A closure construction of the present invention includes a container with male threading on the neck thereof with a pair of locking notches. The cap includes a pair of split arcuate walls with partial threading thereon, which provides, in cooperation with each other, a threaded connection between the cap and the male threading disposed thereby releasably securing the cap to the container. A pair of protrusions are connected to and emanate inwardly from the inner surface of the outer wall. The pair of protrusions are releasably respectively seated in the pair of locking notches when the cap is threaded past a predetermined point onto the neck of the container. When the cap is squeezed in a direction generally perpendicular to a line running through the protrusions, the protrusions lift out of their respective locking notches to permit the cap to be unthreaded from the container.

The invention relates generally to closures and more specifically, to closures for bottles and other vessels.
It is well known in the art to provide a closure for a vessel, such as a bottle container. For example, a bottle includes an open top end, such as in the form of an open mouth. Objects, such as pills, are typically loaded into the bottle container via the open mouth end for storage therein.
There is a desire to provide a closure for the container to protect the contents therein from water, heat and other elements and to maintain the contents in a single organized location. There is also a desire to use a closure to prevent unwanted access to the contents of the container by certain individuals. For example, there is a need to provide a pill container that includes a child-resistant cap to enclose the contents and to keep children from gaining access to those contents.
Closures for such containers are available in many different types and configurations. For example, a cap can be provided that simply snaps onto the mouth of the container to close it off. However, these caps are frequently difficult to use, particularly by elderly users, and are not child-resistant in nature. There have been many attempts in the prior art to provide a cap that is easy to open by adults but is difficult to open by children.
Prior art closures address the foregoing problems by providing some type of locking arrangement between the cap closure and the body of the bottle container. In many prior art locking closures, the cap is attached to a portion of the bottle by threading, such as to the neck where the cap is rotated relative to the bottle so that the aforesaid locking arrangement can engage for locking and disengage for unlocking. It should be understood that the term "threading" may be construed to be any type of securing structure that locks the cap to the bottle. Such a structure may be threading the form of helical threads or protrusions that engage with seats to form the desired locking.
To carry out these prior art constructions, the cap commonly includes female threading to threadably receive the male threading about the mouth of the bottle container. The female threading is typically provided 360 degrees about the inside of a wall or on a downwardly depending skirt to engage with the male threads on the bottle closure. For the 360 degree threaded member on the cap to receive the male threaded bottle mouth requires that the overall dimensions of the cap be large enough to carry the 360 degree female threading. In that connection, since there is also a need for a fairly large mouth opening, such as 1.0 inch or 1.25 inches, for example, to accommodate automated filling machine, the overall dimension of the cap must be very large, such as about 50 mm in diameter. Therefore, employing known locking constructions, the size of the cap must be fairly large thereby making the overall container quite large. However, large cap closures are more bulky to carry and are also aesthetically unattractive.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a locking arrangement for a bottle and cap closure device that enables the cap to be smaller than prior art devices yet be able to secure the same size opening in the bottle container.
There is also a need for a bottle and cap closure device that includes a structure for securing the cap to the bottle.
There is a further need to provide a bottle and cap closure device that is relatively easy to open by an adult but includes child-resistance to deter access to the contents of the bottle by children.

Threadable closure with split securing walls and locking notches

CVS Pharmacy, Inc. a Rhode Island corporation


A mobile communications device comprising: a back cover, which comprises an inner surface and a sidewall. A hatch is formed in the sidewall. An ejection device is fixed to the inner surface of the back cover, and which comprises a resilient wall protruding from the surface of the ejection device, and an electromagnet. A groove member is slidably connected to the ejection device, and is aligned with the hatch, and is configured for putting SIM card. The groove member further defines a hole. A hook device is rotatably connected to the ejection device, and is positioned on the electromagnet, and which comprises a hook portion. A first elastic device is fixed to the groove member, and is configured for pushing the groove to move. A torsion spring is fixed to the ejection device, and is configured for driving the hook device to return to the first position.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a mobile communications device.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, the mobile communications device such as a mobile phone, includes a groove for putting in a subscriber identity module (SIM) card.
When removing or inserting the SIM card, users must slide out a back cover of the mobile communications device to make the groove exposed, so as to remove or insert the SIM card. However, a long slide makes a touching surface between the mobile communications device and the back cover smooth, as a result, the back cover cane easily get disengaged from the mobile communications device, and the groove is easily exposed to the mobile communications device.
Therefore, what is need is a mobile communications device which can automatically eject the groove for putting the SIM card.

Hong Fu Jin Precision Industry (ShenZhen) Co., Ltd.


A high-frequency test probe device comprising a contact section (18) which forms an inner contact (40) and an outer contact (44), which is designed to interact with a contact partner (30) that is to be contacted for testing purposes, and which is provided on an inner housing (16) at one end and can be contacted at a pickup end (20) for signal pickup at the other end. The inner housing is guided at least along some sections in an outer housing (10) and in an axially movable manner relative to same.

The present invention relates to a high-frequency test probe device.
Such devices are generally known from the state of the art and are used in testing fields or other testing contexts in order to test a test partner (such as an electronic assembly comprising a suitable socket portion) for operability in that the test probe device is fitted as a plug and then suitable testing signals are applied to the contact partner via inner and outer contacts.
Especially in the high-frequency range (typically for signal frequencies in the range of 1 GHz or higher) it is very important to ensure contact quality in order to minimize reflexions or attenuations which are detrimental to a measuring signal. In addition there is a need for simplicity of construction and ease of maintenance, since the contacting elements used within the context of such test probe devices for realizing the respective test probes (typically provided as a multi-pin probe with regard to an inner contact) are subject to wear or other abrasion and need to be replaced. Generically this has frequently proven to be difficult leading to the entire device having to be replaced if the probe was worn down.
Also, with high-frequency test probe devices known from the art, in particular with regard to contact partners which are rectangular in cross-section or have a rectangular outer contour, it is important that these test probe devices can be easily aligned with such a contact partner; if these devices, in contrast to purely coaxial test contact devices, are twisted about a longitudinal direction twisting then leads to contacting problems and even inoperability of the device. Even though it must be ensured that positioning tolerances at the test location (place of application), which are always necessary within certain limits, can be reliably absorbed without endangering safe contacting.
It is therefore an object of the invention to propose a high-frequency test probe device according to the preamble of the main claim which is optimized as regards precise alignment of the device with a contact partner on the one hand and as regards tolerance relative to any positional and/or measurement deviations on the other, which in addition is easy to produce and implement and which permits contact-safe test connections.

High-frequency test probe device comprising centering portion


A spray head for directing water into a spray pattern that includes a casing configured to receive a supply of water and a plurality of nozzles disposed on the casing with each nozzle being configured to emit water in a stream away from the casing. The plurality of streams of water from the plurality of nozzles are configured to form a hyperboloidal shaped spray pattern.

The present application relates generally to the field of spray heads for use with showers, faucets, side-sprays, and other spraying devices that are configured to direct a fluid (e.g., water) in one or more spray patterns. More specifically, this application relates to spray heads configured to direct a plurality of streams of water to form a spray pattern of water having a generally hyperboloid shape.
Spray heads are used to direct a spray of water onto, for example, people, dishes, produce, and other objects for the purpose of cleaning. For example, showerheads are configured to direct water into spray patterns to clean people, pets, and other objects. Also for example, faucets and side sprays are configured, typically, for use with sinks to direct water into spray patterns to clean dishes, produce, as well as people and other objects.

Spray head with hyperboloid spray pattern


The first fire voltage of chalcogenide-based switching devices is lowered to a value approximately equal to the threshold voltage by treatment of the chalcogenide material with fluorine either during or after deposition.

