarization components are allowed to interfere with polarization components orthogonal to an incident polarization direction. The orthogonal polarization components are generated by polarization rotation of the magneto-optical disk. In this way, the detection is performed by amplifying the orthogonal polarization components with the original incident polarization. Thus, the signal can be amplified by increasing the original incident polarization components. However, in order to prevent deletion and overwriting of data, the intensity of light made incident on the optical disk needs to be suppressed to a certain level or less. In contrast to this, in the conventional techniques described above, the intensity of light allowed to interfere with signal light for signal amplification can be increased regardless of the intensity of light on a surface of the disk in the following way. To be more precise, the light to be allowed to interfere with the signal light is previously separated. Then, the separated light is not collected on the disk, but allowed to interfere with the signal light. Thus, in principle, the more the intensity is increased within the allowable range of the intensity, the more the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved in relation to, for example, the noise of an amplifier which converts a photocurrent from a photo detector into a voltage, or the shot noise caused by the photo detector.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 5 (1993)-342678, two lights are allowed to interfere with each other to detect the interference intensity. In this event, securing of interference signal amplitude is intended by varying an optical path length of disk-nonreflective light to interfere with the other light. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 6 (1994)-223433, the differential detection is also performed, in addition to the interference intensity detection. Thus, a higher signal-to-noise ratio is realized by canceling intensity components of the respective lights, which do not contribute to a signal, and by canceling noise components of the lights. For the differential detection in this case, a non-polarizing beam splitter is used.


A dietary supplement comprising a reaction product of sodium bicarbonate and apple cider vinegar which is lyophilized.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a dietary supplement. More specifically, the product is a lyophilized or freeze-dried reaction product of aqueous solutions of sodium bicarbonate and apple cider vinegar.
2. Description of the Related Art
The related art of interest is directed to various food supplements which contain added vitamins and minerals which add to the overall cost of preparation and purchase. There is a need for an inexpensive food supplement based on simple and inexpensive ingredients which still provides substantial health benefits to the health and vigor of the individual taking this food product. The related art will be discussed in order of perceived relevance to the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,477,481 issued on Oct. 16, 1984, to William A. Eisenhardt, Jr. et al. describes a method for producing dried citrus pulp by adding calcium and/or potassium oxide salts to fresh citrus pulp to raise the pH to at least 4.0. The lemon or orange pulp is frozen by liquid nitrogen and freeze-dried al less than 250 microns of mercury pressure, then in Example 1, using a shelf temperature profile of -20.degree. C. for 20 hours, -15.degree. C. for 8 hrs. and up to ambient temperature over a weekend period. The dried pulp is reconstituted in aqueous solution. The product is distinguishable for its reliance on a citrus pulp.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,717,920 issued on Jun. 18, 1929, to Valentine Gilbert describes a process of producing a low alcohol beverage from a 2-3.5% alcohol containing beer which is a malted cereal grain (barley) flavored with hops and brewed by slow fermentation with lactic acid bacteria. The acid content is lowered by adding sodium bicarbonate and optionally carbon dioxide under pressure. The product contains living lactic acid bacteria. The product is distinguishable for being beer and containing living bacteria.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,355 issued on Apr. 1, 1997, to William E. Haast et al. describes lyophilized granola-type health food products from apple juice and a mixture of 20% wheat bran and 80% oat bran having a high fiber content from 20-60 wt. % The mixture is shaped, frozen and lyophilized. The product is distinguishable for the required ingredient of bran solids.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,844 issued on Feb. 28, 1978, to Heinrich Ebner et al. describes two- and three-stage processes for the production of vinegar with high acetic acid concentration. For a two-stage process, a submerged vinegar fermentation is begun with ethanol added to establish a concentration of 1-5. When the acetic acid concentration reaches 13-15%, 20-50% of the liquid is discharged into a second fermentation tank. The first fermentation tank is resupplied with mash containing 2.5-10% ethanol, 1-6% acetic acid and 1-3 kgm. nutrients per 1 kiloliter solution for the bacteria resulting in a concentration of 7-10% acetic acid. Under aeration at constant temperature, up to 0.4% ethanol and greater than 15% acetic acid containing solution is obtained and removed from the second fermentation tank. This combined batch and continuous process is distinguishable for its reliance only on fermentation of vinegar from unknown vinegar sources.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,960, issued to Constant J. V. L. Compagne describes a preparation of concentrated natural vinegar obtained from a natural anaerobic fermentation of potato starch with Clostridium butylicum. The starting product solution contained acetone, 1.8 wt. % butanol and 0.22 wt. % ethanol. To 5 parts by volume of this acetone and alcohol solution, 1 part by volume natural vinegar having an acetic acid content of 12 wt. % and an ethanol content of 0.25 wt. % was added, and the solution reduced in volume 7% by freeze drying and contact with a sulfonated polymer ion exchange resin of divinylbenzene and styrene to add sodium chloride and to cause a separation of ethyl and butyl acetates. The resulting mixture is stored for 2 to 5 days to produce a concentrated natural vinegar containing ethyl acetate in a concentration of ethyl acetate to acetic acid of at least 1:150 ratio by weight. The product is distinguishable for the requirement for an ion exchange step of a potato derived extract.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,118,517 issued on Jun. 2, 1992, to Frank M. Palermiti describes a method of manufacturing powdered citrus fruit juice using dextran (molecular weight range of 10,000 to 40,000,000) as a drying agent which upon hydrolysis yields only glucose. The amount of dextran dissolved ranges from one-tenth to equal parts by weight of the total carbohydrate content of the fruit juice. The powder is distinguishable for its limitation to citrus fruits and the addition of dextran.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,197,442 issued on Sep. 5, 1916, to Charles E. Burke et al. describes the preservation of citrus fruit juices such as those of lemons, grapefruit and oranges by adding the white pith of that citrus fruit during a grating step. 0.15 wt. % of sulfur dioxide is added to the grated mixture of juice, pulp and white pith. The sponge mass is pressed and the previously filtered juice is added to the pressed spongy mass and the extracted juice. 0.12 to 1 wt. % of carbonate or acetate salts of calcium or magnesium are added to the mixture to coagulate the pulp to a spongy mass at 25-35.degree. C. for 10 to 24 hours. The juice is separated by filtration, pasteurized at 55.degree. to 60.degree. C. and bottled. The juice preservation process is distinguishable for the additions of the citrus fruit pith and sulfur dioxide.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,843 issued on Jan. 30, 1973 to Akiva Pour-el et al. describes a freeze-dried soybean protein powder to be included in carbonated or non-carbonated acidic beverages, e.g., orange drink. Hydrochloric and phosphoric acids are added during the solubilizing process with an acid fungal proteinase enzyme to maintain the pH at 2.7 to 4.75. The soybean powder extract is distinguishable for its protein value and the use of an enzyme.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus, a dietary supplement solving the aforementioned problems is desired.


