A packet switch includes individual route tables for ports of the packet switch. Each route table is associated with a port and individually maps a destination identifier of a data packet received at the port to another port in the packet switch. In some embodiments, the packet switch routes a data packet to an intermediate device based on a destination identifier in the data packet. The intermediate device services the data packet and sends the data packet, which includes the same destination identifier, back to the packet switch. In turn, the packet switch routes the data packet to a destination device based on the destination identifier in the data packet. The destination device terminates the data packet and may further service the data packet. In this way, the packet switch routes the data packet to both the intermediate device and the destination device based on the same destination identifier.

A packet based communication system typically includes a packet switch for routing data packets from source devices to destination devices in the communication system. One type of packet switch routes a data packet received from a source device to a destination device by identifying the destination device from a route table based on a destination address in the data packet and then routing the data packet to the destination device. Moreover, the packet switch routes data packets having the same destination address to the same destination device. The destination device then processes the data packets.
In some types of communication systems, a packet switch receives a data packet and routes the data packet to a first destination device based on a destination address in the data packet and a route table. The first destination device processes data in the data packet, modifies the destination address in the data packet, and sends the data packet to the packet switch. The packet switch then routes the data packet to a second destination device based on the modified destination address in the data packet and the route table. The second destination device then further processes the data in the data packet. In these types of communication systems, it is often difficult to monitor data packet traffic through the packet switch and debug operation of the packet switch because the destination address of a data packet may not be the same each time the packet switch routes the data packet to a destination device.
In light of the above, a need exists for an improved system and method of routing data packets through a packet switch.


An additive for antifouling paint uses a mixture made from a negative ion emitting compound powder, such as monazite powder, and tourmaline powder.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an additive for anti fouling paint, and in particular relates to an additive for antifouling paints which makes it possible to prevent marine organisms and marine algae from adhering the bottom of ships made of various materials including steel ships, FRP (fiber reinforced plastic) ships and wooden ships, submerged structures, various fishing nets including aquaculture nets, buoys, and industrial water system facilities.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, an antifouling paint containing rosin or organic tin has been painted onto ships, submerged structures, fishing nets and the like in order to stop corrosion and drag due the adhesion of marine organisms such as barnacles, mytilus coruscus, algae and the like. Further, an antifouling paint containing rosin or organic tin has also been applied to aquaculture nets in order to prevent the destruction of marine products due to the adhesion of various marine organisms.
In this connection, ships cruising the ocean face the problem of damage due the adhesion of marine organisms on the ship bottom. Further, because the carpet-like layer of algae and shellfish adhering to all parts of the ship below the ocean surface, including the ship bottom, creates a huge drag force, a variety of adverse effects occur. For example, at an output of 80%, a ship having absolutely no adhered bodies will have a cruising speed of 10 knots, but the same ship having a large amount of adhered bodies will only have a cruising speed of 5.about.6 knots. Consequently, the greater output required of ships having a large amount of adhered bodies places a huge stress on the engine, and over time this can damage the engine. In particular, because a cruising ship will experience a large drag force due to the adhesion of marine organisms on ships, there will be (1) an increase in the negative load placed on the engine, (2) an increase in fuel consumption, and (3) damage to the ship itself.
In order to counter such damage, the bottom and sides of ships are painted with a special paint. This paint has a slippery surface like that of eel skin, and this property makes it difficult for bodies to adhere to such painted areas. In particular, in recent years the progress of research development in the field of paints has produced a paint that slowly dissolves over time (hydrolysis type paint) and a paint that slowly wears away over time (a self-abrasion type paint), but even these special paints are not able to sufficiently eliminate the adhesion of bodies such as oyster shells, algae and ulva. Moreover, surface painted with such paints must be repainted before the paint dissolves or wears away. Furthermore, in addition to containing paint components (e.g., organic tin) which are highly toxic to marine life, such paints form one cause of ocean pollution. For these reasons, the use of these special types of paints is not preferred.
Further, repainting is required due to the peeling off and wearing away of paint on ships and the like, and in the case of a small ship, repainting must be carried out once every 3.about.6 months, while in the case of a large ship such as a 100m-class ship, repainting must be carried out once a year. In this regard, when ships are to be repainted, the adhered bodies must first be removed, and then after surface soil and salt has been washed away, the step of repainting is carried out, and for a large ship the step of removing adhered bodies can itself be an arduous task, with all steps requiring about one week to complete.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the world economy is supported by the flow of goods transported by ships from various countries. In this connection, painting is an absolute requirement for any and all ships, whether they be tankers, freighters or passenger ships, and all ships are faced with the problem of bodies such as oyster shells, algae and the like adhering to their hulls.
The painting of ships addresses the problems caused when organisms living in the ocean adhere and grow on the hulls of ships, namely, lowering of speed due to increased drag, increased fuel consumption, greater engine loads, shorter engine life, and rapid damage to the hull due to increased hull vibration. The main cause of these serious problems is the adherence of marine organisms such as oyster shells, algae, ulva and the like, and in order to reduce such adherence, the following products have tested. Namely, a (1) self-abrasion type paint and (2) ahydrolysis type paint have been tested.
(1) Self-Abrasion Type Paint
By utilizing the driving force of the ship, self-abrasion type paint is designed to peel away and fall off, with adhered bodies such as oyster shells, algae and ulva falling off together with the paint that falls off, and one example of a self-abrasion type paint is a paint which uses a copolymer containing organic silicon.
However, in the case where self-abrasion type paint is applied to wooden ships or the like, the lack of a flat bottom means there are grooves where it is difficult for the paint to peel away, and this makes it impossible to prevent the adhesion of organisms such as oyster shells, algae, ulva and the like.
(2) Hydrolysis Type Paint
Hydrolysis type paints are designed to be hydrolyzed by sea water (i.e., salt water), with an organic tin compound or the like being eluted as the paint vehicle dissolves in sea water, and as this antifouling agent is eluted, organisms such as oyster shells, algae, ulva and the like fall off into the ocean together with such paint compounds.
However, while hydrolysis type paint can be painted onto FRP ships, it can not be used for aluminum ships because of the hazardous compounds created by chemical reactions between the paint and aluminum. Further, because hydrolysis type paints utilize reactions with seawater (i.e., salt water), they are not effective in lakes or rivers (i.e., in fresh water).
Moreover, because the (1) self-abrasion type paint will peel away and the (2) hydrolysis type paint has components that will wash away, both paints (1) and (2) have a relatively short binding period of approximately 6 months. In response to this, various paint manufacturers have expended a great deal of effort in developing ways to prevent as much as possible the adhesion of organisms and ways to extend the binding period of paints, but no effective solutions have been found yet.