Threshold switches are devices which change their electrical conductivity in response to a voltage applied thereacross. Ovonic threshold switches are solid state devices based upon materials and effects first discovered by S. R. Ovshinsky; see for example, "Reversible Electrical Switching Phenomena in Disordered Structures" Physical Review Letters, vol. 21, no. 20, Nov. 11, 1968, p. 1450(c). Ovonic threshold switching materials have bi-stable conductivity characteristics. In the absence of an applied threshold voltage, the materials are in a blocking state and exhibit a high electrical resistivity. Imposition of a voltage exceeding a specific threshold value causes the materials to switch to a low resistivity conductivity state, which is many orders of magnitude below the resistivity in the blocking state, and this state is maintained provided a minimum holding current flows therethrough; termination of the holding current cycles the material back to the high resistivity state. Ovonic threshold switching devices exhibit switching speeds of less than 150 pico seconds and have significant use as high-speed transient suppressors as well as in various other switching applications. The characteristics of these switches and the materials from which they are fabricated are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,271,591 and 3,343,034, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Threshold switching devices are generally constructed to include a body of switching material with at least a pair of electrodes operatively disposed on opposite sides thereof. Control of the characteristics of the switching material is achieved by compositional modification and/or modifications of the local order or other morphological modification of the switching material. The switching material is designed to have a threshold value and an electrical resistance suited for a particular application.
"First Fire Voltage" is the voltage which is needed to switch a freshly prepared threshold switching device from the high resistivity to the low resistivity state. This first fire voltage is typically much higher than the normal threshold voltage manifested by the switch after first fire. The initial voltage permits morphological relaxation of the material to occur and thereby restructures the local order of the material to a stable configuration. Once the forming operation has been carried out, the threshold switching voltage remains reproducible and constant.
In the case where discrete switches are being manufactured, the first fire voltage phenomenon generally presents at most only a minor problem since, in an initial stage in the testing of the devices, they are simply exposed to a high voltage pulse and consequently formed. However, it is often desirable to include threshold switches in array configurations or in combinations with other devices and under such circumstances, the first fire voltage phenomenon can present a significant problem. The higher voltage necessary to form the freshly manufactured threshold switches may be sufficiently large so as to damage other semiconductor devices connected thereto. Also, if an array of threshold switches is being first fired, the first switch in the array to achieve its working threshold will then serve to create a low resistivity current path which prevents the other switches from being properly formed. To overcome these problems, sophisticated isolation circuitry must be included in combination with the threshold switches. Another problem presented by the first fire phenomenon is tied into the fact that the final working threshold voltage of the switch is, to some degree, a function of the first fire voltage applied to the device and the first fire voltage required may vary from device to device. Consequently, individual switches in arrays of threshold switching devices may all manifest somewhat different working thresholds.
Clearly, problems occasioned by the first fire phenomenon cam complicate the use of threshold switching devices in cross-point switching arrays and the like and in conjunction with other types of devices. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide threshold switching devices which are free of the effects of this phenomenon. Heretofore, it has been known to treat chalcogenide threshold switching materials with activated hydrogen for purposes of stabilizing the working threshold of such devices; these techniques are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,490, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In accord with the principles of the present invention, it is now possible to provide threshold switches which include fluorinated switching materials having optimized short range order and which manifest very little, if any, first fire voltage effects. The present invention makes possible the widespread utilization of threshold switches in a variety of circuits and in a variety of electronic devices and makes possible the manufacture of switching arrays having uniform properties. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the drawings, discussion and description which follow.


A processor of a distribution device included in a storage system is configured to manage an initial write position and a current write position for each of a plurality of storage apparatuses. The initial write position varies for the storage apparatuses. The processor is configured to receive a write request and give an instruction for writing data to each of the storage apparatuses in accordance with the current write position by distributing the write request to each of the storage apparatuses. The processor is configured to manage offset information indicating a write position relative to a top of a storage device corresponding to the current write position for each of the storage apparatuses. The processor is configured to receive a read request and select, based on the offset information, one of the storage apparatuses so as to send the read request to the selected storage apparatus.

Storage systems such as distributed storage systems perform mirroring through which replicated data is arranged in a distributed manner in a plurality of storage apparatuses (storage nodes), thereby ensuring availability and reliability of data.
In a client/server type distributed storage system, a proxy server receives a request from a client and forwards the request to a storage apparatus. For example, upon receipt of a write request, the proxy server forwards the write request to all the storage apparatuses. Upon receipt of a read request, the proxy server forwards the read request to any one of the storage apparatuses.
A storage apparatus usually includes a plurality of hard disk drives (HDDs). The write performance decreases if read access to an HDD occurs during write access to the HDD. To address this, a storage apparatus includes a cache memory. The storage apparatus reads data from the cache memory if read access results in a cache hit, whereas the storage apparatus reads data from an HDD if read access results in a cache miss.
Also, a disk array subsystem is known, in which a disk drive to be accessed is selected in the order of priority among disk drives in which data has been mirrored.
A related technique is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-293658.
However, cache memories are expensive. Therefore, a high-cost storage system would be generated if the write performance is improved depending merely on cache memories. Also, there are not necessarily significant differences in the order of preference among disk drives in which data has been mirrored, and therefore control over degradation in the write performance is sometimes limited.

Storage system and method for managing storage apparatuses


An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier that is electrically charged and exposed to light to form a latent image that is developed by liquid developer. A first squeezing roller that is held in contact with the image carrier carrying a developed image bears bias voltage Vs1. A second squeezing roller that is held in contact with the image carrier squeezed by the first squeezing roller bears bias voltage Vs2. The image is transferred to a transfer member that is held in contact with the image carrier squeezed by the second squeezing roller. The absolute values of the bias voltages Vs1 and Vs2 have a relationship of |Vs1|>|Vs2|.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming method for forming an image by developing a latent image formed on an image carrier by means of a liquid developer consisting of toner and carrier, transferring the developed image onto a medium such as a sheet of recording paper and fusion-bonding the transferred toner image to and fixing it on the medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been proposed various wet type image forming apparatus designed to develop an electrostatic latent image to visualize the latent image by means of a highly viscous liquid developer, which is prepared by dispersing solid toner in a liquid solvent. The developer to be used for such a wet type image forming apparatus is prepared by suspending solid (toner particles) in a highly viscous organic solvent (carrier liquid) that is typically made of silicon oil, mineral oil, edible oil or the like and electrically insulating and the toner particles are very fine and have a particle size of about 1 μm. Thus, the wet type image forming apparatus can produce high quality images if compared with dry type image forming apparatus designed to employ powdery toner particles having a particle size of about 7 μm.
While the image forming apparatus designed to use a liquid developer as described above can produce high quality images, they are accompanied by problems to be dissolved. For example, the image forming apparatus designed to use a liquid developer has a problem of difficulty of controlling the liquid developer on the photosensitive member (image carrier) and many of the rollers thereof such as development rollers because the developer is liquid. More specifically, the liquid developer on such a roller may flow to the opposite end facets of the roller and/or form a liquid ring on the roller.
To cope with the problem of forming a liquid ring, JP 2007-114380-A (Patent Document 1) discloses an image carrier squeezing device for collecting surplus liquid developer. The proposed image carrier squeezing device is so designed as to be arranged at the downstream side of the nip section of an image carrier 10Y and a development roller 20Y disposed opposite to the image carrier 10Y in order to collect the surplus liquid developer from the toner image produced on the image carrier 10Y as a result of a developing process. It includes an image carrier squeezing roller 13Y that is an elastic roller member having an elastic body 13-1 as a surface coat and held in contact with the image carrier 10Y and a cleaning blade 14Y pressed against and held in contact with the image carrier squeezing roller 13Y to clean the surface of the squeezing roller 13Y. It is adapted to collect the surplus carrier C and the unnecessary fogging toner T″ from the developer D used for the developing process executed on the image carrier 10Y to raise the toner particle content ratio in the visible image.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method


The registration at a terminal on the basis of registration data which are stored in a terminal memory and the need to deregister oneself subsequently at the same terminal has the disadvantage that, if the deregistration is forgotten, the terminal memory is unnecessarily occupied by invalid information. This is prevented if the deregistration is performed from a further terminal, the possibilities including both an explicit deregistration and an implicit deregistration on the basis of a further registration. If the registration data are split into identification data and terminal data, more efficient use is made in that case of the terminal memory and if the identification data are split into user data and service data the possibility even arises of deregistering a user at a particular terminal for some services but not for other services.

The invention relates to a method for deregistering a user registered at a terminal via registration data, which terminal is provided with a terminal memory in which the registration data are stored in response to identification information to be supplied, registration location data to be supplied to a network being stored in a memory field of a location memory means of the network.
Such a method is generally known and generally takes place after the user has registered himself at the terminal via registration data.
The registration takes place in the case of a not very advanced terminal, for example, by placing a smart card in the terminal, after which the terminal obtains identification information from the smart card and feeds it to the network. In response thereto, the network stores registration location data in the memory field of the location memory means. The deregistration then takes place in the abovementioned example of the not very advanced terminal by removing the smart card from the terminal, after which the terminal feeds deregistration data to the network. In response thereto, the registration location data in the memory field of the location memory means are declared invalid. If the user moves without removing his smart card from the terminal when he does so, this only has the consequence that incoming telephone calls for this user are incorrectly routed to the terminal, that user cannot register himself at another terminal without his smart card and that another user cannot register himself at the first terminal mentioned. However, the other user can, of course, remove the smart card of the first user and then register himself at the terminal, which has the consequence that incoming telephone calls for the first user mentioned are no longer routed to any terminal at all.
In the case of a more advanced terminal, the registration takes place, for example, by accessing the smart card by means of a card reader associated with the terminal, the terminal obtaining the identification information from the smart card via the card reader and storing identification data in the terminal memory. The terminal feeds the identification data to the network which, in response thereto, stores the registration location data in the memory field of the location memory means. In the example mentioned of the more advanced terminal, various users could even register at the same terminal, the identification data associated with further users also being stored in the same terminal memory. The deregistration could in this case take place by accessing the smart card again by means of the card reader associated with the terminal.
Such a method has, inter alia, the disadvantage that, if the user moves without accessing his smart card again by means of the card reader, this not only has the consequence that incoming telephone calls intended for the user are incorrectly routed to the terminal, but also that the terminal memory is unnecessarily taken up by invalid information, as a result of which other users can no longer register at the terminal at a given instant.