The present invention is directed to a system and method for automated network address cloning. A method for cloning a network address for access of content by a router may include determining whether the router may access a service provider. A network address of a network connection device is obtained if the router is unable to access the service provider, the network connection device included in a client information handling system communicatively coupled to the router. The obtained network address of the information handling system is cloned to a router address automatically and without user intervention.

Networks and network access have become ever more prevalent with the increase in the types and varieties of information handling systems. For example, previously, home users of information handling systems shared a single information handling system. However, with the decreased costs and the targeted functionality that may now be found in information handling systems, a variety of information handling systems may be utilized in a given environment, such as a home, office, and the like. Therefore, users are more apt to have a range of information handling systems.
To connect these information handling systems together to enable shared functionality and file access, a network may be used. A network enables multiple users to share a resource, such as an Internet connection, through use of a router. However, some Internet service providers require a specific network address, such as a media access control (MAC) address, network card address, and the like, in order to connect to the service. Therefore, if a user wished to upgrade from a single information handling system to multiple information handling systems, including installing a home network with shared access to an Internet service provider, configuration of the network and the networking devices was complicated. For instance, a broadband modem may be provided to access an Internet service provider (ISP). However, in many instances, if the broadband modem does not receive a network address for the device as previously registered, the modem will not permit access to the content. Such a situation may be confusing to a consumer, and may cause a great deal of effort to correct, even if the problem is recognized. Therefore, consumers may be less likely to purchase additional information handling systems and upgrade network services.

