A sample is divided into a series of aliquots with the aliquots being subjected to at least two successive parallel separation steps in order to resolve protein or viral components thereof. The separation steps are performed not only on a sample but subsamples each containing a prelabeled tag to afford comparisons between subsamples. The parallel separation is amenable to high throughput and automation.

In life science research it is often desirable to identify the constituent proteins in a sample. Typically, the sample is extracted from an organism or collection of living cells. Such samples, of which blood serum and cell lysates are representative, are generally composed of many thousands of proteins. In disease or pathway research it is often necessary to assess the protein composition of many such samples in order to correlate the presence, absence or amount of specific proteins to the state of the source organism.
Complex mixtures of proteins are typically separated by multiple mechanisms. Common examples of separation parameters are charge, hydrophobic interactions, affinity and molecular weight. After separation into constituent proteins, the identification of constituent proteins is often required. The most common and useful method of protein identification is peptide mass fingerprinting using mass spectrometry. FIG. 2 shows an exemplary prior art process flow diagram. This process uses one, two or more methods (61, 62) for separating constituent proteins in the sample mixture, breaking up the proteins in the sample 60 into peptides with proteolytic digestion 63, most commonly using the trypsin enzyme, and reading the mass spectra of the peptides on a mass spectrometer 64. Depending on the separation mechanisms used, digestion may be performed before either one of the two separations or just before the mass spectrometry measurement. Also, there may be more or fewer separation mechanisms than the two shown in the figure. The resulting mass spectra are compared with peptide spectra from theoretical digests of sequences of known proteins in a database 65 and a plurality of sample protein identifications 66 are produced by correlation of the measured peptide masses to the calculated sequence masses.
Several types of mass spectrometer instruments are used for peptide mass fingerprinting. One type is the Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time Of Flight (MALDI-TOF). Peptide samples are introduced into MALDI instruments by spotting the liquid solution onto a MALDI target plate, the target plate having been previously coated with a matrix substance that facilitates the ionization of compounds to be measured. The MALDI plate with one or more samples spotted upon one or more of its target areas is then inserted into the spectrometer. A laser beam ionizes the sample spots and ejects the ions into the driving electric fields of the mass spectrometer. An example of a MALDI mass spectrometer is the PerkinElmer prOTOF 2000 orthogonal MALDI which uses 96-, 384- or 1,536-sample MALDI plates with the form factor of flat, thin microplates.
Another type of mass spectrometer instrument used for peptide mass fingerprinting is the electro-spray ionization mass spectrometer (ESI). Sample introduction of ESI instruments may be a continuous or near-continuous flow of liquid unlike the batch loading of discrete samples required by the MALDI. In this continuous flow case, measurements are taken serially at periodic time intervals against a continuous inflow of peptides to be characterized.
Separation of the protein mixture may be performed in a variety of separation matrices. A separation matrix is a support that has size, porosity and functionality characteristics in order to enable interaction with, and separation of, molecules. Typical supports for separation matrices include silica, alumina, agarose, acrylamide, styrene divinylbenzene, glass, dextran, polystyrene, acrylics, nylon, polyvinylidene difluoride, and combinations thereof. The separation matrix support can be in a form typically found for chromatography resins such as particles, gels, membranes or any other form that enables suitable separation characteristics. A flow-through vessel that holds a separation matrix is commonly called a column.
The functionality characteristics of the separation matrix support enable interactions with molecules. These functionalities can be cationic or anionic to allow for charge based interactions; alkyl chain, usually in the three to eighteen carbon length to allow hydrophobic interactions; or affinity ligands for specific binding interactions. The support may also have porosity characteristics that cause a molecular weight based separation as the molecules flow through it.
The most established analytical method of separating and identifying proteins is two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-D gel) followed by MALDI mass spectrometry. The major steps of this process are shown in the flow diagram of prior art FIG. 3. The complex sample mixture 67 is first separated by charge (pH) by an electrophoresis process called isoelectric focusing 68. This produces a linear strip of gel material with the proteins separated by charge along the length of the strip. The strip is placed in contact with the edge of a two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel sheet in the appropriate buffer and voltage is applied to separate the proteins according to molecular weight via gel electrophoresis 69. Individual proteins form spots of varying sizes and shapes across the gel. The proteins are labeled 70 either before or after separation, typically either through staining or fluorescent labeling. The labeled 2-D gel is imaged and the image is analyzed 71 to identify specific spots representing the location of specific proteins in the gel. The spots of proteins of interest are cut out of the gel 72 and digested to peptides 73, typically with trypsin. The peptide solution is then typically spotted onto a MALDI plate to facilitate peptide mass fingerprinting using a mass spectrometer 74 and a mass database 75 to produce protein identifications 76.
A common extension to the 2-D gel process is assessment of differential protein expression between two complex samples, samples from normal and diseased organisms for example. One typical process for differential separation on 2-D gels is to label all of the proteins in each sample with a different fluorescent dye (Patton et al. Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2001 6:63-69). The samples are then mixed, the 2-D gel separation is performed, and then the imaging is performed separately at the wavelengths of each of the two fluorescent dyes. In theory, proteins that exist in common in both samples will produce 2-D gel spots that are coincident. Proteins that exist in one sample but not in the other will produce spots at only one of the wavelengths. Further, proteins that exist in both samples but in different concentrations can be assessed by the ratio of their fluorescent intensities at the two wavelengths. Another typical process for differential measurements on 2-D gels is digital correlation of protein spots in images from two independent gels, and quantitating the differences in protein amount in each gel. This method suffers from its dependence on multiple 2-D gels producing protein spots in a reproducible manner.
Among the shortcomings of the 2-D gel process are the degree of skill required to perform the process, the large amount of manual manipulation of reagents and gels required, the lack of repeatability and reproducibility of results, and the length of time required for the process, which is often two or three days. Also, the assessment of differential protein expression using two dyes is limited by the dyes' ability to label all proteins to produce fluorescent signals proportional to their concentrations and by the fluorescent dyes' effects on the separation process, as well as limits to spot finding and quantitation at the image processing step. In an attempt to address these shortcomings another approach to the task called MUlti-Dimensional Protein Identification Technology (MUDpit) has been developed as depicted in prior art FIG. 4.
The MUDpit process utilizes liquid chromatography (LC) rather than gel electrophoresis as the separation modality. Referring to prior art FIG. 4, a protein sample 80 is first digested to peptides 81, then LC drives the peptide sample mixture through a flow-through column 84 containing a separation matrix while varying the concentration of the separation buffer, typically with a constant fluid flow rate and a linear concentration gradient with time. The buffer concentration gradient is typically produced by linearly varying the flow rates of two buffer solutions 82 and 83, one flow rate increasing while the other decreases, keeping the total flow rate through the LC column constant.
Unlike 2-D gels which produce separations as physical spots with specific locations on a 2-D plane, LC produces a series of volumes of eluted solutions (fractions) that are typically sampled at uniform time increments from a flowing output stream at the output port of a column 85. The LC process is inherently serial in nature; the fractions are delivered out of a single column one after the other. The MUDpit process further utilizes two complete LC processes in series to produce two dimensions of separation analogous to the 2-D gel process. The first separation is generally performed on an ion-exchange column and the second on a reverse-phase column. Time increment fractions are collected from the output stream of the first column 88, then each of those fractions is run independently on the second separation column 89 to generate a second series of time-increment fractions 90. Often the output of the second column is directed continuously to the input of a mass spectrometer, typically an electro-spray tandem mass spectrometer 91. In this arrangement the continuous flow from the second column is directed to the mass spectrometer instrument and the time-increment fractions are generated by the mass spectrometer's sampling of the stream. Other variations of MUDpit utilize multi-modality columns, capillaries and other variations of detailed configuration but retain the significant operational details described here.
The MUDpit process can be adapted to differential analysis between two samples by labeling the proteins or peptides with mass tags prior to separation (Patton et al., Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2002 13:321-328). Mass tags are molecules of known, small molecular weight that can be resolved by the mass spectrometer but do not materially affect the separation process. Mass spectra of identical peptides from two mass tag-labeled samples will have the same form but will be shifted along the mass axis by the difference of the mass of the tags, so their spectra can be differentiated. The ratio of the paired spectra's signal levels are representative of the relative concentrations of the protein in the two samples.
The use of mass tags for differential protein analysis has been described extensively in the literature. Mass tags can be isotopes of the constituent atoms of the proteins, such as N15, C14 or H2 or can be larger such as a CH3 group replacing a hydrogen atom. Labeling proteins with mass tags can be performed biologically in cell culture by using a culture media containing isotopic compounds as has been described by Oda et al., PNAS Jun. 8, 1999; 96(12):6591-6596 and Chen et al., Anal. Chem. Feb. 16, 2000; 72, 1134-1143, for example. Mass tags can also be applied directly to proteins by chemical labeling as described by Weckwerth et al. (Rapid Commun, in Mass Spectrom. 14, 1677-1681; 2000) and Kelleher et al. (Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 72, Dec. 19 1997, 32215-32220).
An advantage of the MUDpit process over the 2-D gel process is the degree of automation that can be applied. The LC process is typically hands free. The output of the final LC column can be plumbed into an electro-spray mass spectrometer to deliver the samples to the measurement instrument automatically.
The MUDpit technique also has disadvantages. First, the proteins must be digested to peptides before any separation is performed. This limits the resolution and range of separations as it makes the peptide mixture for the first separation an extremely complex one with potentially millions of different peptides to be discriminated. Short peptides may even overlap between multiple proteins. Second, the dynamic range of the LC process on peptides is lower than that of 2-D gels on intact proteins, so the signals from peptides from high-abundance proteins are more likely to overwhelm signals from low-abundance proteins. These problems are more pronounced when using MUDpit for differential measurements on low-abundance proteins. Further, since the separation elements in MUDpit are inherently serial rather than parallel, the throughput of the process is limited, making the elapsed time to evaluate a sample long even though the process can be largely automated.
Thus, there exists a need for an automated method, system, apparatus and kit for separation and identification of proteins that are more reproducible than 2-D gels. Additionally, the ability to avoid protein digestion prior to the first separation process and allow separations to be done in parallel would also prove beneficial. Such a method and system that supports differential protein analysis when needed would also prove beneficial.