Method for the deregistration of a user registered at a terminal via registration data, and also telecommunications system


Ventilator apparatus for ventilating the lungs of a patient comprises a source of as pressure to be applied internally or externally to a patient's lungs. The alternating pressure has a complex waveform deconstructable into a large amplitude waveform of a first frequency which may be produced by a blower (18) and a valve (10) and a lower amplitude waveform of a higher frequency which may be produced by a second blower and valve unit (4).

The present invention relates to apparatus for assisting or producing ventilation of the lungs of a patient. Such apparatus may broadly be divided into two types, namely internal and external.
Internal ventilator apparatus directs a flow of breathable gas into the lungs of a patient via a face mask or via an intubation. An alternating gas pressure is employed to produce a tidal flow of gas into and out of the patient's lungs.
External ventilator apparatus comprises some form of chest enclosure, which may cover just the chest or even the whole of the patient below the neck. Alternating gas pressure is applied to the interior of the enclosure to produce compression and expansion of the chest and hence to produce a tidal flow of air into and out of the lungs. Generally, no intubation is needed where external ventilation is used.
The application of pressure to the chest by external ventilation can under certain circumstances cause cardiac stimulation of the kind used when resuscitating a patient in cardiac arrest. Also, the induced chest movement may in some cases be physio-therapeutic. External ventilation can be used to produce cardiac stimulation or for physiotherapy, even where there is no clinical need to ventilate the patient. External ventilators to be used for such purposes are included herein within the term "ventilator apparatus".
Many different regimes of alternating pressure have been proposed both for internal and for external ventilation.
Thus, traditionally, internal ventilation involves the application of alternating gas pressure at a frequency similar to that of natural breathing. However, it has been proposed to employ much higher frequencies in so-called high frequency positive pressure ventilation. A drawback of internal ventilation is that it produces a decrease in cardiac output and it needs intubation with its known complications.
External ventilation has also traditionally been carried out at normal breathing frequency, but in EP-A-0192337 there is disclosed a substantially more beneficial regime in which ventilation is carried out using a relatively high frequency alternation of gas pressure about a negative baseline. This technique is proving to have very substantial clinical benefits.


A golf putter head includes a face member arranged for impacting a golf ball. A first rear mass is located substantially rearward of a heel end of the face member, and a second rear mass is located substantially rearward of a toe end of the face member. Upper and lower arms extend rearwardly from the face member connecting the face member to the first and second rear masses. A cavity is defined between the upper and lower arms, and three openings to the cavity are provided. One of the openings is located between the first and second rear masses. Another opening is located between the first rear mass and the face member, and a further opening is located between the second rear mass and the face member.

This invention relates generally to golf equipment and, in particular, to a golf putter head with increased perimeter weighting.
Recent developments in golf equipment have resulted in putters with heads that have higher moments of inertia. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,281 to D. W. Anderson discloses a putter head sold under the name DANSER. The Anderson putter head has heel and toe weights mounted on a lower plate-like member. The heel and toe weights and the lower plate-like member are preferably made of dense material such as bronze or steel. An upper shell-like member, preferably made of lower density material such as plastic or aluminum, is secured to the lower plate-like material to enclose the heel and toe masses. U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,935 to M. J. Nelson discloses a putter head sold under the name NELLI. The Nelson putter head has a horseshoe shaped body formed of high density material such as steel with thickened heel and toe portions. The horseshoe shaped body includes a cavity which receives an insert formed of low density material such as polyurethane. The insert preferably constitutes about 15 percent of the total mass of the putter head while constituting more than 50 percent of the total volume of the putter head. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,960,140 to J. A. Solheim et al discloses a putter head sold under the name CRAZE. The Solheim putter head includes a central member connected to a face member. The central member has a thickened portion located rearward of the face member, and a pair of arms extend rearward from heel and toe ends of the face member.

Golf putter head with increased perimeter weighting


A system and method for operating a smart service robot includes: an integrated control server for storing and managing a plurality of service applications and providing a relevant service application according to a service application request from an intelligent service robot; and the intelligent service robot for requesting a specific service application from the integrated control server and downloading the application in order to provide a corresponding service. Accordingly, when a user using the intelligent service robot needs an application which is related to the operation of the intelligent service robot and which is for a specific purpose, the application for the specific purpose is easily downloaded online in order to be applied to the intelligent service robot of the user. Thus, the services that the robot provides are optimized for certain purposes and used.

A service or a content for a specific purpose is required to operate an intelligent robot according to various environments and usages and a development tool is particularly required to efficiently develop the service or the content. The development tool up to now as a dependent form which can be used for the corresponding robot has been primarily developed and used by a robot manufacturer as necessary.
Due to such a reason, the development tool for developing the content or the service of the intelligent robot is used in an extremely limited range only by a specific robot and spread or business cannot be achieved through propagation of the development tool itself.
Development and propagation of a robot service integration and development environment that can ease development and propagation of the service application are acutely required to mount and activate a robot industry as new growth power.
Further, in related art, the development tool for developing the service or the content of the intelligent robot is developed in a form dependent on each robot, and as a result, the development tool cannot be used for developing services or contents of other robots. A high-cost and low-efficiency structure robot service integration and development environment is actually used, which cannot develop robot services which will be diversified as many as personalities of persons hereafter.

System and method for operating a smart service robot


A transceiver for echo and near-end crosstalk cancellation without a loop timing configuration. The transceiver comprises a receiver, a timing recovery circuit, a same-channel phase interpolator, an echo canceller, a near-channel phase interpolator and a near-end crosstalk (NEXT) canceller. The same-channel phase interpolator and the near-channel phase interpolator receive a phase choosing signal from the timing recovery circuit to determine a specific phase from different phases. The same-channel phase interpolator generates a same-channel phase-modified signal with the specific phase and outputs the phase-modified signal to the echo canceller to cancel an echo in the received signal. The near-channel phase interpolator generates a near-channel phase-modified signal with the specific phase and outputs the near-channel phase-modified signal to the NEXT canceller to cancel a NEXT signal in the received signal.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to digital data transmission systems. In particular, the present invention relates to a transceiver for echo and near-end crosstalk (NEXT) cancellation without a loop timing configuration and a method of the transceiver for echo and NEXT cancellation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many communication applications, such as high speed data communication devices, require high insulation against noise, and must meet high precision requirements necessary for digital transmission/reception, e.g., a transceiver implemented in Gigabit Ethernet standard. In such applications, communications over an unshielded twister pair (UTP) or other communications loop may require a very low or even error free transmission of coded data. For example, a bit error rate (BER) equal to or less than 10−10 is required for use in the Gigabit Ethernet. Such bit error rates are difficult to obtain given unknown delays, attenuation, dispersion, noise, and inter-symbol interference (ISI) introduced by and/or on the communications channel. One area where BER must be closely controlled is at the transceiver adaptive echo canceller in duplex digital data transmission systems.
Furthermore, echo and near-end crosstalk are usually serious problems in digital data transmission systems. The schematic diagram in FIG. 1 illustrates near-end crosstalk and echo problems. The UTPs shown in FIG. 1 are twisted pairs 10 and 12 following category 5 standard. The twisted pairs 10 and 12 are transmission media. The Hybrid devices 10a, 10b, 12a, and 12b combine transmitted and received signals. The data are transmitted to channel through the hybrid devices 10a, 10b, 12a, and 12b. In the embodiment, the transmitting ends Tx1 and Tx2 and the receiving ends, Rx1 and Rx2 are at the local end. The transmitting end Tx and the receiving end Rx are at the remote end. When the signal is transmitted to the hybrid device 10a, a portion of the signal will be received by the local receiving end Rx1, and which is called "echo". If the receiving end Rx1 receives a signal from other channels in the local end, i.e. the signal is transmitted through the twisted pair 12, the signal received by the receiving end Rx1 is referred to as near-end crosstalk.
Conventional techniques for echo and near-end crosstalk cancellation generally use an adaptive canceller to estimate impulse responses of echo and near-end crosstalk and subtract them from the received signal. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating the configuration of a typical transceiver comprising an echo canceller and a near-end crosstalk (NEXT) canceller. A hybrid device 208, connected to the channel (not shown in FIG. 2), combines transmitted data with received data and transmits the transmitted data to a channel. A transmitting end Tx1 and a receiving end Rx1 are at the same twisted pair of a local end. A transmitting end Tx2 is at another twisted pair of the local end. The digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 204 converts a digital signal to an analog signal. The transmitting end Tx1 transmits the analog signal from the hybrid device 208 to the channel. The receiving end Rx1 receives a signal from the channel through the hybrid deice 208. The received signal is transmitted to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 210. The ADC 210 digitizes the received signal and feeds a digital signal to an equalizer 212. A timing recovery circuit 214 receives an equalized signal from the equalizer 212 and recovers a clock from the equalized signal. The echo canceller 202 is coupled between the transmitting end Tx1 and the receiving end Rx1. The echo canceller 202 estimates impulse response of echo. Then, the echo is removed from an equalized signal by an adder 220. The NEXT canceller 216 is coupled between the transmitting end Tx2 and the receiving end Rx1. The NEXT canceller 216 estimates impulse response of near-end crosstalk. Then, the near-end crosstalk is removed from the equalized signal by an adder 220. Typically, the clock in the transmitting end Tx1 and Tx2 is produced by a local oscillator. The clock in the receiving end Rx1 is recovered by the received signal. Thus, the clock domain in the transmitting end is different from that in the receiving end. That will cause asynchronous problems in circuit design.
To solve the above problem, a loop timing system is provided. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the configuration of the typical loop timing system. The loop timing system is applied in a Gigabit Ethernet communication system. Four twisted pairs in the loop timing system transmit the data. In the loop timing system, a transmitting end Tx1m and a receiving end Rx1m are at the master end 302. A transmitting end Tx2s and a receiving end Rx2s are at the slave end 304. A clock of the transmitting end Tx1m is produced by a local oscillator of the master end 302. A clock in the transmitting end Tx2s is recovered by a signal received by the receiving end Rx2s. Thus, at the slave end 304, the clock in the transmitting end Tx2s is the same as the clock in the receiving end Rx2s. After the master end 302 receives a signal transmitted from the transmitting end Tx2s, the clock in the receiving end Rx1m is recovered by the signal. Then, at the master end 302, the clock in the transmitting end Tx1m is synchronized to the clock in the receiving end Rx1m. After overcoming the problem of different clocks between the transmitting end and the receiving end, echo and near-end crosstalk cancellation are accomplished completely. However, because the loop timing system is much more complex than other communication systems, the development cost of the system is high and such a complex design is not suitable in some digital data communication systems.

