A device for providing suction to tissue is disclosed. A method of suctioning tissue is also disclosed.

Coronary artery disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Western societies. Coronary artery disease is manifested in a number of ways. For example, disease of the coronary arteries can lead to insufficient blood flow to various areas of the heart. This can lead to the discomfort of angina and the risk of ischemia. In severe cases, acute blockage of coronary blood flow can result in irreversible damage to the myocardial tissue including myocardial infarction and the risk of death.
A number of approaches have been developed for treating coronary artery disease. In less severe cases, it is often sufficient to merely treat the symptoms, with pharmaceuticals, or treat the underlying causes of the disease, with lifestyle modification. In more severe cases, the coronary blockage can be treated endovascularly or percutaneously using techniques such as balloon angioplasty, atherectomy, laser ablation, stents, and the like.
In cases where these approaches have failed or are likely to fail, it is often necessary to perform a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedure. CABG surgery, also known as "heart bypass" surgery, generally entails the use of a graft or conduit to bypass the coronary obstruction and, thereby provide blood flow to the downstream ischemic heart tissues. The major objective of any CABG procedure is to perform a technically perfect anastomosis of the graft with the vessel. Creation of a technically perfect anastomosis is generally complex, tedious, time consuming and its success is highly dependent on a surgeon's skill level.
The CABG procedure is typically conducted on an arrested heart while the patient is on a cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) circuit, also known as a "heart-lung machine" that provides continuous systemic blood circulation, while cardioplegic cardiac arrest enables meticulous anastomosis suturing in a bloodless, still-heart, operating field. In a CPB procedure performed as an adjunct to a CABG procedure, the patient's venous blood that normally returns to the right atrium is diverted to a CPB system or circuit that supplies oxygen to the blood and removes carbon dioxide from the blood and returns the blood, at sufficient pressure, into the patient's aorta for further distribution through the arterial system to the body. Creation of the CPB circuit typically entails arterial and venous cannulation, connecting the bloodstream to a heart-lung machine, cooling the body to about 32° Celsius, cross clamping of the aorta, and cardioplegic perfusion of the coronary arteries to arrest and cool the heart to about 4° Celsius. The arrest or stoppage of the heart is generally required because the constant pumping motion of the beating heart would make surgery upon the heart difficult in some locations and extremely difficult if not impossible in other locations. Generally, such a CPB system requires several separate components, including an oxygenator, several pumps, a reservoir, a blood temperature control system, filters, and flow, pressure and temperature sensors.
A blood vessel or vessels for use in the graft procedure are harvested or mobilized from the patient. In the majority of patients, obstructed coronary arteries are bypassed using an in situ internal mammary artery (IMA) or a reversed segment of saphenous vein harvested from a leg although other graft vessels may also be used. For this reason, CABG surgery is typically performed through a median sternotomy, which provides access to the heart and to all major coronary branches. A median sternotomy incision begins just below the sternal notch and extends slightly below the xiphoid process. A sternal retractor is used to spread the left and right rib cage apart for optimal exposure of the heart. Hemostasis of the sternal edges is typically obtained using electrocautery with a ball-tip electrode and a thin layer of bone wax. The pericardial sac is opened thereby achieving direct access to the heart. One or more grafts are attached to the relevant portion of a coronary artery (or arteries) to bridge the obstruction while the heart is in cardiac arrest. Then, the patient is weaned from CPB, the heart is restarted, and cannulation is discontinued. The surgical incisions in the chest are then closed.
The CABG procedure is generally expensive, lengthy, traumatic and subject to patient risk. The arrest of the heart and the use of the CPB circuit add to the time and expense of the CABG procedure and present a number of risk factors to the patient. The initiation of global (hypothermic) cardiac arrest may result in global myocardial ischemia, and cross clamping the ascending aorta may contribute to the patient experiencing a post-operative stroke. In fact, recent studies have shown aortic clamping and manipulation may release atherosclerotic debris into the bloodstream, resulting in neurological injury. Exposure of blood to foreign surfaces results in the activation of virtually all the humoral and cellular components of the inflammatory response, as well as some of the slower reacting specific immune responses. A systemic inflammatory response can result due to the interactions of blood elements with the artificial material surfaces of the components of the CPB circuit. Other complications associated with cardiopulmonary bypass include loss of red blood cells and platelets due to shear stress damage. In addition, cardiopulmonary bypass requires the use of an anticoagulant, such as heparin that increases the risk of hemorrhage. Cardiopulmonary bypass also sometimes necessitates giving additional blood to the patient that may expose the patient to blood-borne diseases, if it is from a source other than the patient. Therefore, a number of cardiac surgical procedures have been developed or proposed to enable off-pump, beating heart, CABG procedures either through a median sternotomy or employing minimally invasive procedures and even totally endoscopic procedures with access through ports extending through the chest wall into the thoracic cavity.
In one approach, pressure is applied against at least a portion of the heart to stabilize it and facilitate CABG or beating heart procedures as exemplified by the stabilization apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,875,782, 6,120,436, and 6,331,158, for example. In one embodiment disclosed in the '436 patent, a U-shaped platform is pressed against the heart surface exposed through a thoracotomy and maintained there by suturing the platform to the myocardium or by attaching the platform to the end of an adjustable arm. The adjustable arm is mounted to a sternal retractor frame maintaining the ribs spread apart, and the adjustable arm can be adjusted to direct pressure through the platform against the heart to stabilize it. In addition, mechanical systems for lifting the heart, particularly to enable access to the heart for performing valve surgery, have been proposed as exemplified in the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,558,318.
In another approach, suction is applied to the epicardium of the heart to stabilize an area of the heart. Typically, an elongated shaft is coupled to a distal suction member, and a vacuum is drawn through a lumen of an elongated shaft or a vacuum line to apply suction to the epicardium to grasp and stabilize it. Suction-assisted tissue-engaging devices for cardiac surgery having circular or horseshoe-shaped suction members introduced through a sternotomy are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,727,569, 5,782,746, 6,071,295, and 6,602,183 and in U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0045888, for example. In certain cases, flexible suction tubes or vacuum lines extend from each suction member to an operating room vacuum source. The vacuum lines are bonded to elongated shafts of a forceps type device shown in certain forceps embodiments or the '569 patent. In other cases, a vacuum is drawn through one or more suction lumen within the rigid shaft of the suction application device coupled to the suction member.
Early versions of the Medtronic® Octopus™ tissue stabilizer used to apply suction to and thereby stabilize a site of the beating heart are disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,464,630 and 6,394,948, for example. In certain embodiments, the tissue stabilizer employs a single elongated suction pod fixed at the distal end of an elongated shaft to extend substantially axially and distally to the elongated shaft distal end. It is necessary to employ two such elongated shafts and suction pods to place the suction pads on either side of the heart surface to be stabilized. In the schematically depicted embodiment of FIG. 33 of the '948 patent, the distal suction member comprises a horseshoe-shaped suction pod extending from the shaft distal end. In these embodiments, the shaft is malleable to shape it so as to apply the suction pod against the heart tissue at the site. A vacuum is drawn through a lumen of the shaft to apply suction at the suction ports of the suction pod.
Various current models of the Medtronic® Octopus tissue stabilizer and/or Medtronic® Starfish™ heart positioner and accessories, both available from the assignee of the present invention, have improved articulating arms supporting distal suction members. The Medtronic® Octopus 3™ tissue stabilizer is approved for use in applying suction to a surface of the heart to stabilize the heart tissue at the site of engagement while the heart is beating to facilitate a surgical procedure, e.g., to perform an anastomosis in the course of a CABG procedure. The Medtronic® Starfish™ heart positioner is approved for use in applying suction to a surface of the heart, particularly near the apex of the heart, to move and reposition the heart to achieve better access to areas that would otherwise be difficult to access, such as the posterior or backside of the heart. For example, the surgeon can bring an anastomosis site into better view by supporting and rotating the heart using the Starfish™ heart positioner. The surgeon can also use the Octopus 3™ tissue stabilizer in the same procedure to stabilize the anastomosis site. See, for example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,836,311, 5,927,284, 6,015,378, 6,464,629, and 6,471,644, and European Patent Publication No. EP 0 993 806 describing aspects of the Octopus 3™ heart stabilization system, commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication U.S. 2002/0095067 disclosing aspects of the Starfish™ heart positioner, and commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication U.S. 2002/013809 disclosing use of both in the same surgical procedure.
The Octopus 3™ tissue stabilizer and the Starfish™ heart positioner are both provided with an elongated articulating arm that extends between a proximal clamp and a distal suction member. These suction-assisted, tissue-engaging devices are used in open chest sternotomy procedures that involve making a 20 to 25 cm incision in the chest of the patient, severing the sternum, cutting and peeling back various layers of tissue in order to give access to the heart and arterial sources, and fitting a sternal retractor frame extending across the incision to maintain the ribs spread apart. The clamps at the proximal ends of the articulating arms of the Medtronic® Octopus 3™ tissue stabilizer and Starfish™ heart positioner can be mounted to the Medtronic® OctoBase™ sternal retractor.
The elongated articulating arms of the Octopus 3™ tissue stabilizer and the Starfish™ heart positioner each comprise a plurality of articulating links strung over an internal cable that extends between the suction member and a proximal knob adjacent the proximal clamp. The proximal knob attached to the cable proximal end can be rotated in a cable tightening direction to stiffen and maintain a shape of the articulating support arm or in the opposite, cable loosening direction to relax the articulating support arm. Each articulating link has opposite ends, one of which is concave and the other of which is convex (e.g., hemispherical). The convex end of one articulating link fits into the concave end of the adjacent articulating link and allows the articulating links to articulate relative to one another if the central cable has not been tensioned to lock the articulating links together. The articulating links are encased within the lumen of a flexible sheath to prevent ingress of body fluids or tissue that might interfere with the articulation of the links.
The distal link is coupled to a suction member that is separately coupled to a flexible tube or vacuum line that is adapted to extend to and be coupled to a vacuum source in the operating room for applying suction to the heart when suction ports of the suction member are applied against the heart. In use, the proximal knob is rotated in the cable loosening direction to release tension on the cable so that a curve or bend can be shaped along the length of the support arm by manipulating the articulating links to dispose the suction member against the epicardium. The proximal knob can then be rotated in the tightening direction to tension the cable, thereby drawing the articulating links together to lock them together in a locked condition that maintains the shape.
The suction member of the Octopus 3™ tissue stabilizer comprises a pair of elongated, malleable, stabilizer pods that are coupled to the distal link to extend in a U-shape, side by side and distally of the distal link. Vacuum lines are coupled to each stabilizer pod, and suction is applied through a plurality of ports of each stabilizer pod. The stabilizer pods are supported by a spreading mechanism extending from the distal link that is indirectly coupled to the tensioning cable. As described in the above-referenced '629 patent, the physician can manually shape the articulating arm to dispose the suction ports of the stabilizer pods against the epicardium, provide suction through the suction lines to grasp the epicardium, and then rotate the proximal knob to tension the cable. The tensioning of the cable concurrently causes the articulating arm to become rigid and the stabilizer pods to spread apart, thereby stabilizing the myocardium between the stabilizer pods while the heart continues to beat.
The Starfish™ heart positioning system employs a three appendage, silicone head mounted to the distal end of a malleable, articulating arm. The silicone head is shaped so that the flexible appendages or legs diverge apart and can engage the heart surface particularly adjacent to the apex of the heart to lift and position the heart when suction is applied. In use, the physician lifts the heart, shapes the articulating arm to apply the three appendages about the apex, provides suction through the suction line to grasp the epicardium, and then rotates the proximal knob in the tensioning direction to tension the cable and make the articulating arm rigid.
Further suction-assisted tissue-engaging devices for use in cardiac surgery through a sternotomy employing articulating arms coupled to distal suction members that are in turn coupled to vacuum lines are disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 6,210,323 and in PCT Publication WO 01/17437 A2.
Surgeons have found that the Octopus 3™ stabilization system and Starfish™ heart positioner provide significant benefits in the above-described operative procedures involving relatively large sternotomies or thoracotomies. However, the vacuum line or lines extending from the suction members coupled to the distal end of the articulating arm can at times be inconvenient and obstruct the view or access in the operative field typically defined by the sternal retractor frame. It would be desirable to be able to enjoy the advantages of such suction-assisted, tissue-manipulation systems employing articulating arms without having vacuum lines extending from the distal suction members.