Parallel process for protein or virus separation from a sample


A method and system for implementing a video conference and a broadband mobile hotspot device are disclosed in the present document. The method includes: each broadband mobile hotspot device participating in the conference sending a local panorama video image and voice signals to a multipoint conference server; the multipoint conference server sending the received panorama video images and voice signals to other broadband mobile hotspot devices participating in the conference except a sender; and after receiving panorama video images and voice signals of the other broadband mobile hotspot devices participating in the conference, each broadband mobile hotspot device participating in the conference mosaicking the local panorama video image and the received panorama video images as a conference panorama video image, and synchronizing the conference panorama video image with the received voice signals to send to a terminal device participating in the conference under the broadband mobile hotspot device.

The wireless communication technology has a significant impact on people's lives. The way of people using the wireless technology is updated continually. Applications of the wireless communication technology has penetrated as all aspects of people's lives and works, including daily used cellphones and radiophones and so on, wherein, technologies such as the 3rd Generation mobile communication technology (3G), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Ultra Wide Band (UWB), bluetooth and broadband satellite system and so on are the hottest wireless communication technologies at the 21st century, and particularly the study and application of the broadband wireless communication technology are extremely active.
The 3G broadband wireless communication network is established on a cellular architecture and supports data services in a mobile environment. The cellular architecture supports signal handover between different cells, thereby a mobility with full network coverage is provided for users, and applications supported by the cellular architecture are mainly the 3G mobile telephone services. A Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) wireless local area network is a short range wireless transmission technology which can support radio signals accessed by the Internet within a scope of hundreds of feet, and applications supported by the Wi-Fi wireless local area network are mainly accessed through portable and data-centered devices such as laptops, but not accessed through cellphoned-centered devices.
The Wi-Fi provides high bandwidth, but it is within a limited coverage area. Compared with the Wi-Fi, the 3G network supports the mobility across a wide area network, but a data throughput rate thereof is evidently lower than that of the Wi-Fi. Since the 3G and Wi-Fi have different advantages and limitations with respect to the coverage area and the bandwidth, the two technologies support different applications and satisfy different requirements.
Since the wireless communication network has a contradiction between bandwidth requirements and wireless network bandwidth shortage, a contradiction between user geographical distribution and unbalanced application requirement and a contradiction of coexistence between different technical advantages, it is determined that the wireless communication network is required to apply various technological means comprehensively, develop individualities of different technologies, integrate arrangements, solve different requirements of different areas and user groups on the bandwidths and services, and achieve the overall advantage and comprehensive ability of the wireless communication network.
The existing wireless network video conference system replaces the wired broadband access with the wireless broadband access for the access network part of the users based on a wired broadband network video conference system, and a terminal device accesses the conference system through a mobile network. Due to a bandwidth limitation of the mobile network access, the transmission of multimedia signals has a latency problem, and participants of the video conference must concentrate around the conference terminal device and face one terminal device to have the conference, which is restricted by that the conference room is required to be comparatively concentrated.

Method and system for implementing video conference and broadband mobile hotspot device


An aerial vehicle is described herein. The aerial vehicle includes a lift mechanism that includes a rotor blade assembly coupled to a motor assembly. The rotor blade assembly includes a plurality of rotor blades that are pivotably coupled to a rotor blade clamping mechanism. The rotor blade clamping mechanism includes an upper paddle clamp that is coupled to a lower paddle clamp. The upper paddle clamp includes a center protrusion and a plurality of blade support protrusions extending outwardly from the lower outer surface. The center protrusion includes a center shaft aperture sized and shaped to receive a motor shaft therein. Each blade support protrusion is sized and shaped to be inserted through a corresponding positioning aperture of a corresponding rotor blade. The lower paddle clamp includes a central recess to receive the center protrusion therein and a plurality of blade recesses to receive a corresponding blade support protrusion therein.

The propeller of traditional flying vehicles, e.g., drones, typically has either a complex structure or a simple structure. Particularly in drone aircraft, it may be advantageous to have a propeller structure that fulfills its primary function of maintaining the propeller blades in place during operation, while allowing the blades to be moved into a suitable position for transport. Ideally, the blade position for transport minimizes the overall size of the aircraft while minimizing the risk of damage to the propeller blades.
Generally, prior art propeller structures are simple which does not allow the blades to be moved into an arrangement suitable for transport or are too complex with a relatively large number of parts which increases the cost of the aircraft.
The present invention is aimed at one or more of the problems identified above.

Foldable rotor blade assembly and aerial vehicle with a foldable rotor blade assembly


The dynamic range of an imaging system that utilizes an array of active pixel sensor cells is substantially increased by reading each cell in the array multiple times during each integration period. Each time a cell is read, the number of photons collected by the cell is saved and the cell is reset if the cell would normally saturate by the end of the integration period. At the end of the integration period, the number of photons collected by each cell is defined by the sum of the values collected during the integration period.

1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates to active pixel sensor cells and, more particularly, to an imaging system and method for increasing the dynamic range of an array of active pixel sensor cells.
2. Description of the Related Art.
Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) have been the mainstay of conventional imaging circuits for converting a pixel of light energy into an electrical signal that represents the intensity of the light energy. In general, CCDs utilize a photogate to convert the light energy into an electrical charge, and a series of electrodes to transfer the charge collected at the photogate to an output sense node.
Although CCDs have many strengths, which include a high sensitivity and fill-factor, CCDs also suffer from a number of weaknesses. Most notable among these weaknesses, which include limited readout rates and dynamic range limitations, is the difficulty in integrating CCDs with CMOS-based microprocessors.
To overcome the limitations of CCD-based imaging circuits, more recent imaging circuits use active pixel sensor cells to convert a pixel of light energy into an electrical signal. With active pixel sensor cells, a conventional photodiode is typically combined with a number of active transistors which, in addition to forming an electrical signal, provide amplification, readout control, and reset control.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a conventional CMOS active pixel sensor cell 10. As shown in FIG. 1, cell 10 includes a photodiode 12, a reset transistor 14, whose source is connected to photodiode 12, a buffer transistor 16, whose gate is connected to photodiode 12, and a select transistor 18, whose drain is connected in series to the source of buffer transistor 16.
Operation of active pixel sensor cell 10 is performed in three steps: a reset step, where cell 10 is reset from the previous integration cycle; an image integration step, where the light energy is collected and converted into an electrical signal; and a signal readout step, where the signal is read out.
As shown in FIG. 1, during the reset step, the gate of reset transistor 14 is briefly pulsed with a reset voltage (5 volts) which resets photodiode 12 to an initial integration voltage which is approximately equal to the voltage on the drain of transistor 14 less the threshold voltage of transistor 14.
During integration, light energy, in the form of photons, strikes photodiode 12, thereby creating a number of electron-hole pairs. Photodiode 12 is designed to limit recombination between the newly formed electron-hole pairs. As a result, the photogenerated holes are attracted to the ground terminal of photodiode 12, while the photogenerated electrons are attracted to the positive terminal of photodiode 12 where each additional electron reduces the voltage on photodiode 12.
Thus, at the end of the integration period, the number of photons which were absorbed by photodiode 12 during the image integration period can be determined by subtracting the voltage at the end of the integration period from the voltage at the beginning of the integration period.
Following the image integration period, active pixel sensor cell 10 is read out by turning on select transistor 18. At this point, the reduced voltage on photodiode 12, less the threshold voltage of buffer transistor 16, is present on the source of buffer transistor 16. When select transistor 18 is turned on, the voltage on the source of buffer transistor 16 is then transferred to the source of select transistor 18. The reduced voltage on the source of select transistor 18 is detected by conventional detection circuitry.
One problem with active pixel sensor cell 10, however, is that imaging systems which utilize an array of active pixel sensor cells suffer from a limited dynamic range. Conventionally, the dynamic range is defined by the maximum number of photons that a cell 10 can collect during an integration period without saturating (exceeding the capacity of) the cell 10, and the minimum number of photons that a cell 10 can collect during the integration period that can be detected over the noise floor.
The effect of a limited dynamic range is most pronounced in images that contain both bright-light and low-light sources. In these situations, if the integration period of the array is shorted to the point where none of the bright-light information is lost, i.e., where the number of collected photons will not exceed the capacity of the cell during the integration period, then most, if not all, of the low-light information will be lost (resulting in a black image) because the collected photons will not be distinguishable over the noise level.
On the other hand, if the integration period of the array is increased to capture the low-light information, i.e., where the number of collected photons is detectable over the noise floor, then a significant portion of the bright-light information is lost (resulting in a white image) because the number of collected photons will far exceed the capacity of the cell.
One approach to solving the problem of dynamic range is to utilize a non-integrating active pixel sensor cell with a non-linear load device, such as a MOSFET-diode in weak inversion, to obtain a logarithmic response. This approach, however, has a number of drawbacks.
First, the noise in a non-integrating cell is much higher than the noise in a conventional integrating cell (such as cell 10 of FIG. 1). In a conventional integrating cell, the effect of random noise events is averaged over the integration period, while the effect of random noise events in a non-integrating cell can produce substantial distortions. Second, the exact non-linear transfer function of this type of device must be carefully calibrated to avoid variations from cell to cell and due to temperature changes.
Another approach to solving the problem of dynamic range, which is used with CCD systems, is to integrate twice: once with a short exposure and once with a long exposure. For the short exposure, the bright-light information is saved while the low-light information is discarded. Similarly, for the long exposure, the low-light information is saved while the bright-light information is discarded.
The information from the two exposures is then combined to form a composite image. The drawback with this approach, however, is that the resulting image is formed by combining image data from two different periods of time.
Thus, to successfully capture both bright-light and low-light sources in the same image, there is a need for an imaging array of active pixel sensor cells with a substantially increased dynamic range.