System and method for automated network address cloning for routers


A shock absorbing apparatus comprises a cylinder body having a cylinder chamber formed therein, a piston body reciprocatively held in the cylinder chamber and having a pair of piston rods outwardly projecting through hole portions respectively formed at the two end portions of the cylinder chamber, and a shock absorber for absorbing motion when one of the piston rods projects over one of the hole portions and the leading portion of the other piston rod is stopped in the other hole portion, so that a shock generated at the time of collision with an object is absorbed. In addition, a drive unit for rotating a rotational member around a base comprises a shaft body secured to the base and having an engaging portion on the outer surface thereof, a rotational member journalled rotatively around the shaft body, an operation chamber provided for the rotational member, and a reciprocating member reciprocatively held in the lengthwise direction of the operation chamber and having a portion engaged to the engaging portion. A shock absorbing apparatus is adapted to the reciprocating member so as to absorb the shock generated at the portion at which the rotational member stops its rotational motion.

A conventional shock absorbing apparatus will now be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 18 is a central cross sectional view which illustrates a conventional single-type shock absorbing apparatus which has a body including a cylindrical portion formed therein, the cylindrical portion including a piston 202 integrally formed with a rod 201 and arranged slidably in a direction designated by arrows. On the other hand, the piston 202 has an orifice hole 203 bored therein so as to cause an enclosed operating fluid 204 to pass through the orifice hole 203. As a result, shocks can be absorbed.
As shown in FIGS. 19A and 19B, a structure for use in, for example, rotation drive unit has been known. The rotation drive unit has a rack b formed on one side surface of a drive piston a which gives rotational force to a rotational member (omitted from illustration). On the other hand, a drive shaft c, which is connected to the rotational member, has a pinion gear d engaged to the rack b. In a state where the aforesaid two elements are engaged to each other, compressed air serving as drive fluid, is introduced into a drive cylinder chamber e which accommodates the drive piston a, causing the drive piston a to be moved in the drive cylinder chamber 4. The movement of the drive piston e is, as rotational force, transmitted to the drive shaft c via the engaged rack b and the pinion gear d. As a result, the rotational member can be rotated.
In the aforesaid conventional structure, the range in which the rotational member is rotated, that is the range in which the drive shaft c is rotated is defined by a structure arranged in such a way that a piston f individually formed from the drive piston a and moving in synchronization with the drive piston a is slidably provided in a cylinder chamber g, a rack h formed on the piston f and the pinion gear d of the drive shaft c are engaged to each other. As a result, the two end portions of the rotational range of the rotational member are respectively defined at the two end portions of the movement range of the piston f. Therefore, stopper members i must be used in order to accurately stop the piston f at the aforesaid two end portions of the movement range of the piston f. Furthermore, shock absorbing apparatuses j must be provided at the two end portions of the cylinder chamber g in order to absorb the shock generated at the time of stopping the piston f before the stopper member i comes in contact with the stopper member i and stops there.
However, since the aforesaid conventional shock absorbing apparatus is able to absorb only one directional shock, two shock absorbing apparatuses must be disposed at the two end portions of the reciprocating motion in order to absorb the shock of a reciprocating movable body. Therefore, a problem arises in that the size of the apparatus cannot be reduced. Furthermore, if a function of adjusting the quantity of the shock absorption is further provided, the size of the apparatus becomes too large and the weight increases excessively.
The rotation drive unit which uses, for example, an air cylinder, as its power source, must be quickly stopped after it has performed the rotational operation. In order to rotate it in the two directions around the shaft, two shock absorbing apparatuses must be used. Therefore, the size and the cost of the rotation drive unit cannot be reduced.