Methods and apparatus providing suction-assisted tissue engagement


A DRAM is disclosed which includes a single ended bitline structure, a single ended global bitline structure, primary sense amplifiers with data storage and data write-back capability and with capability to decouple from the global bitlines, a full-wordline I/O structure where essentially all memory cell that belong to the same wordline are being operated on, and a pipelined architecture. The DRAM further includes a small voltage swing design. The primary sense amplifiers can include more than one amplification stages. Such a DRAM is suitable for applications in conjunction with processors as an embedded DRAM.

Today's integrated circuits include a vast number of transistor devices formed in a semiconductor. Smaller devices are the key to enhance performance and to increase reliability. As devices are scaled down, however, the technology becomes more complex and new methods are needed to maintain the expected performance enhancement from one generation of devices to the next. The storage capacity, speed, and data throughput rates of memories has to keep up with processor improvements.

Single cycle read/write/writeback pipeline, full-wordline I/O DRAM architecture with enhanced write and single ended sensing

International Business Machines Corporation


A system for controlling multi-step geared continuously variable automatic transmission in which a gear ratio to be shifted to is determined by retrieving a conventional preestablished shift diagram by an engine load and a vehicle speed. A fuzzy reasoning is carried out using parameters such as a driving resistance to correct the gear ratio obtained by retrieved. Alternatively, the fuzzy reasoning is carried out to correct one of the engine load and vehicle speed detected and using the corrected value, the shift diagram is retrieved to determine a gear ratio to be shifted to. Further, another fuzzy reasoning is carried out to ascertain the driver's intention to decelerate and the first fuzzy reasoning is carried out using the inferred value so as to reflect the driver's intention in the shift control.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved vehicle automatic transmission control system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In both multi-step transmissions which control the gear ratio in a stepwise manner and continuously variable transmissions which control the gear ratio in a stepless manner, the prior art practice has generally been to determine the gear ratio by retrieval from a predetermined shift diagram stored in a microcomputer memory as a map, hereinafter referred to as "shift diagram map", using the vehicle speed and the throttle opening as address data.
Thus conventional automatic transmission control systems determine the gear ratio solely on the basis of vehicle speed and throttle opening and give no consideration to other operating parameters which should duly be taken into account. The result is that, unlike the gear changing operations of an experienced driver operating a vehicle with a manual transmission, the operations conducted by the prior art automatic transmission control systems do not match very well with the shift scheduling desired by the driver.
More specifically, since the prior art systems determine the gear ratio solely on the basis of the vehicle velocity and the throttle opening, they are unable to take into account other important operating parameters in determining the gear ratio, such as whether the vehicle is traveling up or down hill. Because of this, the gear ratio is frequently changed when driving in mountainous areas or the like, which irritates the driver because it differs from the shift scheduling that he or she wants and expects. Simply stated, it is extremely difficult to reflect the intentions of the driver in determining the gear ratio by the conventional control based on the shift diagram map.
Recent years have seen increasing use of fuzzy control in various fields. Since fuzzy control is well suited for use in expert systems designed to achieve control which reflects the operations and experience of an expert in the field concerned, it has also been applied to automatic transmission control systems, a number of which systems have been proposed by the present assignee. (See Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications No. 2(1990)-3739 and No. 2(1990)-85563 (also filed in the United States and matured as U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,730 and filed in EPO under 89306192.9); No. 2(1990)-3738 (also filed in the United States and matured as U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,705 and filed in EPO under 89306167.1); No. 2(1990)-138,558 and No. 2(1990)-138,561 (also filed in the United States and matured as U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,374 and filed in EPO under 89311976.8); No. 2(1990)-138,559, No. 2(1990)-138,560 and No. 2( 1990)-150,558 (also filed in the United States and matured as U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,704 and filed in EPO under 89311970.1); and No. 4(1992)-8964 (also filed in the United States under U.S. Pat. No. 691,066 and EPO under 91303878.2).
On the other hand, notwithstanding the drawbacks pointed out above, the more conventional technology for determining the gear ratio from the shift diagram map using the vehicle speed and the throttle opening as address data has the merit of being very well established.

System for controlling vehicle automatic transmission using fuzzy logic


A method of providing hands-free services using a mobile device having wireless access to computer-based services includes establishing a short range wireless connection between a mobile device and one or more audio devices that include at least a microphone and speaker; receiving at the mobile device speech inputted via the microphone from a user and sent via the short range wireless connection; wirelessly transmitting the speech input from the mobile device to a speech recognition server that provides automated speech recognition (ASR); receiving at the mobile device a speech recognition result representing the content of the speech input; determining a desired service by processing the speech recognition result using a first, service-identifying grammar; determining a user service request by processing at least some of the speech recognition result using a second, service-specific grammar associated with the desired service; initiating the user service request and receiving a service response; generating an audio message from the service response; and presenting the audio message to the user via the speaker.

Speech-based human-machine interfaces (HMI) to vehicle functions and cellular phone functions and applications typically involve an application-specific or function-specific limited command set that requires syntactically constrained interactions between the user and HMI. In these systems, inputted speech may be converted into a specific command for a specific application, but there is typically only limited ability to identify and carry out different services involving different applications or service providers.
In the realm of cellular phone use in vehicles, systems have been proposed and some implemented that help reduce driver distraction by providing a hands-free telephony experience as well as carry out some basic vehicle control tasks, such as selecting and controlling radio and other infotainment services on the vehicle. In some systems, this is done using an embedded cellular phone that has access to at least portions of the vehicle electronics so as to permit control and reporting via a speech user interface. In other vehicles, the driver or other occupant's personal mobile device (e.g., cellular phone) is used for this purpose, with the vehicle providing a basic audio interface that includes a microphone and one or more speakers, as well as a Bluetooth or other wireless connection to the mobile device. This permits speech and other audio to be sent between the audio interface and mobile device in either direction. However, these systems are typically limited to only enabling a few basic mobile device functions such as calling and controlling music selection and playback. They do not provide access to the many other built-in and user added applications and functions typically available today.
For example, there is now widespread availability and use of mobile devices such as smartphones that permit user downloading and installing of relatively small software applications (apps). Some of these smartphones have built-in speech support, either via the operating system (OS), such as in the case of the Android™ OS, or via a built-in app such as Siri™ available on the iPhone4S™. See, for example, WO2011088053 published Jul. 21, 2011. While providing a greater level of integration, these commercially-available systems are not configured to provide a fully hands-free experience with the mobile device since they still rely heavily on the screen to interact with the user during the speech session.