Imaging system and method for increasing the dynamic range of an array of active pixel sensor cells


A communal television receiving system may include a common wireless distributing apparatus performing a scanning operation for a wireless local area network (WLAN) communications module included in a preset WLAN communications network, determining transmission power with the WLAN communications module transmitting an acknowledgement (ACK) signal for the scanning operation, converting a received television signal into a WLAN signal having the determined transmission power, and transmitting the WLAN signal, and first to Nth wireless residential apparatuses transmitting the ACK signal as a response to the scanning operation, receiving the WLAN signal from the common wireless distributing apparatus, and outputting the television signal.

The present disclosure relates to a communal television receiving system and a method thereof.
A block of flats such as row houses, apartments, or the like, comprised of a plurality of residences generally uses a communal television reception system for the common reception of television broadcasts for all residences included therein.
Typically, such a communal television transmission receiving system is deployed in apartment buildings, villas, schools, hotels, multiplex housing, and the like in some countries.
Existing communal television transmission receiving systems may include a communal antenna receiving television broadcasts, a distributing apparatus connected to the communal antenna by a cable in a wired scheme and distributing a television signal to respective residences, and a residential television receiving apparatus connected to the distributing apparatus by a cable in a wired scheme to receive the television broadcast signal from the distributing apparatus and to provide the received television signal to a television for the display thereof.
Here, such a residential television receiving apparatus may include a set-top box and the like.
However, since existing communal television reception systems should ultimately connect the communal antenna, the distributing apparatus, and the residential television receiving apparatus to one another by cables in a wired scheme, the systems are somewhat cumbersome to install and manage while having maintenance problems and problems in terms of disposing and installing cables in the wired scheme thereof, and so on.
The Related Art Document 1 related to a wireless communications method within a building, does not disclose technical contents in which a common wireless distributing apparatus wirelessly transmits a television signal to respective residences within a building.

Communal television receiving system and method thereof


Methods and systems for controlling a dynamic response in a gas turbine fuel control system are provided. The control system includes a component model adapted to regulate a fuel supply pressure for a gas turbine, a pressure sensor adapted to sense a pressure of fuel supplied to the gas turbine, and a feedback module including integral plus state feedback, the feedback module adapted to provide a positive feedback reference signal to the component model such that a response time of the gas turbine fuel control system to changes in fuel pressure is facilitated being reduced.

This invention relates generally to gas turbines and more particularly to fuel control systems for gas turbines.
At least some known industrial gas turbine fuel control systems rely upon steady fuel pressure upstream of a set of parallel gas control valves for proper operation. For this reason, a pressure control valve is employed immediately upstream of the set of parallel gas control valves, to regulate this pressure.
Improvement to the pressure control valve response is desirable for gas turbine fuel system pressure control. A slow response and low bandwidth may result in a poor tracking action of the control system with the controlled parameter. An algorithm that provides an improved fuel control system dynamic response, including a shorter rise time of the response and better tracking action for higher frequency command reference signals tends to improve overall turbine system operation.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods and systems for gas turbine engine control


A compact cosmetic center that houses cosmetic products needed to do a complete makeup application. This center securely stores replaceable cosmetic cartridges, tubes, and tools to allow the consumer hands-free use while in a stationary, upright position or when in motion, i.e., in an automobile, boat, plane. This is possible by use of suction cups attaching to nonporous surfaces or by the use of an adjustable clip for use on a desk top or car visor.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a compact cosmetic case containing replaceable cosmetic cartridges, tubes, and applicators.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various portable cosmetic and toilet article cases have been disclosed that carry women's or men's cosmetic articles. U.S. Pat. No. 1,613,536 discloses a toilet article case that has a plurality of pockets, a mirror, and a folding hinged cover for use by aviators, barbers, and traveling men. U.S. Pat. No. 1,828,863 discloses a woman's vanity case for carrying lipsticks, perfume, eyebrow pencils, mirrors, and similar toilet articles and has folding hinged lids. U.S. Pat. No. 5,163,457 discloses a cosmetic case having a slidable cover with a window, a mirror, a cosmetic well, and a brush applicator. It has a tubular storage space for refill tubular products like lipstick.


A ventilation tube has a tubular member with generally circular flanges at opposite ends. Each flange has a respective tab that is angled obliquely to the axis of the tubular member. The tabs are diametrically opposite, and angled in opposite senses. Each tab has straight non-cutting edges tangential to its associated flange, and an arcuate nose portion. Each flange (may be used either for grasping the ventilation tube, or for insertion into an incision in a tympanic membrane, thereby permitting the ventilation tube to be used reversibly.