Shock absorbing apparatus and drive unit which uses the same


A method for manufacturing a surface mounting type semiconductor device, to prevent a bump from forming on a test pad, by contacting with a probe needle at a die sort test in manufacturing a surface mounting type semiconductor device. A test pad is formed with a layer, made of the same components as a bonding pad, above the major surface of semiconductor substrate, where an IC is formed. A probe needle is applied onto the test pad to carry out a die sort test. Subsequently, for a conforming article, a resist film is patterned by a lithography technique, thus removing only the test pad. A bump is normally formed only on the remaining bonding pad, thereby avoiding a continuity failure at assembly and any unexpected short-circuits during the connection with the wiring.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing semiconductor equipment comprising integrated circuits, which is particularly used for a surface mounting type semiconductor device, which is mounted on a printed wiring board by a flip-chip connection.
In recent years, as integrated circuits (ICs) are being miniaturized and achieving higher speed technology in the manufacturing field for semiconductor equipment, a so-called flip-chip connection is now increasingly used to directly connect a semiconductor device to the wirings on a printed wiring board by means of bumps, such as solder formed on a bonding pad.
Usually, such a surface mounting type semiconductor device is subjected to a performance test (die sort test which includes electrical testing to determine whether the device is bad) before the formation of bumps, to determine whether ICs are good or bad. Then the conforming articles are supplied to the assembly line.
2. Description of Related Art
FIGS. 3(a) and (b) show a known semiconductor device with a bonding pad, which is also used as a test pad during the die sort test.
However, as shown in FIG. 3(a), for this semiconductor device, the die sort test is carried out by applying a probe needle 4 onto a bonding pad 3 exposed on a passivation film 2 that is formed on an interlayer insulating layer 1 on a semiconductor substrate.
Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 3(b), the bonding pad 3 becomes deformed by the contact of the probe needle 4 so that bump 5 cannot be normally formed on pad 3.
To solve this problem, a technique has been proposed to provide a dedicated test pad, for the die sort test, separately from the bonding pad for forming bumps.
FIGS. 4(a) and (b) show a semiconductor device wherein a test pad is formed separately from a bonding pad. FIG. 4(c) shows a plan view of a bonding pad structure having a bonding pad for testing. FIG. 4(d) shows a sectional view of FIG. 4(c) along dotted line A-A'.
In this semiconductor device, the bonding pad 3 is not deformed by the contact of the probe needle 4 during the die sort test, so that bump 5 can be normally formed on bonding pad 3.
However, this technique provides a lower assembly yield for the following reason: That is, since bump 5 is also formed on the test pad 6, as shown in FIG. 4(c), this results in a short-circuit in the connections with the other wirings in the assembly process, thereby lowering the assembly yield.

Method of manufacturing semiconductor device having a test pad


Provided herein are compounds of formula I, compositions comprising the compounds and method of treating various diseases with the compounds and compositions.

There are twelve known human caspases. Caspase-1, also known as interleukin converting enzyme (ICE), was the first identified human caspase. Ten caspases have been classified in two groups, based on their effects: proapoptotic caspases (caspases 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) or proinflammatory caspases (caspases 1, 4 and 5). The function of two additional human caspases (12 and 14) are less well characterized.
Caspases are a family of cysteine protease enzymes that are key mediators in the signaling pathways for apoptosis and cell disassembly (Thornberry, Chem. Biol., 1998, 5, R97-R103). These signaling pathways vary depending on cell type and stimulus, but all apoptosis pathways appear to converge at a common effector pathway leading to proteolysis of key proteins. Caspases are involved in both the effector phase of the signaling pathway and further upstream at its initiation. The upstream caspases involved in initiation events become activated and in turn activate other caspases that are involved in the later phases of apoptosis.
The substrate specificity of human ICE has been defined with the use of peptides that span the cleavage site of the enzyme. Two features of peptide substrates are essential for catalytic recognition by the enzyme. First, there is a strong preference for aspartic acid adjacent to the cleavage site, in that any substitution of this residue in the IL-1β precursor and peptide substrates leads to a substantial reduction in the rate of catalysis (Kostura, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 86:5227, 1989; Sleath, et al., J. Biol. Chem., 265:14526, 1990; Howard, et al., J. Immunol., 147:2964, 1991).
Enzymatically active caspase-1 is generated from its inactive precursor, pro-caspase-1, by the action of protein complexes known as inflammasomes. The biochemical function of inflammasomes is to is to generate active caspase-1. Active caspase-1 converts the inactive precursor, pro-interleukin-1β (pro-IL-1β) to the active cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β), as well as pro-IL-18 to mature, active IL-1β. IL-1β is known as a master proinflammatory cytokine and is involved in multiple human diseases. IL-18 is also a proinflammatory cytokine associated with human disease. Caspase-1 also cleaves the protein gasdermin D which initiates a form of inflammatory cell death known as pyroptosis. Sollberger, G. et al., Innate Immunity 20, pp. 115-125 (2013) and Denes, A et al. Cell Death Disease 3, e338 (2012). Caspase-1 is implicated in numerous inflammatory disease conditions due to its role in regulating the production of proinflammatory cytokines and activating pyroptosis. Caspase-1 and IL-1β have been linked with autoinflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases, CNS diseases, liver diseases, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, dermatological diseases, rheumatological diseases, kidney diseases, ophthalmological diseases and cancers. Flores, J. et al., Nature Comm. 9, 3916 (2018); McKenzie, B. et al., PNAS 115, (26), E6065-E6074 (2018); Melnikov, V. et al., J Clin Invest. 110, pp. 1083-1091 (2002); Wang, W. et al., PNAS, 113, (34) pp. 9587-9592 (2016); Morrison, M. et al., Int J Obesity Res. 40, pp. 1416-1423 (2016); Guo B. et al., Sci Rep. 6, p. 36107 (2016); Stack, J. et al., J. Immunol. 175, pp. 2630-2634 (2005); Kim, R. et al., Am. J. Resp. Care Med. 196, pp. 283-297 (2017); Rudolphi, K. et al., Osteoarthritis Cartilage 11, pp. 738-746 (2003); Audia, J. et al., Basic Res. Cardiol. 113, (5), pp. 32 (2018); Aira, L. et al., J. Invest. Derm. DOI: 10.1016/j.jid.2018.11.031 (2018), Wooff, Y. et al., Sci. Rep. 10, p. 2263 (2020). Therefore, inhibitors of the proinflammatory and pathogenic actions of caspase-1, caspase-4 and caspase-5 could be beneficial in the treatment of multiple human diseases.
In view of the multiple uses for caspase inhibitors, there is a constant need to develop new, more effective compounds that can selectively inhibit certain caspases.