Services identification and initiation for a speech-based interface to a mobile device


Data may be embedded in rows of text by modulating inter-word spaces in a row. Inter-word spaces in a particular row may be divided into two or more sets of (approximately) equal spacing. The inter-word spaces of one or more of the sets may then be modified to embed data.

The patent application relates to methods and apparatus for embedding data, such as in a document, and recovering the embedded data therefrom.
Digital data hiding has become a hot topic in the signal processing research community. Various processes have been proposed to hide data in images, video files, audio files, and the like. However, relatively little existing art is dedicated to hiding data in text and/or documents. A reason may be because changes to pixel values of text documents may generally result in visual artifacts, referred to here as salt-and-pepper noise.
It is noted that digital representations of documents may represent one pixel by a single bit, although, of course, this is merely an example. In one such arrangement, however, "1" may represent white, and "0" may represent black. Accordingly, hiding data in text documents may benefit from approaches different from those used to embed data in image, video, and/or audio files, for example.
One existing approach employs a block-based method to hide bits into document images. In this approach, patterns are predefined as "flippable" or "non-flippable". For flippable patterns, certain pixels may be flipped without resulting in a significant amount of perceptible artifacts. Data is embedded by flipping the flippable pixels to result in a total number of black pixels in a block to be even or odd according to whether a bit '1' or bit '0' is to be embedded in the block.
Another existing approach employs "boundary modifications," in which 100 pairs of five-pixel-long boundary patterns are defined. For each pair, there are two different patterns, an 'A' pattern and a 'D' pattern, which may be interchanged if the pair is flipped. By flipping between the patterns, a bit may be embedded into a five-pixel-long boundary.
The foregoing methods may be applied to arbitrary text documents and may generally embed between several hundred bits and several thousand bits depending, for example, on the size of the document in which the data is being embedded. However, for both existing methods, distortion inflicted on a "marked document," here, a document into which data has been embedded, may make correct retrieval of the hidden information more difficult. Distortions to documents may result from a variety of sources including, but not limited, to photocopying, printing, and scanning, to name a few.
Three methods for hiding data in text documents have been proposed: line shift coding, word shift coding, and feature coding. Line-shift coding and word-shift coding are resilient against the effects of printing, copying, and scanning to some extent. One drawback, however, hidden data extraction is difficult without the original document and this document may not be available in many cases. In one existing approach, a baseline method for line shift coding which did not require the original document is disclosed. However, the data embedding capacity is quite limited at about one bit for every two lines.

System and method for data hiding using inter-word space modulation


A pipe joint thrust ring to be interposed between a joint member of a pipe joint and a connecting threaded member rotatably fitted to the joint member. The thrust ring comprises a C-shaped body in the form of a circle partly cut away and having spring elasticity. The inner width between opposed ends of the C-shaped body is maller than the outside diameter of the joint member and can be increased to a value equal to the outside diameter of the joint member.

The present invention relates to thrust rings for pipe joints. The term the "thrust ring for pipe joints" refers to a washerlike ring which is interposed between a joint member of a pipe joint and a connecting threaded member, such as a hollow bolt or cap nut, rotatably fitted to the joint member for preventing the joint member and the threaded member from rotating together.
Pipe joints are known which comprise a pair of joint members each having an outer flange at one end, an annular gasket interposed between the flanged ends of the joint members, a hollow bolt having an externally threaded surface and a bore extending axially therethrough for inserting one of the joint members through the bolt, and a cap nut having an internally threaded surface screwed on the externally threaded surface of the hollow bolt and formed with a hole in the center of its top wall for inserting the other joint member therethrough. A thrust ring is interposed between the flange of one of the joint members and the inner end of the hollow bolt, as well as between the flange of the other joint member and the inner surface of the top wall of the cap nut. The conventional thrust rings for use in such pipe joints are in the form of an endless ring.
Since the conventional thrust ring is endless and annular, it is impossible to fit the ring to the joint member or to remove the ring therefrom by moving the ring in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the joint member. Further because the inside diameter of the thrust ring is of course smaller than the outside diameter of the flange of the joint member, the ring can not be attached to or removed from the joint member from the flanged end thereof. In other words, the thrust ring can be attached to and removed from the joint member only from one end thereof opposite to its flanged end. For this reason, two pipes are joined together by the pipe joint, for example, by fitting the thrust ring and the threaded member (hollow bolt or cap nut) to each joint member from one end thereof opposite to the flanged end before the pipes are connected to the respective joint members, then fitting the end of each pipe to be joined to the end of the joint member opposite to the flanged end, welding each of the fitted joints thus formed, and fastening the two threaded members to each other with a gasket interposed between the ends of the joint members to connect the joint members together.
The thrust ring for use in pipe joints is likely to corrode or become damaged or broken during use by being exposed to a corrosive liquid or gas, so that there arises a need for replacement. Further it is likely that a pipe will be connected to the pipe joint inadvertently without incorporating the thrust ring into the joint. The thrust ring must then be installed after connection.
Nevertheless, the conventional thrust ring can not be removed from or attached to the joint member except from the end thereof opposite to the flanged end as described above, so that the thrust ring can not be replaced or attached after the joint member has been welded to the pipe even if the two threaded members are separated to disassemble the pipe joint. Accordingly, when the thrust ring only is to be replaced, the ring is replaced, for example, by separating the two threaded members to disassemble the pipe joint, cutting the pipe having the old thrust ring at a suitable portion, removing the threaded member and the old thrust ring from the cut end, attaching a new thrust ring and the threaded member to the joint member, welding the cut portion of the pipe and thereafter fastening the two threaded members to each other to connect the joint members together. However, the procedure for replacing the thrust ring is very cumbersome and takes time. This is also true of the thrust ring which needs to be installed after connection. It is also likely that the piping including the pipe joint and the pipes on opposite sides thereof will be wholly replaced by a new piping system when there arises a need to replace or install the thrust ring after connection, whereas this is uneconomical.


A seam for ductwork has a male end portion integrally formed at a distal end of a duct wall and a female end portion integrally formed at another distal end of the duct wall. The female end portion includes a first fold and a second fold which define a female groove for accommodating the male portion. A distal end of the second fold is bent transverse to the female groove prior to the male portion being inserted into the female groove.

Rectangular or box-shaped ducts are extensively utilized in heating and ventilating systems to distribute heated or cooled air throughout a structure. These ducts are commonly formed from differing gauges of sheet metal in sections of predetermined lengths which are then connected to one another to form a continuous duct for distributing air.
Typically, each section of duct is formed by bending two pieces of sheet metal of the desired length at a 90° angle. One edge of each piece is formed to include a longitudinally extending groove, forming thereby the female portion of the seam, while the other longitudinal edge of each piece is bent over along its length to form thereby the male portion of the seam. The two pieces are then assembled by inserting the male portion of each piece into the female portion, leaving an edge extending beyond the joint from the female portion. This extended edge must then be bent over to lock the seam. This seam is known in the industry as a 'Pittsburgh' lock or seam.
While these known duct systems are successful to a degree, they suffer from several logistical problems. Firstly, the insertion of the male portion into the female portion of the seam requires a great deal of force due to the tight dimensional constraints of the formed female end. To accomplish this goal, operators must force the male end into the female end, typically utilizing a hammer or the like. Likewise, the extended edge of the female portion must also be hammered over in order to lock the seam closed. These hammering operations are highly labor intensive and quite loud, oftentimes requiring ear protection for the operators who assemble the finished duct work. Moreover, the time and effort extended on hammering the male portion into the female portion, and then hammering the extended edge of the female portion over to seal the seam, can substantially increase the time and expense of any duct fabrication and installation job, typically by as much as 50% or more.
With the forgoing problems and concerns in mind, it is the general object of the present invention to provide a duct fastseam which overcomes the above-described drawbacks while maximizing effectiveness and flexibility in the assembling process.


A system for processing data packets comprising a plurality of data processing blocks and a controller, which allows the configuration parameters used in processing the data blocks to be updated in each data processing blocks at the data packet boundary. The present invention involves a system that utilizes a handshaking method for synchronously exchanging data between data processing blocks, wherein the data processing blocks update configuration parameters based on the type of networking standard used. Each data processing block identifies a first data block in the data packet and transmits a first data signal along with a first output data block of the data packet, wherein the block updates the configuration parameters from the controller only when the first data signal is present. In this manner, the first data signal, which is indicative of the data packet boundary, is propagated along the sequence of data processing blocks.

