The present invention presents an improved pump piston for pressurizing liquid dispensing containers, and more particularly improved air inlet valve designs for such pistons. According to the present invention, the inlet valves are located remotely from the lower end of the pump piston, such that they are protected from contamination by liquid product and resulting degradation of performance. One inlet valve design utilizes a lost motion connection between the pump piston and upper cap, with structural elements of the upper cap and piston cooperating to form an inlet valve that is opened to admit air into the interior of the piston when the cap is pulled upward and tightly sealed when the cap is pushed downward. Another inlet valve design utilizes slits in the wall of the piston itself and the flexibility of the piston material to form an inlet valve that is opened to admit air into the interior of the piston when the cap is pulled upward and tightly sealed when the cap is pushed downward. The lost motion design is disclosed in two possible embodiments, and a number of versions of the valve slit embodiment are disclosed.

In recent times, there has been a heightened awareness on the part of the general public as to the environmental impact of certain types of aerosol propellants. In particular, aerosol propellants for paint, hairspray, insecticides, cleaners, and the like have been singled out as major contributors to depletion of the ozone layer which protects the earth from excessive ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This is due to the fact that for a number of years, aerosol containers contained propellants comprised of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) which, when liberated in the course of dispensing the product, reacted with the atmospheric ozone layer and caused it to become depleted. Chlorofluorocarbons typically consist of carbon, chlorine, fluorine, and hydrogen.
While most if not all use of chlorofluorocarbons has been eliminated in view of safer alternatives, many consumers continue to perceive aerosol containers in a negative light. Even though the environmental impact of aerosol containers has been reduced, widespread use of other chemical propellants may have other long-term consequences in the years to come. For example, volatile organic compounds (VOCS) such as butane, propane, and other hydrocarbons may contribute to pollution problems in the lower atmosphere.
These consumer perceptions have led to a resurgence in liquid dispensing containers which use no propellants at all. In particular, there has been a proliferation of pump-type spray devices which dispense a preset amount of liquid product with each stroke of a piston-type liquid pump. While improvements in dispensing valve and spray head technology have improved the quality of the resulting spray pattern produced by these devices, the consumer is still required to manually pump the piston numerous times to dispense the typical quantity of product required. The consumer thus receives a number of short spray bursts of product rather than a continuous, consistent spray as from an aerosol-type container. Many consumers find this dispensing mechanism too time and effort intensive, and find the spray burst method of operation unsatisfactory. Additionally, such pump spray mechanisms often produce different spray characteristics from an aerosol dispenser. Moreover, in order to achieve an acceptable pattern of spray, these devices often produce a very "wet" spray with too much liquid product dispensed per unit area for many applications.
An approach which has proven satisfactory in terms of consumer perceptions is the use of compressed air as a propellant. The liberation of compressed air has no negative environmental consequences beyond those of the liquid product itself, and such dispensing containers behave much like those aerosol containers which use chemical propellants in terms of spray quantity and quality.
One way to utilize compressed air is to prepressurize sealed containers at the factory with air, much like containers utilizing chemical propellants. The difference is, however, that with chemical propellants such as CFCs or VOCs, the propellants are actually in a liquified state in the container and boil as required to maintain a relatively constant vapor pressure in the container as the headspace increases during the course of product dispensing. In this fashion, a constant pressure is available throughout the course of dispensing the contents of the container to maintain uniform spray quality. With compressed air in a gaseous state, the pressure in the container decreases as the headspace increases in the course of product dispensing, leading to progressively poorer spray quality. With a conventional sealed container, the only ways to combat this tendency are either to use greater than normal volumes of compressed air or comparable volumes at higher pressures to dispense a comparable quantity of liquid product to containers utilizing chemical propellants. This means either larger containers for the same product quantity, or strengthened containers for higher pressures which are more costly. Even so, unlike chemical propellants which maintain a relatively constant pressure within the container during the course of dispensing its contents, with prepressurized containers utilizing compressed air the spray pattern will change as the air pressure within the container drops in use. Although the pattern may remain acceptable throughout much of the range of use, consumers will notice the inevitable difference in spray characteristics when the pressure varies to such a large extent, say from a typical 150 psi (1034 kPa) down to 30 psi (207 kPa) or less.
A solution which is currently being marketed is to design a container which the consumer pressurizes with atmospheric air periodically during the course of dispensing the contents of the container. This offers numerous advantages, including the possibility of making the containers refillable by the consumer to reduce costs and household waste, the non-chemical nature of the propellant, and the aerosol-quality spray characteristics. By allowing the air in the container to be replenished and additional air to be added to account for the increasing headspace as product is dispensed, a much more uniform level of pressure is available for dispensing without the need for a larger container or a special strengthened container. Such containers have an air pump apparatus, usually in conjunction with the dispensing valve assembly, for operation by the consumer to pressurize the container.
One such dispensing container for hairspray which is currently marketed in the United States comprises a plastic container with a removable valve/pump assembly such that the container is easily refilled by the consumer. U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,442, issued Mar. 7, 1978 to Olofsson, exemplifies this arrangement, and is hereby incorporated herein by reference. A removable pump piston attached to an upper cap surrounds the dispensing valve assembly and slides within an annular pumping chamber. This pump piston design utilizes a lip-type lower seal which contacts the outer wall of the chamber to form an air-tight seal, and an inlet valve immediately adjacent to the seal in the form of a slit in the piston wall. This pump piston also utilizes a small bleed hole in the piston wall to permit residual compressed air within the piston (from the final downward stroke) to bleed out such that the container can be stored with the pump piston installed in the lowered position.
The consumer reciprocates the pump piston to compress air within the confines of the piston/chamber combination and force it into the container through a one-way valve. Approximately 10-15 pump strokes are sufficient to initially pressurize the container (more precisely, to pressurize the headspace above the liquid in the container), and continuous dispensing is possible until the pressure in the container is reduced to the point where the spray pattern is no longer satisfactory. The consumer then re-pressurizes the container as needed throughout the course of dispensing the contents of the container. When the contents of the container are exhausted, the consumer can remove the piston, pumping chamber, and dispensing valve assembly, and pour an appropriate amount of liquid product into the container to refill and reuse the existing container. Upon reassembly, the consumer can then re-pressurize the container and again dispense the desired product.
Unfortunately, as the air pressure in the container decreases during use to a point below which spray effectiveness is greatly reduced, liquid product tends to dribble down from the spray outlet into the annular pumping chamber. When the pump piston is then inserted into the chamber and pumping is attempted, the inlet valve slit at the lower end of the piston becomes contaminated with the product. With some products this does not present any particular difficulty. With other products (such as hairspray) which become sticky when dry, however, exposure to air causes the liquid product to dry in and around the valve slit. The congealed product either effectively glues the edges of the valve slit together or prevents air-tight sealing of the opening, thus leading to degradation of sealing performance of the valve slit. As the performance deteriorates to the point of a complete inability to admit air into the piston or to effectuate air-tight sealing, the consumer finds himself or herself unable to pump sufficient air into the container for proper functioning.
The present invention is directed to improving the inlet valve design to protect it from exposure to contamination by liquid product, and thus improve reliability in the course of consumer usage. Specific attributes and advantages of this invention will be apparent with reference to the accompanying Specification and Drawing Figures.

Pump pistons for pressurizing liquid dispensing containers


When a blurring correction is performed when shooting a moving image, a digital camera performs blurring correction on the picked up frames and successively records the frames. Then, when generating a moving image file, the digital camera records information stating that the blurring correction has been performed in the header of the file, thereby preventing the blurring correction from being performed again when the moving image is played back. In addition, in the case that only the blurring detection is performed when shooting the moving image, the digital camera detects the blurring in the frame, correlates the detected blurring amount in the frame with the frame, and successively records the blurring amounts. Then, when generating the moving image file, the digital camera records information stating that the blurring detection has been performed in the header of the file.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a moving image playback device including a camera-shake correction function and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a digital camera, for example, camera-shake (this concept includes hand shake and other similar situations) is corrected as follows. When shooting a moving image, the digital camera detects the amount of camera-shake using a gyro-sensor. When playing back the moving image, the digital camera detects the amount of blurring (motion vector) in image data using a representative point matching method or a block matching method. The digital camera trims a portion of the image based on the detected amount of blurring, thereby correcting the camera-shake.
In addition, a following technology has been developed. When the moving image is being shot, the moving image is recorded without the camera-shake correction causing loss of a portion of the image being performed. When the moving image is played back, the user selects whether to correct the camera-shake. If the camera-shake is to be corrected, the camera-shake correction is performed on the recorded moving image data, and the moving image is displayed. As a result, a moving image that is faithful to the original image can be recorded, without a portion of the picked-up moving image data becoming lost during the recording (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open (Kokai) Patent Publication No. Heisei 06-6669).
However, when the amount of camera-shake is detected through image processing, the amount of calculation required is large and power consumption is significant. Therefore, when the camera-shake correction is performed again on a moving image to which the camera-shake correction has already been performed during shooting or on a moving image that has no camera-shake in the first place, unnecessary power is consumed and batteries are quickly wasted.