Transceiver for echo and near-end crosstalk cancellation without loop timing configuration


A zoom lens system having two lens group. The zoom lens system has a zooming ratio greater than 2.4, a viewing angle of over 70 degrees and a telephoto ratio of about 1.0. The zoom lens system includes a first lens group of a positive refractive power, which has four lenses, and a second lens group of a negative refractive power, which has three lenses. The second lens group includes one aspherical lens surface. The zoom lens system according to the present invention satisfies the following conditions: EQU 0.22<fl/ft<0.30 EQU 2.45<ft/fw EQU 0.74<Ll1/(ft-fw)<0.85 EQU 0.75<fl/Y<1.10. where. fl is a focal length of a first lens group; PA1 ft is a focal length of the entire zoom lens system at a telephoto position; PA1 fw is a focal length of the entire zoom lens system at a wide angle position; PA1 Ll1 is a shift distance of the first lens group during zooming; and PA1 2Y is a diagonal length of an image.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a zoom lens system for a camera and, more particularly, to a zoom lens system having a first lens group of four lenses and a second lens group of three lenses, one of which is an aspherical lens.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Generally, zoom lens systems for compact cameras are divided into two types: those having two lens groups and those having three lens groups. The two lens group type is compact and lightweight, but does not provide a zooming ratio greater than 2.0 without using an aspherical lens.
Using an aspherical lens, it is possible to obtain a zooming ratio as great as 2.4. In order to obtain a zooming ratio higher than 2.4, it is necessary to use more lenses or reduce an effective diameter of the lenses in order to obtain high quality images. If a zoom lens system has more lenses, the total length of the system increases so that a telephoto ratio of the system also increases to more than 1.0. It becomes difficult to achieve a compact zoom lens system.
Because a two lens group type zoom lens system for a compact camera generally has a focal length of 35-39 mm, a viewing angle becomes about 63.4-59.0 degrees for a general Leica size image plane (24.times.36 mm). As a viewing angle increases, it becomes more difficult to correct aberrations over the entire zoom lens system.
In order to overcome the above drawbacks, zoom lens systems having two lens groups are disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publications Nos. Hei 3-260610, Hei 4-93810, Hei 7-234363 and Sho 52-52111. The zoom lens systems disclosed in the above prior art documents comprise a first lens group of a positive refractive power and a second lens group of a negative refractive power. The focal length of the system depends on the distance between the first lens group and the second lens group. Each of these prior art zoom lens systems has a zooming ratio less than 2.4 and uses one or more aspherical lenses.
The zoom lens system of Hei 7-234363 has an ultra wide viewing angle of more than 70 degrees while the other zoom lens systems have viewing angles less than 65 degrees.
These prior art zoom lens systems also have telephoto ratios greater than 1.0.
Therefore, a zoom lens system with a high zooming ratio and a wide viewing angle has more lenses than a system with a zooming ratio less than 2.4 and a viewing angle less than 70 degrees. As a result, it is difficult to reduce the size of the system, making it difficult to obtain a telephoto ratio below 1.0.

Two lens group zoom lens system with a high zooming ratio


Embodiments of the present invention provide a computer program, method, and system to facilitate hybrid CT attenuation correction. In one embodiment, the method generally includes acquiring data from a scanner, utilizing an ordered subset expectation maximization-bayesian algorithm to reconstruct the acquired data, and forward projecting the reconstructed data. Such a configuration minimizes the computing resources required for reconstruction and improves attenuation correction accuracy.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to computer programs, methods, and systems for hybrid CT attenuation correction. More particularly, various embodiments of the invention relate to a computer program, method, and system for attenuation correction that utilize an ordered subset expectation maximization-bayesian algorithm to facilitate hybrid CT attenuation correction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is a popular method to assess patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). Thallium-201 or Technetium-99m are generally utilized within single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) to perform MPI. However, technological advances have rendered the use of myocardial perfusion positron emission tomography (PET) with NH3-Ammonia or Rubidium-82 more desirable in various situations than SPECT. Specifically, PET generally provides higher spatial resolution, greater counting efficiencies, and more robust scatter and attenuation correction than that available with SPECT.
PET methods require attenuation correction for the effects of patient specific photon attenuation. Patient specific photon attenuation is the result of a radiopharmaceutical that is injected into a patient to facilitate MPI. PET attenuation methods include utilizing transmission data acquired from a scanner, such as PET source (dedicated PET) or an X-ray source (PET/CT), to correct emission data for the effects of patient specific attenuation.
Although methods are known to facilitate PET attenuation correction, these known methods often provide poor or insufficient transmission counts for reconstruction, allow misregistration and resolution mismatch between transmission and emission data, and fail to correct for the effects of metallic implant artifacts or patient respiratory motion.

Computer program, method, and system for hybrid CT attenuation correction

Cardiovascular Imaging Technologies L.L.C.


Embodiments of the invention are directed to systems, methods, and computer program products for a unique platform for analyzing, classifying, extracting, and processing information from graphical representations. Embodiments of the inventions are configured to provide an end to end automated solution for extracting data from graphical representations and creating a centralized database for providing graphical attributes, image skeletons, and other metadata information integrated with a graphical representation classification training layer. The invention is designed to receive a graphical representation for analysis, intelligently identify and extract objects and data in the graphical representation, and store the data attributes of the graphical representation in an accessible format in an automated fashion.

Current tools for data extraction from graphical representations do not provide an end to end automated solution for extraction and classification of data in consistent useable format. In many current processes, techniques and systems, a user is required to manually select graphical attributes and calibrate axis metrics for proper data extraction. As such, these processes are time consuming, prone to human error, and result in data that is not uniform. The output data produced by such conventional solutions are often minimally useful and have a potential for producing unintended effects or unhelpful data analysis when unattended by comprehensive human review. In addition, conventional approaches to graphical representation analysis may lack functionality across multiple types of graphical representations; for instance, charts or graphs of different types and categories that may display data and variables in different formats. As such, analysis results often do not allow for direct comparison, and may requires the investment of inefficient manual effort. As such, a need exists for a solution to automatically analyze graphical representations to identify data formats, extract uniform data, and automate the creation of a centralized database architecture for storing and communicating extracted data.
The previous discussion of the background to the invention is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not an acknowledgement or admission that any of the material referred to is or was part of the common general knowledge as at the priority date of the application.

Intelligent recognition and extraction of numerical data from non-numerical graphical representations


A corrugated paperboard strength enhancing process includes at least one resin application station located within the confines of the corrugator at a position where it is operable to apply a preselected amount of strength enhancing resin to at least one side of the medium after it has been fluted and most preferably before adhesive has been applied to the medium for securing liner paper thereto. At least one liner is adhered to the set of opposed flute tips. Thereafter the combined board with the resin compound on selected transverse portions of the fluted medium is allowed to cure, under selected temperature and moisture conditions and without the application of pressure that would crush the fluted medium. A suitable resin for the intended purpose is an isocyanate compound. The strength-enhanced corrugated paperboard can be efficiently repulped.