Circuitry for processing data packets within a data networking environment is generally composed of a plurality of data processing blocks that perform specific calculations necessary for processing the data packets in a desired manner. The data processing blocks are often connected in a sequence wherein an input data packet is processed and passed to each subsequent data processing blocks such that processed data packets are propagated through the sequence of data processing blocks.
Data are organized in packets of successive data of fixed or variable size. A data packet is made up of one or more data blocks. Each processing block can process a packet of data in different ways, but all the data are processed the same way within a packet. A set of configuration parameters is applied to each block by a central controller that indicates what kind of processing is to be performed on the packet of data. As the configuration parameter must remain the same for any data block during the processing of a packet, the configuration parameters can only change on the packet boundaries.
The data processing blocks may be reconfigured by applying different configuration parameters in the blocks to adjust the calculations performed within the blocks. This is useful, for example, in a data networking environment using different standards wherein the processing of the data packets must be adjusted in accordance with the standard used.
Also, in a system having a plurality of data processing blocks, it is possible to use a handshaking method of transferring data between the data processing blocks. In such a scheme, each of the data processing blocks are able to provide and receive a ready to send (RTS) signal, which signifies that the block is ready to send a data block, and a ready to receive (RTR) signal, which signifies that the block is ready to receive a data block. A data transfer is performed synchronously between two data processing blocks when the both signals are present, that is, the sender provides a RTS signal and the receiver sends a RTR signal, on the rising edge of the clock.
In a system that utilizes a chain of data processing blocks that receives configuration parameters from a controller to determine what kind of processing is to be performed on the data packets, and also utilizes the handshaking scheme for exchanging data packets, a problem may exist in ensuring that the proper configuration parameters are being utilized by the data processing blocks. In this regard, it may be the case that the number of input bytes is not necessarily the same as the number of output bytes. Since the handshaking scheme is used to exchange the data packets, the time when the first data of a packet is processed by a particular data processing block may vary. The time may be different for each block because the arrival of the first data block of the data packet may not be the same for all. It depends on whether the block is ready to process data, and whether the preceding block is ready to pass data. In this environment, the controller, which provides the configuration parameters for the blocks, does not know when each block receives the first data block of the data packet and needs to have the configuration parameters updated. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a system that ensures that the configuration parameters are updated in the data processing blocks at the proper time to overcome the above.


A method, system and computer program product for fulfilling an online order. An online order to purchase an item(s) is received. The “candidate locations” that stock the item(s) of the online order and that can be used to fulfill at least a portion of the online order are determined. A stockout cost for each of these candidate locations for fulfilling an item of the online order may be calculated, where the stockout cost is a cost of a potential lost sale of the item of the online order by the candidate location if the candidate location fulfills the item of the online order. A shipping location among the candidate locations to fulfill the item is then determined based at least in part on the stockout cost for each of the candidate locations for fulfilling the item. The item is then shipped to the customer from the determined shipping location.

More and more, Internet users are realizing the ease and convenience of ordering online for a variety of needed goods. Being able to fulfill these orders (online orders) by the seller is important for the seller to operate a successful business. As a result, the inventory or stock of the goods to be sold is important.
If a business has too much inventory on hand at a given location, then the business is wasting capital. If, however, the business has too little inventory, then they are unable to fulfill customers' orders and lose sales from "stockouts" to competitors. A stockout refers to the situation when the inventory for a particular item (e.g., Fisher-Price® Thomas & Friends® Super Station®) is exhausted.
Avoiding stockouts is very important to the business not only because of lost sales but also for maintaining their relationships with customers. Historically, sellers have tried to avoid stockouts through supply chain optimization by ensuring that there was adequate inventory in stores to fulfill orders from that store. Online orders are generally fulfilled from a regional distribution center. Hence, current supply chain systems focus primarily on serving each fulfillment channel (physical store and distribution center) separately. The supply chain systems try to optimize the level of inventory in each channel separately using separate forecasts for consumer demand. As a result, the individual physical stores can run out of stock of an item (i.e., experience a stockout for an item) if demand forecasts are inaccurate thereby resulting in lost sales for that store even if stores nearby still have the item on the shelf.
Furthermore, distribution centers can also run out of stock of an item (i.e., experience a stockout for an item) forcing the retailer to either lose the sale or potentially pay significantly higher shipping and handling costs to fulfill the order from another distribution center in another region. Demand for many products is very hard to predict at a store-product level or at a store-distribution center level, especially for seasonal items or during special events, such as Black Friday or other promotional events.
Hence, there is not currently a means for efficiently fulfilling online orders utilizing both distribution centers and store inventories. Furthermore, there is not currently a means for avoiding stockouts in connection with fulfilling online orders utilizing both distribution centers and store inventories.

Avoidance of product stockouts through optimized routing of online orders


A rotary wing aircraft (1) such as a helicopter comprises a force-transmission structure (5) for transmitting forces, in particular those coming from an undercarriage (2), and that, in longitudinal elevation view, presents an L-shape in which the arrangement (6, 19-21) forms a transversely centered box (6), such that the structure (5) transfers the forces, at least in part, to top and bottom working covering segments of the fuselage.

In numerous such aircraft, in particular for the purpose of ensuring that the aircraft can be used for multiple purposes in spite of the constraints set out below, the following are guaranteed:                ground clearance should be reduced as much as possible;        safety should be acceptable in the event of an emergency or crash landing;        aerodynamic resistance should be low; and        the aircraft should have excellent stability on the ground.
These constraints lead in particular to providing landing gear mounted on the aircraft so as to be retractable, with the landing gear also operating in a specific manner in the event of an emergency, and in particular of a crash.
Furthermore, in certain aircraft, it is necessary for the landing gear to be compatible with naval requirements, i.e. for landing on a ship. In such circumstances, the landing gear must be steerable through 180° in either direction (±180°), it must be capable of being locked relative to its steering axis, and it must avoid a parasitic wobbling phenomenon known as "shimmy".
In the field of rotary wing aircraft, the term "shimmy" designates rapid oscillation of a wheel about a pivot axis leading to strong interfering forces that can even lead to the undercarriage being destroyed.
In addition, the arrangement of a nose undercarriage must not impede the operation and the installation on the aircraft of detection equipment such as radars.
The fuselage of such an aircraft, or at least some of its structural elements, must also be compatible with the above-mentioned constraints.
Firstly, this is often incompatible with the occupants of the aircraft having good visibility between the passenger compartment and the cockpit.
Secondly, it is useful for the inside of the cabin to present an arrangement that allows its occupants to move without difficulty between the passenger compartment and the cockpit.
It is also desirable for the cabin to present an arrangement on its inside that leaves space available either for elements forming part of the aircraft, or for objects that are needed by the crew or the passengers.
However, in the past, the structures of fuselages and undercarriages have not enabled the desired results to be achieved.
At least, at present, complying with certain specifications is contradictory to achieving other functions, thus making it necessary to find compromises that are not always acceptable in practice.
With reference to the structures of rotary wing aircraft, mention is made below of a few documents of interest.
European patent No. 1 052 169 describes, in a helicopter, a truss of beams rigidly secured to the floor and to the skin at the bottom of the fuselage.
European patent No. 1 426 289 describes a helicopter structure that withstands impacts, and an energy absorber.
That structure forms a frame constituted by tubes of fiber-reinforced composite material, instead of I-section beams. The tubes are filled with foam material. The tubes are placed under the side wall at points where loads are induced in the event of a crash.
That document does not provide for a box having solid walls to be interposed at a distance from the side walls of the fuselage, above the auxiliary nose landing gear which itself disposed close to the center of the aircraft in its transverse direction.
French patent No. 2 629 045 describes a structural assembly for a light airplane. A passenger compartment is constituted by a central or main partition at the back of the compartment, by a front partition at the front end of the compartment, and by a hollow central beam extending in the longitudinal direction of the airplane.
That assembly is reinforced by the fuselage walls. On the rear partition, there are secured the rear portion of the fuselage and a main landing gear.
The front portion of the central beam is then used to receive a portion of the landing gear in the retracted position.
French patent No. 2 693 976 describes a helicopter fuselage having a central structure and, connected thereto: a front structure; a rear structure; and a landing gear.
Those structures support a transmission unit, a main rotor, and an engine.
The central structure has a framework provided with covering elements that define the outside shape of the fuselage. The framework is substantially in the form of a hexahedron with framework panels being assembled to one another.
British patent No. 724 999 describes a frame for an aircraft such as a helicopter. The frame forms a truss of tubes leaving large side openings. In order to form the fuselage, a skin covers the truss of tubes and a floor is placed on the bottom portion of the truss.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,870 describes a fuselage structure for an aircraft, in particular a helicopter. Under the floor of the passenger cabin, behind the cockpit, that structure has a truss of beams made of composite material. The truss makes it possible to obtain increased and progressive resistance in the event of a crash landing.
Transverse walls with central openings separate the cockpit at the front from the passenger cabin behind it.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,015 describes an aircraft fuel tank, specifically for a helicopter. The tank is reinforced so as to withstand an emergency landing, and it is located behind a solid transverse partition.
That partition, which is placed behind seats, is provided with ribs so as to contribute to withstanding loads during normal operation of the aircraft.
International patent WO 00/05130 describes a helicopter fuselage. That fuselage has a central portion with a front portion and a rear portion connected thereto.
The central portion is provided with means for transmitting forces due to the main transmission unit, to the main rotor, to the landing gear, and to the tail boom.
That document does not describe a fuselage structure having a cavity for housing landing equipment, nor does it describe a fuselage suitable for providing passengers and crew members with free passage in a longitudinal direction on either side of the fuselage.
With reference to undercarriages, mention is made below of a few documents of interest in this technical field.
French patent No. 2 608 242 describes a shock absorber for the landing gear of a rotary wing aircraft.
That shock absorber is for main landing gear including a rocker arm. It is then disposed in a position that is substantially vertical, and as a result its shock-absorbing function, i.e. resilient and damped absorption of the energy of the downward movement of the aircraft while landing and touching the ground, is performed in compression under load.
French patent No. 2 635 498 describes a device for steering the wheels of an aircraft nose undercarriage. A rod slides along its axis in a tube with its free end carrying the wheels.
A scissors connects the tube and the rod in pivoting. A retraction actuator includes means for limiting forces in the event of a crash. A shock absorber presents a longitudinal axis that coincides with the wheel axis.
French patent No. 2 647 170 describes a device for reducing the flexibility of a shock absorber for a helicopter undercarriage. A shock absorber cylinder includes a shock absorber piston and a shock absorber rod mounted to slide in leaktight manner relative to the cylinder and defining within the shock absorber a compression chamber containing a hydraulic fluid that is substantially incompressible.
An expansion chamber contains a hydraulic fluid adjacent to a compressible fluid under pressure, and communicates with the compression chamber via means for throttling the fluid expelled from the compression chamber.
French patent No. 2 677 951 describes an electrical steering device for an aircraft undercarriage. An electric motor is secured to a shock absorber box and is associated with a drive shaft which is disposed parallel to the axis of the box. A steering rod is secured to the drive shaft and to a pivoting tube.
French patent No. 2 689 088 describes a shock-absorbing actuator for a helicopter. It includes a function of limiting forces in the event of a crash. It comprises a strut and performs the functions of maneuver, absorbing shocks, and peak-limiting forces.
French patent No. 2 684 957 describes a peak-limiting device for a shock absorber for a helicopter landing gear. That shock absorber is hinged via ball joints. The landing gear is neither steerable nor retractable, and the peak-limiting device is always integrated in the shock absorber.
British patent No. 527 994 describes a device for steering an aircraft undercarriage. The steering axis of the wheel intersects its axis of revolution.
A hinge allows a rocker arm to rock relative to the structure of the aircraft. That device comprises two arms extending in elevation on either side of a sleeve for receiving the steering axis of the wheel, in order to position the height of said steering axis, i.e. position it in elevation.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,493,649 describes a drive system for steerable front wheels of an aircraft with a shock absorber that presents a longitudinal axis intersecting the axis of the wheel.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,283 describes a shock absorber for an anti-crash undercarriage. Its rocker arm axis is offset.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,257,521 describes an aircraft tail wheel, in which the axis of its rocker arm is offset in order to avoid interfering movements.
The teaching of those documents in particular does not make it possible to obtain a nose landing gear and/or a structure for the fuselage of a rotary wing aircraft for ensuring the following features simultaneously:                low ground clearance;        good safety in the event of a crash;        minimum aerodynamic resistance and instability;        landing gear that is unaffected by the instability phenomenon known as "shimmy";        landing gear that is compatible with naval requirements;        a structure of an arrangement that does not interfere with radars or other detectors;        the occupants have good visibility towards the front;        it is easy for occupants to move about in the aircraft; and        inside spaces are made available.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Rotary wing aircraft with undercarriage structure