Moving image playback device with camera-shake correction function


A canopy (100) suspended above an opening (202) in a vehicle (200) is provided. The vehicle (200) has a roof (215) and a pair of vertically hung doors (204 and 206) pivotal to an open position to create the opening in the vehicle. The canopy comprises a flexible cover (102) having a top panel (104) extending between the doors and the roof. The canopy aids in forming an enclosure bounded by the top panel, the doors, a ground surface, the opening in the vehicle, and a rear opening and a non-closable bottom opening in the enclosure permitting walk-in access to the enclosure. A support frame (106) is coupled to the cover to aid in suspending the cover above the ground surface and above the opening in the vehicle. The canopy further includes an attachment assembly (108) for coupling the cover to the vehicle. In an alternate embodiment, a canopy 400 for interfacing with a vehicle 500 having a liftgate 504 is provided.

The Chevrolet Suburban was introduced in 1935. The rise in popularity of sport utility vehicles since the debut of the Chevrolet Suburban has drastically increased. Typically, sport utility vehicles come with a pair of cargo doors that swing laterally outward to provide access to a rear cargo area of the vehicle. Alternately, a liftgate is provided which swings up to provide access to a rear cargo area of the vehicle. Other vehicles, such as minivans and pickup truck with canopies, also utilize rear doors, often of the liftgate variety, to provide access to the rear cargo area.
With the doors in the open position, the rear cargo area is subject to the elements. Thus the contents of the rear cargo area may be damaged from precipitation. Further, no protection from the elements is provided. Therefore, a user in proximity to the rear cargo area is subject to precipitation and sun exposure. This is especially troublesome when the user is frequently accessing the rear cargo area or performing work from the rear cargo area. Therefore, a need exists to provide a canopy system adapted to interface with the rear of the vehicle to provide protection from the elements to objects and persons in the vicinity of the rear cargo area.
One previously developed solution has been to suspend a tarp between the cargo doors or over the liftgate. While this provides some protection, it is not without its problems. For instance, the rigging of the tarp takes a significant amount of time, labor, and ingenuity to lash the tarp in place such that it can withstand the elements, most notably gusts of wind. Further, especially with cargo doors, the area of the tarp suspended between the cargo doors sags, decreasing headroom and creating a concave area to hold rainwater. The pooled water is prone to leaking through the tarp and wetting a user under the tarp or damaging contents of the rear cargo area. The weight of the pooled water can overcome the lashings and cause the tarp system to fail. Further, the tarp often flaps in the wind, causing bothersome noise and potentially scratching the vehicle. Further, the tarp system does not expand the area of coverage, i.e., either above or to the sides of the doors, since no rigid support system is provided to extend the tarp outward. Further still, there is no rigid support system to direct drainage during precipitation, leading to pooling of water as discussed above.
For these reasons, there exists a need for a canopy system adapted to interface with an opening in a vehicle that provides protection to the elements, adequately controls drainage, is easy to install and take down, is inexpensive to manufacture, reliable, and meets or exceeds the performance requirements of the end user.


A client device receives streamed encoded content data, such as encoded video data, which has been encoded at a constant perceptual quality. Several different versions of the content are available to be streamed to the device, at different perceptual quality levels. In order to decide which quality level to request from a content server at intervals the device calculates the delivery rates that would be required for each level of quality. The calculation of the delivery levels is made in dependence on whether the actual delivery rate that has been received so far is greater than or less than a constant bit rate delivery schedule that decreases monotonically but which guarantees to deliver the encoded data in a timely manner such that no buffer underflow and interruption of reproduction takes place. The monotonically decreasing bit rate schedule is defined by one or more “critical points”, which are the points at which the bit rates are decreased, and correspond to the points where the delivery schedule is just equal to the decoding schedule of the encoded data. At such points there would be no encoded data in a buffer at the client. If the delivery rate has been greater than the constant bit rate schedule for a quality then the delivery rate required going forward for a particular quality level can be calculated from the critical point information, and no more complicated calculation is required.

Traditionally a video on demand service, such as that provided commercially in the UK under the trade name BT Vision, is supported by encoding video at a constant bit rate and delivering it over a network at the same constant bit rate. This generally requires bandwidth reservation on the network, which can be expensive to provide. Video encoded using compression techniques naturally has variable bit rate, as the number of bits produced when encoding a picture depends on the picture content: how similar it is to previously encoded pictures and how much detail it contains. Some video scenes can be coded to a given quality with a small number of bits, whereas other scenes may require significantly more bits to achieve the same quality. When constant bit rate (CBR) encoding is used, video has to be coded at time varying quality to meet the bit rate constraint. This has been shown to be sub-optimal to the user, who would prefer to see constant quality. Also, by fixing the bit rate independent of the genre of the video content, some genres of content can be encoded well, such as news and drama, whereas others, such as fast moving sport and music videos and concerts, can only be coded quite poorly.
In order to address the perceived image quality issues with CBR encoded video, variable bit rate (VBR) encoded video can be provided, where the video is encoded at a variable rate so as to provide for substantially constant quality. In this respect, WO 2009/112801, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes, describes how video data may be encoded to allow for substantially constant perceived quality on the part of a viewing user. However, due to the variability of instantaneous bit rate of VBR encoded data, delivery of variable bit rate encoded data over a network can itself be problematic, if the network is to deliver the data sufficiently quickly such that all video data is delivered in time for it to be decoded and displayed without interruption. In particular, parts of the VBR encoded data which have a high number of bits per frame, such as action sequences or the like, may lead to high instantaneous data rate requirements which the network is unable to deliver. Such situations may then lead to buffer underflow at the decoding client, and hence interruptions in delivery.
In order to avoid such buffer underflow conditions occurring it is therefore important to control carefully the data transfer rate and video data quality (which itself dictates the amount of data to be delivered) such that quality can be improved where possible, whilst preventing buffer underflow conditions occurring.

Method for delivering video content encoded at one or more quality levels over a data network

BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY


A method and device for supplying an orderly succession of randomly received products to a user machine, whereby a first and second conveyor, traveling at respective speeds, define a path having two portions of variable lengths complementary to each other, and which are connected at a movable transfer station by a pocket type transfer device for transferring the products from the first conveyor into respective pockets equally spaced with a given spacing along the second conveyor; the random distribution of the products on the first conveyor being adapted to the equal spacing of the pockets on the second conveyor by adjusting the speed at which the products arrive at the transfer station, and/or the position of the transfer station.

The present invention relates to a method for the orderly supply of randomly received products.
The present invention is particularly advantageous for supplying food products in general, and confectionary in particular, to a wrapping machine, to which application the following description refers purely by way of example.
Food product manufacturing and packing systems are known to employ wrapping machines, each of which receives the products for wrapping in an orderly, i.e. equally spaced, succession; and dispensing devices, each of which supplies the products either in randomly aligned fashion, or in an orderly arrangement, e.g. in batches, other than that required by the wrapping machine connected to the dispensing device. As such, the arrangement of the products must be adjusted as they are transferred from the dispensing device to the follow-up wrapping machine.
The same also applies in the case of a dispensing device designed to supply the products arranged as required by the wrapping machine, if the orderly sequence with which the products are supplied is interrupted by temporary stoppage of the dispensing device or by rejection of one or a group of products in the sequence.
Italian Patent No. 797,350 and European Patent No. 433,231 relate to methods for the orderly supply of randomly received products to a follow-up machine, and which comprise the steps of conveying a succession of products by means of a first conveying device traveling in a given direction at a first speed, and comprising a first conveying portion of variable length extending between a loading station and a movable transfer station; conveying an orderly succession of products by means of a second conveying device traveling in said given direction at a second speed, and comprising a second conveying portion of variable length complementary to the length of the first conveying portion, the second conveying portion extending between the movable transfer station and an unloading station; and varying the lengths of the two conveying portions by means of an adjusting device, and as a function of the succession of products on the first conveying device and the difference between the first and second speed.
The above methods provide for ordering both a succession of randomly received products and an orderly (equally spaced) succession with missing products, but present the drawback of subjecting the products to frequent slippage in said given direction, both during transfer from the first to the second conveying device, and as the products travel along the conveying portions of the conveying devices. Which slippage obviously results in each product eventually slipping out of position, and the smaller the supporting surface of the product is in relation to its overall mass, the greater the position error is.
Such slippage mainly occurs at the transfer station when the product is positioned astride the first and second conveying device, and is therefore supported partly by the first and partly by the second conveying device normally traveling at different speeds. As a result, the product is subjected to differing amounts of thrust, which in turn results in slippage on the first or second or on both the conveying devices, and in either case in incorrect positioning of the product on the second conveying device.

Method and device for the orderly supply of randomly received products

Azionaria Costruzioni Macchine Automatiche A.C.M.A. S.P.A.