Many persons, particularly children, suffer from accumulation of fluid in the middle ear. In a surgical operation, known as a myringotomy or tympanostomy, an incision is made in the tympanic membrane or eardrum to ventilate the middle ear and/or drain the fluid. This simple incision in the tympanic membrane may provide temporary relief, but incisions of the eardrum normally self-heal within a relatively short time. For ventilation/drainage for longer periods, after myringotomy the surgeon inserts a ventilation tube or "grommet" through the incision, thereby providing a vent which equalises the pressure on either side of the eardrum, and allows fluid to be drained from the middle ear. The eardrum soon heals around the waist of the grommet, which is subsequently expelled from the eardrum usually some months later leaving an intact eardrum.
To insert the ventilation tube into the incision in the tympanic membrane, the ear surgeon grasps the tube with a special grasping forceps, and manoeuvres the tube into position. As the ventilation tube is extremely small, typically less than a few millimetres in diameter, and as the tympanic membrane is so delicate, the surgeon must exercise considerable skill and dexterity in the operation.
The ventilation tube is typically in the form of a short tubular conduit having radial flanges at its opposite ends which locate on opposite sides of the tympanic membrane and assist in keeping the ventilation tube in place. (The eardrum has a natural tendency to dislodge the ventilation tube from the incision as it heals). Various designs have been used or proposed for ventilation tubes in order to facilitate their insertion after a myringotomy and the shape and design of the grommet will influence the length of time they are retained within the drum. Many ventilation tubes have a tab extending from an end flange to enable the ventilation tube to be grasped more easily. Examples of such ventilation tubes can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,807,409; 3,871,380; 4,174,716; 4,650,488; 4,695,275; 4,764,168; 5,137,523; 5,649,932 and 6,042,574. The tabs of the known ventilation tubes generally extend parallel or perpendicularly to the axis of the tube.
It has been found that insertion of the ventilation tube is facilitated if the leading portion of the tube is inserted into the incision in the tympanic membrane at an angle. Known ventilation tubes which have grasping tabs orientated either parallel or perpendicularly to the longitudinal axis of the tube do not place the tube in the preferred orientation for insertion. The surgeon must therefore manoeuvre the grasping forceps to angle the ventilation tube, increasing the difficulty of the operation.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,178,623 and 5,207,685 disclose ventilation tubes having grasping tabs angled obliquely to the axis of the tube. The ventilation tube of U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,623 has a cutting edge at the opposite end of the tube from the grasping tab, diametrically opposite to the tab. In use, the surgeon holds the grasping tab with forceps and presses the ventilation tube against the tympanic membrane, firstly to perforate it with the cutting edge, and then to insert the cutting edge and its associated flange through the incision to seat the ventilation tube in the membrane.
The ventilation tubes of U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,623 may permit the incision and insertion steps to be performed by the same instrumentation, namely the ventilation tube itself, but the provision of a cutting edge on the ventilation tube introduces added risk. The cutting edge must be sharp as it is intended to perform the initial perforation of the eardrum. As a myringotomy knife, the ventilation tube, when grasped with forceps by the surgeon, would not be as stable as a regular myringotomy knife, particularly for very thin and flaccid eardrums and excessively thick eardrums. The cutting edge would therefore appear to be less useful to a surgeon, and possibly more traumatic if the cutting edge inadvertently scratches the skin of the external canal of the ear and/or the drum and medial wall lining of the middle ear, resulting in bleeding and unnecessary injury. Thus, rather than facilitating the insertion of the ventilation tube, the provision of the cutting edge on the tube requires greater skill and dexterity by the ear surgeon.
The ventilation tube of U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,685 also poses the risk of trauma from its sharp cutting edge. Moreover, this ventilation tube must be removed after the incision, released by the forceps, and then re-grasped on a second grasping tab for insertion. The ventilation tube is considered unnecessarily complicated and difficult for surgeons and theatre nurses to use.
A significant disadvantage of the ventilation tubes of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,178,623 and 5,207,685, as well as the ventilation tubes of the other patents identified above, is that they are designed for use in one orientation only. Thus, when picking up the tiny ventilation tubes, the theatre nurse or surgeon must ensure that the tubes are grasped at the correct end. The tubes may need to be moved around to correctly orientate the tab for grasping by the forceps.
U.S. design Pat. No. D371606 shows an ear ventilation tube which appears to be reversible, but the tabs of the illustrated ventilation tube are small and therefore difficult to grasp. Such small tags, if they are designed to aid insertion are very small and their sides do not meet the outer circumference of the flange tangentially. Thus, if this small tag is able to engage a preformed incision in the tympanic membrane, advancement of the grommet will cause it to be pushed bluntly onto the ends of the preformed incision. The grommet will not slide smoothly to widen the preformed incision resulting possibly in excessive force, a sudden give or tear in the eardrum and the resulting hole possibly being too big to hold the grommet within its space.
Moreover, the tabs are orientated parallel to the longitudinal axis of the tube, and hence the tube is not held at the desired orientation by the grasping forceps. The flanges of the ventilation tube of U.S. design Pat. No. D371606 are also angled obliquely to the axis of the tube, which tends to locate the tube at an angle to the eardrum. Such skewed seating of the tube may facilitate dislodgement of the tube from the eardrum.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved ventilation tube which is reversible, i.e. it may be used in either of two orientations, safe to use, and configured for easy insertion in a tympanic membrane.


A data processing system comprises encoding circuitry operable to encode arrays of data elements, decoding circuitry operable to decode encoded versions of arrays of data elements, and consumer circuitry operable to use arrays of data elements. Data indicative of a resolution that is to be used by the consumer circuitry for at least one region of the array of data elements is provided to the encoding circuitry, and the encoding circuitry uses the data indicative of the resolution that is to be used by the consumer circuitry to control the generation of the representation for representing at least one block that the array of data elements is divided into.

The technology described herein relates to data processing systems and in particular to techniques for encoding data in data processing systems.
It is common in data processing systems to encode an array of data elements, such as an array of image data values (e.g. frames of video data or graphics data for display), so as to compress the data in order to reduce bandwidth and memory consumption. This is particularly desirable in data processing apparatus, e.g. of portable devices, where processing resources and power may be limited.
In order to encode an array of data elements, the array of data elements is often divided into smaller blocks (sub-regions) of data elements and encoded on a block by block basis.
US Patent Application No. 2013/0034309 describes a lossless encoding technique for encoding an array of data elements in which a quadtree representation is generated for each block of the data array, where each leaf node of the quadtree represents a respective data element of the data array, and where the data values for the nodes of the tree are set such that the data value for the data element that a leaf node represents is given by the sum of the data values in the tree for the leaf node and each preceding parent node in the branch of the tree that the leaf node belongs to.
The Applicants believe that there remains scope for improvements to techniques for encoding arrays of data elements.


The present invention provides a method and apparatus of generating browsing paths for data, a method for browsing data and a computer program product. According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of generating browsing paths for data. Firstly, a plurality of candidate browsing paths based on a data model describing the data structure is generated; next for each of the plurality of candidate browsing paths, importance of the browsing path based on a portion of data corresponding to the browsing path in the data is calculated; and at least one of the plurality of candidate browsing paths based on the importance is selected.

Recently, the facet search or facet browsing has become a popular paradigm to browse large collections of semi-structured or structured data representing business objects (such as products, documents, companies, etc.). This paradigm lies in organizing the business objects in orthogonal category taxonomies called facets, for example, it is disclosed in the article "Publishing Museum Collections on the Semantic Web—The Museum Finland Portal" by Eero Hyvönen et al, WWW conference 2004, and in the article "Faceted metadata for image search and browsing" by Lee, K.-P., K. Swearingen, K. Li & M. Hearst, Proceedings of CHI 2003, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. In the disclosed techniques, users can easily express their queries by selecting and combining different categories within the given facets and refine their queries step by step until reaching a satisfactory set of solutions.
FIG. 1 shows one example of a prior art facet browsing. In FIG. 1, a user enters a query "ibm", the resulting categories include a plurality of facets, for example, categories, price ranges, brands, stores and seller rating, etc., these facets and the order of which are all predefined. There are a number of categories corresponding to each browsing path, for example, the price ranges include under $800, $800-$1400, $1400-$2000, $2000-$4000, over $4000, or the user can input his or her own price range.
Usually, facet search is based on a predefined (manual) selection of a limited number of facets. This method was satisfying within a limited scope, it can not be dynamically applied to new or updated business objects. Actually, the business objects can often be dynamically created or updated by external users (partners) and be composed of a large number of properties or relationships, which can create hundreds or even more potential facets.
Additionally, facets are usually defined as simple features of the objects. The notion of browsing path, more generic than facet, which includes facets and complex facets obtained by composing several features of the objects.
Therefore, predefining browsing paths and their corresponding categories to browse the data becomes cumbersome and may not reflect the current change of objects. On the contrary, the automatic listing of all possible browsing paths will be confusing for users, the user can not find one or several browsing paths he needs from a large number of browsing paths, and can not make a smooth navigation.

Apparatus of generating browsing paths for data and method for browsing data

International Business Machines Corporation


A door mechanism for disposing on a bin body, which has an inner periphery defining an opening, includes a door panel unit configured to be pivoted to the inner periphery of the bin body to openably close the opening, a hinge unit configured to pivotally connect the door panel unit to the inner periphery of the bin body, a rotary wheel unit for controlling rotation of the hinge unit, a drive unit pivoted between the rotary wheel unit and the hinge unit, and a motor unit for driving rotation of the rotary wheel unit. When the rotary wheel unit is driven by the motor unit to rotate, the rotary wheel unit drives rotation of the drive unit which in turn drives the hinge unit to rotate said door panel unit to an open or a closed position.

FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional door mechanism of a stock bin of a bread maker. The door mechanism includes two rotatable door panels 11, two electromagnets 12 respectively controlling rotation of the door panels 11, and two connectors 13 each of which interconnects one of the door panels 11 and a respective one of the electromagnets 12. When the electromagnets 12 are energized, the connectors 13 are actuated by the electromagnets 12 to respectively drive the door panels 11 to rotate to an open position. When the electromagnets 12 are de-energized, the door panels 11 rotate to a closed position. However, because the electromagnets 12 can generate heat which can weaken the magnetic force thereof, it is likely to occur that the torque for opening the door panels 11 will be insufficient. Hence, there is room for improvement of the conventional door mechanism of the bread maker.

Door mechanism of a stock bin of bread maker

Tsann Kuen (Zhangzhou) Enterprise Co., Ltd.