The present invention provides a light-diffusing member having no non-uniformity in stripes. The light-diffusing member according to the present invention is for diffusing at least a part of transmitted light by totally reflecting the same. The light-diffusing member comprises a light-diffusing part that has a diffusing-part base having a plurality of grooves tapered down toward the incident side, formed on the light-outgoing side in juxtaposition with one another, and light-absorbing parts formed, in the grooves in the diffusing-part base, by a radiation-curing resin composition. The radiation-curing resin composition includes colored particles. The colored particles have a mean particle diameter of 3.5 μm or more and 20 μm or less.

Displays with large-sized screens, such as rear-projection-type displays, are required to have greater viewing angles as compared to displays with small-sized screens because it is a common manner that many people view, at the same time, the images displayed on the large-sized screens. For example, a projection television, a rear-projection-type display, has a transmission type screen (rear projection screen) on which imaging light emitted from a light source is projected. Generally, this transmission type screen comprises a Fresnel lens sheet, a lens member, for deflecting the imaging light projected from the light source so as to make it parallel or nearly parallel light (hereinafter collectively referred to as nearly parallel light), and a light-diffusing member for diffusing the nearly parallel light so as to make the viewing angle greater.
In the meantime, there has been known, as the above-described light-diffusing member, a refraction-type lenticular lens member in which cylindrical lenses extending in one direction parallel to the sheet plane of the light-diffusing member (for example, in the vertical direction when incorporated in a display) are juxtaposed in another direction nearly perpendicular to the above one direction (for example, in the horizontal direction when incorporated in a display). Another known light-diffusing member is a total-reflection-type lenticular lens member having a diffusing-part base in which a plurality of grooves extending in one direction parallel to the sheet plane of the light-diffusing member have been made so that they are juxtaposed in another direction nearly perpendicular to the above one direction, and light-absorbing parts formed by filling the grooves with a low-refractive-index material including dark-colored particles. In the total-reflection-type lenticular lens member, the diffusing-part base has, between the grooves, unit lens parts having nearly trapezoidal cross sections, and the unit lens part—light-absorbing part interface totally reflects at least a part of incident light so as to diffuse transmitted light.
For example, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-4148, a lenticular lens member of the above-described total reflection type comprises a light-diffusing part having unit lens parts (lens elements) whose cross sections are nearly trapezoidal, and light-absorbing parts between the unit lens parts, having wedge-like cross sections. The upper bases of the unit lens parts form the light-outgoing surface (light-emergent surface) of the light-diffusing part, and on the light-diffusing part is formed a pattern (BS pattern) for absorbing stray light, extraneous light, and so forth, which looks like stripes in black when viewed from the light-outgoing side (light-emergent side). The light-absorbing parts constitute the black portions of the black-stripe pattern.
In parts of the light-diffusing member where the upper base and the lower base of each unit lens are seen superposed when viewed along the direction perpendicular to the sheet plane of the light-diffusing member, light vertically entering the sheet plane of the light-diffusing member is transmitted as it is and emerges from the plane of emergence. However, in the other parts, light vertically entering the sheet plane of the light-diffusing member is totally reflected from the unit lens part—light-absorbing part interface, and then the reflected light is refracted by the interface between the upper bases of the unit lens parts and a medium layer formed on the upper bases and emerges from the light-diffusing member. Further, in this total-reflection-type lenticular lens member, since an ultraviolet-curing resin composition containing dark-colored particles is used to form the light-absorbing parts, the light-absorbing parts function as black stripes and can therefore enhance the contrast of an image to be projected on a transmission type screen.
FIG. 10 is a schematic sectional view showing a lenticular lens member of total reflection type, and FIG. 8 is a flow sheet showing a process for producing the lenticular lens member. As shown in FIG. 10, a total-reflection-type lenticular lens member 101 comprises a substrate 102, a light-diffusing part 103, an adhesive layer 104, and a supporting plate 105. The light-diffusing part 103 has a diffusing-part base 103a having a large number of nearly V-shaped grooves 106 tapered down to a point toward the substrate, and light-absorbing parts 103b formed by filling the grooves 106 with an ultraviolet-curing resin composition containing colored particles. The portions between two adjacent light-absorbing parts 103b and 103b of the diffusing-part base 103a form the above-described unit lens parts 108. In the production of such a total-reflection-type lenticular lens member 101, an ultraviolet-curing resin composition 113 for forming the diffusing-part base is, as shown in FIG. 8, supplied between a forming roll 111 having, on its periphery, nearly trapezoidal concavities for making the nearly V-shaped grooves, and a substrate 112 to be fed to the forming roll 111, while rotating the forming roll 111. The ultraviolet-curing resin composition 113 is then exposed to ultraviolet light emitted from a UV lamp 114 so as to form the diffusing-part base 103a with grooves, thereby obtaining an intermediate member 115 having the diffusing-part base 103a and the substrate 112. Thereafter, this intermediate member 115 is separated from the forming roll 111, and the grooves in this member are filled with an ultraviolet-curing resin composition 116 including colored particles. The ultraviolet-curing resin composition 116 is then exposed to ultraviolet light from a UV lamp 117 so as to form the light-absorbing parts 103b, thereby obtaining the light-diffusing part 103 having the diffusing-part base 103a and the light-absorbing parts 103b. In the subsequent step not shown in the figure, a supporting plate 105 is laminated to the light-diffusing part 103 with an adhesive, thereby obtaining the light-diffusing member 101. In this production process, in order to fill the grooves in the intermediate member 115 separated from the forming roll 111 with the ultraviolet-curing resin composition 116, the resin composition is scraped off with a doctor 118 from the upper bases 109 of the unit lens parts 108 into the grooves.
However, in the above-described total-reflection-type lenticular lens member, non-uniformity in stripes brought about by covering (overlaying, overlapping, blushing, bronzing) is occasionally observed on the light-transmitting portions, i.e. the upper bases of the unit lens parts, between the BS pattern. In more detail, in the process for producing the total-reflection-type lenticular lens member, shown in FIG. 8, when the ultraviolet-curing resin composition is scraped off with the doctor 118 from the upper bases 109 of the unit lens parts 108 into the grooves, the colored-particle-containing resin 110 that has slipped through the gaps between the doctor 118 and the light-transmitting portions between the light-absorbing parts 103b and 103b (the upper bases 109 of the unit lens parts 108) can remain on the light-transmitting portions in order to cause so-called "covering".
If the lenticular lens member on which covering has occurred is used in order to make a transmission type screen, since transmittance of light is disturbed by the colored particles remaining on the upper bases 109 of the unit lens parts 108, the covering is perceived by viewers as "non-uniformity in stripes", which is a phenomenon that the upper bases 109 of the unit lens parts 108, constituting a BS pattern, seem non-uniform in width. The lenticular lens member on which covering has occurred thus brings about non-uniformity in stripes, resulting in decrease in the product yield of lenticular lens member.
Especially in the recent rear-projection-type displays, light sources of single tube type (hereinafter referred to as "single light sources"), using LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) or DLP (Digital Light Processing), have come to be used in order to meet the demand for digital, high-definition, compact displays. Although such rear-projection-type displays using single light sources are advantageous in that they can more sharply display still images and letters by means of pixels display, pixel display being a characteristic feature of this type of displays, they are disadvantageous in that the above-described non-uniformity in stripes that has conventionally been not so noticeable becomes noticeable.