An improved cruciform-type parachute is provided for aerial delivery of cargo, with a center panel shaped as a square or other regular polygon, and first lens-shaped panels conjoined to each edge of the center panel. The first lens-shaped panels are formed of two circular section sub-panels conjoined along their respective arc segments. Side panels, shaped as rectangles or other quadrilaterals, have one edge conjoined with each first lens-shaped panel at the other edge opposite from the center panel. The adjacent side edges of each pair of adjacent side panels are conjoined to either convex edge of a second lens-shaped panel. The second lens-shaped panels are defined by three edges; two of which are defined by symmetrically opposed convex arcs joined at one end, and the third edge defined by a straight line intersecting the other ends of the arcs. One end of each of a plurality of upper rigging members are disposed along an edge opposite from the first lens-shaped panel on each side panel. The other ends of the upper rigging members converge and conjoin with an upper end of a single lower rigging member. The lower end of each lower rigging member connects to the supported cargo. Additional lens-shaped panels may be disposed between lateral divisions of the side panels.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to parachute designs, particularly to the cruciform-type parachute design.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Parachutes are an integral component of systems used to deliver cargo or loads aerially to remote or inaccessible locations. To deliver a load aerially, the load, furnished with a parachute delivery system, is transported to the delivery site by aircraft. Upon reaching the delivery site, the load is released, ejected or dropped from the aircraft. Shortly after release, a parachute is deployed which is attached to the load by suspension lines and other rigging. The deployed parachute decelerates the descending load to a velocity at which the load may land on the ground or water without damage.
Desirable features for an aerial-delivery parachute include low manufacturing costs. Another desirable feature is a high drag coefficient, which is related to manufacturing cost, as a parachute design with a higher drag coefficient can be smaller or have less material in its construction to deliver the same load. Another desirable feature is strong ballistic characteristics, without a tendency to glide randomly, so that the load does not collide with other aerially-delivered cargoes. A further desirable feature is high stability, since a ballistic load in aerial delivery has no means of controlling its descent once the parachute has deployed.
Several parachute designs have traditionally been used for aerial delivery. One is referred to as the radial-gore circular parachute. This parachute design is the one commonly associated with paratroopers. It is constructed of panels, or gores, each cut in a generally slender, tapering, trapezoidal shape and sewn together along their elongated sides to form a circular pattern, with the narrow base of each gore at the center of the circular pattern and the longer base at the perimeter, forming the skirt of the parachute.
A radial-gore circular parachute has a high drag coefficient and is generally stable. However, it has high manufacturing costs, due to the material wasted from cutting the gores and from the large number of seams to be sewn.
Examples of variations of this radial-gore circular parachute design include Thomblad, U.S. Pat. No. 1,685,688 (1928); Henvis, U.S. Pat. No. 1,733,732 (1929); Malmer, U.S. Pat. No. 1,777,441 (1930); Sedmayr, U.S. Pat. No. 2,119,183 (1938) and Hart, U.S. Pat. No. 2,458,264 (1949).
Another parachute design used in aerial cargo delivery is the cruciform-type parachute. The cruciform-type parachute, when viewed from above or stretched out deflated, resembles a cruciform, or cross shape. In its simplest embodiment, it is formed by orthogonally overlapping two equal rectangles of material, with each rectangle having an aspect ratio of approximately 1:3, and sewing around the perimeter of the square overlapping area. This creates a design with a square center panel, which in this fabrication method would be two plies thick, with four square or rectilinear single-ply side panels conjoined on each edge of the square center panel. Suspension lines are attached to the edges of the side panels opposite from the square center panel, which conjoin at their opposite ends at the load. Using two rectangular panels with aspect ratios less than 1:3 will produce a design with a square center panel and rectangular side panels.
The cruciform-type parachute is simple and inexpensive to fabricate, involving little material waste in fabricating the two rectangular panels, and low labor costs due to the few number of seams in the design. However, the typical cruciform-type parachute design has low drag efficiency and low stability.
Typical examples of variations on the cruciform-type parachutes can be found in Mitchell, U.S. Pat. No. 3,531,067; Slater et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,602,462; and Engel, U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,505.
As can be seen in these examples, the side panels are pulled towards a more spherical shape by the suspension lines connecting the lower edges of the side panels, often referred as the skirt, to the suspended cargo, load or parachutist. This causes the skirt to cup or curl as it is drawn inward by the suspension lines. The side edges of the side panels are unconstrained, allowing significant undesirable air leakage, as well as causing turbulence which can destabilize the descending parachute.
Several attempts have been made in the art to control the unconstrained lateral edges of the side panels of these cruciform-type parachutes. For example, in Berland, U.S. Pat. No. 6,443,396 (2002), the lateral edges of the side panels are stitched together. However, this creates a parachute with a more polyhedral rather than a spherical shape, which in turn leads to uneven levels of stress and strain throughout the parachute.


A phosphor for use, for example, with an ultraviolet LED to provide a broad-spectrum white light approximating diffuse sunlight, that includes quantum dots spaced from an activator material by a capping layer surrounding the quantum dots. This approach of spacing an activator material from the quantum dots provides improved spectral output for quantum dots of materials such as zinc sulfide.

The present invention relates generally to solid-state devices for area illumination and, in particular, to an improved light emitting diode lamp employing quantum dot phosphors.
There is considerable interest in developing improved solid-state lamps for area illumination in order to reduce electrical power usage and, ultimately, the production of atmospheric carbon.
Current incandescent lamps, which generally provide black body radiation from a heated filament at approximately 3000° K., produce a continuous spectrum analogous to that of sunlight (white light) with an efficiency of approximately 5%. Sunlight, in contrast, approximates a black body radiator at 5700° K.
Improved efficiencies over incandescent lamps may be obtained by fluorescent lamps which employ a gas discharge to generate ultraviolet light which in turn excites a phosphor coated on the inside of the lamp tube. Such fluorescent lamps reach an efficiency of approximately 20% but provide a spectrum that deviates substantially from the desirable continuous spectrum provided by incandescent bulbs. The spectrum of a fluorescent lamp typically exhibits several distinct spectral peaks associated with each different phosphor used for the coating. A combination of phosphors can produce a spectrum that nevertheless approximates the color perception provided by sunlight.
Light emitting diodes are a promising source for area illumination and currently provide efficiencies ranging from 15 to 30%. The spectral output of an LED is also relatively narrow, defined by the energy released when electrons cross a band gap in the semiconductor materials. Accordingly, broad-spectrum white light requires multiple LEDs (red and green and blue) or, more conventionally, a blue LED illuminating a phosphor similar to the type used in fluorescent lamps. Commonly, a single "yellow" phosphor is used which captures some of the blue light from the LED to down-convert that blue light to yellow. The combined blue and yellow emissions appear to the eye to be approximately white. The resulting light, however, does not match the continuous spectrum normally associate with white light, being particularly deficient in green. For this reason, current white light LEDs can create unnatural color perception that may limit their popularity.
Ideally a "phosphor" could be developed for LEDs that would more closely approximate the continuous spectrum provided by natural sunlight, in particular the blue-green region of the spectrum from 475 to 525 nm, while providing improved efficiencies. Recently some work has suggested that improved efficiencies and light characteristics may be obtained by forming phosphors into quantum dots. In some cases, these phosphors employ quantum dots using relatively expensive or highly toxic materials.