Caspase inhibitors and methods of use thereof


A coupling assembly comprising a female connector body, a male member, a retainer and a dust barrier with integral secondary latch. The female connector body defines a bore extending axially inwardly into the body from an entrance. A radial face is defined in the bore axially inwardly of the entrance. The male member is received within the bore and having a radially enlarged annular upset. The retainer has at least two locking beams extending between the upset and the radial face to retain the male member in the bore. The locking beams define a slot between said locking beams. The dust barrier with integral secondary latch is slidably mounted on the male member axially outward of the retainer. The dust barrier has a skirt surrounding the entrance. The dust barrier further has at least one leg extending axially inward into the bore engaging the radial face to secure the dust barrier to the female connector body. The leg fits within the slot between the locking beams so as to prevent inadvertent radially inward movement of the locking beams.

This application relates to fluid line systems which include coupling assemblies, and more particularly to a coupling assembly of the type for connecting a male member formed at the end of a tube in a hollow female connector body.
In the automotive and other fields, one type of coupling assemblies often utilized to provide a fluid connection between two components or conduct are quick connector couplings, which generally include a male member received and retained in a female connector body. Use of a quick connector coupling is advantageous in that a sealed and secured fluid line may be established with a minimum amount of time and expense.
A retainer is often used to secure the male member within the connector body. One such type of retainer includes a plurality of locking beams which extend between a radial upset formed on the male member and a radial face defined in the connector body. The abutment of the retainer with the radial upset at one end and the radial face at the other end prevents the withdrawal of the male member from the connector body. This type of retainer is prevalent in the art and has proven effective in many fluid line applications.
Nevertheless, such retainers have occasionally been prone to failure. During the installation of the retainer, the retainer may be inserted insufficiently into the female body for the abutting portion of the retainer to surpass the radial face defined in the connector body. In addition, even if the retainer is installed properly, the retainer may be accidentally released. To assure that the retainer is properly installed and to prevent the accidental release of the retainer, secondary or back-up latches have sometimes been utilized.
Another concern associated with the use of a retainer having a plurality of locking beams is contaminants entering into the entrance of connector body and being embedded between the locking beams. The presence of contaminants in the connector body can cause the male member, connector body or retainer to erode and fail prematurely. Furthermore, for the type of retainer which is removable by compressing the locking beams in an inwardly radial direction, the presence of contaminants embedded between the locking beams prevents the radial compression of the locking beams.
Another type of coupling assembly often utilized to provide a fluid connection between two components or conduits includes a tube nut for securing the male member within the connector body. Such coupling assembly typically includes a male member having a flare formed at the distal end and an enlarged upset formed at a given distance from the distal end. The male member is received and retained in a female connector body by a tube nut.
The female connector body has an entrance, a threaded bore axially inward from the entrance and a non-threaded bore axially inward from the thread bore terminating at an annular face. An externally threaded hex head tube nut having an annular stop defined at the terminal of the tube nut is slidably mounted on the tube forming the male member. To connect the coupling assembly, the male member is first inserted into the female connector body. The tube nut is then slid toward the female connector body and threaded into the bore of the female connector body. As the hex head tube nut is threaded into the female connector body, the annular stop of the hex head tube nut abuts the enlarged upset of the male member and applies an axially inward force on the male member. This axially inward force crushes the flare of the male member against the annular face of the female connector body. The crushing of the flare reduces the axial length of the flare and simultaneously enlarges the diameter of the flare. The flare is crushed until the outer radial surface of the flare contacts the cylindrical surface of the non-threaded bore, thus creating a seal between the male member and the female connector body. This type of coupling assembly is prevalent in the art and has proven effective in many fluid line applications.
Nevertheless, such coupling assemblies have occasionally been prone to failure. To form an effective seal between the male member and the female connector body, the tube nut must be It sufficiently tightened for the flare of the male member to expand to the diameter of the non-threaded bore. Such control on torque tolerance is time consuming and expensive.
A coupling assembly comprising a female connector body, a male member, a retainer and a dust barrier with integral secondary latch. The female connector body defines a bore extending axially inwardly into the body from an entrance. A radial face is defined in the bore axially inwardly of the entrance. The male member is received within the bore and having a radially enlarged annular upset. The retainer has at least two locking beams extending between the upset and the radial face to retain the male member in the bore. The locking beams define a slot between said locking beams. The dust barrier with integral secondary latch is slidably mounted on the male member axially outward of the retainer. The dust barrier has a skirt surrounding the entrance. The dust barrier further has at least one leg extending axially inward into the bore engaging the radial face to secure the dust barrier to the female connector body. The leg fits within the slot between the locking beams so as to prevent inadvertent radially inward movement of the locking beams.