A trocar system comprises a trocar housing, a pointed stylet arranged so that the pointed tip can be selectively extended outwardly (distally) from the trocar housing, a return spring in the trocar housing for retracting the stylet into the housing and a piston and piston latch system disposed within the trocar housing for restraining the stylet from retracting. The piston includes a cam element for de-latching the piston from its latched position to allow the return spring to retract the piston into the housing. The stylet engages the piston in a slot to permit limited longitudinal movement of the stylet into the housing. A distally-biased element which carries an engaging pin and is forced to move proximally by the tissue resistance experienced as the trocar is forced to puncture a body cavity wall, automatically moves to its original distal location after the tip of the trocar has completely passed through the wall. The sequence of movements, first proximal and then distal, automatically first arm and then trigger the de-latching mechanism which enables the return spring to retract the pointed stylet into a protective housing.

Trocars are well known surgical devices. A trocar comprises a stylet, that is, a pointed implement for penetrating a body cavity wall, and associated parts which are surrounded by a tube or cannula which follows the stylet into the cavity and stays in place after the stylet and other associated parts are removed. The combination of trocar and cannula will be referred to herein as a trocar system.
It is known to position protective tubes over the pointed end of the stylet to protect patients and surgeons from injury through inadvertent contact with the sharp tip. Such a tube is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,280. In this reference, a concentric protective tube is slidably spring biased to fully cover the pointed end. In use, the protective tube moves proximally to expose the pointed end to allow it to puncture the cavity wall. After the pointed end of the stylet and the protective tube pass fully through the wall, the protective tube is able to slide distally under the force of the spring to again cover the pointed end of the stylet to prevent tissue injury.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,773 describes an invention wherein the pointed end of a stylet, which protrudes from a protective housing for the purpose of puncturing tissue, also carries pressure sensors which signal the reduction of pressure accompanying full passage through the body wall. This signal causes a solenoid, located within the housing, to become energized and thereby disable a detent which holds the stylet in an extended position, thus allowing a pre-tensioned spring to pull the stylet into the housing.
Although from this cited art it is known to shield the pointed end after the concentric tube has fully passed through the cavity wall, it has now been found to be preferable to invoke protection of the sharp tip at an earlier time, prior to the concentric tube entering or passing through the puncture hole in the process of puncturing the cavity wall in order to further reduce the probability of inadvertently injuring internal tissue. U.S. Pat. No. 4,902,980 requires that the tube fully project through the hole in order to invoke the protective features. Further, while the retraction of the stylet within the housing, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,773, does improve the level of protection, the impracticality of providing pressure sensors on the stylet and the unreliability of solenoids together with the need to provide electrical power along with the associated costs of these additional parts combine to make this approach impractical.


A laboratory sample distribution system comprising a number of sample container carriers moving on a transport plane is presented. The system further comprises an earthquake detection device in order to minimize influences on operation of the system by an earthquake. A laboratory automation system comprising such a laboratory sample distribution system is also presented.

The present disclosure generally relates to a laboratory sample distribution system and a laboratory automation system.
Known laboratory sample distribution systems are typically used in laboratory automation systems in order to transport samples contained in sample containers between different laboratory stations.
There is a need for laboratory sample distribution systems and laboratory automation systems having improved resilience during an earthquake when compared to known laboratory sample distribution systems.

Laboratory sample distribution system and laboratory automation system


A communication system communicates control data in unused segments in the data stream of an asynchronous channel. The communication system includes a transmitting unit and a receiving unit. The transmitting unit transmits communications data to the receiving unit via the asynchronous channel, in compliance with the channel's asynchronous protocol. However, the transmitting unit transmits control data to the receiving unit in unused segments of the data stream.

Many communication systems asynchronously communicate data over a communications channel. For example, in many network applications, the communication channel is designed to comply with the IEEE std. 802.3-2000, published October, 2000. Although the IEEE 802.3 standard (also referred to herein as the Ethernet standard) is in wide use, there are many other asynchronous communications channels such as, for example, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Packet over SONET (POS), Token Ring, and Fiber Channel.
Transmitter, receiver and/or transceiver units used in such communication systems often communicate control data (including diagnostic, synchronization and configuration, and other types of data used in managing the units) among each other. In many conventional communication systems, this control data is communicated in the same manner as normal communications data. For example, in an Ethernet channel, the control data would be communicated using data frames that comply with the Ethernet standard. As a result, each data frame used to transfer control data cannot be used for normal communications data, thereby reducing the effective bandwidth of normal communications data.

Method and apparatus for communicating control data in an asynchronous communications channel


A method for producing polysuccinimides is provided. A rotary tray operating at an internal temperature of from about 110 to about 300.degree. C. and providing a residence time of from about 1 hour to about 10 hours is used in the polycondensation of one or more amino acids, amic acids or ammonium salts of monoethylenically unsaturated dicarboxylic acids to produce polysuccinimides.

Poly(amino acids) such as poly(aspartic acid) are useful as additives for fertilizers, scale inhibitors, detergents, pigment and mineral dispersants, and corrosion and scale inhibitors in boilers and cooling towers. Poly(amino acids) have been synthesized by hydrolyzing the products of thermal polycondensation reactions of amino acids. Unfortunately, the known methods for the synthesis of poly(amino acids) are complex, expensive, or require excessively long process times.
A method for the synthesis of poly(aspartic acid) is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,461 to Boehmke. This process combines maleic acid or maleic anhydride and an ammonia solution in a molar ratio of 1:1-1.5. The mixture is then heated to 120.degree.-150.degree. C. and the resulting solution of ammonium salt and maleic acid is evaporated, leaving a crystal mash. The crystal mash is then melted, during which time the waters of condensation and crystallization distill off. A porous mass of poly(aspartic acid) results. The entire process requires six to eight hours to complete.
Another method for the synthesis of poly(amino acid) is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,597 to Koskan, et al. This process requires fluidizing an amino acid by agitation in a nitrogen atmosphere at a temperature of at least 180.degree. C. for three to six hours. The resultant anhydropolyamino acid is then hydrolyzed to a poly(amino acid).
The prior art methods for the synthesis of polysuccinimides and poly(amino acids) are time consuming, complex or use large volumes of volatile organic solvents or inert gases. As used hereinafter and in the appended claims, "polysuccinimides" refers to polymeric materials which contain succinimide moieties in the polymer chain and may contain other moieties, and "polysuccinimide" refers to polymeric materials which contain only such moieties.
It is an object of this invention to provide a relatively simple process for the manufacture of polysuccinimides which can then be hydrolyzed to form poly(amino acids).
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a continuous process for preparing polysuccinimides.

Method for preparing polysuccinimides with a rotary tray dryer


The disclosure relates to building construction flashing materials that are presented in both liquid and solid form and is useful in new building construction as well as retrofit procedures. The liquid form is comprised of a silicone base which has been reformulated to improve its flowability and self-leveling qualities allowing it to be applied by brush, pump or spray apparatus. It can be used alone or it can serve as a complementary effective moisture barrier when used with the solid form of the elastomeric flashing materials. The solid form of the elastomeric flashing materials can be extruded sheet material, formed specialty accessories, and/or a readily formable metallic substrate material which has been completely coated with the reformulated liquid silicone, resulting in a highly bendable, formable and shape retaining flashing component. Both the liquid and solid forms serve as an effective moisture guard which can be used individually or together to protect a wide range of building constructions and keep building interiors dry.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system of elastomeric materials in liquid and solid forms used for the flashing of through-wall and roof penetrations and the like of new buildings under construction or existing buildings in need of repair. The purpose of this flashing system is to protect building assemblies and interiors from moisture penetration. The system is used as an effective moisture guard to protect a wide range of construction conditions and keep building interiors dry.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Materials installed between or over building components for the purpose of moisture protection are known as flashing. Wall and roof penetrations through the building enclosure typically include flashings between building components and at other locations to divert moisture that would otherwise accumulate within the building enclosure assembly. Through-wall conditions in need of flashing are typically varied in dimension and include inconsistencies due to the nature of the constructions. On new construction, flashing installation is required at these locations and like conditions; on existing construction, flashing is often required for remedial work at these same locations to prevent further material deterioration due to water intrusion or to provide compliance with changes in the building codes.
Prior art flashing systems has relied on semi-rigid sheet stock that has been formed and joined to other pieces with soldering, brazing or adhesive techniques. The flashing has been formed either on-site or in an off-site production facility. Fitting and installation typically occurs on-site. Flashing on existing construction generally involves the custom forming and fitting of flashing materials between building components such as below sills or sill-like features to divert water that would otherwise accumulate inside the wall assembly due to water intrusion through or around building components.
A major disadvantage of the semi-rigid sheet materials traditionally used for this purpose is their lack of in-situ formability and flexibility, properties needed to successfully follow and cover the irregularly shaped contours at locations in need of flashing. Cutting, bending and snippping of the presently available semi-rigid sheet stock has been required to physically form the prior art flashing materials to conform to the configuration of the particular area in need of flashing.
Another disadvantage of these prior art materials is their reliance on soldering, a brazing or adhesives to accomplish waterproof joints where the material has been overlapped or joined. Soldered or brazed joints are particularly rigid and prone to breaking or cracking under extreme weather conditions or when pressure is exerted during the placement and fitting of metal flashing. This can result in splits, holes or voids at flashing joinings that allow water migration and consequently defeating the overall purpose of the flashing.
The prior art is extremely limited in its capacity to fit unique individual conditions. This has proven especially problematic on retrofit installations characterized by irregular, atypical conditions. A wide range of conditions and related dimensions can be present with irregular and unknown contours, making proper flashing fit on retrofit installations particularly cumbersome, requiring laborious, time-consuming and near perfection of custom-fitting to individual conditions. Off-site production of the flashing elements has also been associated with fitting problems. Flashing manufactured in accordance with standard, project-specific and expected dimensions and tolerances assume that in general, conditions at the site are both regular and uniform. Unfortunately, all too often, standardized flashings dimensioned and formed off-site do not fit when attempts are made to install them at the site due to construction variances and the like. Consequently, these "standardized" flashings also present problems of difficulty in fitting to particular conditions. Because there has been no easy way to modify these flashings in the field to achieve proper fit, flashings have often been omitted or poorly placed so that they do not perform their intended purpose, allowing water bypass and subsequent moisture damage to construction materials and building interiors.
Due to these limitations inherent in the prior art, the level of moisture protection provided by flashing has been highly dependent on the installer's skill and patience, for both new and existing construction. Thus, the achievement of satisfactory flashing performance has not been accomplished on a consistent basis. This is particularly true on retrofit projects typically involving non-standard conditions which require custom fit by the installers at each flashing location.