Corrugated board generally refers to a composite laminated structure comprising two paper linerboard sheets bonded to a paper corrugated or fluted core material. In the context of the present description a corrugated material will mean at least one liner sheet bonded to at least one fluted layer. Single faced corrugated board refers to the structure where there are single sheets of linerboard bonded to the tips of a single fluted core layer. There are various other combinations which can be fabricated to form various well known products such as double wall board, triple wall board, and the like.
The typical process for forming corrugated materials is well known. Typically the single wall corrugated board will be formed on an in-line corrugator where large rolls of linerboard paper and a large roll of the medium paper (the starting raw material for forming the corrugated core layer) will be positioned at the upstream end of the corrugator. The process normally has the medium passing through a set of corrugating rolls and thereafter being bonded to the first liner as it travels in a downstream direction. A suitable adhesive is utilized to attach the flute tips on one side to the inside surface of the first liner. Thereafter, at a downstream location, the other liner material is laminated to the other flute tips with a suitable adhesive to form the combined board. The combined board then travels into a heating and cooling section to allow the adhesive to fully cure and bond the liners to the fluted medium. Immediately thereafter, slitter-scorer and cutoff devices function to produce individual flat sheets of slit and scored blanks for converting into containers.
As is well recognized by those skilled in the art, the structural requirements for combined board are determined by the particular requirements of the end use. Standards have been developed over the years and both the liner and medium materials are manufactured to preselected basis weights with the end-use requirements in mind. In a container a particularly important property is vertical stacking strength (top to bottom) where the vertical walls in a container are expected to support in-use compression loadings. In almost all packaging end uses the cross machine direction of the fluted medium will be oriented in a vertical direction in the package side walls. In this orientation, the liners and fluted medium will provide good vertical stacking strength. Another strength property relates to the crushing resistance (flat crush) of the combined board in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the combined board. This property depends upon the strength of the corrugated medium.
The vertical stacking strength for a container depends to a large extent upon the basis weights of the component materials. With higher basis weights for the component materials the higher the vertical stacking strength and normally the greater the top-to-bottom crush resistance. When a package needs greater stacking strength, higher basis weights will be utilized. Normally it is the customer that specifies the strength requirements and the corrugated board manufacturer will produce the packaging material accordingly. A typical combined board with medium strength is one that utilizes liner sheets with a basis weight of 42 pounds per thousand square feet and with a medium material of a basis weight of 33 pounds per thousand square feet (MSF). Typically, a package comprised of this combined board will result in an edgewise compression test (ECT) or short column value of about 45 pounds per lineal inch. A higher stacking strength can be provided by using liner sheets with a basis weight of 69 pounds per MSF and a medium basis weight of 33 pounds per MSF. This gives an ECT of about weights, additional fiber must be utilized which adds to the cost of producing the combined board and the resulting container.
Ways have been sought for many years to increase the vertical stacking strength and/or flat crush resistance without the need for utilizing additional fiber. One suggested approach has been to utilize resin compounds sprayed or otherwise coated onto one or both of the liner sheets or onto the medium material before it is fluted. In the past, isocyanate compounds have been suggested as a suitable resin which, after curing, will add strength to the particular component of the combined board. Most of these chemical additives and their processing requirements have not resulted in commercially viable strength enhancing processes and products. Problems revolve around resin handling, safety issues, costs, recycling and the like.
While the addition of resin is known for increasing the strength of packaging materials, one of its inherent problems is that once the resin cures it tends to yield a paper that is brittle and relatively inflexible. After the combined board is produced and cut into flat sheets, then the package itself must be erected. This commonly requires a plurality of slitting, scoring and folding steps which presents problems for a sheet material that is relatively brittle. One of the problems with resin additions has been the difficulty in forming good containers with treated corners that do not fracture.
The inventors of the present invention has developed a process for enhancing the strength of corrugated board packaging materials that impacts the aforementioned problems. Relatively low amounts of selected isocyanate compounds have been found to provide significant strength enhancement in the combined board when applied according to the steps of the present invention. In addition, the resulting board made in accordance with the processes of the present invention has proven to be readily recyclable to facilitate reclamation of pulp fibers from used articles made from the boards.
Accordingly, from the foregoing, one object of the present invention is to enhance the strength characteristics of corrugated board packaging material.
A further object of the present invention is to utilize relatively small amounts of isocyanate resin compounds for the strength enhancing purpose.
Yet another object of the present invention is to increase both short column strength (top to bottom) and flat crush resistance in a combined board packaging material without utilizing more fiber.
An additional object of this invention is to provide a strengthened packaging material that has the same characteristics of existing packaging materials in areas such as surface friction, white top compatibility, color and repulpability for recycling purposes.
Still another object is to minimize the contamination of the corrugator equipment with the strength enhancing resin by applying the liner adhesive and liner essentially immediately after the resin is applied to the fluted medium.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a strength-enhanced corrugated paperboard that is readily repulped.
Still another object of the present invention is to use the repulped, strength-enhanced paperboard to produce recycled paper products.
These and other objects of the present invention will be better understood upon reading the specification which follows in conjunction with the attached drawings.

Corrugated paperboard strength enhancing process


The invention provides a solar tracking system for controlling the alignment of an instrument with respect to the sun, the instrument having a solar radiation receiver and a solar radiation collector for collecting solar radiation and directing the radiation towards the receiver, the system having: at least first and second detectors locatable so as to move with the receiver and receive radiation from the collector, for generating respective first and second output signals according to their respective exposure to solar radiation from the collector; a comparison means for comparing the first and second outputs and producing a comparison signal indicative thereof; and control means for controlling the alignment of the instrument according to the comparison signal.

Existing techniques for tracking the sun rely typically on one or more of three methods. The diurnal motion of the sun is well understood, and consequently a telescope, for example, can be mounted on an accurately aligned alt-azimuth or equatorial mount. The axial drives of that mount are then computer controlled to maintain the telescope in an orientation that will point the objective lens or mirror of the telescope at the sun's calculated position.
This approach, however, requires the highly accurate initial alignment of the mount. This may be practical in a fixed instrument such as research telescope, where the accurate alignment of the mount is one facet of an overall extensive ad precise installation procedure conducted by expert scientists and engineers, of lengthy duration and considerable expense. Such installation time and expense may not be acceptable in other applications, such as the installation of solar power collectors on a mass scale.
A less accurate and cheaper alternative is to control the axial drives on the assumption that the sun follows the ecliptic (or even celestial equator) in an entirely regular manner, thug ignoring the effects of the equation of time and—where the sun is assumed to follow the celestial equator—the effects of the earth's axial tilt.
Another existing approach is so-called shadow bar sun sensing, in which a pair of sensors are mounted on a solar radiation collector (such as a dish or plane mirror) between a shadow bar. The shadow bar casts a shadow on one of the sensors if the collector is not pointing directly at the sun. The collector's attitude can then be adjusted on the basis of the outputs of these sensors until those outputs are equal.
These existing approaches, however, make no allowance for the subsequent effects of imperfect manufacturing tolerances on the orientation of the radiation receiver (to which the collector directs collected radiation) relative to the collector itself. The effect of such imperfections will also vary with the changing position of the sun and orientation of the collector, even if the receiver is fixed with respect to the collector. In fact the receiver may also shift slightly relative to the collector, owing to sagging in the receiver supports (which would commonly be used to hold the receiver at the focus of the collector), or to variations in the overall structure due to temperature fluctuations and the like.
For many applications these shortcomings may be acceptable, or at least tolerable, especially in systems where maximizing the collection of solar radiation is less sensitive to tracking precision. This may be the case in systems that do not concentrate the solar flux by means of, for example, a spherical or parabolic mirror. If a plane mirror is used, errors in tracking precision of even 5° may not excessively reduce collection efficiency. Indeed, many solar hot water heaters (typically with flat collection panels) perform no solar tracking whatsoever, so existing approaches—which provide at least some tracking—will clearly be of use in some applications. However, where the solar flux is concentrated (possibly by a factor of as much as three or more), a 5° tracking error may produce unacceptably high looses in collection efficiency.


Systems and methods are provided related to manufacturing, repairing or otherwise providing an integrally bladed rotor. In one method, a set of preform rotor blades are arranged relative to a rotor disk. The preform rotor blades are concurrently bonded to the rotor disk.

1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to an integrally bladed rotor and, more particularly, to friction welding rotor blades to a rotor disk.
2. Background Information
An integrally bladed rotor includes a rotor disk and a plurality of rotor blades. The rotor blades are disposed around and may be bonded to or formed integral with the rotor disk. In one bonding method, each rotor blade is individually linear friction welded to the rotor disk. Such a method, however, may be time consuming and expensive since each blade is welded to the rotor disk in a separate and discrete step.
There is a need in the art for improved methods and systems for welding rotor blades to a rotor disk in manufacture and repair of integrally bladed rotors.