A portable terminal with a hinge apparatus is provided. The portable terminal includes a hinge apparatus which pivotally couples a pair of housings together. The hinge apparatus provides a first hinge axis and a second hinge axis which are perpendicular to each other. The hinge apparatus includes a first hinge shaft coupled to the first housing along the first hinge axis, a second hinge shaft coupled to the second hinge housing along the second hinge axis and rotating about the first hinge axis and the second hinge axis, a stopper slot formed on an outer circumferential surface of the first hinge shaft along the first hinge axis, a stopper groove formed on the second hinge shaft along a circumference thereof and encompassing a part of the outer circumferential surface of the first hinge shaft, and a stopper rib formed within the stopper groove and selectively engaging with the stopper slot. Thus, when one of the housings is rotated about one of the hinge axes, the housing is restricted from rotating about the other hinge axis.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to a portable terminal with a hinge apparatus which pivotally couples a pair of housings to each other and provides two hinge axes that are different from each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, portable terminals may be classified into a bar-type terminal, a flip-type terminal and a folder-type terminal according to appearances thereof.
The bar-type terminal has a single body housing, on which data input/output units and transmitter/receiver units are arranged. Thus, this terminal is always exposing a keypad which is its data input unit, thereby being likely to be operated erroneously. Also, because a distance between the transmitter unit and receiver unit must be maintained, there is a limitation in making the bar-type terminal compactly.
The flip-type terminal has a body, a flip and a hinge module coupling the body and the flip together. In the flip-type terminal, the body has data input/output units and transmitter/receiver units arranged thereon and the flip covers a keypad used as the data input unit, thereby preventing the erroneous operation. However, this terminal is also subject to a limitation for a compact size of the terminal, because a distance between the transmitter unit and receiver unit must be maintained too.
The folder-type terminal has a body, a folder, and a hinge module pivotally coupling the body and the folder together. The folder-type terminal is opened and closed by rotating the folder, thereby preventing the erroneous operation of a keypad in standby mode in which the folder is folded onto the body. Also, the folder is unfolded in a calling mode so as to provide a sufficient distance between the transmitter unit and receiver unit. Thus, the folder-type terminal has a beneficial advantage for compactness. For this reason, the folder-type terminal gradually becomes popular.
Meanwhile, in order to meet various user preferences, a sliding-type terminal and a swing-type terminal have appeared. In particular, the sliding-type terminal is becoming more popular than the folder-type terminal.
However, since conventional portable terminals have developed to have an appearance suitable for a communication function such as a voice call, text message transmission, etc., they are inconvenient for multimedia services. For example, since the conventional portable terminals have a display device typically set to be vertically long, it is inconvenient for users to watch digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), motion picture files, etc with them.


An improved process is provided for forming a multilayer structure (18) suitable for tape automated bonding thereto or for forming contacts. In the process, a first layer (12) of aluminum is formed on a substrate (10), a second layer (14) of a TiW alloy is formed on the first layer of aluminum, and a third layer (16) of gold is formed on the second layer of the TiW alloy, to which third layer of gold bonding is done. The improvement comprises annealing the second layer of the TiW alloy in an inert atmosphere at a temperature less than about 500.degree. C. for a period of time sufficient to form a film of an Al--TiW phase (20), believed to comprise TiAl.sub.3, at the interface between the first layer of aluminum and the second layer of the TiW alloy. The annealing is done prior to forming the third layer of gold on the second layer of the TiW alloy.

The current multilayer bond pad structure for tape automated bonding comprises three different metal layers: aluminum, titanium-tungsten alloy, and gold. The aluminum layer is formed on the semiconductor substrate. The gold layer is the seed film for a subsequent Au bump plating process. The TiW alloy is the intended barrier layer between Al and Au to prevent the formation of the well-known "purple plague". The thicknesses of the various layers are: Al - 10,000 .ANG., TiW - 3,000 .ANG., and Au - 2,000 .ANG.. Typically, the ratio of Ti:W is about 10 at % Ti and 90 at % W.
At the present time, the sputter deposition of TiW and Au layers is done sequentially in one pumpdown to minimize contamination from the ambient. The problem observed with this multilayer structure is that the pure TiW layer, which served as a barrier layer, has been found to be ineffective, allowing Au and Al to intermix during a 450.degree. C./30 sec inner-lead bond (ILB) TAB operation. This intermixing is generally not favorable due to the formation of Au--Al intermetallics which are brittle in nature and sometimes highly resistive. During a thermal cycle, stress would be generated at the Au, Al, and intermetallics interfaces which would likely lead to microcracks. Upon further cycling, these microcracks could propagate to weaken the metallization/bump interface and eventually lead to failure. In plastic packages, Au--Al intermetallics and void formation have been the major cause of voltage overload (V.sub.OL) failures at high temperatures.
Interdiffusion problems in TAB structures similar to that described above are not new and have been described in the prior art by others. For example, R. S. Nowicki et al in Thin Solid Films, Vol. 53, pp.195-205 (1978) found that TiW used in an Al/TiW/Au metallization system exhibits marginal diffusion characteristics when deposited in a relatively pure state. They reported that an improvement was observed when TiW was sputtered in a gaseous mixture comprising nitrogen and argon. It appeared that optimum barrier properties were obtained when TiW was deposited in a relatively impure state, i.e., filled with nitride. However, gold does not stick well to a TiW-nitride surface.
It is desirable to have an effective barrier layer for tape automated bonding, to which gold will readily adhere.


Growth differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8) is disclosed along with its polynucleotide sequence and amino acid sequence. Also disclosed are diagnostic and therapeutic methods of using the GDF-8 polypeptide and polynucleotide sequences.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to growth factors and specifically to a new member of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-xcex2) superfamily, which is denoted, growth differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8).
2. Description of Related Art
The transforming growth factor xcex2 (TGF-xcex2) superfamily encompasses a group of structurally-related proteins which affect a wide range of differentiation processes during embryonic development. The family includes, Mullerian inhibiting substance (MIS), which is required for normal male sex development (Behringer, et al., Nature, 345:167, 1990), Drosophila decapentaplegic (DPP) gene product, which is required for dorsal-ventral axis formation and morphogenesis of the imaginal disks (Padgett, et al., Nature, 325:81-84, 1987), the Xenopus Vg-1 gene product, which localizes to the vegetal pole of eggs ((Weeks, et al., Cell, 51:861-867, 1987), the activins (Mason, et al., Biochem, Biophys. Res. Commun., 135:957-964, 1986), which can induce the formation of mesoderm and anterior structures in Xenopus embryos (Thomsen, et al., Cell, 63:485, 1990), and the bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs, osteogenin, OP-1) which can induce de novo cartilage and bone formation (Sampath, et al., J. Biol. Chem., 265:13198, 1990). The TGF-xcex2s can influence a variety of differentiation processes, including adipogenesis, myogenesis, chondrogenesis, hematopoiesis, and epithelial cell differentiation (for review, see Massague, Cell 49:437, 1987).
The proteins of the TGF-xcex2 family are initially synthesized as a large precursor protein which subsequently undergoes proteolytic cleavage at a cluster of basic residues approximately 110-140 amino acids from the C-terminus. The C-terminal regions, or mature regions, of the proteins are all structurally related and the different family members can be classified into distinct subgroups based on the extent of their homology. Although the homologies within particular subgroups range from 70% to 90% amino acid sequence identity, the homologies between subgroups are significantly lower, generally ranging from only 20% to 50%. In each case, the active species appears to be a disulfide-linked dimer of C-terminal fragments. Studies have shown that when the pro-region of a member of the TGF-xcex2 family is coexpressed with a mature region of another member of the TGF-xcex2 family, intracellular dimerization and secretion of biologically active homodimers occur (Gray, A., and Maston, A., Science, 247:1328, 1990). Additional studies by Hammonds, et al., (Molec. Endocrin. 5:149, 1991) showed that the use of the BMP-2 pro-region combined with the BMP-4 mature region led to dramatically improved expression of mature BMP-4. For most of the family members that have been studied, the homodimeric species has been found to be biologically active, but for other family members, like the inhibins (Ling, et al., Nature, 321:779, 1986) and the TGF-xcex2s (Cheifetz, et al., Cell, 48:409, 1987), heterodimers have also been detected, and these appear to have different biological properties than the respective homodimers.
Identification of new factors that are tissue-specific in their expression pattern will provide a greater understanding of that tissue""s development and function.
The present invention provides a cell growth and differentiation factor, GDF-8, a polynucleotide sequence which encodes the factor, and antibodies which are immunoreactive with the factor. This factor appears to relate to various cell proliferative disorders, especially those involving those involving muscle, nerve, and adipose tissue.
Thus, in one embodiment, the invention provides a method for detecting a cell proliferative disorder of muscle, nerve, or fat origin and which is associated with GDF-8. In another embodiment, the invention provides a method for treating a cell proliferative disorder by suppressing or enhancing GDF-8 activity.

Growth differentiation factor-8 family nucleic acid sequences

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine


A processor having a multistage pipeline includes a TLB and a TLB controller. In response to a TLB miss signal, the TLB controller initiates a TLB reload, requesting address translation information from either a memory or a higher-level TLB, and placing that information into the TLB. The processor flushes the instruction having the missing virtual address, and refetches the instruction, resulting in re-insertion of the instruction at an initial stage of the pipeline above the TLB access point. The initiation of the TLB reload, and the flush/refetch of the instruction, are performed substantially in parallel, and without immediately stalling the pipeline. The refetched instruction is held at a point in the pipeline above the TLB access point until the TLB reload is complete, so that the refetched instruction generates a “hit” in the TLB upon its next access.