Multi-component elastomeric materials for a building flashing system


Provided is a band clip according to which projection from a sheet-shaped object is suppressed. The band clip includes a bundling band and a clip. The bundling band includes a head and a strap. The clip includes a button, a shaft, and a penetration inhibitor. One end of the shaft is bonded to one main surface of the button. The other end of the shaft is bonded to one main surface of the penetration inhibitor. The head is bonded to the other main surface of the penetration inhibitor. In a view from the direction in which the shaft extends, the button is larger than the shaft and the penetration inhibitor is larger than the button.

If a wire harness and a floor carpet are to be attached to a vehicle body of an automobile or the like, normally, a band-clip-equipped wire harness and a floor carpet are prepared, the band-clip-equipped wire harness is attached to the vehicle body, and the floor carpet is attached to the vehicle body on top of the band-clip-equipped wire harness.
With the invention disclosed in Patent Document 1, a wire harness is bundled by a bundling band (harness retaining portion) of the band clip (carpet fastener), and the clip (locking protrusion) of the band clip is bonded to the floor carpet (carpet), whereby an assembly of the band clip, wire harness, and floor carpet is prepared. The assembly is attached to the vehicle body (paragraph 0042).

Band clip, band-clip-equipped wire harness, and assembly


Described herein are methods and systems for O-glycosylating proteins in vivo or in vitro in any prokaryotic organism. In these methods and systems, DNA comprising a gene that produces a PglL-like oligosaccharyltransferase and DNA comprising a gene that produces a protein to be O-glycosylated are used. The PglL-like oligosaccharyltransferase facilitates the covalent attachment of the glycan to the protein to produce the O-glycosylated protein. The methods and systems described herein provide an approach for the design and production of new vaccines and therapeutic agents for the treatment of various diseases.

Protein glycosylation is a fundamental process in living organisms. Analysis of the frequency of glycosylation has predicted that more than half of all proteins in nature will eventually be identified as glycoproteins. Without these added carbohydrates, the function of many proteins is aberrant. Complex carbohydrates are involved in cellular communication via cell/cell contact, metastasis (the spread of cancer cells through the body), viral and bacterial adhesion, and binding of toxins to cells. Understanding the roles of carbohydrate biology is crucial to basic health research and to the pharmaceutical industry.
Recombinant glycoproteins represent a major fraction of the active compounds in today's biotech drugs. Examples of therapeutic glycoproteins are recombinant human Erythropoietin (rHuEPO), beta-Interferon, and Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). While the biological function is typically determined by the protein component, carbohydrates can affect many properties of the protein, which can include, but are not limited to, molecular stability, serum half-life, solubility, in vivo activity, and immunogenicity. For example, hHuEPO, which can be produced in Chinese hamster ovary cells, is used clinically to treat numerous anemias including, but not limited to, those associated with chronic renal failure, HIV infection and some types of cancers. rHuEPO contains several oligosaccharide chains containing sialic acid as the terminal sugar. Removal of the sialic acid residues from rHuEPO results in virtually inactive rHuEPO in vivo due to its rapid clearance. This example shows the importance of a defined carbohydrate structure and pattern for the biological activity of recombinant glycoproteins.
In the past, mammalian, insect, and yeast cells have been used to express recombinant glycoproteins. These cells all have the capability to glycosylate proteins, but they exhibit different patterns of glycosylation than human cells. Because protein glycosylation is an essential process in eukaryotic cells and very complex sugar modifications occur in the different cellular compartments, the manipulation of protein glycosylation in higher organisms is very difficult. Consequently, the use of these types of cells often results in the production of glycoproteins having different carbohydrate structures and patterns, which may lead to serious changes in properties, as described above. These different carbohydrate structures and patterns may in fact lead to the production of recombinant glycoproteins that are completely inactive and useless for the production of therapeutic agents. Consequently, there is a need for methods and systems that can be used to produce recombinant glycoproteins having specific carbohydrate structures and patterns both in vivo and in vitro.
Until recently, glycoproteins were thought to be an exclusive feature of eukaryotic cells. Although protein glycosylation does not take place naturally in Escherichia coli, it is a common phenomenon in other bacteria. Bacteria can tolerate the manipulation of their glycosylation systems and therefore constitute perfect toolboxes for glycoengineering.
Protein glycosylation consists of two main steps: (i) the assembly of a glycan and (ii) the attachment of the glycan to the protein. In most cases, the glycans are sequentially assembled onto a lipid carrier by different glycosyltransferases. This lipid carrier will vary depending on the organism. For example, which is not meant to be limiting, the lipid carrier can be dolichol-pyrophosphate in the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum of eukaryotic cells and can be undecaprenol-pyrophosphate (Und-PP) in the inner membrane of bacteria. Once the glycans are assembled onto the lipid carrier, they are transferred to target proteins. When the glycans are attached to the amido groups of selected asparagine (Asn) residues, the process is called N-glycosylation. During the process of O-glycosylation, glycans are attached to the hydroxyl group on selected serine (Ser) or threonine (Thr) residues. The transfer of the glycans from the lipid carrier to proteins is carried out by enzymes named oligosaccharyltransferases (OTases).
In conjugate vaccine production, glycoproteins are used as vaccines to help elicit an immune response and provide protection against various pathogens and other ailments. In these vaccines, the attachment of glycans to proteins helps increase the immunogenecity of the glycans. Many techniques are now available to produce such vaccines (Jones, C. 2005 An. Acad. Bras. Cienc. 77(2): 293-324; Sood, R. K., and Fattom, A. 1998 Expert Opin. Investig. Drugs 7(3):333-347; Slovin, S. F., Keding, S. J., Ragupathi, G. 2005 Immunol. Cell Biol. 83(4):418-428). However, when using most of the currently available techniques, it is not possible to control the site(s) on the protein where the glycan will be attached. Furthermore, it can be quite difficult the control the ratio of glycan to protein. These difficulties lead to conjugate vaccines that are heterogeneous in nature, which leads to problems when trying to gain approval for use from health regulatory agencies. The composition of the conjugate vaccines may vary and are often hard to reproduce exactly. Consequently, there is a need for new methods and systems that can be used to attach glycans to proteins in a more controlled manner to improve the production of conjugate vaccines.
The use of bacteria to produce O-glycosylated recombinant proteins has been disclosed by Castric et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,872,398 (the "'398 Patent"). In the '398 Patent, a multivalent vaccine against Gram-negative bacterial infections comprising heterologously glycosylated pili from Pseudomonas aeruginosa is disclosed. To produce this vaccine, the '398 Patent teaches the introduction into a Gram-negative bacterium, of a vector containing pilA, the pilin structural gene from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and pilO, the gene from Pseudomonas aeruginosa coding for the protein responsible for the attachment of the O-antigen repeating unit to the pilin subunit. Once expressed, PilO can add the O-antigen repeating unit of the host Gram-negative bacterium to the pilin protein PilA. The O-glycosylated pilin can then be purified from a culture of the transformed bacteria. However, this method and system have many serious disadvantages and limitations. The system taught by Castric relies strictly on the use of the oligosaccharyltransferase PilO. This limitation results in several serious disadvantages. First, the use of PilO severely limits the type of O-antigen repeating units that can be transferred onto the glycoprotein. In fact, PilO can only transfer only small glycans, commonly known by one of skill in the art as oligosaccharides (i.e., glycans having 2-10 monosaccharides). Second, PilO is unable to transfer glycans to internal glycosylation sites in proteins to be glycosylated. In fact, it has been shown that PilO only transfers glycan to a serine residue that must be the C-terminal residue of the protein (Castric, P., et al. 2001, J. Biol. Chem. 276;26479-26485). This clearly imposes major limits on the proteins that can be glycosylated using the system taught by Castric. Moreover, these difficulties can prevent the production of specific vaccines or therapeutic agents due to PilO's inability to transfer larger glycan, commonly known by one of skill in the art as polysaccharides (i.e., glycans having more than 10 monosaccharides). Third, PilO is very difficult to express and purify. This can pose serious limitations when trying to use this system to produce large quantities of glycosylated product for vaccine production.
The system and method taught by Castric in U.S. Pat. No. 6,872,398 have several other limitations. The production of recombinant glycoproteins is limited to in vivo systems. Moreover, both the oligosaccharyltransferase and the protein to be glycosylated must originate from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These disadvantages can be very problematic, mostly for the production of vaccines or other therapeutic agents.
Consequently, the need has arisen for a method and system that can be used to easily O-glycosylate proteins using a variety of prokaryotic organisms in an in vivo or in vitro manner, while avoiding some of the problems listed above.