Quantum dot phosphors for solid-state lighting devices


An exhaust purification device is provided to selectively perform a combustion purge control and an exhaust addition purge control in response to an operation state of the internal combustion engine. The combustion purge control process is performed in the case where a NOx occlusion amount of a NOx catalyst is larger than or equal to a first threshold value, and the exhaust addition purge control process is performed in the case where the NOx occlusion amount of the NOx catalyst is larger than or equal to a second threshold value which is larger than the first threshold value.

Generally, it is contemplated that an internal combustion engine where NOx (nitrogen oxides) is discharged due to combustion in cylinders is provided with an occlusion-reduction type NOx catalyst for occluding NOx in a lean state and reducing/releasing NOx in a rich state to purify NOx in exhaust gas.
Although the NOx catalyst occludes NOx when an air/fuel ratio of atmosphere of exhaust gas is lean, the NOx occlusion capacity of the NOx catalyst will become low with the NOx occlusion amount approaching the limit of the occlusion capacity.
Therefore, in order to reduce and remove NOx having been occluded by the NOx catalyst and restore the NOx purification capacity of the NOx catalyst, a process (rich purge control) for reducing and removing NOx having been occluded is performed. In this case, the air/fuel ratio of atmosphere of exhaust gas is set rich and a reducing agent such as HC or CO is supplied to the NOx catalyst when the NOx occlusion amount of the NOx catalyst reaches a threshold value.
Moreover, when the internal combustion engine has been used for the long term, sulfur in fuel is adsorbed to the NOx catalyst so that a sulfur poisoning occurs. Therefore, the purification capacity of the NOx catalyst will become significantly low. Thus, with reference to JP-2000-34946A, a technology is proposed to evaluate the deterioration of the purification capacity (catalyst deterioration evaluation) of the NOx catalyst in accordance with the performing of the rich purge control. Specifically, an oxygen concentration sensor is arranged at a downstream side of the NOx catalyst, to perform the catalyst deterioration evaluation based on the detection result of the oxygen concentration sensor when the rich purge control is performed.
That is, in the rich purge control, the air/fuel ratio of the downstream side of NOx catalyst is switched into rich when the reduction of NOx occluded by the NOx catalyst is finished. Therefore, the finish of the reduction of NOx is determined by detecting the air/fuel ratio via the oxygen concentration sensor. In this case, the switching timing of the air/fuel ratio via the oxygen concentration sensor becomes early when the NOx occlusion capacity becomes low, that is, when the NOx amount which can be occluded by the NOx catalyst decreases. Therefore, the deterioration degree of the purification capacity of the NOx catalyst can be estimated based on the time having elapsed until the air/fuel ratio is switched.
There are two methods for the rich purge control. The first method (combustion purge control) is setting the air/fuel ratio of atmosphere of exhaust gas to be rich to supply fuel which has not been combusted to the NOx catalyst as the reducing agent, by increasing the injection amount of fuel into the cylinders of the internal combustion engine to set the air/fuel ratio to be rich. The second method (exhaust addition purge control) is supplying fuel which has not been combusted to the NOx catalyst as the reducing agent, by adding fuel from a fuel supply valve (arranged at exhaust pipe) into the exhaust pipe.
The operation field of the engine where the combustion purge control can be used is limited to the field where the engine has a low RMP and a low load, because noise, vibration and the like in the case of switching a normal state will be caused and excessive smoke will be discharged in the combustion purge control. On the other hand, the exhaust addition purge control is useful, for example, in the case where the increase of the fuel injection amount to the internal combustion engine is not suitable. In this case, the combustion purge control and the exhaust addition purge control are selectively performed, in response to the operation state of the engine when the NOx occlusion amount (which is condition for starting rich purge control) reaches the threshold value.
Thus, in the case of the exhaust addition purge control, there may be an error in the result of the catalyst deterioration evaluation which is performed in accordance with the rich purge control, because only HC as the reducing agent becomes excessively dense at the NOx catalyst when fuel is directly added into the exhaust pipe through the fuel supply valve. Therefore, the catalyst deterioration evaluation is performed by only using the information of the combustion purge control.
However, in this case, the threshold value of the NOx occlusion amount which is the condition for starting the rich purge control is set across-the-board irrespectively of the combustion purge control/exhaust addition purge control. That is, the same threshold value is provided for the combustion purge control and the exhaust addition purge control. Therefore, it is difficult to sufficiently ensure the occasion where the combustion purge control is performed. Therefore, it is also difficult to sufficiently ensure the occasion where the catalyst deterioration evaluation is performed.

Exhaust purification device for internal combustion engine


It is intended to reduce the amount of computation to be performed by CPU or the required amount of storage space in a built-in memory for timing adjustment of a pulse output signal. A digital multiplying circuit in the phase arithmetic circuit of the pulse generating circuit generates a multiplication output signal by multiplying a phase angle change value in the phase adjustment data register and a count maximum value Nmax in the cycle data register. A digital dividing circuit generates a division output signal by dividing the multiplication output signal by 360 degrees of phase angle for one cycle. A digital adding circuit adds the division output signal and rise setting/fall setting count values and a subtracting circuit subtracts the division output signal from these values. The addition and subtraction generate new rise setting/fall setting count values required to delay/advance the phase by the phase angle change value.