Light-diffusing member, transmission type screen, rear-projection-type display, and light-absorbing-part-forming resin composition


A flexible heating subassembly, that may be incorporated in a heating blanket or any other type of flexible heater, includes a flexible sheet-like heating element, or heater, to which first and second conductive bus bars are coupled, each with a respective first and second row of conductive stitching. A first electrically insulating member is interposed between the first bus bar and the heater and is secured therebetween by the first row of stitching, and a second electrically insulating member is interposed between the second bus bar and the heater and is secured therebetween by the second row of stitching. The first and second insulating members prevent direct electrical contact between respective first and second bus bars and the heater.

It is well established that surgical patients under anesthesia become poikilothermic. This means that the patients lose their ability to control their body temperature and will take on or lose heat depending on the temperature of the environment. Since modern operating rooms are all air conditioned to a relatively low temperature for surgeon comfort, the majority of patients undergoing general anesthesia will lose heat and become clinically hypothermic if not warmed.
Over the past 15 years, forced-air warming (FAW) has become the "standard of care" for preventing and treating the hypothermia caused by anesthesia and surgery. FAW consists of a large heater/blower attached by a hose to an inflatable air blanket. The warm air is distributed over the patient within the chambers of the blanket and then is exhausted onto the patient through holes in the bottom surface of the blanket.
Although FAW is clinically effective, it suffers from several problems including: a relatively high price; air blowing in the operating room, which can be noisy and can potentially contaminate the surgical field; and bulkiness, which, at times, may obscure the view of the surgeon. Moreover, the low specific heat of air and the rapid loss of heat from air require that the temperature of the air, as it leaves the hose, be dangerously high—in some products as high as 45° C. This poses significant dangers for the patient. Second and third degree burns have occurred both because of contact between the hose and the patient's skin, and by blowing hot air directly from the hose onto the skin without connecting a blanket to the hose. This condition is common enough to have its own name—"hosing." The manufacturers of forced air warming equipment actively warn their users against hosing and the risks it poses to the patient.
Electric warming blankets overcome the aforementioned problems with FAW. Some of these warming blankets employ flexible heaters, the flexibility of which is desirable to maintain when employing in the blankets. In applications such as these, where the heater is subject to flexing, couplings directly between the heater and bus bars, which extend along opposing edges of the heater to supply power to the heater, may be susceptible to zones of intermittent contact along a length of each of the bus bars. Thus there is a need for flexible heater subassemblies that include bus bar couplings which are not susceptible to zones of intermittent contact.
The standard method of coupling the electrical power supply to any large heater surface is to place a metal bus bar conductor near two of the opposing edges of the heater. Electrical power flows from the power supply through the bus bars and is evenly distributed along the entire length of the heater. The electrically conductive bus bar material contacts the electrically conductive heater and the current flows between the two materials. Unfortunately, the conductive bus bars do not make a dependable, uniform and stable connection to the conductive heater, especially during flexing of the heater, because both the heater and the bus bar are flexible. Generally, two flexible pieces of material that are placed together will not maintain reliable and uniform contact across their entire surface, especially during repeated flexing.
When the bus bar/heater interface is flexed, the heater temporarily separates slightly from the bus bar at point locations. This separation prevents current from flowing at the separation point, forcing the current that would have passed through that point to flow instead through adjacent points that are still in contact. The increased current flowing through the adjacent points can cause those points to over-heat. Repeated over-heating can cause the heater at that point to eventually fail and stop conducting electricity. When a point fails, it is permanently removed from the current path and the adjacent points must pick up the extra flow. The extra flow caused by the failed points, in addition to the extra flow caused by the areas of non-contact due to flexion, may result in over-heating and failure of the remaining points.
Accordingly, there remains a need for flexible heater subassemblies and blankets that allow the bus bar and the heater to be coupled in such a manner that current can be dependably and uniformly supplied from the bus bar to the heater without potentially patient harming blanket over-heating and/or failure. Various embodiments of the invention described herein solve one or more of the problems discussed above.

Bus bar attachments for flexible heating elements


The object of the present invention is to provide a polycarbonate resin composition which has excellent transparency and durability against molding heat, which gives a molded article having an excellent mold release property, reduced strains, improved cracking resistance and, preferably, weatherability, and which is particularly suitable for a transparent member for a vehicle, pellets thereof and a molded article thereof, and the present invention provides a polycarbonate resin composition obtained by blending 100 parts by weight of a polycarbonate resin (Component A) and 0.005 to 2 parts by weight of a full ester (Component B) from an aliphatic polyhydric alcohol having 4 to 8 hydroxyl groups and 5 to 30 carbon atoms and an aliphatic carboxylic acid having 10 to 22 carbon atoms, said Component B having a 5% weight loss temperature, measured by TGA (thermogravimetric analysis), of 250 to 360° C. and having an acid value of 4 to 20, pellets thereof and a molded article thereof.