Coupling assemblies for providing fluid connection


Manual driving force applied by a wheelchair driver to a motor-driven wheelchair is sensed by a manual-driving-force sensing unit. When the manual driving force reaches a preset value, a control unit makes a motor generate a mechanical driving force supplementary to the manual driving force. The control unit subtracts the preset value from the manual driving force to determine an amount of change by which the current mechanical driving force should be changed, and adds the amount of change to the current mechanical driving force to develop a new mechanical driving force.

A motor-driven vehicle, e.g. a motor-driven wheelchair, has a pair of drive wheels which are driven by motors. A control apparatus controls the respective motors.
An example of control apparatus for use with a motor-driven wheelchair is shown in EP 0 691 232 A2 published on Jan. 10, 1996 which is incorporated hereinto by reference. The motor-driven wheelchair with the motor control apparatus shown in this European publication includes manual-driving-force sensing units which sense the magnitudes of forces applied to the wheelchair to move it by an attendant to a user of the wheelchair. The manual-driving-force sensing units produce manual-driving-force representative signals which are proportional to the magnitudes of the manual driving forces applied to the wheelchair. The manual-driving-force representative signals are applied to the control apparatus, which controls the motors in such a manner as to produce wheel driving forces proportional to the corresponding manual-driving-force representative signals.
As the manual driving forces applied to the wheelchair increase, the wheel driving forces developed by the respective motors increase proportionally. Accordingly, when the running resistance of the wheelchair increases, e.g. when the wheelchair moving on a flat path must go up a slope, so that the wheel driving forces of the motors must be increased, the manual driving forces must be increased, too. That is too burdensome to an attendant having small strength.
With the control apparatus shown in the above-quoted European publication, changes of manual driving forces immediately cause changes of the wheel driving forces of the motors. Accordingly, if, for example, the manual driving forces for driving the wheelchair in the forward direction are increased, which results in acceleration at a high rate of the wheelchair, the attendant may not be able to follow the movement of the wheelchair. Then, he or she will try to reduce the manual driving forces, or, in some cases, may apply to the wheelchair manual driving forces to cause the wheelchair to move in the opposite, i.e. backward direction. In such a case, the wheel driving forces developed by the motors may abruptly decrease, or the motors may develop wheel driving forces which tend to drive the wheels in the backward direction. In response to such changes of the wheel driving forces of the motors, the attendant may increase his or her manual driving forces to drive the wheelchair in the forward direction. As a result, the wheelchair is accelerated in the forward direction at a high rate, again. In this way, the wheelchair is alternately accelerated and decelerated. In other words, the moving speed of the wheelchair is unstable. Accordingly, in order to drive the wheelchair at a stable speed, the attendant needs to have skill in driving the wheelchair.
An object of the present invention is to provide a control apparatus for use with a motor-driven vehicle which can make motors of the motor-driven vehicle increase their driving forces, without increasing burden on a vehicle operator. Hereinafter, driving force provided by a motor is referred to as supplementary, mechanical driving force, or supplementary driving force, or mechanical driving force.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a motor control apparatus for use with a motor-driven vehicle which can make the supplementary, mechanical driving forces change smoothly even if manual driving forces applied to the vehicle changes abruptly.