The present invention relates to a semiconductor integrated circuit and an operation method thereof and, in particular, relates to a technique that is effective for reducing the amount of computation to be performed by a central processing unit (CPU) or the required amount of storage space in a built-in memory for timing adjustment of a pulse output signal.
Lately, ultrasonic motors (USMs) or hypersonic motors (HSMs) having features such as high torque at low speed, fast response, and high positioning accuracy are used in the fields of automatic focusing control and zooming control for camera lenses, actuators of robots, and actuators of positioning devices. An ultrasonic motor produces a flexural wave motion in a vibrating body (stator) by using ultrasonic vibration generated by piezoelectric elements and drives a moving body (rotor or slider) by using a traveling wave resulting from the flexural wave motion. To transfer the traveling wave originating from the stator to the rotor, some pressurized contact is needed.
Patent Document 1 listed below describes an ultrasonic motor called a "wedge type" in which one end of the vibrating body vibrated by an ultrasonic transducer and one end face of the moving body are positioned to face each other and a plate-like or rod-like vibrating piece is inserted between both. By tilting the vibrating piece at a suitable angle, a reciprocating motion of the ultrasonic transducer is converted to a unidirectional motion of the moving body.
Besides, Patent Document 2 listed below describes an ultrasonic motor called a "traveling wave type" that produces a flexural wave motion in the stator and drives the rotor by using a traveling wave resulting from the flexural wave motion. According to this document, the moving body is brought in pressured contact with the surface of an elastic body of the ultrasonic transducer, the elastic body having a plurality of electrostrictive elements fixed thereto. Application of a high-frequency voltage with different phases in time to the electrostrictive elements being in parallel produces a traveling wave generating elliptical vibration on the surface of the elastic body of the ultrasonic transducer, thus driving the moving body by friction drive. Thereby, this provides a solution to the drawbacks of the "wedge type" ultrasonic motor described in Patent Document 1 listed below, that is, its durability and limitation of its rotational direction to one direction.
Moreover, in FIG. 8 in Patent Document 3 listed below and its related disclosure, there is described a pulse generator comprised of one delay circuit, six inverters, three latch circuits, six AND circuits, one OR circuit, and one selector. The delay circuit responding to a pulse input signal generates a 1st delayed pulse output signal which is delayed by a ⅙ period of one cycle of the pulse input signal (delayed by a phase of 60 degrees) and a 2nd delayed pulse output signal which is delayed by a 2/6 period of one cycle of the pulse input signal (delayed by a phase of 120 degrees). The pulse input signal is supplied to the input terminals of a 1st inverter and a 4th inverter, the 1st delayed pulse output signal is supplied to the input terminals of a 2nd inverter and a 5th inverter, and the 2nd delayed pulse output signal is supplied to the input terminals of a 3rd inverter and a 6th inverter.
An output signal of the 4th inverter, an output signal of the 5th inverter, and an output signal of the 6th inverter are supplied to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd S input terminals of a 1st latch circuit, respectively. The pulse input signal, the 1st delayed pulse output signal, and the 2nd delayed pulse output signal are supplied to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd S input terminals of a 2nd latch circuit, respectively. The input terminal and output terminal of the 1st inverter are coupled to a 1st input terminal of a 1st AND circuit and a 1st input terminal of a 2nd AND circuit, respectively. The input terminal and output terminal of the 2nd inverter are coupled to a 1st input terminal of a 3rd AND circuit and a 1st input terminal of a 4th AND circuit, respectively. The input terminal and output terminal of the 3rd inverter are coupled to a 1st input terminal of a 5th AND circuit and a 1st input terminal of a 6th AND circuit, respectively.
A 1st Q output terminal of the 1st latch circuit and a 1st Q output terminal of the 2nd latch circuit are coupled to a 2nd input terminal of the 1st AND circuit and a 2nd input terminal of the 2nd AND circuit, respectively. A 2nd Q output terminal of the 1st latch circuit and a 2nd Q output terminal of the 2nd latch circuit are coupled to a 2nd input terminal of the 3rd AND circuit and a 2nd input terminal of the 4th AND circuit, respectively. Further, a 3rd Q output terminal of the 1st latch circuit and a 3rd Q output terminal of the 2nd latch circuit are coupled to a 2nd input terminal of the 5th AND circuit and a 2nd input terminal of the 6th AND circuit, respectively.
The input terminal and output terminal of the 1st inverter, the input terminal and output terminal of the 2nd inverter, and the input terminal and output terminal of the 3rd inverter are coupled to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th input terminals of the selector, respectively. An output terminal of the 1st AND circuit, an output terminal of the 2nd AND circuit, and an output terminal of the 3rd AND circuit are coupled to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd input terminals of the OR circuit, respectively. An output terminal of the 4th AND circuit, an output terminal of the 5th AND circuit, and an output terminal of the 6th AND circuit are coupled to 4th, 5th, and 6th input terminals of the OR circuit, respectively.
The 1st Q output terminals, 2nd Q output terminals, and 3rd Q output terminals of the 1st and 2nd latch circuits are coupled to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th input terminals of a third latch circuit, respectively. An output terminal of the OR circuit is coupled to a sync input terminal of the 3rd latch circuit and a pulse select signal is generated which is supplied from an output terminal of the 3rd latch circuit to the selector.
Six pulse input signals with their phases shifted 60 degrees from each other are supplied to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th input terminals of the selector. Thereby, one selected pulse input signal out of the six pulse input signals can be output as an output signal from an output terminal of the selector.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and operation method thereof


A shift control apparatus for use with a continuously variable transmission operable at a speed ratio changed in a plurality of steps for transmitting a drive from the engine to the vehicle wheels. The shift control apparatus is operable in the manual shift control mode for producing an upshift command in response to a driver's upshift demand and a downshift command in response to a driver's downshift demand. An upshift is produced from a current speed ratio to another speed ratio one step higher than the current speed ratio in response to the upshift command and a downshift from the current speed ratio to another speed ratio one step lower than the current speed ratio in response to the downshift command. The transmission speed ratio is corrected to keep the engine speed at or below a predetermined acceptable value. An upper vehicle speed limit value is set for each of the speed ratios to provide a greater first upper vehicle speed limit value for a higher speed ratio. The shift control apparatus is arranged to produce an upshift from the current speed ratio to another speed ratio one step higher than the current speed ratio when the engine speed is at the acceptable value and the vehicle speed exceeds the upper vehicle speed limit value.

This invention relates to an apparatus for controlling a continuously variable transmission for use with an automotive vehicle to change the transmission speed ratio in a plurality of steps.
For example, Japanese Patent Kokai No. 60 -26847 discloses an apparatus for controlling a continuously variable transmission operable at a speed ratio changed in a plurality of steps. The transmission control apparatus operates in an automatic mode to drive the transmission at a target or desired speed ratio i* calculated in terms of vehicle speed and throttle position (or accelerator position) and also in a manual mode to drive the transmission at a speed ratio determined in response to a driver's demand. If the driver continues to depress the accelerator pedal with the transmission speed ratio determined in the manual mode, however, the engine speed would exceed an acceptable range and provide a sense of incompatibility to the driver. In order to eliminate such an undesirable tendency, the transmission control apparatus is arranged to perform an automatic correction of the transmission speed ratio to another speed ratio so as to decrease the engine speed. This is effective to perform continuous transmission speed ratio changes without a sense of incompatibility to the driver. It is now assumed that a transmission speed ratio i(1) (first speed) is selected in the manual mode. When the engine speed increases above the acceptable range, the automatic correction is performed to change the transmission speed ratio i(n) from the current speed ratio i(1) to another speed ratio so as to permit a vehicle speed increase while keeping the engine speed at or below the acceptable value. If the automatic correction produces an upshift to the speed ratio i(3), however, the driver's operation of the shift lever to produce an upshift from the current speed ratio i(1) to the smaller speed ratio i(2) (second speed) one step higher than the current speed ratio i(l) will be ignored. As a result, a sense of incompatibility will be provided to the driver.