In a processor that supports paged virtual memory, data may be specified using virtual (or "logical") addresses that occupy a virtual address space of the processor. The virtual address space may typically be larger than the amount of actual physical memory in the system. The operating system in these processors may manage the physical memory in fixed size blocks called pages.
To translate virtual page addresses into physical page addresses, the processor may search page tables stored in the system memory, which may contain the address translation information. Since these searches (or "page table walks") may involve memory accesses, unless the page table data is in a data cache, these searches may be time-consuming.
The processor may therefore perform address translation using one or more translation lookaside buffers (TLBs). A TLB is an address translation cache, i.e. a small cache that stores recent mappings from virtual addresses to physical addresses. The processor may cache the physical address in the TLB, after performing the page table search and the address translation. A TLB may commonly contain often referenced virtual page addresses, as well as the physical page address associated therewith. There may be separate TLBs for instruction addresses (instructions-TLB or I-TLB) and for data addresses (data-TLB or D-TLB).
When a TLB receives a virtual page address, the TLB may search its entries to see if the address translation information contained in any of these entries match the received virtual page address. If the virtual page address presented to a TLB does match an address translation information in any of the TLB entries, a TLB "hit" may occur; otherwise, a TLB "miss" may occur.
In response to a TLB miss, the pipeline may be stalled at the point where the miss occurs. The instruction containing the virtual address may just sit and wait, unable to proceed to the next stage because of lack of the address translation information. While this happens, all stages above the point where the miss has occurred may also have to wait, resulting in considerable inefficiency. Another measure adopted in response to a TLB miss may be to flush the instruction that missed, without stalling the instruction at a stage prior to the TLB access point. In this case, multiple misses may occur for the same instruction, requiring multiple flushes. This may also result in inefficiency.

Translation lookaside buffer manipulation


An agent for inhibiting bone resorption comprising an indole derivative of the formula (I): ##STR1## wherein each ring of A and B is optionally substituted, R is a hydrogen atom, a lower alkyl group or an acyl group, and A is a hydroxymethyl group or an esterified or amidated carboxyl group; or its pharmaceutically acceptable salt and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier, diluent or excipient.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inhibitor for bone resorption comprising indole derivatives as an active ingredient, said indole derivatives having activity for inhibiting bone resorption which is useful for treating osteoporosis.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
Osteoporosis is a morbidity or disease of bone showing symptom when bone reduction is more than some degree. The main symptoms are kyphosis or fractures of the dorsolumbar bone, body of vertebra, neck of femur, distal extremity of radius, rib, proximal extremity of humerus or the like. Various causes of osteoporosis are given, such as endocrinopathy or nutritional disorder. Conventional therapeutic agents for osteoporosis are estrogen, calcitonin, vitamin D and calcium.
The above-mentioned therapeutic agents, however, exhibit insufficient effect, since said agents are limited as to subjects suitable for treatment and are uncertain in effect.
Somo indole derivatives have been disclosed in Chem. Pharm. Bull., 19(2), pp.263-272 (1971); J. Org. Chem., Vol.37, No. 24, pp.3755-3770 (1972); J. Org. Chem., Vol. 38, No. 18, pp.3077-3084 (1973) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,883. However, their activities for inhibiting bone resorption are not known.

Indole derivatives, their production and use


An integrated chemical sensor chip comprises on or integrated in a common substrate a chemically sensitive layer and a heater heating the sensitive layer. In addition, a memory is provided for the storage of a measurement routine, the measurement routine comprising instructions defining a heating process over time and instructions defining one or more measurement points in time. An I/O interface is provided for receiving a trigger for the measurement routine and for supplying a result of the measurement routine. An engine controls the heater and measures a resistance of the sensitive layer according the instructions of the measurement routine.

Metal-oxide chemical sensors are based on the concept that gaseous analytes interact with a metal oxide sensitive layer at elevated temperatures of the sensitive layer in the range of more than 100° Celsius, and specifically between 250° C. and 350° Celsius. As a result of a catalytic reaction, a conductivity of the sensitive layer may change which change can be measured. Hence, such chemical sensors are also denoted as high temperature chemoresistors for the reason that a chemical property of the analyte is converted into an electrical resistance at high temperatures of the sensitive layer.
A chemical sensor can be a gas sensor for detecting one or more substances in a gas, and specifically in the air surrounding a portable multi-purpose electronic device such a mobile phone or a tablet computer. Hence, in a sample application it may be of interest to identify, if such air may contain analytes the chemical sensor is tuned to detect. Specific applications may include the detection of toxic gases, the detection of ethanol, sulphide compounds or other components in a user's breath, or the detection of other substances.
It is also known to arrange such a chemical sensor inside a housing of a portable electronic device, such as a mobile phone, for example. An opening may be provided in the housing for exposing the chemical sensor to a fluid to be analyzed.
It is seen as particular problem to adapt a multitasking CPU of such a portable electronic device to the specific control requirements for a chemical sensor. It can be very difficult to provide instructions for a CPU to maintain control of the chemical sensor's operations while the same CPU is tasked to control core functions such as data and voice communication. The steps required to prepare a chemical sensor for a measurement as well as the actual measurement typically happen on a timescale of several seconds. The processing units in portable electronic devices, however, are often not suited to maintain control of a process for durations exceeding one second.
In the light of the above, it is therefore seen as an object of the invention to improve a chemical sensor and a method for operating a chemical sensor that particularly is suited for mounting into the housing of a portable multi-purpose electronic device.


Prefetch information is generated for multi-block indirect memory access chains. A method may include selecting a chain of indirect memory accesses of a procedure, the chain comprising a head access that does not depend for its address on another prefetch candidate memory access within the procedure and an indirect access that depends for its address on the head access. The method may further include determining a prefetch-ahead value for the chain, and generating a load operation corresponding to the head access that specifies a target memory address that is dependent upon the prefetch-ahead value and an address of the head access. The method may further include, for a terminal indirect access of the chain, generating a respective prefetch operation that is dependent for its address computation on results of preceding load operations in the same manner as its corresponding terminal indirect access depends upon preceding accesses in the chain.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer systems, and, more particularly, to compiler techniques for generating anticipatory data prefetches.
2. Description of the Related Art
Historically, the ability of microprocessors to process data has increased at a greater rate than the ability of memory devices to provide such data. For example, a superscalar processor core configured to operate at a 2 GHz rate and to execute two instructions per cycle, each of which processes two 32-bit operands, may exhibit a peak data processing bandwidth of approximately 32 gigabytes per second (GB/s). By contrast, a typical memory module such as a Dual Data Rate 2 Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory Module (DDR2 SDRAM) may have a peak data transfer bandwidth in the range of 3-6 GB/s, roughly an order of magnitude less than the processing bandwidth of the processor core. Additionally, a system memory may present a high degree of access latency independent of its bandwidth. For example, owing to the physical distance of the memory from a processor core, transactions to and from the system memory may take a large number of processor cycles to complete, which may result in additional processing delays while the core waits for data.
In typical processor embodiments, a memory hierarchy employing one or more levels of data, instruction and/or unified cache between the processor core and external memory may be implemented in order to attempt to keep frequently used instructions and data in relatively high-bandwidth, low-latency storage. However, cache misses may still necessitate accesses to slower caches or external memory, forcing processing of the missing data to stall until data is returned. Further, since caches are typically much smaller in size than external memory, cache performance may be highly dependent on the behavior of the code or data being processed. For example, code operating iteratively on a data set that is substantially larger than the size of a cache (e.g., a large, multidimensional data array) may result in recurring cache miss behavior, as recently-used data is continually evicted from the cache to be replaced with currently needed data. In such cases, the performance benefit of the cache may be effectively negated.
As another attempt to solve the problem of memory latency, some processors implement hardware-based prefetching, in which processor hardware may attempt to load instructions and/or data from memory prior to those instructions or data actually being needed for execution. If data is successfully prefetched prior to use, the effects of memory latency may effectively be hidden underneath other processing work. However, due to implementation constraints, hardware prefetch mechanisms are typically limited in sophistication and scope. For example, hardware prefetching may adequately handle simple, linear patterns of memory access, but may be unable to effectively process more complicated memory access patterns that may be exhibited by applications employing complex data or control structures.

Method and system for generating prefetch information for multi-block indirect memory access chains


A device to protect a semiconductor device from electrostatic discharge includes a transferring unit transferring the static electricity inputted to said input/output terminal to the power line, a detecting unit sensing the potential difference between both ends of the transferring unit, located between an input/output terminal and one of the power lines, to output the detection voltage, and a discharging unit driven by said detection voltage and discharging the static electricity led to a specific power line to the other power line, and performs the discharging operation smoothly even with minute electrostatic current and a latter part of the static electricity by using the driving voltage, which is used to drive a conventional detecting unit, as the driving voltage of the ESD protection device, thereby safely protecting an internal circuit of a semiconductor device.