Friction welding rotor blades to a rotor disk


A vibration and noise attenuating damper for an automotive drive shaft has a cylindrical body of such size as snugly to fit within the shaft between its reduced diameter ends and be retained in fixed position. The damper has at each end thereof a seal which bears against the surface of the bore of the shaft. The seal has a wall which is accommodated within the tubular body of the damper. The seal may include an impervious closure which closes the end of the damper. The inner surface of the tubular damper body may be formed of a waterproof material.

Some automotive vehicles conventionally utilize hollow, tubular drive or propeller shafts for transmitting driving torque from the engine to the driving wheels. It is not uncommon for such a shaft to be subjected to vibrations from one or more sources. It is desirable to damp such vibrations so as to provide a quieter and smoother ride.
Most of the propeller shafts in use heretofore have been of uniform diameter from one end to the other. Recently, however, some drive shafts have at least one end which is smaller in diameter than the remainder of the shaft. A shaft having such smaller diameter at either or both of its ends has certain advantages, such as enabling the use of smaller universal joints than otherwise would be possible, as well as minimizing the space and weight of the parts required to couple the shaft to the universal joints.
It has been common heretofore simply to slide a substantially cylindrical damper into a hollow drive shaft from one end thereof, the damper being made of materials which damp the vibrations and attenuate noise. Typical examples of such dampers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,751,765; 3,075,406; 4,014,184; and 4,909,361, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
A damper especially adapted for use in conjunction with a propeller shaft having reduced diameter ends is disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 08/779,789 filed Jan. 7, 1997. Such damper can be inserted in a propeller shaft even after the ends of the latter have been reduced in diameter, thereby enabling the damper to be assembled with the drive shaft at any time before the drive shaft is coupled to the vehicle's drive train. In some instances, however, it may be preferred to assemble a damper with a drive shaft before the ends thereof are reduced. This will require that the damper be assembled with the drive shaft by the shaft manufacturer as one of the operating steps in producing the shaft.


A thermochromatic device in a thermochromatic display includes an insulating substrate, a color element, a heating element, a first electrode, and a second electrode, the color element and the heating element located on the insulating substrate being virtually integral but together are physically isolated and heat-insulated and allow such fast electrically-governed color changes that moving color images can be displayed.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a thermochromatic device and thermochromatic display apparatus using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Thermochromatic materials are materials that change their color in response to changes in temperature. Thermochromatic materials can be used to make a thermochromatic device. A thermochromatic device usually includes a heater made of ceramics, conductive glasses or metals. However, the speed of color change of the thermochromatic device is slow because the relatively high heat capacity per unit and slow heating speed of the heater.
In US20110149373A1 published on Jun. 23, 2011, Liu et al. discloses a thermochromatic device to overcome the above shortcomings. Referring to FIGS. 13 and 14, the thermochromatic device 120 of Liu et al. includes an insulating substrate 102, a color element 118, a heating element 108, a first electrode 110, and a second electrode 112. However, the heating response speed of the thermochromatic device 120 is relatively slow, usually above 5 seconds, because the color element 118 and/or heating element 108 are in contact with the insulating substrate 102. Thus, the response speed of the thermochromatic device 120 is relatively slow.
What is needed, therefore, is to provide a thermochromatic device having an improved color change speed and thermochromatic display apparatus using the same.

Thermochromatic device and thermochromatic display apparatus


A system for attenuating exhaust noise from an engine with a first group of active cylinders and a second group of deactivatable cylinders includes a first exhaust manifold connected to the first group of active cylinders and a second exhaust manifold connected to the second group of deactivatable cylinders. The second exhaust manifold is connected to the first exhaust manifold such that the second exhaust manifold acts as a resonator to attenuate sound from the first group of active cylinders when the second group of cylinders is deactivated.

Cylinder deactivation is used for improving fuel efficiency in engines. Cylinder deactivation cuts off one-half of the available cylinders by deactivating valve lift in those cylinders such that the cylinders remain closed after a combustion cycle of the engine, and the burnt gases remain trapped within the cylinder during deactivation.
The remaining active cylinders on an engine which has some of its cylinders deactivated through valve deactivation generally work at a higher specific load. This higher specific load along with the reduction in exhaust pulse frequency raises concerns over higher amplitude and corresponding increased exhaust noise. Conventional means for attenuating exhaust sound, such as mufflers having resonators therein, usually come with a detrimental higher exhaust back pressure. This higher exhaust back pressure works to diminish the improvements gained from deactivating cylinders.
Accordingly, a need exists to address the exhaust noise problem associated with cylinder deactivation.

Method and apparatus for exhaust sound attenuation on engines with cylinder deactivation


Apparatus for automatically milking animals in a milking compartment by means of teat cups on a robot arm that also includes a sensing device for locating the teats of the animal to be milked. The robot arm is automatically positioned longitudinally under the animal to be milked and includes a cleaning element which is connected thereto by a further arm member that can pivot relative to the robot arm about substantially horizontal and vertical axes. The cleaning member is pivotable from a position for cleaning the animal's teats to a further position displaced therefrom. The cleaning member includes a cover plate thereunder which is disposed under the cleaning member and above the teat cups mounted on the robot arm when in position for cleaning the animal's teats. The cleaning member comprises motor rotated parallel horizontal profiled spaced apart rollers and a spraying device is provided on the cleaning member for moistening the rollers. The cleaning member is pivoted to an inoperative position about the vertical axis and to a position for maintenance about the horizontal axis.

Such an apparatus is known from Dutch Patent Application 9201734.
With the cleaning member described in said patent application the teats of the animal to be milked are cleaned by two cleaning rollers rotating in opposite directions between which rollers a teat is cleaned by the rubbing motion of the rollers.
Improvements to such apparatus are an object of this invention.

Apparatus for automatically milking animals and cleaning teats

Maasland N.V. a Dutch limited liability Company


A biaxially orientated polyester film for sublimitation type thermal transfer printing having a coating layer and a sublimation type ink layer formed on the coating layer. The coating layer comprises an aqueous acrylic resin (A), an aqueous polyester (B) and an aqueous epoxy compound (C), weights of which satisfy the relationships: (1) 0.30.ltoreq.W.sub.A .ltoreq.0.90, (2) 0.10.ltoreq.W.sub.B .ltoreq.0.50, (3) 0.05.ltoreq.W.sub.C .ltoreq.0.30, and (4) 0.25.ltoreq.W.sub.C /W.sub.B .ltoreq.2 in which W.sub.A, W.sub.B and W.sub.C are weight ratios of the aqueous acrylic resin (A), the aqueous polyester (B), and the aqueous epoxy compound (C), respectively based the whole weight of the coating layer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a polyester film for sublimation type thermal transfer printing. In particular, the present invention relates to a polyester film for sublimation type thermal transfer printing, which has a specific coating so that it is excellent in adhesion to a sublimation type ink layer, causes less shifting of the ink layer onto an image-receiving paper sheet, and forms a good transferred image having less dyeing of said coating layer with a sublimation type dye.
2. Description of the Related Art
A thermal transfer printing system has been widely spread since it generates clear images or characters, and also it uses a simple equipment and generates less or no noise. In particular, a sublimation ink type thermal transfer printing system is increasingly used mainly for image copying such as a video printer, since it creates better gradation than a meltable ink type one.
A binder to be contained in a sublimation type ink layer has an intimate relationship with performances of a thermal transfer printing material. If a binder which makes sublimation of the ink easy is selected, adhesion between the sublimation type ink layer and a polyester film as a substrate is deteriorated to cause a trouble that an area of the ink layer is often shifted to an image-receiving paper sheet in a thermal transfer printing step.
To improve the adhesion between the ink layer and the polyester film, it has been proposed to form a thin film at an interface therebetween by, for example, coating. However, the formation of such thin film is not easy in an industrial scale production. Particularly in these years, from economical and environmental view points, importance of recyclability is emphasized. But, the formation of a coating layer suitable for this purpose is difficult.