Continuously variable transmission control apparatus


A clean room includes walls, a floor and a ceiling which define the room. An air delivery system having a HEPA filter, a fan and an air return duct in communication with the filter, is provided to maintain the air in the room clean. A shield of the present invention is mounted in the room over a work surface to form a clean zone over at least a part of the table. The shield is mounted so that at least a part of the filter is within the clean zone so that filtered air will be forced into the clean zone. Accessories, such as an IV bar and a light panel may be provided with the shield to facilitate working in the clean zone. The shield creates a clean zone in the clean room having a higher class rating than the clean room rating without the use of additional HEPA filters and without the use of traditional laminar flow hoods.

This invention relates to clean air systems, and in particular, to a system for creating clean air zones in a clean room using the HEPA filters already in position in the clean room.
Laminar flow hoods are typically used to create a clean zone in a work room to contain chemical, biological agents, drugs and other hazardous substances and prevent their release into the atmosphere. A typical laminar flow hood has three sides, a bottom, and a top with a fan-forced source of forced air directed from one of the sides (usually the top or back side) through micro-filters or HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Air) filters. These cabinets are sold on the open market as free-standing units having cabinet walls on three sides with an open-front on one side and a top and a bottom comprised of almost any solid construction material, such as wood, steel, aluminum, hard plastics, or other materials. A HEPA filter is placed behind a porous wall on the top or a side of the cabinet, and an electric fan is positioned behind the HEPA filter to force air through the filter and into the cabinet.
There are generally two types of laminar flow hoods. The first, shown in FIG. 8, is a horizontal laminar flow hood. In a horizontal laminar flow hood, air is usually forced from a side or rear of the cabinet through a porous wall so that the air flows through the filter in a horizontal direction. The filtered air is free of particles over 0.5.mu.. The second type, shown in FIG. 9, is a vertical flow hood. In a vertical flow hood, the air is forced from the top of the cabinet through the HEPA filter, and then exhausted through the front opening of the cabinet to the room in which the cabinet is located. Vertical flow hoods or biological safety cabinets (BSC's) are particularly suited to protect workers or users of the cabinet from substances which may be manipulated inside the cabinet, such as toxic or irritant chemicals, dust, drugs, or biologicals, as well as to protecting the environment. The vertical flow hood in FIG. 9 is a BSC, and as seen, the air flow comes down through the top of the cabinet and passes through the bottom of the cabinet, so that none of the contaminants within the cabinet will escape into the room in which the cabinet is positioned.
In recent years, these cabinets have been used in industry for the clean manufacture of items such as computer chips, parenterally-administered medications, tissue cultures, cell cultures, microbiological testing, chemical mixing and the like. The principal differences in the use of the two types of cabinets or laminar flow hoods is that, although it provides a super-clean air work environment, the horizontal flow hood does not protect the worker from the materials used or manipulated inside the cabinet; but, the vertical flow hood does provide some protection as well as provide a super-clean air work environment.
The most common use of such cabinets has become medical related uses. These hoods are used for mixing medications and fluids for intravenous delivery into the patient for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or cure of diseases. These cabinets are widely used, therefore, in hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, home infusion centers, and the like for the purpose of compounding, mixing, labeling or otherwise preparing medications.
Additionally, the vertical flow hoods are typically required to be used in a clean room--a room specially designed to have very low counts of particles in the air. For example, a clean room may have only 10,000 or 1000, or 100 particles per cubic foot of air in the room. Clean rooms are also required by some governmental agencies, such as state boards of pharmacy, or the US. Food and Drug Agency, and by professional standard making organizations, such as the American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists, the ISO 9000 standards for Parentaeral pharmaceutical manufacturing, and so on. In the instance of state boards of pharmacy, there is often a legal regulatory requirement that such environments include a clean room in which the air-born particles over 0.5.mu. in size number less than 10,000 per cubic foot of air, and that the clean zone (the table-top work area in which the actual mixing, compounding, manipulation, etc.) is performed have less than 100 particles per cubic foot of air. These standards are generally referred to as Class 10,000 or Class 100 work environments, or Class 10,000 or Class 100 laminar flow hoods.
Heretofore, to provide a Class 100 clean zone in a clean room required the use of a laminar flow hood, such as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7. The laminar flow hoods, whether vertical or horizontal flow hoods, are very expensive to purchase and to set up. Once they are set up in a clean room, the laminar flow hood is essentially fixed in place. The hood cannot easily be moved should the clean room need to be reconfigured or if the hood must be moved to a different room.


Methods of treating cancer with antibodies that bind colony stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) in combination with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors are provided.