A method and system detects and resolves impending failures in a pump. The method and system may measure a current liquid level in a basin, which houses the pump. The current liquid level may be determined by a liquid level sensor placed slightly above a high liquid level mark in the basin. If the current liquid level is determined to have surpassed the high liquid level mark, the method and system may activate a mechanical shaker that produces vibrations to physically shake the pump. If the current liquid level is determined to not have surpassed the high liquid level mark, the method and system may analyze a motor of the pump to detect signatures that indicate potential problems with the motor.

A liquid pump is a type of pump used to move water or other liquids that have accumulated, for example, in the basement of a home. The liquid pump sends the water into pipes that lead away from the home so that potential basement flooding may be avoided. As such, failures in the liquid pump can have disastrous consequences including water damages and insurance losses. However, liquid pump failures often occur without prior warning or may not be discovered until significant damage has already been done. Unfortunately, many currently available liquid pump systems are not designed or equipped to automatically detect impending liquid pump failures, or remedy such failures even if they are detected.

Systems and methods for detecting and resolving liquid pump failures

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY


The present invention provides a teardrop-shaped magnetic core having excellent manufacturing efficiency, a large initial inductance, and stable DC superposition characteristics and a coil device using this teardrop-shaped magnetic core. A teardrop-shaped magnetic core according to the present invention is a magnetic core that is made from a magnetic material and is to be used in a coil device 20, the magnetic core including a first rectilinear portion 11 and a second rectilinear portion 15 that have a straight-line shape and are connected to each other at one end via a bent portion 16 that is bent at a right angle, and a circular arc portion 17 that has a circular arc shape and connects the first rectilinear portion and the second rectilinear portion to each other at the other end. A coil device according to the present invention is configured by winding a wire around the teardrop-shaped magnetic core 10.

Coil devices installed in circuits of various types of AC equipment are configured by winding a coil around a ring-shaped magnetic core.
In order to facilitate the winding operation, a coil device is proposed in which a gap portion is formed by cutting away a part of a toroidal magnetic core, which has a circular ring shape, such that the cut-away part has a certain width in the direction of the magnetic path, and a conducting wire is wound around the core while inserting the conducting wire through the gap portion (see FIG. 10 with respect to the conventional technology in Patent Document 1, for example).
In the above-described coil device, the conducting wire needs to be manually wound around the core on a turn-by-turn basis, and thus, the manufacturing efficiency is low.
To address this issue, a coil device 70 is also proposed that is configured by bending a rod-shaped magnetic core into a substantially circular shape including a rectilinear portion 71 as shown in FIG. 14(a), and forming a gap portion 74 such that one end surface 72 opposes a side surface 73 of the rectilinear portion 71 (see Patent Documents 1 and 2, for example).