Polyester film for sublimation type thermal transfer printing


A card connector comprises an insulative body (1) defining a first passageway (161) and a second passageway (162) above the first passageway (161) for receiving two cards (6, 7) different in sizes, a plurality of contacts (2) retained in the insulative body (1) and provided with first and second engaging portions (21, 22) exposed in corresponding passageways (161, 162) for electrically connecting with corresponding cards (6, 7), and a discriminating elastic device (41) disposed in an entrance of the first passageway (161) and having a resisting section (412) protruding towards a center of the first passageway (161). The resisting section (412) provides a slant (4121) extending upwardly towards the second passageway (162) at a terminal thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a card connector for electronic devices, such as notebooks, digital cameras, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and information terminal devices, and more particular to a card connector capable of accepting two kinds of cards of different sizes in thickness, width and length. The instant application relates to two contemporaneously filed applications having the same applicants, the same title and the same assignee with the instant application.
2. Description of Related Art
In electronic devices, such as notebooks, digital cameras and PDAs, there is a widespread use in recent years of IC cards, PC cards and SD cards, all with a built-in IC component called an IC chip incorporating CPU and memory. Under this circumstance, market demands are growing for card connectors for use with small memory cards, such as IC cards, PC cards and SD cards. Particularly, there is an increasing call for a card connector which is low in height and small in size, can accept a plurality of kinds of cards of different sizes.
An example disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,120,322 provides a memory card connection device, which allows two memory cards of different types to be simultaneously inserted therein. The memory card connection device includes two card connectors stacked on each other and a casing for enclosing the connector assembly. Each card connector has an insulative body defining a plurality of passageways therein for receiving conductive pins with engaging ends of the pins extending beyond a front side of the body. The body defines a first space and a second space in communication with the first space for accommodating different cards. For the different cards should be connected with corresponding pins, the different cards are inserted in corresponding spaces. Therefore, it is necessary for users to remember to insert a card into a correct space, thereby it is not convenient for the use of the card connector. Furthermore, a card is mistaken for another card to be inserted into an incorrect space to connect with inaccurate pins so that the card or the card connector may be destroyed.
It is thus desirable to have a card connector which overcomes the problems discussed above.


An automatic conversation apparatus includes a speech recognizing unit receiving a speech signal and outputting characters/character string corresponding to the speech signal as a recognition result; a speech recognition dictionary storing unit storing a language model for determining candidates corresponding to the speech signal; a conversation database storing plural pieces of topic specifying information; a sentence analyzing unit analyzing the characters/character string outputted from the speech recognizing unit; and a conversation control unit storing a conversation history and acquiring an answer sentence based on an analysis result of the sentence analyzing unit. Speech recognizing unit includes a collating unit that outputs plural candidates based on the speech recognition dictionary storing unit; and a candidate determining unit comparing the plural candidates outputted from collating unit with topic specifying information corresponding to the conversation history with reference to the conversation database and outputs one candidate based on the comparison.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a speech recognition apparatus, a speech recognition method, a conversation control apparatus, a conversation control method, and programs therefor. More specifically, the present invention relates to a speech recognition apparatus, a speech recognition method, a conversation control apparatus, a conversation control method, and programs therefor that are capable of preferentially selecting candidates, which conform to or relate to topics of conversation in the past, utilizing conversation histories or the like in the past.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As a conventional method for recognizing a specific vocabulary in continuous speech recognition, word spotting for extracting a recognition candidate word, which is set in advance, from continuous conversation speech has been devised. It has been confirmed that, with this method, the word can be extracted efficiently if the number of words to be set is small. However, it is known that accuracy of the extraction falls as the number of words to be set increases. In addition, since a word other than the set words cannot be recognized with this method, the method cannot be used for an application that requires continuous speed recognition for a vocabulary. Therefore, there is a need for a method of recognizing mainly a large quantity of designated words in a framework of large vocabulary continuous speech recognition.
The speech recognition is a matter of estimating what a speaker has spoken from an observed speech signal. If the speaker has uttered a certain word and a characteristic parameter x has been obtained by characteristic extraction, w maximizing a posterior probability p(w|x) only has to be calculated on the basis of the theory of pattern recognition. Usually, since it is difficult to directly finding the posterior probability p(w|x), instead of finding w maximizing the posterior probability p(w|x), w maximizing p(x|w)P(w) is calculated on the basis of the Bayes' theorem (p(w|x)=p(x|w)p(w)/p(x)) (in this case, p(x) does not depend on w). P(x|w) is calculated from data that is obtained by learning as a probability of occurrence of a characteristic parameter in advance according to an acoustic model with a phoneme or the like as a unit. P(w) is calculated according to a language model with a word or the like as a unit.
As a framework for the large vocabulary continuous speech recognition, it has been confirmed that a method of calculating and comparing likelihoods for an inputted speech signal using a phoneme Hidden Markov Model and a statistical language model is effective. As the statistical language model, usually, it is a general practice to find a chain probability between two words or among three words for a large quantity of text data, which are prepared in advance, and using the chain probability at the time of speech recognition.
In general, in the speech recognition system as described above, in order to narrow down a large number of utterance candidates that are generated because speech cannot be recognized definitely, a "language model obtained by modeling an association among words" is used to extract an utterance candidate with a high recognition rate as an optimal utterance candidate. As such a language model, a statistical language model, which is established utilizing a corpus (language/speech database), is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-366190, and a language mode, which takes into account word pair restriction or the like grammatically, is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-85180.
Such language modes are referred to as "conventional language models". A language model, which associates words utilizing a "conversation history" for the narrowing-down, has not been proposed.
However, the speech recognition system using the conventional language models has a problem in that the recognition rate falls when short speech such as "chat" is inputted repeatedly or when an abbreviated sentence is used.
For example, a case in which speech uttered by a speaker concerning a topic of film shooting is subjected to speech recognition will be considered. When a user utters "kantoku" (director), the speech recognition system outputs plural utterance candidates, namely, (1) "kantaku", (2) "kataku", and (3) "kantoku", from a speech signal generated by this utterance, and selects (1) "kantaku" with the highest recognition rate. Thus, even if a content, which is the same as speech (in this case, "kantoku") of the user, is included in the utterance candidate, the speech recognition system cannot select the word as an optimal utterance candidate.
Therefore, it is considered necessary to establish a "mechanism (speech recognition system taking into account a conversation history)", which utilizes a conversation history or the like in the past to select a candidate as an appropriate word even if a recognition rate of the candidate is judged low, and increase a speech recognition rate.

Speech recognition apparatus, speech recognition method, conversation control apparatus, conversation control method, and programs for therefor


A rolling bearing which has at least one bearing ring and a plurality of rollers. The bearing ring has a raceway for the rollers and at least one lateral rim for axially guiding the rollers. The roller has front face facing the rim and the rim has a rim hearing surface facing the roller. At least sections of at least the front face or the rim bearing surface have a toroidal camber in the direction of the rim bearing surface or the front face.

According to the state of the art, roller bearings are known which, with reference to a raceway, have lateral rims for absorbing axial stress components. In this connection, according to the state of the art, cylindrical roller bearings with flat roller front faces and flat rim faces are known. These bearings give rise to edge loading of the rolling body with respect to the rim. The result of such edge loading is a reduced working life of the rolling bearing.
In addition, according to the state of the art, cylindrical roller bearings are known where the front face of the rolling bodies is formed in the manner of a spherical cap. In the case of these rolling bodies a central region of the front faces is not spherical, but is formed flat or with a depression. Thus the contact surface of these rolling bodies is at least on the rim shoulder to a certain degree truncated, resulting in a limited axial load capacity during rim contact.
The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a rolling bearing which is able to withstand higher axial stresses compared to the state of the art. A special area of application of such tapered or cylindrical roller bearings is for example wind power gearing.
This object is achieved according to the invention by a rolling bearing according to claim 1.
Advantageous embodiments and further constructional forms are the subject of the dependent claims.

Rolling bearing with improved rim geometry


A CAE analysis die model is produced such that a cavity of a die for obtaining a cast product is divided into multiple elements. Fluidity analysis and solidification analysis are performed under a predetermined casting condition by means of the die model to calculate, for each element, a factor regarding growth of a solidification structure, a factor regarding purity of molten metal, and a factor regarding a hole defect. Mechanical characteristics of each portion of the cast product are obtained by a regression expression obtained by multiple regression analysis using mechanical characteristics of the cast product as an objective variable and using each factor as an explanatory variable.

The present invention relates to a cast product mechanical characteristic prediction method, a cast product mechanical characteristic prediction system, and a computer readable recording medium recording a program for predicting a cast product mechanical characteristic.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-315703 describes a method in which a steel component and an actual value or estimated value for manufacturing conditions are used as input to predict the quality of steel material manufactured by rolling and cooling of a casted steel piece after the steel piece has been re-heated. In this method, a metallurgical mathematical model is used to sequentially obtain, from the steel component and the actual value or estimated value for the manufacturing conditions, a metal structure change, an element solid-solution/deposition state, and a metal structure state upon re-heating, during cooling until the start of rolling, at each path during rolling, and during cooling after rolling. Then, the final post-cooling metal structure state and the final element solid-solution/deposition state and the quality of material calculated from the post-cooling metal structure state and the element solid-solution/deposition state are used as input items of a neural network model, thereby predicting the quality of steel material by the model.

Cast product mechanical characteristic prediction method, cast product mechanical characteristic prediction system, and computer readable recording medium recording cast product mechanical characteristic prediction program


A composition in the form of an aqueous dispersion used in cosmetic applications is provided. The composition comprises at least one polyurethane-urea polymer that is functionalized with at least one hydrolyzed or hydrolyzable silyl group. When the composition is used in hair care, it does not have a reshapable effect.