Colony stimulating factor 1 receptor (referred to herein as CSF1R; also referred to in the art as FMS, FIM2, C-FMS, M-CSF receptor, and CD115) is a single-pass transmembrane receptor with an N-terminal extracellular domain (ECD) and a C-terminal intracellular domain with tyrosine kinase activity. Ligand binding of CSF1 or the interleukin 34 ligand (referred to herein as IL-34; Lin et al., Science 320: 807-11 (2008)) to CSF1R leads to receptor dimerization, upregulation of CSF1R protein tyrosine kinase activity, phosphorylation of CSF1R tyrosine residues, and downstream signaling events. CSF1R activation by CSF1 or IL-34 leads to the trafficking, survival, proliferation, and differentiation of monocytes and macrophages, as well as other monocytic cell lineages such as osteoclasts, dendritic cells, and microglia.
Many tumor cells or tumor stromal cells have been found to produce CSF1, which activates monocyte/macrophage cells through CSF1R. The level of CSF1 in tumors has been shown to correlate with the level of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in the tumor. Higher levels of TAMs have been found to correlate with poorer patient prognoses in the majority of cancers. In addition, CSF1 has been found to promote tumor growth and progression to metastasis in, for example, human breast cancer xenografts in mice. See, e.g., Paulus et al., Cancer Res. 66: 4349-56 (2006). Further, CSF1R plays a role in osteolytic bone destruction in bone metastasis. See, e.g., Ohno et al., Mol. Cancer Ther. 5: 2634-43 (2006). TAMs promote tumor growth, in part, by suppressing anti-tumor T cell effector function through the release of immunosuppressive cytokines and the expression of T cell inhibitory surface proteins.
Genetic alterations in cancer provide a diverse set of antigens that can mediate anti-tumor immunity. Antigen recognition through T-cell receptors (TCRs) initiate T-cell-responses, which are regulated by a balance between activating and inhibitory signals. The inhibitory signals, or "immune checkpoints," play an important role in normal tissues by preventing autoimmunity. Up-regulation of immune checkpoint proteins allows cancers to evade anti-tumor immunity. Two immune checkpoint proteins have been the focus of clinical cancer immunotherapeutics, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). The combination of an anti-CTLA-4 antibody and an anti-PD-1 antibody has been approved for the treatment of metastatic melanoma and several additional clinical trials are also ongoing to study the use of this combination for the treatment of other cancers. Anti-PD-1 antibodies and anti-CTLA-4 antibodies for use as monotherapies are also currently being studied in clinical trials as a treatment for many different types of cancer. Anti-PD-L1 antibodies which bind PD-L1, one of the ligands for PD-1, are also currently in clinical development.
Many tumors often express multiple checkpoint molecules simultaneously, Therefore, combinations of checkpoint modulators are undergoing clinical testing with aim of improved efficacy. Initial clinical results of the combination of an anti-CTLA-4 antibody (anti-CTLA-4 Ab) and an anti-PD-1 antibody (anti-PD-1 Ab) have demonstrated improved overall response rates, increased complete response rates, as well as overall survival rates in metastatic melanoma, compared to anti-CTLA-4 Ab alone or historical controls.
As described herein, significant antitumor activity of an anti-PD-1 antibody in combination with an anti-CSF1R antibody has been demonstrated in clinical trials.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Anti-CSF1R antibody and anti-PD-1 antibody combination therapy for selected cancers


A system is provided for spray coating medical devices, comprising a rotary atomizer with one or more rotary heads and a plurality of holders to hold a plurality of medical devices, such as stents, wherein the holders are positioned around a longitudinal axis of the rotary head. A method of using such a system is also provided. The invention enables the use of rotary atomizers to coat small medical devices with reduced waste of coating material and allows increased production throughput by the coating of multiple devices simultaneously. The rotary atomizer may be an electrostatic rotary atomizer. The holders and/or a holding structure on which the holders are mounted may move relative to the rotary atomizer.

Many implantable medical devices have been coated with various types of coatings, such as coatings for delivering a therapeutic agent or drug to a site within the body, coatings for radiopacity, or coatings for biocompatibility. One example of a drug-coated implantable medical device is a stent, which is a tubular structure formed in a mesh-like pattern that is designed to be inserted into an organ or vessel and serve as a scaffolding. For example, a stent may be placed in a coronary artery across an area of blockage that has been opened by an angioplasty procedure. In many instances, however, the stented area becomes blocked again (known as restenosis) due to various biological processes, including tissue healing and regeneration, scar formation, irritation, and immune reactions that lead to an excess proliferation of the cells. Therefore, many stents are coated with a drug, such as paclitaxel or other therapeutic agent, that acts to inhibit the processes that cause restenosis.
Various methods have been proposed or employed for coating stents and other medical devices. Such methods include spray coating, dip coating, etc. These methods have various advantages and disadvantages. For example, some spray coating methods result in a large amount of coating being wasted. Spray deposition efficiencies are important as coating materials (e.g., a drug and polymer matrix) have become more expensive. As another example, some coating methods are slow and result in lengthy and costly production. As another example, some coating methods result in non-uniform coatings or fail to apply sufficient coating to certain surfaces. It is often desirable to apply the coating in a uniform manner to ensure that an intact, robust coating of the desired thickness is formed. Some of these drawbacks are trade-offs in certain coating processes. For example, in order to achieve the desired uniformity and completeness of the coating in a spray coating process, stents are commonly spray coated individually, with each stent separately loaded onto a stent holder and then separately spray coated. This individual handling can slow the production rate.
The present invention is directed to an improvement to overcome certain drawbacks in prior coating systems.

System and method for spray coating multiple medical devices using a rotary atomizer


A connection device for connecting objects. The connection device includes a first elongated element with a first groove and a locking portion, a second elongated element with a second groove and a through hole, a spring member and a pin connected to the spring member, and an actuating member adapted for actuating the spring member and moving the pin.

In many applications there is a need for connecting or coupling together objects, such as boxes, trays, cases, cages, containers or other objects.
One such application is tending and storing of benthonic organisms, such as sea urchins, abalones, sea cucumbers, scallop shells, oysters in aquatic environment.
Such a system is described in Norwegian Patent Application NO 20030973 which is hereby incorporated in this specification by reference.
Another application is cases or boxes for transporting and or storing items. In order to be able to stack the boxes efficiently and/or to move several boxes in one operation, it is preferable that they are safely and rigid connected to each other.
Also for construction elements there is a need for securely connecting the elements, such as provisional or permanent walls and floors, parquet floors, form elements etc.
NO 128862 shows an example on a prior art case for transporting fish which can be stacked. The case is made of plastic and has guiding grooves on the upper side and projections with trapezoidal shape in the base portion. The grooves and base projections are narrower in the middle than at the end portions, and this means that when the base projections are inserted sliding into the grooves, they will lock to each other by means of friction.
This connecting mechanism depends on the friction forces to keep the cases together. This will not be sufficient for many applications where it is important that the cases or other connected objects are securely connected even when influenced by external forces. It is for example very important that the tending/storing cases described in NO 20030973 are securely connected when immersed in the sea where they will be influenced by e.g. currents, tides, wind, etc. There is also no way to ensure that the cases are securely connected before transporting, handling or other use of the connected cases and there exists a risk that the cases will disconnect unexpectedly.


A framework is provided that uniformly stores in a central repository data collected from various locations in an enterprise computing network. One or more measurements for data of interest in the central repository are pre-calculated. The pre-calculated measurement(s) are normalized to reflect the relative importance of the data of interest in comparison to other data in the central repository. Reports may be generated based on the pre-calculated measurements for the data of interest.