A polycarbonate resin has excellent transparency, heat durability, mechanical strength, etc., and is therefore widely used in the fields of electric appliances, machines, automobiles, medical appliances, and the like. A polycarbonate resin is also widely used in various transparent members due to the above various excellent features. Above all, attempts are made to apply a polycarbonate resin to transparent members for vehicles aiming at a decrease in weight. Such transparent members for vehicles include a headlamp lens, a resin windowpane, a rear lamp lens, a meter cover, and the like. Characteristically, these members have complicated forms and large sizes, and molded articles therefor are required to have very high product quality.
When the above members are produced from a polycarbonate resin composition by an injection molding method, the following points may be problems in some cases.
That is, one problem is that it is difficult to obtain a molded article that has an excellent mold releasing property, has little internal strain and is free of the occurrence of cracking. More specifically, when a large amount of a mold release agent is added for imparting the resin with a good mold release property, a molded article is liable either to have an internal strain or to undergo cracking. When the amount of a mold release agent is decreased, the occurrence of cracking increases due to an increase in resistance against mold releasing. Further, the above transparent members are required to have transparency, durability against molding heat and weatherability.
The above internal strain of a molded article is a strain observed as a non-uniform shade portion through a polarizing plate. It is not reduced by any general annealing but, on the contrary, is made conspicuous in some cases (the above strain will be sometimes referred to as "strain-2" for convenience). The strain-2 is liable to occur when molding is carried out at a high temperature with a large molding machine having many residence portions.
A strain observable as a color change in a striped pattern or "dense and less dense" non-uniformity through a polarizing plate is a strain that can be reduced by annealing to some extent (this strain will be sometimes referred to as "strain-1" for convenience). The main factor of the above strain-1 is a strain which individual polymer molecule chains are caused to have due to thermal stress, and the like.
The above strain-1 causes the occurrence of cracking during hard-coating procedures or in long-term properties, so that it is required to reduce the strain-1. While the strain-2 does not cause such problems as visibility when a windowpane or the like is used under natural light, it is sometimes required to reduce the strain-2. The reason therefor will be discussed later.
Further, a transparent member for a vehicle is often subjected to surface treatments such as hard coating treatment. In the hard coating treatment, a molded article sometimes undergoes cracking. The cracking of a molded article will take place even if the molded article is annealed before the hard coating treatment. It is therefore considered that some factors of a polycarbonate resin composition promote the cracking of a molded article during molding and annealing. It is hence required to improve the molded article in resistance to cracking (to be sometimes referred to as "cracking resistance" hereinafter) by reducing the above factors.
As described above, for members for vehicles, there is demanded a polycarbonate resin composition which has excellent transparency and durability against molding heat and gives a molded article having an excellent mold release property, a reduced internal strain and improved cracking resistance and preferably further having weatherability.
The manufacturing of transparent members for vehicles, particularly large members, has features different from the manufacturing of optical disk substrates that are typical molded articles from a polycarbonate resin. The manufacturing of an optical disk substrate is "molding" requiring a very high processing temperature but "molding" of an article having a simple form (a constant thickness and non-complicated flowing of a resin) at a very small cycle. In view of the above points, a resin composition therefor is required to have properties different from those of a resin composition for an optical disk substrate.
Conventionally, a method of adding a fatty acid ester is known as a method of improving the mold release property of a polycarbonate resin, and above all, glycerin monostearate is frequently used. In a polycarbonate resin composition containing glycerin monostearate, however, the above strain-2 is clearly observed, and such a composition cannot be said to be satisfactory in cracking resistance.
As a mold release agent for use in a polycarbonate resin, there is widely known a full ester of an aliphatic polyhydric alcohol and an aliphatic carboxylic acid, such as pentaerythritol tetrastearate. For a polycarbonate resin composition containing the above full ester, there are various proposals made for improving the composition in product quality. The full ester of an aliphatic polyhydric alcohol and an aliphatic carboxylic acid will be sometimes referred to as "fatty acid full ester" hereinafter.
There is disclosed a polycarbonate resin composition containing, as a mold release agent, an ester of pentaerythritol in which the OH group content and acid value of an ester compound are extremely decreased (Patent Document 1).
Further, there is disclosed a polycarbonate resin composition comprising a polycarbonate resin and an internal mold release agent having a full ester content of 90% or more and having an acid value of 0.6 to 1.6, an iodine value of 0.1 to 1.3 and a metal element, Sn, content of 5 to 300 ppm (Patent Document 2).
(Patent Document 1)
JP-A-2-69556
(Patent Document 2)
JP-A-2001-192543
(Objects to be Achieved by the Invention)
It is an object of the present invention to provide a polycarbonate resin composition which has excellent transparency and durability against molding heat, which gives a molded article having an excellent mold release property, reduced internal strain and improved cracking resistance and, preferably, further having weatherability, and which is suitable particularly for a transparent member for a vehicle, pellets thereof and a molded article thereof.
The present inventors have made diligent studies for achieving the above objects.
First, the above problem is that the mold release property imparted by a mold release agent and other properties are not compatible, so that the present inventors have studied types of mold release agents as one solution factor.
Second, the present inventors have made studies causes for cracking. As a result, it has been assumed that a cracking during molding is possibly a solvent cracking caused by the contact of additives partly remaining on a mold surface, such as a mold release agent, etc., to a high-temperature molded article during molding. Particularly, it has been found that since an edge portion of a molded article is liable to have a greater strain, and since a mold release agent, etc., are liable to be deposited in the edge portion, a cracking is liable to occur. While it is considered that a cracking also takes place in hard coating treatment after annealing mainly because a residual stress is not completely removed by the annealing, it is also considered from the above viewpoint that a resin of a molded article surface is partly deteriorated. Therefore, the conclusion obtained concerning these points is that the type of a mold release agent is also essential.
Third, studies have been made with regard to causes for the occurrence of the strain-2. As a result, the following conclusion has been reached. In injection molding, a resin flows into a mold in a fountain flow manner, and the mold is filled with the resin in a manner in which a resin to follow pushes aside a resin that has already flowed in the mold. For example, when the cross-section of the resin is observed, there is observed a state where several flow layers of the resin are stacked. In an injection-molded article having the above properties, when a non-uniform frictional force is caused among the flow layers, the flows of the resin are disordered, there is caused a great difference in density among the flow layers, or the flows of the resin is whirled to reverse upper and lower layers in some cases. It has been found that such states are observed as a non-uniform shade portion in the above observation through a polarizing plate. That is, the non-uniform shade can be said to be a strain of flow layers of a resin. It has been also found that the strain-2 is liable to take place when a thermal load on a resin is excessive. It has been therefore assumed that the non-uniform frictional force among the flow layers is caused by gasification of a decomposition product. Further, it has been found that as the strain-2 becomes more intensely observable, there are more cases where a molded article show defects such as sliver streaks, discoloration and internal fogging (white haze) due to a slight increase in residence time. That is, it can be said that a resin composition having less strain-2 causes almost no molding defects and can be applied widely to a variety of molded articles. Further, when long-term properties are taken into account, molded articles having less strain are more preferred than those having intense strains. When a molded article is used in place of a glass product, when it is applied to an optical product, and when it is applied to an automobile part, the strain-2 is often regarded as a defect. For the above reason, it is sometimes required to decrease the strain-2.
Therefore, to decrease the strain-2, the conclusion that has been reached is that the flow of a resin is required to be smooth and that it is required to incorporate an additive from which a gas and a decomposition substance are less generated. A mold release agent is considered to have the function of making the flow of a resin smooth, and it is considered to be essential to incorporate a mold release agent from which a gas and a decomposition product are less generated.
Following the above studies, the present inventors have further made diligent studies, and as a result, have found that a resin composition prepared by incorporating a specific amount of a specific fatty acid full ester to a polycarbonate resin can overcome the above problems, and the present invention has been accordingly completed.

Polycarbonate resin composition, pellets thereof and molded article thereof


An ink jet printer is a multifunctional recording apparatus in which a scanner unit is coupled to a recording unit in a rotationally movable manner. The scanner unit includes a protrusion. A carriage, the protrusion, and a rotational movement shaft of the scanner unit are arranged in this order from the unit front side to the unit rear side in the unit depth direction.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus including a recording unit and a scanner unit that is provided at the upper side of the recording unit and is moved rotationally so as to open and close the upper side of the recording unit.
2. Related Art
In recent years, recording apparatuses called complex machines that include a recording unit and a scanner unit integrally, in particular, ink jet complex machines among them, have been spread widely. The scanner unit includes a reading unit and the reading unit is guided in the scanning direction by a guide rail.
As for configuration layout, the scanner unit is provided with a protrusion projecting from a bottom surface and the guide rail is arranged in the protrusion in some cases. Employing the configuration, the thickness of the overall scanner unit can be reduced and the dimension of the overall ink jet complex machine in the apparatus height direction can be reduced. JP-A-2012-107393 discloses an ink jet complex machine including such protrusion.
Recently, the ink jet complex machine is required to be reduced in size further. In particular, the ink jet complex machine is required to be reduced in height significantly (dimension thereof in the apparatus height direction is required to be reduced). On the other hand, since the scanner unit includes the reading unit, it is required to have higher resistance to vibration and impact.


A memory module has a plurality of DRAMs (115), which share a bus line, on the front surface and the back surface of a board. The bus line is connected through a via hole (113) from a terminal (111) to one end of a strip line (112), and the other end of the strip line is connected to a strip line in the other layer through a via hole (119) provided for looping back the line. A termination resistor (120), provided near a termination voltage terminal (VTT), is connected to the looped-back strip line in the other layer through a via hole. The DRAM terminals are connected to the strip line each through a via hole. This memory module is mounted on a motherboard, on which a memory controller is provided, through a connector. The effective characteristic impedance of the bus line is matched with the characteristic impedance of the line in the motherboard.

FIG. 14a-FIG. 14c are diagrams showing typical configurations of a conventional high-speed memory interface.
(1) Point to Point Type
As shown in FIG. 14a, a memory controller 1402 and a memory 1401 (DRAM with a built-in terminator) are connected in a point-to-point configuration. The DRAMs (Dynamic Random Memory) 1401 are mounted on both sides of a module board 1410 with DQ terminal of the DRAM 1401 on the front surface of the board 1410 connected to the DQ terminal of the DRAM 1401 on the back surface via a through hole. The DQ signal is terminated by a termination circuit in DRAM with a built-in terminator 1401 at the end of an interconnection.
Although this configuration allows high speed signal transmission, the place where the memory can be arranged only is limited to one position (that is, at the end of the bus), as a result of which, the problem is that the memory capacity cannot be increased.
(2) Conventional Stubless Type
As shown in FIG. 14b, the memory controller 1402 and the memories (DRAM) 1401 are connected in a stubless configuration via a connector 1404, in which there is no branch on a long line that is a deemed as a distributed constant line with regard to signal transmission.
In the configuration shown in FIG. 14b, the memory expansion is made possible because connectors 1404 are provided on a motherboard 1406. Three slots are provided on the motherboard in FIG. 14b, and the interconnection is terminated by a termination resistor 1405 on the motherboard 1406.
The number of times the signal passes through the connector 1404 is twice as many as the number of slots in the configuration shown in FIG. 14b and thus the signal degradation is increased. Hence, there exists a problem that as more slots are added to increase memory capacity, the degradation of signal waveform is enlarged.
(3) Directly Mounted Stubless Type
As shown in FIG. 14c, the memory controller 1402 is connected to the memories 1401 in a stubless configuration, not via a connector, with the memories 1401 mounted directly on a motherboard 1407.
In the configuration shown in FIG. 14c, the signal is transmitted at a high speed and a high-capacity memory may be installed. The problem is that the memory cannot be increased (memory capacity cannot be changed) because the memories 1401 are mounted directly on the motherboard 1407.