It is common practice to use aqueous polyurethane-urea dispersions as a film forming resin in cosmetic and dermatological compositions as exemplified by recent patents in haircare (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,626,840; 5,968,494; 6,007,793; 6,106,808; 6,106,809; and 6,113,881), skincare and makeup (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,643,581; 5,962,620; and 5,972,354), and nailcare (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,965,111; 6,080,413; and 6,106,813).
It is generally recognized that higher molecular weight polyurethane-urea polymers provide certain performance benefits to cosmetic formulations when compared to lower molecular weight polyurethane-urea polymers. It is generally believed that higher molecular weight materials have enhanced durability, abrasion resistance, and humidity resistance.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,808 (Bhatt et al.) discloses a hair spray composition comprising (1) about 0.25% to 6% of a carboxylated polyurethane resin having a weight average molecular weight of about 10,000 to 25,000, (2) 0% to about 6% of a second hair fixative resin; (3) 0% to about 80% of an alcohol; and (4) about 15% to 99% water. All percentages are by weight. It is stated that the carboxylated polyurethane resin provides an elastic, flexible film on hair giving it a natural feel. The second hair fixative resin functions to reduce flaking attributed to the carboxylated polyurethane resin and to impart stiffness to the hair spray composition.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,793 (Bhatt et al.) discloses another hair spray composition comprising (1) about 0.25% to 6% of a carboxylated polyurethane resin having a weight average molecular weight of about 15,000 to 150,000; (2) 0% to about 80% of an alcohol; and (3) about 15% to 95% water. All percentages are by weight. This patent, unlike U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,808, does not rely on optional second hair fixative resin and uses higher molecular weight carboxylated polyurethane resin.
Higher molecular weight polymer, however, generally translates to a higher viscosity, thus bringing with it possible difficulties in preparing aqueous polyurethane-urea dispersions. To reduce the viscosity, organic solvents can be used while preparing the aqueous dispersion. The solvents may need to be removed, adding steps and complexity to the formulation preparation. In a high viscosity formulation, it may be difficult to achieve dispersions with a small particle size. Such an effect tends to cause difficulty in forming smooth coalesced films in use, thereby reducing gloss and durability, among other properties. Some skilled in the art have used organic coalescing agents, possibly to ensure good film formation. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,080,413 (Ellingson et al.) at column 6, starting at line 42. In cosmetic applications, the higher viscosity caused by high molecular weight polymers may lead to a draggy or greasy feel in use and during dry down.
Efforts have been made to provide the benefits and at the same time to minimize the drawbacks of using high molecular weight aqueous polyurethane-urea dispersions in cosmetic formulations. U.S. Pat. No. 5,637,292 (Thomas) delivers an aqueous dispersion of low molecular weight acrylated urethane oligomer and photoinitiator to the nail. The dispersion is dried, then cured using ultra-violet light to achieve a high molecular weight coating. The invention may require the use of an ultra-violet light source.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,550 (Rubino) adds 1 to 10% of hardening agents, such as epoxy resins or urethane polymers, to crosslink with the polyurethane-urea dispersion to achieve high molecular weight.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,111 (Ellingson et al.) discloses a fast-drying nail polish composition comprising (1) a film-forming, water-borne polymer; and (2) a liquid diluent. Various water-borne polymers are disclosed, including polyurethanes, polyacryls, and styrene-acryl copolymers. The film-forming polymers may be crosslinked to provide properties such as chip resistance and superior hardness. The patent discloses using multivalent metallic cations, such as Zn+2, to ionically crosslink negatively charged moieties, such as sulfonates and carboxylates, either in the composition itself or after application and film formation.
A need exists for an aqueous polyurethane-urea dispersion which can be easily prepared and readily formulated into cosmetic and dermatological compositions for skin, nails, and hair to provide improved abrasion resistance, transfer resistance, and humidity resistance while providing excellent gloss, feel, and adhesion.

Silylated polyurethane-urea compositions for use in cosmetic applications


A non-reciprocal circuit element is equipped with a ferrite-magnet assembly which includes a pair of permanent magnets and a ferrite sandwiched between the permanent magnets. A first center electrode and a second center electrode defined by conducting films are provided on principal surfaces of the ferrite, such that the first center electrode and the second center electrode are insulated from each other and intersect each other. The permanent magnets have principal surfaces having substantially the same shape as the principal surfaces of the ferrite. The ferrite has upper and lower surfaces provided with recesses. The recesses have a conductor material embedded therein, whereby intermediate electrodes and connector electrodes are provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to non-reciprocal circuit elements, and particularly, to a non-reciprocal circuit element, such as an isolator and a circulator, for use in microwave bands, to a method for manufacturing the non-reciprocal circuit element, and to a communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Non-reciprocal circuit elements, such as isolators and circulators, have a characteristic that allows a signal to be transmitted only in a predetermined direction but not in the opposite direction. For example, by utilizing this characteristic, isolators can be used in transmitting circuits of mobile communication devices, such as automobile telephones and portable telephones.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-20195 (Patent Document 1) discloses a non-reciprocal circuit element, which is provided with a permanent magnet having outer peripheral dimensions that are greater than those of a center-electrode-attached ferrite so that a direct-current magnetic field is distributed uniformly over an entire region of the ferrite.
However, if non-reciprocal circuit elements of this type are to be manufactured by cutting out ferrite-magnet assemblies from a mother substrate, this manufacturing process is problematic in that it requires high costs. Specifically, the manufacturing process involves bonding individually manufactured center-electrode-attached ferrites accurately onto a permanent-magnet/mother substrate, and then cutting the workpiece into predetermined dimensions.

Non-reciprocal circuit element, method for manufacturing the same, and communication device


A laparoscopic instrument is provided which may be used for propelling a foreign body along an anatomical duct for accessing and removing the foreign body from a patient during surgery. The instrument includes a housing, an elongated body connected to the housing, and an operative tip. The housing includes a first axial bore, a first actuator rod disposed for axial movement within the first axial bore, and an actuator connected to the first actuator rod. The elongated body includes a second axial bore and a second actuator rod connected to the first actuator rod and disposed for axial movement within the second axial bore. The tip includes first and second jaws connected to the elongated body for movement in response to axial movement of the second actuator rod between an open position and a closed position. Each jaw has a respective roller mounted thereon for free rotational movement.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laparoscopic instrument and a method for using same. In particular, the invention relates to a laparoscopic instrument having rotatable rollers in the jaws of the instrument for propelling foreign bodies along anatomical ducts.
2. The Prior Art
Laparoscopic surgical instruments are known which have a manually operable tip, such as cutting blades or forceps, which a surgeon may manipulate from a position external to the abdominal wall of a patient undergoing surgery. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,595,984 to DeGuillebon. Although suitable for cutting and retracting operations, these instruments are unsuitable to propel foreign bodies safely along the common duct, the cystic duct, the ureter, or other anatomical duct, in view of the risk of crushing or damaging the lining of the duct from excessive pressure. Hence, there is a need for a laparoscopic instrument and a method that allows a surgeon to safely propel foreign bodies along a duct without the danger of applying excessive pressure so as to damage the duct.

Laparoscopic instrument and method for its use


Panel quilting machines having an in-line splicing tool capable of splicing a new supply of fabric into a web of material being provided to a panel quilting machine while allowing for continuous operation of the panel quilting machine. The systems and methods described herein include, in certain embodiments, an in-line accumulator for creating a temporary in-line supply of material for use by the panel quilting machine while an exhausted supply of material is replaced with a new supply of material.

Mattresses typically have quilted panels that are attached to the mattress core to provide the mattress' exterior surfaces, including the upper sleeping surface. During manufacture of the mattress, these quilted panels are produced by panel quilting machines that draw in multiple webs of material including ticking material and foam padding, and quilt the different webs together to form a panel that can be secured to the mattress core.
For the quilt panel machines to work effectively, they need a ready supply of material that can be drawn into the machine as it creates the quilted panel. Typically the material is provided as rolls of fabric or foam, or it may be fan folded and placed in a hamper. Either way, the quilt panel machine will continuously draw the fabric off the roll or out of the hamper as it quilts the panels.
At one point however, the supply of material will need to replaced. This may be because the original roll becomes depleted, or the kinds or colors of the fabric or foam being quilted need to be altered. At that point the panel quilting machine must be stopped to allow the operator to switch out the old supply of material and add in a new supply. In actual practice, the panel quilting machine is stopped quite often thereby causing a substantial amount of downtime for the machine. One study shows that during a typical day of operation, the quilt panel machine is inactive for up to 75% of the time. Much of this downtime arises from the need to change the supply of material.
Changing the supply of material may be time consuming as it requires the operator to remove the old supply, gather the new supply, splice the new supply into the web of material being drawn into the panel quilt machine, and restart operation. Given this, the machine is not being used to its full potential and capital costs are incurred to address this inefficiency.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved systems and methods for providing fabric and materials to a panel quilting machine.

Panel quilt machine with feeder providing reduced downtime