THE GOVERNORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA


A method for mounting a semiconductor chip on a first wire board, bonding a second wire board to a connecting terminal of the first wire board with a thermo-setting layer of anisotropic conductivity, covering the undersurface and periphery of the semiconductor chip by a first thermo-setting epoxy resin so as to embed and seal the semiconductor chip therein, and cover the connecting part of the first wire board and the second wire board by a second thermo-setting epoxy resin.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for mounting a wire board on a liquid crystal display substrate so as to connect the display substrate to a semiconductor chip, a flexible wire board, and other surfaces. Hereinafter, the liquid crystal display will be referred to as "LCD."
2. Description of the Related Art
Under common practice a semiconductor chip for driving the liquid crystals in a display substrate is bonded face-down to the display substrate with an electrically-conductive adhesive or a solder.
In general, as shown in FIG. 6 an LCD apparatus is provided with an LCD substrate 21 and a counter glass substrate 31 bonded to each other with a liquid crystal layer (not shown) sandwiched therebetween. The LCD substrate 21 is provided with a wiring pad 22 and a connecting terminal 28 through which a semiconductor chip 24 and a flexible wire board 26 are connected to the LCD substrate 21.
A typical example of the known method of mounting the semiconductor chip 24 and the flexible wire board 26 on the LCD substrate 21 will be described by reference to FIG. 6:
The semiconductor chip 24 is provided with bump electrodes 23 on the undersurface thereof. The bump electrodes 23 are bonded to the wiring pads 22 and one of the connecting terminals 28 by use of an electrically-conductive adhesive 25. The reliability against water of the connecting points of the bump electrode 23 to the wiring pad 22 and the connecting terminal 28, respectively is low. Therefore, a thermosetting epoxy resin 30 is then injected through a gap between the counter glass substrate 31 and the semiconductor chip 24 until the epoxy resin 30 covers from a lower part of the semiconductor chip 24 up to the sides thereof due to capillarity. This method has advantages, in that the semiconductor chip 24 is embedded in the resin 30 and sealed to the substrate 21, and that on the side of the semiconductor chip 24 near the connecting terminal 28 a fillet 32 is formed. The fillet 32 prevents water from entering the connecting points through the interface between the epoxy resin 30 and the LCD substrate 21.
The thermo-setting epoxy resin 30 is preferably a type which exhibits good wettability with the LCD substrate 21. The length of the fillet 32 depends upon the amount of supply of the resin 30.
Subsequently, the flexible wire board 26 is bonded to that side of the connecting terminal 28 which is opposite to the semiconductor chip 24 through a thermoplastic layer 27 of anisotropic conductivity which permits reworking. Then, the connecting part 34 of the flexible wire board 26 is covered with a silicon resin coat 33 so as to protect it against water. In this way the mounting method is finished.
However, the above-mentioned known mounting method has disadvantages; one is that because of the use of a thermoplastic layer 27 of anisotropic conductivity, no heat can be applied after the flexible wire board 26 is bonded to the LCD substrate 21. Therefore, before the flexible wire board 26 is bonded to the substrate, the semiconductor chip 24 is sealed in epoxy resin 30. A fillet 32 is thus formed in which it is difficult to control the length. As a result, the connecting part 34 of the LCD substrate 21 and the flexible wire board 26 are detrimentally sealed in a flooded epoxy resin 30.
In order to avoid such problems, it is required to keep the pads 22 and the connecting part 34 of the flexible wire board 26 at a relatively large distance. This results in increasing the size of the LCD substrate 21.
A proposed solution to the flooding problem of epoxy resin 30 is a dam by means of a heat-proof tape in the connecting terminal. However, this method presents at least two problems; one is that the number of production steps is increased, and the other is that the remainder of the dam is likely to spoil the adherence of the silicon resin coat 33 with the connecting terminal 28. This leads to a poor electrical connection at the connecting part 34 of the flexible wire board 26.
In general, the silicon resin 33 is of two types; one is a condensation type resin (merely condensation resin) and the other is an addition type resin (merely addition resin). Addition silicon resins are superior to condensation silicon resins in antihumidity, but a problem is that the addition resin is difficult to harden sufficiently when it comes into contact with any resin containing an amine-type hardener.
In practise, since the thermoplastic layer 27 of anisotropic conductivity and the thermo-setting epoxy resin 30 both contain an amine-type hardener, an addition resin cannot be used, and as a substitute, the condensation type must be used. As a result, the favorable anti-humidity property of the addition resin cannot be utilized.

Method for mounting a wiring board on a liquid crystal display substrate


A razor blade unit including a housing having a top surface, and a loop disposed on the top surface, the loop having two terminal ends and two exposed opposing edges between the two terminal ends. The loop intersects the top surface at the two terminal ends and the two terminal ends are spaced apart from each other on the top surface. At least a portion of at least one of the two exposed opposing edges has a cutting edge. The razor blade unit provides improved conformity to skin contours.

Flexible razors have evolved to address user needs during shaving, especially in improving conformity to skin contours. Such improved conformity to skin contours is desired particularly when trying to shave highly contoured surface areas of the body, e.g., legs, arms, armpits, and face. By contrast, lack of good conformity to skin contours must be compensated for by an application of shaver pressure to flatten the skin and force conformity, which on occasion causes cuts and abrasions.
The prior art includes various approaches to construct flexible razors. For instance, one approach is to use a plurality of individual blades that are connected to a handle by a resilient connecting means. Yet another approach is to mount a plurality of cutting elements on a flexible base material. Such, flexibility is provided by separate flexible carriers, e.g., the resilient connecting means which holds the individual blades, and the flexible base material on which the cutting elements are mounted, whereas either the blades or cutting elements per se are rigid. However, the rigidity of the blades or cutting elements limits the responsiveness and conformity to skin contours. Moreover, the requirement for a separate flexible carrier limits the diversity of razor designs, particularly cartridge and handle designs.
Thus, there is a need for a razor, in particular a razor blade unit, which provides improved conformity to skin contours.
It is an advantage of the present invention to provide a razor blade unit that shaves skin contours efficiently, e.g., an effective shaving for highly contoured surface areas of the body, less time-consuming during shaving, or one shaving stroke for wider surface areas of the body.
It is another advantage of the present invention to provide a razor blade unit that provides a comfortable and safe shaving experience to users.
It is yet another advantage of the present invention to provide a razor blade unit that is applicable to a wide variety of razor designs, particularly cartridge and handle designs, i.e., a flexible razor blade unit that does not require a separate flexible carrier.
It is a further advantage of the present invention to provide a razor blade unit that is easier to manufacture, e.g., having a relatively simple structure or less amounts of structural components.


The present invention provides a method of forming a contact structure comprised of a silicon substrate, a titanium silicide layer, a barrier layer (i.e., TiN or TiNO), and a metal layer (e.g., Al or W). There are three embodiments of the invention for forming the titanium silicide layer and two embodiments for forming the barrier layer (TiN or TiNO). The first embodiment for forming a TiSix layer comprises three selective deposition steps with varying TiCl4:SiH4 ratios. After the TiSix contact layer is formed a barrier layer and a metal plug layer are formed thereover to form a contact structure. The method comprises forming a barrier layer 140 over the silicide contact layer 126; and forming a metal plug 160 over the TiN barrier layer 140. The metal plug 160 is composed of Al or W.