Providing gate protection to a group III-semiconductor device by delivering gate overdrive immunity is described herein. The gate protection can be achieved by embedding a gate-voltage-controlling second transistor to the gate electrode of a first transistor. In other words, a first gate electrode of the first semiconductor device is in series with a second source electrode of the second semiconductor device, and a second gate electrode of the second semiconductor device is connected to the second source electrode and the first gate electrode.

Group III-nitride (also referred to as III-nitride or III-N) heterojunction devices can deliver advantageous properties compared to their silicon and gallium arsenic counterparts for power switch applications. The advantageous properties include, but are not limited to, a wide bandgap, a high breakdown electric field, a capability of high-temperature operation and a large thermal conductivity. A wide-bandgap group III-nitride heterostructure device can yield a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) channel with a high sheet charge concentration and high electron mobility. Accordingly, group III-nitride devices (e.g. GaN-based heterostructure devices, such as those incorporating AlGaN/GaN heterostructure) have emerged as attractive candidates for high-efficiency, high voltage power driving systems and power converters.
To improve functionality and enhance reliability of these power driving systems and power converters, it is desirable to accommodate not only the high-voltage core power devices, but also the low-voltage peripheral devices that are monolithically integrated on the same group III-nitride for building mixed-signal (e.g., sensing/control/protection) driver circuits.
To turn on a high-voltage core power device, such as high electron mobility transistor (HEMT), its Schottky gate electrode is usually slightly over-driven by the driver circuit to minimize on-resistance and maximize output current. In this way, due to exponential current-voltage relationship of the Schottky gate, overdriving gate voltage of the power device will lead to over-current that result in gate failure. Moreover, in an enhancement-mode HEMT (E-HEMT) that is realized with fluorine plasma-implant technology, the overdrive gate voltage bias beyond the critical voltage (for example, around 2.5V) may introduce threshold voltage instability of the device. Therefore, a gate overdrive protection is necessary to achieve both gate current gate voltage limitations.
Currently, gate voltage limiting and transient voltage suppression (TVS) can be achieved with silicon Zener diodes. For group III-nitride based transistors, however, Zener diodes must be connected off-chip, which requires space for large wire-bond pads. Off-chip connection with wire-bonds limits the switching speed of the power devices. Zener diodes cannot be fabricated on the group III-nitride hetero-structure because the wide-bandgap group III-nitride materials are difficult to be doped heavily, which is needed to accommodate Zener breakdown voltage down to the ON-state critical Schottky gate voltage of group III-nitride power transistors (e.g., a typical value of about 2.5V).
The above-described background is merely intended to provide an overview of contextual information regarding group-III nitride heterojunction devices, and is not intended to be exhaustive. Additional context may become apparent upon review of one or more of the various non-limiting embodiments of the following detailed description.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology


The image forming apparatus includes a process unit, a latent image writer, a power source, and a controller. The process unit is detachably attachable relative to the image forming apparatus and includes, as a single integrated unit, a latent image bearing member to bear a latent image on a surface thereof, a charging device to charge the surface of the latent image bearing member, and a development device to develop the latent image with toner. The controller causes the power source to output a charging bias at a predetermined target level supplied to the charging device. The process unit includes a first storage device to store correction information for calculating the predetermined target level of the charging bias in accordance with a combination of the latent image bearing member and the charging device. The controller corrects the predetermined target level based on the correction information in the first storage device.

1. Technical Field
Exemplary aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to a detachably attachable process unit including, as a single integrated unit, a latent image bearing member, a charging device that charges a surface of the latent image bearing member, and a development device, and an image forming apparatus including the process unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
In known electrophotographic image forming apparatuses, a charging device uniformly charges a surface of a photosensitive member as a latent image bearing member, and an optical writer projects a light beam onto the charged surface of the photosensitive member to form an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive member. A development device develops the electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive member with toner to render the electrostatic latent image visible as a toner image. Subsequently, the toner image is directly transferred from the photosensitive member onto a recording medium or is indirectly transferred from the photosensitive member onto a recording medium via an intermediate transfer member.
The charging device of the image forming apparatuses of this kind includes a charging roller to which a charging bias is applied. Electrical discharge occurs between the charging roller and the photosensitive member, thereby charging uniformly the surface of the photosensitive member. The charging device, the photosensitive member, and the development device are held as an integrated single unit by a common holder and are detachably attachable as a single integrated unit relative to a main body of the image forming apparatus.
When a charge potential of the photosensitive member deviates significantly from a target value, a background potential (i.e., a potential difference between a potential of a non-image formation area of the photosensitive member and a surface potential of a development member (i.e., a development roller) of the development device) development bias and a dark portion potential) becomes too much or too little, causing imaging failure. When the background potential is insufficient, the toner on the development member of the development device moves undesirably to the non-image formation area or a background portion of the photosensitive surface, resulting in undesirable toner adhesion onto a recording medium. This contamination of the non-image formation area of the surface of the photosensitive member is hereinafter referred to as background fogging.
In a case in which the image forming apparatus employs a two-component development method using a two-component developer including toner and magnetic carrier, with an excess background potential, the magnetic carrier on the development member moves to the surface of the photosensitive member undesirably. This is known as carrier adhesion.
In view of the above, it is necessary to control the charge potential of the photosensitive member to attain the target value. However, in the image forming apparatus using a plurality of process units for different colors, the charging bias to attain the target charge potential for the photosensitive member varies between the process units. More specifically, the thickness of the surface layer of the photosensitive member varies between the photosensitive members in the process units. Furthermore, the electrical resistance of the charging roller also varies between the charging rollers in the process units. Due to these variations, a discharge start voltage between the charging roller and the photosensitive member also varies between the process units. As a result, the charging bias to charge the surface of the photosensitive member to a target voltage, for example, −700V, varies between the process units.
If all the process units employ the same charging bias, the charge potential of the photosensitive member may deviate significantly from the target value depending on the process unit, resulting in the background fogging and carrier adhesion onto the photosensitive member. In particular, in order to realize cost savings, the charging bias may consist only of a direct-current component. In such a case, the discharge start voltage between the charging roller and the photosensitive member is affected significantly by the charge potential of the photosensitive member. The variations in the discharge start voltage between the process units easily cause the background fogging and carrier adhesion to the photosensitive member.
In view of the above, there is demand for an image forming apparatus that is capable of preventing the background fogging and carrier adhesion derived from variations in the discharge start voltage between the process units.


A user may simultaneously access sources of multimedia information via multiple wireless networks using a handheld multimedia gateway. A user interface may support the selection of information services that are each provided separate, but possibly overlapping, viewing spaces. Circuitry in the multimedia gateway manages the operation of the multiple wireless communication paths, and enables the display of visual information through two or more display devices. The user may customize the display, the size, and the location within a display of regions in which the information is presented.

Communication via wireless networks is growing rapidly, and the capabilities of handheld devices used for the consumption of multimedia information support the consumption of voice, music, still images, and video up to and including full motion content. High speed digital connectivity may be provided via a number of wireless networking technologies including those compliant with the Global System For Mobile Communications (GSM) Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Enhanced Data for Global Evolution (EDGE), High Speed Packet Data Access (HSPDA), CDMA 2000 1xEV-DO and 1xEV-DV, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a/b/g/n-compatible wireless local area networks (WLANs), IEEE 802.16 compatible wireless wide area networks (WiMAX), and Digital Video Broadcasting—Handheld (DVB-H) specifications, to name only a few.
Current handheld multimedia-capable devices typically support access to only one wireless network at a time, and users wishing to simultaneously consume multimedia information from multiple networks normally do so via communication sessions separated in time, and usually utilizing a separate access devices for each physical network accessed. For example, those wishing to simultaneously access full motion news video via a wireless local area network and streaming stock quotes via a wireless text messaging facility must do so using separate physical devices. If the user's wireless device is capable of accessing both information sources, it must normally be done in separate communication sessions, where the user consumes information from a first source, and then switches to a second source, in a mutually exclusive form of consumption.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.

Simultaneously multi-networked handheld multimedia gateways


A network management function of a public land mobile network is provided with one or more notifications of the extent of progress of an operation, from another management function of the public land mobile network, in accordance with one or more input parameters. The operation is performed remotely from the network management function.

Some public land mobile networks (PLMN) operate according to a management reference model in which a plurality of lower management functions manage a respective network element or set of closely related types of network elements under the general management of a network management function.
Operations managed by the lower management function are generally performed remotely from the network management function, and it has been found that some operations can take more time than expected to complete.
There has been identified the challenge of providing better control over such operations at the network management function.