The present invention relates to a device to protect a semiconductor device from electrostatic discharge (ESD), and more particularly, to a device that protects the semiconductor device from ESD and resulting damage from the ESD.
Generally, electrostatic discharge (ESD) is one of the important factors that can adversely influence the reliability of a semiconductor device. Such electrostatic phenomenon can be classified into a human body model (HBM), a machine model (MM) and a charge device model (CDM) according to causes of the occurrence of the static electricity. The HBM is an electrostatic phenomenon resulting from a human body, the MM is an electrostatic phenomenon resulting from contact with a measuring machine and the CDM is a phenomenon in which static electricity accumulated in a device is instantly discharged by grounding with the outside.
If the static electricity is inputted to a semiconductor device, it flows intensively to the weakest portion of the semiconductor device. Because of this, a junction, a contact, a gate oxide film or other components located inside of the semiconductor device are melted, thereby resulting in failure. Therefore, the semiconductor device is necessarily provided with an ESD protection device in every input/output area in order to protect an internal circuit from electrostatic current.
Particularly, the thickness of the gate insulation film of a transistor consisting of an input/output buffer is more reduced with the development of manufacturing technology of semiconductor devices and thus an internal circuit can be more easily damaged. In other words, if the thickness of the gate insulation film of a transistor is reduced, the voltage breaking the gate insulation film is lowered, and thus the gate insulation film of the transistor may be broken by static electricity with the lower voltage in the case of using a conventional ESD protection device. To solve this problem, it is suggested to use a method in which a transistor is used in an ESD protection device.
A conventional device to protect a semiconductor from an ESD, as shown in FIG. 1, includes a transferring unit 11, a detecting unit 12, a driver 13 and a discharging unit 14.
The transferring unit 11 transfers static electricity inputted to the semiconductor device through an input/output terminal 15 to an external voltage (VCC) line 17.
The detecting unit 12 includes a resistance element R1 and a capacitor C1 serially connected between the external voltage line 17 and a grounding voltage (VSS) line 18, and detects the static electricity inputted to the external voltage line 17.
The driver 13 includes a CMOS type buffer formed by a PMOS transistor P1 and a NMOS transistor N1 serially connected between the external voltage line 17 and the grounding voltage line 18, and is enabled by the detecting unit 12 to drive the discharging unit 14.
The discharging unit 14 includes a NMOS transistor N2 connected between the external voltage line 17 and the grounding voltage line 18, and is driven by the driver 13 to interconnect the external voltage line 17 and the grounding voltage line 18.
Referring to operation of the conventional device that protects a semiconductor from an ESD, if static electricity is inputted from the input/output terminal 15, then static electricity is transferred to the external voltage line 17 by the transferring unit 11. The detecting unit 12 detects the voltage drop generated in the node located between the resister R1 and the capacitor C1 in response to the alternating current in a rising time at the initial stage of generation of the static electricity, and applies it to the driver 13. Then, since the PMOS transistor P1 of the driver 13 is turned on and the gate voltage of the NMOS transistor N2 of the discharging unit 14 is raised, thus turning on the NMOS transistor N2, the external voltage line 17 and the grounding voltage line 18 are interconnected and thus the static electricity transferred to the external voltage line 17 is discharged to the grounding voltage line 18. As a result, the device protecting the semiconductor device from ESD protects the internal circuit 16 of the semiconductor device from the static electricity inputted to the input/output terminal 15.
In conventional ESD protection devices voltage drop is rapidly generated during the alternating current brought about by the characteristics of the high rising time. In the initial stage of the static electricity, current flows to the capacitor C1 of the detecting unit 12 and passes through the resistance element R1, in which the device is operated prior to the junction breakdown time of the PMOS transistor P1 of the driver 13.
However, the voltage drop generated in the detecting unit 12 is limited to the alternating current in the rising section of the static electricity and therefore the time in which the detection voltage is detected is short. In other words, since the operational duration of the device is short, it is difficult to protect the internal circuit 16 from the static electricity. As a result, the internal circuit 16 may be damaged in sections due to the relatively rapid rise and fall of the static electricity.
To solve the above problem, the present applicant applied a circuit as shown in FIG. 2 as Korean Patent Application No. 2004-0114210, and the circuit shown in FIG. 2 includes a differently structured detecting unit 22 that detects electrostatic current transferred to the external voltage line 27 and drives a driver 23 by the detection voltage responding to the detected electrostatic current.
The device used to protect the semiconductor device from ESD as shown in FIG. 2 is provided with a transferring unit 21, the detecting unit 22, a driver 23 and a discharging unit 24.
The transferring unit 21 transfers static electricity inputted through an input/output terminal 25 to the external voltage line 27.
The detecting unit 22 includes a resistance element R2 and a diode D1 serially connected between the external voltage line 27 and the grounding voltage line 28, and responds to the electrostatic current flowing on the external voltage line 27.
The driver 23 includes a CMOS type buffer having a PMOS transistor P2 and a NMOS transistor N3 serially connected between the output terminal of the detecting unit 22 and the grounding voltage line 28, and is turned on by the detecting unit 22 to drive the discharging unit 24. Here, the gate of each of the transistors P2 and N3 is connected to the external voltage line 27 and the source of the PMOS transistor P2 is connected to the output terminal of the detecting unit 22.
The discharging unit 24 includes a NMOS transistor N4 connected between the external voltage line 27 and the grounding voltage line 28, and is driven by the driver 23 to interconnect the external voltage line 27 and the grounding voltage line 28.
Referring to operation of the further conventional device to protect a semiconductor from an ESD, static electricity inputted from the input/output terminal 25 is transferred to the external voltage line 27 by the transferring unit 21.
The detecting unit 22 transfers some of the static electricity inputted to the input/output terminal 25 through the diode D1 to the external voltage line 27 while sensing the electrostatic current inputted to the external voltage line 27, and detects the voltage dropped by the resistance element R2 in response to the electrostatic current to apply to the driver 23.
Then, since the PMOS transistor P2 of the driver 23 is turned on and the gate voltage of the NMOS transistor N4 of the discharging unit 24 is raised, then the NMOS transistor N4 is turned on. Also since the external voltage line 27 and the grounding voltage line 28 are interconnected then the static electricity transferred to the external voltage line 27 is discharged to the grounding voltage line 28.
As a result, the device protects the semiconductor device from ESD damage by protecting the internal circuit 26 of the semiconductor device from the static electricity inputted to the input/output terminal 25.
In such a conventional device to protect the semiconductor device from ESD as described above, the detecting unit 22 continuously detects the detection voltage in a section, when the electrostatic current flowing to the external voltage line 27 is larger than a predetermined value to drive the driver 23 so that the discharging time of the device can be extended.
However, as shown in FIG. 3, a voltage Vout, is applied to the gate of the discharging unit 24 of the conventional device to protect the semiconductor device from ESD damage. Shown in FIG. 2, is the detection voltage V1 which is detected in the detecting unit 22 which is then transferred through the driver 23 and depends on the detection voltage V1. A forward turn-on of the diode D1 must then occur in order to detect the detection voltage V1 in the detecting unit 22. In other words, the driving voltage of the diode D1 must be necessarily greater than the predetermined voltage (approximately 0.7V). In this case, the operation of the device is not sufficient and may damage the internal circuit 26 of the semiconductor device during a later part of the pulse in which the static electricity becomes small.

Device to protect semiconductor device from electrostatic discharge


An adjustable laser module mounting device which includes an inner socket fastened to a lens holder through a screw joint to hold a condensing lens by a rubber ring, a laser diode fastened to the inner socket at the back, an adjusting end block, and a printed circuit board connected between the laser diode and the adjusting end block. The focal distance of the condensing lens is adjusted by rotating the lens holder on the inner socket in either direction. The alignment of the laser diode with the condensing lens is adjusted by turning the adjusting end block in either direction.

A variety of laser modules have been disclosed, and have been widely used in making layer sights and laser pointers, which commonly use a laser diode to produce a laser beam. FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate two structures of laser module mounting device according to the prior art. These structures are similar, each comprising a lens holder (1b;1c) to hold a condensing lens (3b;3c), a fastening block (7b;7c) to fasten the condensing lens to the lens holder, a barrel (4b;4c) to hold a laser diode (5b;5c), a printed circuit board (6b;6c) connected to the laser diode for operation control, and a cylindrical casing (8b;8c) to hold the aforesaid components in place. By turning the lens holder (1b) or the barrel (4c) in either direction, the focus is adjusted. These structures of laser module mounting device are not satisfactory in function and have some drawbacks. Because the fastening block is fastened to the lens holder by a screw joint or an adhesive agent to hold the condensing lens in place, it is difficult to adjust the focus when the internal structure is vibrated to displace and to produce a deformed oval light spot. Further, because the laser diode and the printed circuit board are fastened inside the cylindrical casing in parallel with each other, it is difficult to adjust the focus when the laser diode or the printed circuit board is tiled.
Further, the configuration of the light spot of the laser beam of a laser diode may vary with different installation conditions. As illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, the laser beam from a laser diode 1a is in a conical shape 2a, and the image formed is an oval light spot 3a. An angle (normal side relief angle) .theta. is formed by connecting the two opposite ends a;a' of the major axis of the oval light spot 3a with the laser firing point. This angle is about 20.degree. to 40.degree.. An angle (normal end relief angle) .theta.' is formed by connecting the two opposite ends b;b' of the minor axis of the oval light spot 3a with the laser firing point. This angle is about 6.degree. to 12.degree.. Referring to FIG. 5, when a plano-convex lens 4a is disposed in front of the laser beam 11a, the laser beam is refracted into a cylindrical light beam 21a to form a circular light spot 31a on an object. Referring to FIG. 6, when a tube 6a is mounted around the laser diode and the plano-convex lens, a ring of light 7a will occur around the light spot 32a. Referring to FIG. 7, when the front end of the tube, which hold the laser diode and the plano-convex lens, is blocked with a small laser firing hole 8a left for passing the laser beam, the ring of light shown in FIG. 6 is eliminated, and therefore the image formed on an object is a circular light spot.