1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing and more particularly to a structure of a MOS transistor having a metal silicide film formed on a source and a drain region and a method for manufacturing the MOS transistor and more particularly to a method for forming a metal silicide contact to a substrate and more specifically to a multilayered device metallization suitable for use in small geometry semiconductor devices and to methods for its fabrication.
2) Description of the Prior Art
There is a trend in the semiconductor industry toward fabricating larger and more complex functions on a given semiconductor chip. The larger and more complex functions are achieved by reducing device sizes and spacing and by reducing the junction depth of regions formed in the semiconductor substrate. Among the feature sizes which are reduced in size are the width and spacing of interconnecting metal lines and the contact openings through which the metallization makes electrical contact to device regions. As the feature sizes are reduced, new problems arise which must be solved in order to economically and reliably produce the semiconductor devices.
As both the contact size and junction depth are reduced, a new device metallization process is required to overcome the problems which are encountered. Historically, device interconnections have been made with aluminum or aluminum alloy metallization. Aluminum, however, presents problems with junction spiking which result from dissolution of silicon in the aluminum metallization and aluminum in the silicon. This problem is exacerbated with the small device sizes because the shallow junction is easily shorted and because the amount of silicon available to satisfy the solubility requirements of the aluminum metallization is only accessed through the small contact area, increasing the resultant depth of the spike. Adding silicon to the aluminum metallization has helped to solve this problem, but has, in turn, resulted in silicon precipitation and other problems.
A variety of solutions have been attempted to overcome the problems inherent with aluminum metallization. For example, the device region exposed through a contact opening has been metallized with chemical vapor deposited (CVD) tungsten. The tungsten is deposited by the reduction of WF6 with hydrogen. The WF6, however, initially reacts with the silicon surface, employing silicon from the contact area in the region. This results in what has become known in the literature as "worm holes" or tunnels in the silicon which can also cause shorting of the underlying junction. The use of sputtered instead of CVD tungsten would overcome the problem of reaction with the silicon, but sputtered tungsten is unable to reduce any native oxide film which may be present on the surface of the device region. The remaining oxide film results in high contact resistance. A further attempt at solving this problem has employed the use of a reactive silicide to make the initial contact to the device region. The silicide is then contacted with aluminum. The suicide makes a low resistance contact to the silicon, but the silicide-aluminum contact has the same problem as does the use of aluminum directly on the silicon. Silicon from the silicide and from the underlying junction dissolves in the aluminum, resulting in aluminum spikes through the underlying junction.
Another problem which is exacerbated by the shrinking device sizes is that of unreliable step coverage by the device metallization as it traverses steps in the device topography and especially as the metallization traverses into the contact openings. It is therefore especially beneficial if the contact metallization provides a relatively planar surface to which the interconnect metallization can be applied.
As shown in FIG. 5A, a conventional method of forming a contact is by sputtering a Ti/TiN layer 200 over the isolation layer 20 sidewalls of a contact opening 20A and over a substrate surface. However the sputtered Ti/TiN layer 200 provides poor step coverage especially on the bottom.
As shown in FIG. 5B, the Ti/TiN layer 200 in the contact hole 20A takes up space and makes filling the contact hole 20A more difficult. The TiN layer 200 overhangs 215 the opening. This overhang 215 makes the void 211 problem in the metal plug 210 worse. Also, at the TiSix 214 at the bottom in incomplete thus causing high contact resistance and yield problems. At the corners, leakage 216 (Worm holes) also occur. WF6 attacks the uncapped underlying Si to form worm holes 216 or insufficient corner coverage of TiN barrier results in formation of volatile TiF.sub.4 gas and/or TiFx (x=1 to 3) higher resistance solid compound. The former TiF.sub.4 will cause volcano formation and the latter (TiFx) leads to high resistance contacts.
The following U.S. patents show related processes and contact structures. U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,272 (Nishiyama) shows a TiSix layer and a TiN layer. The TiN layer is formed using an N.sub.2 I/I. U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,369 (Ellwanger et al.) forming an interconnect comprising a TiSix covered by a W plug. U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,592 (Lacoponi) shows a method of forming a contact using a TiSix and a TiN layer. U.S. Pat. No. 4,926,237 (Sun et al.) shows a contact using TiSix, TiN and a W plug.
There still exist a need for an improved contact method and structure.

Insitu formation of TiSi2/TiN bi-layer structures using self-aligned nitridation treatment on underlying CVD-TiSi2 layer

Industrial Technology Research Institute


A method and an arrangement for controlling transmitting power of a mobile station and carrying out a handover in a mobile telecommunications system in which data is transmitted over the radio path between a mobile station and a base station as bursts in time slots of successive frames. A mobile station can be allocated at least two time slots in each frame for high-speed data transmission. The mobile station is arranged to measure the characteristics of the received signal, such as the signal level and/or quality, in each time slot allocated to the mobile station, and the fixed radio network is arranged to control the transmitting power of the mobile station and/or make the decision on a handover on the basis of a combination of measurement results of two or more time slots, or on the basis of the measurement result of the poorest time slot.

In mobile telecommunications systems of the time division multiple access (TDMA) type, time division communication in the radio path takes place in successive TDMA frames each of which consists of several time slots. In each time slot, a short information packet is sent as a radio frequency burst of a finite duration, which burst consists of a number of modulated bits. For the most part, time slots are used for the transmission of control channels and traffic channels. On the traffic channels, speech and data are transmitted. On the control channels, signalling between a base station and mobile subscriber stations is carried out. The Pan-European mobile system GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) is an example of a TDMA radio system.
For communication in conventional TDMA systems, each mobile station is assigned one time slot of traffic channel for data or speech transmission. Thus, a GSM system, for example, can have as many as eight simultaneous connections to different mobile stations on a same carrier frequency. The maximum data transfer rate on a traffic channel is restricted to a relatively low level according to the bandwidth in use as well as channel coding and error correction, for example in a GSM system to 9.6 kbit/s or 12 kbit/s. In addition, in a GSM system a half-speed traffic channel (max. 4.8 kbit/s) can be chosen for low speeds of speech coding. The half-speed traffic channel is established when a mobile station communicates in a specific time slot only in every second frame, in other words, in half-speed. A second mobile station communicates in every second frame in the same time slot. This is how the capacity of the system can be doubled as far as the number of subscribers is concerned, in other words, on the same carrier wave it is possible for up to 16 mobile stations to communicate simultaneously.
In the last few years, the need for high-speed data services in mobile communication networks has remarkably increased. Data transfer rates of at least 64 kbit/s would be needed to utilize, for example, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) circuit switched digital data services. PSTN data services of the public telephone network, such as modems and telefax terminals of class G3, require faster transfer rates, such as 14.4 kbit/s. One of the growing areas of mobile data transfer requiring higher transfer rates is the mobile video service. As examples of this kind of services, security control by cameras and video databases can be mentioned. The minimum data transfer rate in video transfer can be, for example, 16 or 32 kbit/s.
The data transfer rates of the present mobile communication networks are not, however, sufficient to satisfy this kind of new needs.

Method and arrangement for effecting transmission power control and/or handover of a mobile station assigned two or more time slots per frame in a TDMA telecommunications system


A display panel and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The display panel includes: a base substrate; a first electrode disposed on the base substrate; a hole injection layer disposed on the first electrode, wherein a surface of the hole injection layer away from the first electrode is scattering surface. In the present invention, the surface of the hole injection layer away from the first electrode is set as the scattering surface, and changes of brightness and chromaticity caused by a change of viewing angles is weakened by the scattering surface, thereby expanding viewing angles of the display panel.

Organic light emitting diode (OLED) display devices are also referred to as organic electric laser display devices or organic light emitting semiconductors. Working principle of an OLED is that when power is supplied to an appropriate voltage, a positive electrode hole and a second electrode charge are combined in a light emitting layer, and excitons (electron—hole pairs) in an excited state are formed by a certain probability under action of Coulomb force. This excited state is unstable in a usual environment. Excited state excitons recombine and transfer energy to a light emitting material, causing it to transition from a ground state level to an excited state. Excited state energy generates photons through process of radiation relaxation, releases light energy, produces light, and generates red, green, and blue RGB three primary colors according to different formulas to form a basic color.
OLED has advantages of low voltage demand, high power saving efficiency, fast response, light weight, thin thickness, simple structure, low cost, wide viewing angles, almost infinite contrast, low power consumption, high reaction speed, etc. and has become one of the most important display technologies available today.
In large-size OLED screens, a current mainstream structure is a bottom-emitting structure. However, as user's requirements for resolution become higher and higher, the OLED of the bottom-emitting structure is limited by an aperture ratio, and it is difficult to achieve a higher resolution. In order to achieve higher resolution, people began to turn their attention to the development of top-emitting structures.
An optical microcavity is formed between an anode and a cathode of a top light emitting device. Using the principle of optical microcavity interference enhancement, light enhancement can be achieved by adjusting a cavity length of a device. However, a strong optical microcavity structure causes the device to have an angular sensitivity. As viewing angles increase, a light intensity changes greatly, and the viewing angles of a display panel decrease. Therefore, it is necessary to find a new type of display panel to solve the above issues.

Display panel and method of fabricating the same

SHENZHEN CHINA STAR OPTOELECTRONICS SEMICONDUCTOR DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.