Teardrop-shaped magnetic core and coil device using same


A toner cartridge extending in a longitudinal direction thereof has a fresh toner chamber and a water toner chamber. The fresh toner chamber and waste toner chamber extend parallel to each other so that the fresh toner chamber and the waste toner chamber are aligned in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction. The waste toner chamber incorporates a toner-conveying member such as a screw conveyor. The screw conveyor extends between the opposed longitudinal ends, and causes the waste toner to move further into the waste toner chamber. The waste toner chamber has an entrance formed therein through which waste toner is received from a print process cartridge. The entrance opens yieldably when a waste toner exit enters the waste toner chamber through the entrance and closes when the waste toner exit moves out of the enters the waste toner chamber.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toner cartridge for use in an electrophotographic image recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional print process cartridge for an electrophotographic printer uses a toner cartridge that is designed to detachably mounted. Toner is discharged from the toner cartridge into a toner reservoir. The toner is agitated by an agitator and supplied to a developing unit.
Then, a developing roller applies the toner to a photoconductive drum which has an electrostatic latent image formed thereon, thereby developing the electrostatic latent image with the toner into a toner image. The toner image is then transferred by a transfer roller to a print medium. The toner image on the print medium is then fixed and the print paper is finally discharged from the printer.
A small amount of toner fails to be transferred from the photoconductive drum to the print paper and remains on the photoconductive drum. A variety of cleaning methods are available to collect the residual toner on the photoconductive drum during the cleaning process. A desirable cleaning method is such that a cleaning unit requires a smaller space for storing the waste toner. One such method is to return the residual toner as waste toner to the toner cartridge, so that the toner cartridge can be discarded with the waste toner collected therein.
This type of toner cartridge has a chamber for waste toner adjacent to a chamber for fresh toner, these two chambers being aligned in the longitudinal direction of the toner cartridge. Thus, the total length of the toner cartridge is the sum of the lengths of the fresh toner chamber and the waste toner chamber.
An opening formed in the toner cartridge is fitted to a waste toner exit of the print process cartridge, thereby coupling the toner cartridge to the print process cartridge. The waste toner is finally collected into the waste toner chamber of the toner cartridge through the waste toner exit.
The toner cartridge has a shutter mechanism formed near the opening. When the toner cartridge is disconnected from the waste toner exit of the print process cartridge, the shutter closes the opening to prevent the waste toner from falling through the opening from the toner cartridge.
As described above, the toner cartridge is relatively long due to the fact that the fresh toner chamber and the waste toner chamber are aligned in the longitudinal direction of the toner cartridge. The printer needs to be wide to accommodate a longitudinally long toner cartridge. If the waste toner chamber is made shorter in an attempt to reduce the width of the printer, the fresh toner chamber also has to be made shorter. If the fresh toner chamber has a length shorter than the width of a print region, the fresh toner may not be evenly supplied across the width of the print region, resulting in poor print quality.
Providing a shutter that closes the opening to prevent inadvertent spillage of toner from the toner cartridge requires a large number of mechanical parts which results in a complex mechanism. Such a complex mechanism causes frequent troubles and misuses.
The present invention was made in view of the aforementioned drawbacks.
An object of the invention is to provide a toner cartridge having a shorter longitudinal dimension than conventional toner cartridges, thereby implementing a miniaturized toner cartridge.
A toner cartridge extending in a longitudinal direction thereof, comprising a fresh toner chamber and a waster toner chamber. The fresh toner chamber extends in the longitudinal direction of the toner cartridge. The waste toner chamber extends parallel to the fresh toner chamber so that the fresh toner chamber and the waste toner chamber are aligned in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction.
The fresh toner chamber has an opening through which the toner is discharged from the fresh toner chamber, a shutter, an operating lever, and a locking mechanism. The shutter closes the opening when the operating lever is at a first position at which the operating lever is locked by the locking mechanism and opens the opening when the operating lever is at a second position opposite to the first position.
The waste toner chamber has an entrance formed at one of opposed longitudinal ends of the waste toner chamber. The waste toner chamber receives waste toner through the entrance from outside. There is provided a toner-conveying member such as a screw conveyor in the waste toner chamber. The screw-conveying member extends between the opposed longitudinal ends, becoming higher with increasing distance from the first one of the opposed longitudinal ends and causing the waste toner to move further into the waste toner chamber. The toner-conveying member may extend in a horizontal direction and have a spiral blade on a part of the length thereof.
The waste toner chamber has a resilient member fitted into the entrance. The resilient member having a slit formed therein through which the waste toner exit enters the waste toner chamber when the toner cartridge is attached to the print process cartridge.
The resilient member is folded at the slit when the resilient member is fitted into the entrance.
The waste toner chamber has a flexible sleeve-like sealing member fitted to the entrance. The sealing member has one end opening to communicate with the opening of the waste toner chamber and another end normally resiliently closed. The closed end resiliently opens when the waste toner exit enters into the waste toner chamber through the sleeve-like sealing member, and resiliently closes when the waste toner exit comes out of the waste toner chamber.
The resilient member may be urged by a spring against the entrance. When the waste toner exit enters the waste toner chamber through the entrance, waste toner exit pushes the resilient member to yieldably move away from the entrance, thereby opening the entrance. When the waste toner exit moves out of the waste toner chamber through the entrance, the sprint urges the resilient member against the entrance, thereby closing the entrance.
The toner cartridge and the print process cartridge may have polarizers that matingly match each other, so that only a right toner cartridge can be attached into a corresponding location of the print process cartridge. This feature prevents misplacement of the toner cartridge in the print process cartridge.
Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.

Toner cartridge with locking toner discharge opening