5F, No. 30, Lane 179, Sec. 2, Nei Hu Rd.


A method of mixing drilling fluids at a drill site includes the transportation of sealed silo assemblies that can contain dry products in bulk to the well drilling site. The dry products are maintained within the silo assemblies in a dry and pressurized condition. The dry product is discharged from the sealed silo assemblies and into a mixer at the well drilling site wherein the mixer is maintained in a sealed environment until mixing is completed. The mixer combines the dry product with a liquid at the well site. The dry product is maintained within the silo assemblies in a pressurized condition to discourage the entry of moisture or gasses having high moisture content.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to oil and gas well drilling and more particularly relates to the management of oil and gas well drilling fluids. Even more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transporting bulk quantities of dry drilling material to and from an oil and gas well drilling structure and wherein an improved silo apparatus is used for transporting drilling additives to the well drilling site in dry powder form, and the handling of such dry material in dust-free form, using inert gas to both preserve the dry product and to transmit the dry product from the silo, and wherein the silos are maintained in a positive pressure and in arid condition to prevent moisture from entering the silo.
2. General Background
There are many dry powder products used as drilling mud components. Many of these products are extremely reactive in the presence of moisture. Some of these dry powders such as barite (a mined ore) are not affected by moisture. Other products such as XCD-Polymer are extremely hydrophilic and must be shipped in small packages, sacks, or the like which are expensive to produce and a nuisance once empty. When alternate forms of transportation for these polymers have been attempted, the best attempt at a solution has been to slurry them in nonpolar, environmentally hazardous liquid carrier and transport them to the drilling location via a liquid bulk tank.
Manufacturers spend a large amount of time and money in the handling of equipment and personnel to place such dry products in sacks or bags and to load those onto a drilling rig at significant cost to the end user. Once sacks or bags are filled with such dry material, they are typically loaded onto wooded pallets or the like and then shrink-wrapped with a plastic film for protection against the elements. The shrink-wrap is very expensive and can be easily torn or punctured exposing the product to the environment, sometimes resulting in damage or destruction of the product before end use. Often times the damage is discovered at a critical time when the ruined inventory is needed for maintaining a rig operating condition.
Palletized materials are handled with fork trucks and cranes in transporting those materials from the source, through vehicles and vessels to the well drilling site. Palletized material is often placed upon a large work vessel for marine transport. Palletized drilling materials can be damaged by the fork truck, the crane, or by improper handling techniques. Sometimes, the damage is not noticed and the product is shipped with all attentive expense to the drilling site in damaged condition. This commonly happens when a forklift operator damages sacks of material which are loaded onto a pallet and never notices the damage until the product is unloaded from the pallet on the drill rig.
If the product is delivered to a land based drilling rig, it will be off loaded using a forklift. The land location is often surrounded by wooden board roads in some locations, thus making fork truck operation more difficult. Entire pallets of products have been dropped due to unstable conditions on such wooden board roads.
If palletized drilling products arrive at a sea port, they are generally off loaded by a crane. The equipment used to pick up the pallets has tongues which slide under the pallet with cables and straps. When the lift is made, the cable becomes tight and can cut through the shrink wrap into the paper sacks. In situations such as this, the product is then exposed to the elements and can become moist or simply drain out of the sacks after the damage is done. Sometimes, if many sacks are punctured during lifting operations, the load can become imbalanced and the entire pallet of packaged product can be spilled and lost. Bodily injury can occur as a result of such accidents. In rough seas, the unloading of palletized bags of dry drilling material can take hours adding greatly to the expense of shipping and handling.
In heavy seas, waves can wash over the side of the boat creating a potential water damage problem for these dry powder drilling materials. When product is damaged on the way out to sea and to the drilling rig, it is damage that is not always discovered until the vessel arrives, creating a waste of time and money for the boat operator and for the rig operator. If damaged inventory is extensive, insufficient mud production can shut down drilling operations with enormous associated cost to the operator.
Once a work boat arrives on location, the product must be lifted by crane onto the drilling rig, one pallet at a time. Sometimes, the pallets that are needed for a particular job are the last ones to be unloaded from the vessel because the vessel is unloaded in reverse order. If a particular product is urgently needed, it may not be able to be obtained until several hours of unloading have passed.
When dry packaged drilling products do arrive on location, they are typically stored and sometimes for an extended period of time before use. On land drilling locations, the pallets are stacked in the most convenient spot on the board road. Offshore, such sacks of dry material occupy any available deck space. When a particular product is needed, a pallet load of that product is located and positioned near an appropriate hopper using a fork truck or crane and in some cases hand carrying is used.
At the particular hopper, the sacks of dry material must literally be cut open by hand and dumped. This is an unsafe process with many inherent risks. Back injuries, lacerations, and dust irritation are common problems associated with the handling of twenty-five to one hundred pound sacks of dry drilling material.
Once all the dry material is added to the hopper, the empty sacks are collected and placed in a trash bin along with shrink wrap, broken wooden pallets, all of which must be returned to shore for disposal at additional expense. A source of environmental concern is that waste is lost at sea due to weather conditions or deliberately cast off to avoid disposal cost. This creates a pollution problem for the open seas and the shore lines. It has been estimated that ten percent of the average total of dry material cost is due to lost product through mishandling and weather conditions and related damage.

Method of mixing and managing oil and gas well drilling fluids


A combination chainless driving device of a bicycle comprises a five-way seat housing a crank axle and having a connecting portion and a front connecting mount fastened to an end of a fork connecting mount fastened to an end of a fork tube and provided with a front auxiliary gear mounted thereinto. The front auxiliary gear meshes with a main gear fastened to the crank axle. Fastened to another end of the fork tube is a rear connecting mount provided with a rear main gear mount thereinto. The rear connecting mount is fastened to a gear box in a manner that the rear main gear engages a rear auxiliary gear inside the gear box. The rear auxiliary gear has a shaft portion provided with an axial hole to receive therein a rear wheel axle. The gear box has an axle locking mount provided with an axle receiving slot for locking the rear wheel axle of a nave which is provided with a drive frame covered by a semicircular frame of the gear box and fastened to the axle locking mount by means of a rear cover.

The present invention relates to a chainless driving device of a bicycle, which can be assembled easily and operated with a transmission stability.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, front portion of a prior art combination chainless driving device of a bicycle, as disclosed in the Taiwanese Patent 163732, comprises a crank shaft 5A which is driven by a pedal and is housed securely in a crank hanger 62A with a shaft tube 6A fastened thereto. The shaft tube 6A receives therein an inner lining shaft 61A. A sector wheel 3A is fastened securely to an end of the inner lining shaft 61A, which is adjacent to the crank shaft 5A. The sector wheel 3A is provided with a coupling edge 31A engageable with a sector wheel 4A of the crank shaft 5A. A locating mount 1A is provided with a ball slot 11A opposite in location to the coupling edge 31A and with a ball ring surface 12A. A ball supporting plug 2A is disposed in a location corresponding to the ball ring surface 12A and is provided with a supporting edge 21A. The sector wheel 3A, the locating mount 1A and the ball supporting plug 2A are fastened to the inner lining shaft 61A. The ball 14A is arranged between the sector wheel 3A and the ball slot 11A. Another ball 14A is arranged between the ball ring surface 12A of the locating mount 1A and the supporting edge 21A of the ball supporting plug 2A. The rear wheel of the bicycle is driven by a rear gear set, which is in turn driven by the inner lining shaft 61A, which is in turn driven by the crank axle 5A.
The rear wheel of the bicycle is driven by the inner lining shaft 61A which in turn is driven by the sector wheel 3A engaging with the sector wheel 4A of the crank axle 5A. The process of locating the sector wheel 3A on the inner lining shaft 6A is complicated and can not be done easily, unless the component parts used in locating the sector wheel 3A are made in accordance with certain specifications. In addition, the crank hanger 62A must be welded to the bicycle frame with precision, thereby undermining the work efficiency of assembling the driving device of the bicycle.
The rear section of a prior art chainless driving device of bicycle is disclosed in the Taiwanese Patent 154043. The prior art driving device comprises a sector helical gear 9, which is mounted in a gear box 7A in a manner that it engages a sector helical auxiliary gear 100A having a restraining flange 101A. Located in the tubular body of a one-way ratchet sleeve 82A are a steel ball slot 102A, a one-way ratchet 103A, and a double-stepped steel ball slot 104A. A locking plug ring 108A is fastened to a threaded portion 109A. The one-way ratchet 103A meshes with the one-way ratchet sleeve 82A. All components of the driving device are fastened to a middle axle 8C by means of a supporting plug ring 110A and a fastening nut 111A. The gear box 7A is provided with a sleeve 72 located at one end thereof and with a side cover 73A located at another end thereof. In addition, the gear box 7A is further provided with a bearing slot 74A, an axial hole 75A, and an axial hole 76A located oppositely to the axial hole 75A and dimensioned to permit the middle axle 8C to pass through. A locating frame 270A is provided with a through hole 271A and is fastened by means of an upper bearing 112A which is mounted in the bearing receiving slot 74A of the gear box 7A, so that the driven sector helical gear 100A engages a driven sector helical gear 9. The middle axle 8C is put through the axial hole 76A and the through hole 271A of the locating frame 270A and is then fastened securely by means of a nut 113A. The rear section of the driving device is driven by the front section of the driving device. In other words, the one-way ratchet sleeve 82A and a wheel drum 85A are driven by the front section of the driving device to drive the rear wheel of the bicycle. Such design of the driving mechanism as described above is costly and time-consuming. In addition, the middle axle 8C is exerted on by the weight of a bicyclist. Located between the driven end of the wheel drum 85A and the stationary middle axle 8C are large steel balls 106A arranged in an annular manner. These large steel balls 106A are supported by the supporting plug ring 110A and are also responsible for stabilizing the transmission of the driven sector auxiliary gear 110A and the driven sector helical gear 9. The moment of force at the supporting plug ring 110A, which supports the large steel balls 106A, is excessive, thereby making the supporting plug ring 110A vulnerable to a shock caused by a force of reverse action of the rear wheel which happens to hit a hole or a pit in the road. Such incident can bring about an irregular transmission or a structural damage to the middle axle 8c.

Combination chainless driving device of bicycle


The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method to more easily analyze the concentration of glue in an electrolyte solution, while suppressing the degradation of glue during the analysis. There is provided a method for analyzing the concentration of glue contained in an electrolyte solution containing the electrolyte components by using high performance liquid chromatography, where said method comprises a step wherein an electrolyte solution is added into the eluent pH of which has been adjusted equal to or less than 5 by adding acid to an aqueous solution of phosphate of alkaline metal or alkaline earth metal, a step wherein the eluent into which the electrolyte solution has been added is passed through a separation column the exclusion limit molecular weight of which is 4000-6000 for separating the glue and electrolyte components, and a step wherein the separated glue is detected by a detector.

A minute amount of glue (also called as "gelatin") is frequently added into an electrolyte solution used in a method for production of an electrolytic copper by electrolytic smelting, a method for production of a foil of electrolytic copper, and the like. Glue is added for effecting a role of controlling an appearance, mechanical strength, surface crystal structure, physical properties such as roughness of the electrolytic copper and foil of electrolytic copper. It is important for producing a product having a stable quality to control the concentration of glue in the electrolyte solution. Particularly, in the field of the electrolytic smelting of copper, while a method called as a permanent cathode method (PC method) is becoming a major method in which a stainless steel plate is used as a cathode plate onto surface of which copper is electrolytically deposited, it is required to strictly control the concentration of glue when electrolytic copper is produced using the PC method, and therefore, management of the concentration of glue may become more important.
However, the concentration of glue in an electrolyte solution is low, which is in the order of ppm (or mg/L), and therefore its quantitative analysis has been difficult. Further, glue is liable to be degraded by sulfuric acid of high concentration included in the electrolyte solution into low molecular weight substances. Thus, when a long time is required for the analysis, the degradation of glue proceeds during the analysis and an analytical result does not accurately reflect the actual concentration of glue included in the electrolyte solution.
Thus, various types of technologies for analyzing the concentration of glue contained in the electrolyte solution in a minute amount have been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. 2001-337081 discloses an analytical means using high performance liquid chromatography. Concretely, it discloses a method for determining the concentration of glue or gelatin or a distribution of molecular weight thereof comprising the steps of separating glue in an electrolyte solution and an electrolyte component by using a column charged with a filler in the size exclusion mode as a column for high performance liquid chromatography for separating, introducing the glue-containing fluid from which said electrolyte component have been separated into another column charged with a filler in the size exclusion mode, separating the glue according to the molecular weights or distribution of molecular weights, and then introducing the fluid containing the separated glue into a detector.
According to the method described in this document, not only the concentration but also the molecular weight can be analyzed. Therefore, it is a useful method for analyzing a minute amount of glue contained in an electrolyte solution. However, in order to perform an analysis of concentration of glue according to the method, connecting two separation columns in tandem, equipping both of the former and latter columns with a detector, and changing the flow of the fluid timely with a six-way changing valve and the like are required, which makes the analysis system complex. Further, since it is necessary for glue to pass through the two columns, there is a concern that the degradation of glue may occur during the passing.
Further, while this document describes the use of a mixture of sulfuric acid and acetonitrile as a mobile phase, acetonitrile necessitates the trouble for treating waste organic solution.

Method for analyzing concentration of glue contained in electrolyte solution


A truck bed divider assembly with a horizontal dividing member operably configured to extend and retract longitudinally to directly couple with sidewalls within a truck bed and with a vertical dividing member disposed in a substantially perpendicular orientation with respect to the horizontal dividing member and operably configured to selectively, removably, and lockably couple to the horizontal dividing member with one or more fasteners and to linearly translate on the horizontal dividing member while coupled thereto, thereby enabling organization within the bed of a truck or other vehicle.

Many users desire to organize their personal or other belongings within the bed of a truck or other vehicle (generally referred to herein as a "vehicle"). Specifically, the vehicle may include a bed with a bed bottom wall having a surface where belongings or other items are stored and/or transported the vehicle. The bed may include a plurality of bed sidewalls surrounding the bed bottom wall and defines a bed volume. One of the sidewalls of the bed is called a tailgate, and is typically operably configured to rotate along a tailgate rotation path to provide easy and effective access to the bed volume. The tailgate is also operably configured to be placed in a parallel configuration with respect to the bed bottom wall.
Some known organizational devices are designed and configured to be placed within the truck bed, but they either fail to provide effective coupling of the device to the truck bed and/or fail to provide users storage versatility. For example, some known organizational devices are configured to use the device weight to support the device onto the bed bottom wall, which problematically causes the device to often shift during transportation of the vehicle. Some known organizational devices are designed to be mechanically coupled to the truck bed or specifically sized and shaped to couple with an area of the truck bed, but these devices typically require significant amount of time to install or maneuver and/or have limited placement locations. Some known organizational devices are designed to keep cargo or personal items from shifting forward and backward, but not side-to-side when there is space left in the truck bed.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.


Dynamic metadata allows for metadata that can be configured for an application programming interface (API) after the API has shipped. Multiple entities can provide metadata for the same API or portions of an API. The metadata provided for an API can be set up for each application domain, allowing customization within a single process. Metadata can be provided in several ways, including traditional compiled code and declarative markup as well as databases and other more dynamic approaches. Metadata is separated from its runtime components, so that the metadata that is used by the runtime components can be changed. For example, metadata may be declared on the objects separately. The metadata is then tied back to the runtime components.

One of the features common to modern object oriented frameworks is the concept of metadata. Metadata provides additional information about a file, class, or member of another component of a class hierarchy, for example. The Microsoft Common Language Runtime (CLR) is the heart of the MICROSOFT .NET framework, and provides the execution environment for .NET code. The CLR uses metadata for diverse needs that range from tool support to marshaling characteristics. The CLR supports the addition of these attributes at compile time through the use of a special syntax. For example, to indicate that a member variable should be stored in thread local storage, one may place an attribute on the variable:
[ThreadStatic]private string perThreadString;
In this example, tying the attribute into the source code is proper, because the source code breaks if the attribute is not present. Sometimes this is not desirable, however. Consider:
[Editor(typeof(ColorEditor))]public class Color { }This attribute specifies the type of user interface to instantiate if a user is to edit an instance of a color object. It provides an extensibility point so third parties can provide their own data types that can be seamlessly edited in applications. However, many color editors exist. Therefore, choosing a color editor at compile time is incorrect. But, if there is no way to provide for a class to specify an editor at compile time, third parties would be prevented from adding new types to the system, as they could not be edited until applications are written to support them.
CLR metadata contains more than attributes as described above. Late binding mechanisms such as reflection discover types, methods, and other members through metadata. Code running in the CLR uses metadata to link members and classes of different modules. Therefore, metadata defines the contract of the application programming interface (API) of a class library.
Sometimes it may be useful to modify this contract. For example, the .NET compact framework is a strict subset of the .NET framework that is available on the desktop. The compact framework cannot be instantiated on a desktop personal computer, however. Because it is a strict subset of the desktop framework, whenever an instance of a compact framework object needs to be instantiated, applications will instead create an instance of the corresponding desktop object. This poses a problem when late bound technologies such as reflection are used to inspect the created object. Consider a class called Font that represents a system font. Reflecting on the desktop object will expose properties and lists of available fonts that are not available on the compact framework's Font class. This problem is not limited to the compact framework.
Additionally, versioning an API is another way this problem is introduced. Consider an application that allows the production of HTML files. The file may be written to correspond to HTML 4.0 or 3.2. Applications traditionally hardwire the API schema for each version. This technique breaks down when the schema is not known ahead of time, as it is for scenarios where third party extensibility is involved.

Dynamic mechanism for providing metadata


The present invention is directed to a heartbeat apparatus via a remote mirroring link for a multi-site and a method for using the heartbeat apparatus. Information is registered in a configuration table, wherein the configuration table stores host ID information and volume ID information. The configuration table is configured, access requests from a host are verified, host activity is recorded, and additional records are created in the configuration table when a match is found between the access records and the registered information. In a multi-site having two, three or more sites in a multi-hoop configuration, a failover process with remote mirroring pairs is performed by configuring a correlation between a remote mirroring pair group, an activity monitor function and an alert function, wherein the alert function is performed by a host sending status information regarding activity monitoring in a storage system and retrieving the notification information via a plurality of data links, and creating a status manage table using the notification information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cluster computing systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for providing heartbeat check using remote mirroring technologies.
2. Related Art
We are witnessing today an increased demand for online services. One solution, recently implemented and already widely spread that allows for increasing the availability of online services is clustering multi-site systems. However, even within a multi-site cluster the heartbeat signals and their send/receive methods are carried out on TCP/IP links. This feature of the multi-site cluster proves to be unstable and implicitly renders unstable the overall availability of service and the quality of online services provided by the multi-site systems.
In case of network failure, the times between the network failure and service recovery must be as short as possible. In practice, the time necessary to confirm the failure and to start the failover process has proven to be long. One reason is the lack of stability in the network links, which, as mentioned above, are still provided by a clustered network over TCP/IP.
In case of disaster, network administrators need robust mechanisms for disaster recovery, especially for the recovery of multi-site network environments and for instances when volume migration is needed between the sites. Big users, such as banking, brokerage, and insurance companies, that have many data centers scattered worldwide, have to manage multi-sites and to check operability of service at each of those sites, often during short periods of time. They need both network robustness and fast failover in case of network failure.
What are needed are robust ways of transmitting heartbeat signals and performing the send/receive methods within the cluster multi-site system. Also, what are needed are robust heartbeat link methods through robust remote mirroring links, such as ESCON, FibreChannel, telecom lines or a combination thereof.

Heartbeat apparatus via remote mirroring link on multi-site and method of using same


Aa gateway device for use between a Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) network and a Fiber Channel (FC) storage area network (SAN) device includes a controller, at least one first native Fiber Channel F_Port in operable communication with the controller and configured to interface with a native Fiber Channel N_Port of the FC SAN device, and at least one first virtual N_Port (VN_Port) linked to the at least one first native Fiber Channel F_Port and in operable communication with the controller.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to gateway devices, and more particularly, to gateway devices for use with Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Fibre Channel is a high reliability, high speed network technology that is often used in storage networking, particularly in storage area network (SAN) environments. Many data centers use Fibre Channel (FC) for storage networking, and, in conjunction, use Ethernet for TCP/IP networks. As a result, the data center has two separate networks to maintain. FCoE is a network protocol that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames in Ethernet frames in order to allow Fibre Channel to be used over an Ethernet infrastructure. FCoE thus allows storage traffic generated according to the FC protocol to share infrastructure with network traffic generated according to Ethernet protocols such as TCP/IP.

Gateway device to connect native fibre channel ports to pure fibre channel over ethernet storage area networks

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


A connector comprising first and second mating portions in electrical communication, each of the first and second mating portions having inner and outer conductors, wherein the first and second mating portions are independently radially displaceable while maintaining the electrical communication.

Connectors are devices that are frequently used to connect cables or electronic devices to one another. The connectors, cables, and electronic devices are often quite small, or have very small component parts that need to be intermated. As a result, very tight tolerances are required in order to ensure that all of the parts intermate successfully. Any out-of-tolerance pins or other connection or mating pieces can cause damage to or break the component parts. Specifically, in the event that a connector and an electronic device that are to be intermated are not in proper alignment, the pin of the electronic device, for example, may contact an undesirable part of the connector and break the pin off or cause other damage to the connector or the electronic device. Accordingly, very tight tolerances are required to ensure intermatability.
In an effort to alleviate this situation and allow for greater tolerances, a gimbling connector has been developed. With reference to FIG. 1, a known gimbling connector 100 has been developed to connect to electronic devices 110, 120 (which may be any electronic device or a cable or the like). As illustrated in FIG. 1, known gimbling connector 100 is adapted to gimble along its axis around its center point, much like a see-saw. By allowing each end of connector 100 to gimble up and down slightly, greater tolerances can be used because there is some play in the mating area. That is, each end of connector 100 is adapted to move up or down slightly so that as electronic devices 110, 120 are brought together and mated via connector 100, a non-destructive mating can be achieved even if electronic devices 110, 120 are not perfectly aligned with the axis of connector 100.
The disadvantage of the known connectors such as gimbling connector 100 are that the movement of each end of connector 100 is dependent upon the other. That is, as illustrated in FIG. 1, as the right side of connector 100 is deflected up slightly to accommodate out-of-tolerance mating with electronic device 120, this movement affects the left side of connector 100 which correspondingly moves down as it mates with electronic device 110. This is a result of the see-saw action of the gimbling connector 100, whereby each end may move radially, but this movement is dependent upon and affects the movement of the other end of the connector 100. So although this type of device provides for some loosening of tolerances, an even more forgiving connector is desirable. This would enable even greater loosening of tolerances and thereby greatly enhance manufacturing efficiencies.


A container for carrying cigarettes and a cigarette lighter having two open compartments wherein one open compartment slidably engages the second open compartment to form a sealed interior. The container includes a clip structure for attaching the container to another object. The container's surface preferably includes a raised area, a portion of that area being ribbed, as well as a cloth pouch for enclosing the entire container.

This invention relates generally to a container for cigarettes and a cigarette lighter and more specifically to a container for prepackaged cigarettes and disposable cigarette lighters.
Of great importance to cigarette smokers is easy access to their cigarettes and cigarette lighters, as well as safe storage of the cigarettes and cigarette lighter. As often is the case with cigarette smokers, the prepackaged and disposable lighters are carried on their person, many times in shirt pockets or pants pockets or in purses. Carrying the cigarettes and lighter in this manner makes the cigarettes and cigarette lighter readily accessible to the individual smoker.
However, problems arise when the individual is either wearing clothes without pockets or is in a situation where they are not able to carry a purse. Also during periods of physical activity where freedom of movement is desired, it is not feasible to carry a purse or to constantly cover ones shirt pocket to keep cigarettes from falling out. This problem of cigarettes falling out of one's pockets is magnified by the fact that it is common for cigarette smokers to leave the top of prepackaged cigarettes opened. Thus, the chance of spilling the cigarettes is increased during these periods of activity.
The container for a cigarette lighter and prepackaged cigarettes disclosed herein substantially eliminates these problems by safely securing the prepackaged cigarettes from damage, loss, or moisture damage while still allowing easy access to the cigarettes and lighter.

Personal carrying container for cigarette and lighter


An image processing device has an affinity calculating unit that handles each pixel in an image or each region including a plurality of pixels joined together, as a unit component, and determines a first affinity between each of the unit components and one of the unit components which is located in a periphery region of the image, a foreground region identifying unit that identifies, as a foreground region, a region made up of one or more of the unit components whose first affinities calculated by the affinity calculating unit are lower than a preset threshold, and a saliency measure output unit that determines a second affinity between each of the unit components in the image and the foreground region identified by the foreground region identifying unit, and outputs the second affinity as a saliency measure for each unit component.

1. Field
The present invention relates to an image processing device and an image processing method which output a saliency measure of an image.
2. Related Art
Image processing devices, known in a conventional image processing field, detect (extract) a saliency region from an image; the saliency region is a notable image region or an image region to which people would pay attention. Such a saliency region detecting technique is also used to calculate saliency measures for pixels in an image and to create a saliency map that indicates these saliency measures.
One exemplary application of the technique above is to detect a subject from an image.
Learning-based algorithms are used to detect the saliency regions. To give an example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-236508 (disclosure date: Aug. 31, 2001) describes a technique for extracting features of various parts from target image data in which saliency measures are to be calculated. This extraction is based on feature types of the parts to be extracted which have been learned and determined in advance through learning-target image data. This technique enables saliency measures to be judged in a manner similar to a human sense by substituting the learning effect for the degree of a human's experience or memory.
Learning-based algorithms as described above are required to prepare leaning-target image data as previous knowledge for target image data. Therefore, without this previous knowledge, saliency measures cannot be evaluated.
To give another example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-258914 (disclosure date: Nov. 11, 2010) describes a technique for detecting saliency regions without the need for previous knowledge. In this technique, information between frames making up video is used.
The technique described above does not need any previous knowledge, but is intended only for moving images each made up of multiple frames. Thus, it is not applicable to evaluate saliency measures of still images.

Image processing device, image processing method, program, and recording medium