The development of information technologies has enabled an enterprise, such as a business corporation, to capture data produced during daily operation of the enterprise. For example, a software company may capture and store data accumulated during the design, coding, and testing of a software product in various computing systems. Such data may include test cases that are used to verify whether the software product functions as expected. Such data may also include one or more dimensions that specify context(s) that a test case may execute in. A dimension may specify, for example, one or more product features that the text case focuses on. A dimension may also specify which build version of the product that the test case executes on. If the software product supports multiple user interface (hereinafter "UI") languages, a dimension may indicate a particular UI language that the test case executes in. Data gathered during the development of a software product may also include execution results of each test case (hereinafter "test results"). For example, test results may indicate the success or failure rate of a test case that has been executed multiple times in a specific context.
Data accumulated by an enterprise may lack uniformity because data can be generated with different tools and/or criteria. For example, a software company may assign multiple teams to execute different aspects of a software development process, e.g., multiple coding teams to code different components of the software product and multiple testing teams to test different components of the software product. Each of these teams may develop its own system for tracking the progress of its work. As a result, different teams may use different means and criteria to collect data. Thus, data aggregated from the different teams in general lack uniformity and cannot accurately reflect the status of the whole product. For example, each testing team has its own database and each testing team creates separate reports based on the team's database. Because the databases generally are not connected and do not follow a common database schema, it is difficult to get consolidated reports for the software product as a whole.
Therefore, there exists a need to provide reliable and comprehensive data for a product while allowing different teams of the product to use their own systems to collect data resulting from their work. Ideally, data produced by different teams are gathered and uniformly stored in a central repository. The data in the central repository can thus accurately reflect the status of the product.
In addition, people with different responsibilities in an enterprise may want to review different reports concerning a product or service of the enterprise. For example, reports requested by a company executive and by a software engineer may be drastically different. The company executive may only be interested in whether a software product is ready for distribution. The software engineer may want to know how a test case for the software product performs in a particular context. Hence, it is desirable to provide different reports based on various abstractions of data available for a product or service of an enterprise, so people with different responsibilities in the enterprise may review reports according to specific needs.
Meanwhile, because a central repository may contain hundreds and thousands of data dimensions and their corresponding values, a query on the central repository can be time-consuming. Therefore, it is desirable to pre-calculate measurements of data of interest in the central repository so that a query will only need to retrieve the pre-calculated measurements of data of interest.
Therefore, there exists a need to gather data in an enterprise and uniformly store them in a central repository so that the data can accurately reflect the overall status of a product or service of the enterprise. There also exists a need to pre-calculate measurements of data of interest stored in the central repository so that any query on the data of interest can be responded quickly.


An automatic transmission includes two clutches that are disposed such that they overlap in an axial direction and occupy different positions in a radial direction. Each of the two clutches includes a clutch drum, a piston that forms a working fluid chamber for which a portion of the clutch drum serves as a cylinder, a plurality of friction plates that engage the clutch drum, and a cancel oil chamber that is disposed on a rear face side of the piston and that cancels a centrifugal oil pressure that acts on the working fluid chamber.

The present invention relates to an automatic transmission.
Recently, an automatic transmission that is installed in a vehicle is required to have a plurality of speeds, such as eight forward speeds, for example. The automatic transmission is also required to have its structural parts, such as clutches, for example, arranged such that the automatic transmission will be compact, making it easier to install.
There exists an automatic transmission (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-7-269665) that attempts to achieve a compact structure, in particular, compactness in the axial direction, by arranging two clutches such that they overlap in the axial direction and are positioned differently in the radial direction. In the two clutches, either the input or output member is provided as a common member, and the other is provided as a separate member. In each of the two clutches, a plurality of friction plates, a working fluid chamber that operates the friction plates, and a cancel oil chamber that cancels centrifugal oil pressure the working fluid chamber, are disposed such that they overlap in the axial direction.
The two working fluid chambers and cancel oil chambers are disposed in a clutch drum that forms a single unit with a turbine shaft. Hydraulic pressure is supplied to the two working fluid chambers through an oil passage that is formed in a boss portion of the clutch drum. One of the two cancel oil chambers that is located to the inside in the radial direction is directly supplied with oil through an oil hole that is formed in the boss portion of the clutch drum. The oil from the cancel oil chamber to the inside in the radial direction is supplied to the other of the two cancel oil chambers, which is located to the outside in the radial direction, through an oil passage that is provided in a piston for a clutch to the inside in the radial direction and through the oil passage that is formed in the boss portion of the clutch drum to the inside in the radial direction, which is a securing member.


A glucose sensor system comprising the steps of using as a sample discriminating parameter a ratio (I/ΔI) of a measured current value I to the time-differential value of the current value ΔI, defining a discrimination function that discriminates whether a sample is blood or control fluid and uses the discriminating parameter as an independent variable, quantitating as a discriminating index a numeric value obtained by substituting a discriminating parameter value into this discrimination function, and automatically discriminating, based on this index, whether the sample is blood or a control fluid, whereby a kind of the sample can be automatically quantitated by measuring electric current when a sensor system is used for quantitating the concentration of an analysis object in the sample.

There has been well known a sensor system which quantitates the concentration of a target substance contained in a sample by measuring electric current. In recent years, the sensor system described above has been widely applied to, for example, a biosensor system such as a small and easy type of blood sugar measuring system for quantitating the value of blood sugar contained in blood, or the like. Recently, the blood sugar measuring system, which is used for a blood sugar diagnosis or daily management of a diabetes patient, is commercially prevailed while being provided with many various functions. Recently, for example, the blood sugar measuring system is particularly of great importance in the field of a data management such as a management or processing of measured data.
In general, measurement accuracy of the biosensor system including a sensor and a measuring device is periodically managed using, for example, an exclusive standard fluid (referred to "control fluid" hereinafter), in order to maintain or manage the measuring accuracy. As the control fluid, there may been used a solution in which a known amount of glucose is dissolved in pure water, the solution being colored with a pigment in accordance with its use, or being provided with a hydrophilic polymer so as to adjust its viscosity.
In the conventional biosensor system in which its measurement accuracy is managed using the control fluid, it is required that the measured data of the control fluid is not confusedly processed as the measured data of the body fluid or the like used as an ordinary sample. Accordingly, before the control fluid is introduced into the biosensor system, the measuring mode is changed to that for the control fluid by a predetermined manual operation of the measuring device so as to distinguish its measuring data from the measuring data of the body fluid or the like.
However, in the conventional biosensor system described above, when the control fluid is introduced, it is required to change the measuring mode by the manual operation for changing the mode, for example, button operation or the like. In consequence, there is such a problem that the measured data for the control fluid may be managed while erroneously being recognized as the measured data for the body fluid or the like by erroneously performing or forgetting the operation. Meanwhile, there may be also such a problem that the operation for manually changing the mode is troublesome. In particular, for a diabetes patient or the like having trouble in the eyes or fingertips, it may be difficult to change the mode by the manual operation. Therefore, there is requested a biosensor system, which can automatically discriminate whether a sample introduced into the biosensor system is a body fluid or a control fluid.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A backlight unit includes a light source and a two-dimensional micro lens array (MLA) sheet including a plurality of lens unit each having a conic lens shape with a cross-section, taken through the lens axis, having a shape defined by the equation:

Liquid crystal display devices are electronic devices for converting electrical signals generated from various devices into visual information by using variations in the transmissivity of liquid crystals caused by a voltage applied thereto.
Owing to merits such as small size, lightness, and low power consumption, liquid crystal display devices have been prominent as replacements for cathode ray tubes (CRTs) widely used in the related art, which are capable of overcoming disadvantages of the CRTs, and currently, they have been mounted in almost all of information processing apparatuses requiring display devices.
In such a liquid crystal display device, a voltage is applied to liquid crystals to change the molecular arrangement thereof and thus convert changes in optical characteristics of the liquid crystals such as birefringence, optical rotatory power, dichroism, light scattering or the like into visual changes. That is, liquid crystal display devices may modulate light using liquid crystals.
Since liquid crystal display devices do not produce light themselves, additional light sources are necessary to illuminate liquid crystal device screens. Such illumination light sources are generally called backlight units.
In general, backlight units may be classified as edge-type backlight units and direct-type backlight units, according to the position of a light emitting lamp. Edge-type backlight units include a lamp at a side of a light guide panel that guides light emitted from the lamp. Edge-type backlight units are used in small liquid crystal display devices such as desktop computer monitors and laptop computers and are advantageous in terms of evenness of lighting, durability, and size reduction. On the other hand, direct-type backlight units are developed for application in display devices having 20-inch or larger screens and may directly illuminate the entire surface of a liquid panel by having a plurality of lamp light sources arranged under the liquid crystal panel.
Linear light sources such as cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) were previously widely used as lamps for backlight units. However, light emitting diodes (LEDs) are now widely used as lamps for backlight units due to merits thereof, such as good color reproductivity, environmental-friendliness, slimness and lightness, and low power consumption.
Meanwhile, a plurality of optical films may be variously combined and used in a backlight unit according to the related art for the purpose of diffusing or concentrating light generated from a light source, improving brightness, or reducing lamp mura.
Recently, brightness and a viewing angle have become very important properties in image display devices, such as an LCD device, and the properties are known to be determined by optical sheet properties. Recently, hemispherical micro lens array sheets have been widely used; however, hemispherical micro lens array sheets have limitations in terms of an increase in luminance and defects, in that luminosity thereof is relatively deteriorated in the case of improving the viewing angle.
Currently, research and development aimed at the slimming and lightning of a backlight unit is ongoing, and in particular, a micro lens array sheet having improved luminance and viewing angle characteristics and a backlight unit including the same are required.

Backlight unit including array of hyperbolically-shaped micro lenses

Abstract: y  =                    x        2            /      r              1      +                        1          -                                    (                              1                +                k                            )                                                                  (                                  1                  /                  r                                )                            2                                                  x              2                                                          where k is a constant with a value of less than or equal to −1, and r is the radius of curvature at the peak of the lens unit.


A new cultivar of Rosa plant named ‘Bokraskate’ that is characterized by a short dense habit, few spines and scarlet-red flowers with deep red hips.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Rose plant botanically known as Rosa and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name 'Bokraskate'.
The new cultivar is the product of a breeding program conducted by the inventor in a cultivated area of Boskoop, The Netherlands. The objective of the breeding program was to develop a new rose with a short dense habit and interesting flower colors. 'Bokraskate' is a hybrid that originated from the hybridization of the female or seed parent Rosa 'Bokrahan' (not patented) and the male or pollen parent, an unnamed proprietary seedling. The cultivar 'Bokraskate' was selected by the inventor in the Summer of 2000 as a single plant within the progeny of the stated cross in a controlled environment of Boskoop, The Netherlands.
The closest comparison plant is the female parent Rosa 'Bokrahan'. 'Bokraskate' is distinguishable from 'Bokrahan' by a shorter and more spreading habit and fewer spines. The new cultivar 'Bokraskate' is distinguishable from the male parent in having fewer spines and a low spreading habit.
Asexual reproduction by cuttings of the new cultivar 'Bokraskate' was first performed in 2002 in Boskoop, The Netherlands by the inventor. Since that time, under careful observation, the unique characteristics of the new Rose cultivar have been uniform, stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.


A spell checking method presents a selectable list of similarly spelled words, when a misspelled word is selected by the user who wishes to find the correct spelling. One feature determines the “content” or “topic” of a document. Based on the content, the spell checker presents likely replacement words for a misspelled word. In another feature, for each letter in the word, the spell checker checks for “nearby” letters on keyboard keys to improve the spell checker's list of replacement words. The system also monitors a user's history of use with respect to nearby or key (i.e. letter) substitutions and considers this information when presenting lists of alternative words. Another feature corrects spelling by monitoring a user's history of spell check corrections. Aggregate tables of corrections for more than one user may be maintained, shared, and provided by spell checkers. Various priorities may be used so that one approach is given favor over another. The priorities may be determined by manual input of a user or automatically provided by the system software. Another feature provides an auxiliary window that shows a user's most-frequently or most-recently misspelled words. The user can use a clipboard facility to copy and paste words of interest from the auxiliary window to a current document.

A primary use of computers, especially personal computers, is "word processing." Word processors have replaced the typewriter as a principal means for document production. When producing documents, it is typically very important that each word is spelled correctly. In word processors, a spell checking program (spell checker) is often used to check the spelling of words in a document. The user typically invokes a spell checker by selecting a spelling tool option. A spell checker has an associated dictionary file that contains a list of correctly spelled words. To check the spelling of a word in the document, the spell checker searches the dictionary for that word. If the word is in the dictionary, then the word is correctly spelled. Otherwise, the word is misspelled. The spell checker typically reports misspelled words to the user and prompts for the correct spelling. For every potentially misspelled word, the spelling tool may prompt the user to replace, ignore, or edit the word. This prompting often involves the presentation of a selectable list of similarly spelled words that the user may select from. When the user selects the desired word, the spell checker then replaces the misspelled words with the correctly spelled word.
Spell checking is also provided at various Internet web pages, such as the popular Alta Vista web site at www.altavista.com that provides alternate spellings to words that are misspelled when users enter words in order to searching for information on the web. A system and method for an improved spell checker is, therefore, useful for word processing in any arena in which text is typed, such as in computers or in web search engines. The use of an improved spell checker is not restricted to documents that are generated by typing at a keyboard, but also applies to text generated by voice input or handwriting input.
Spell checking according to the current process is inefficient because the selectable list of similarly spelled words may not actually contain the word the user was attempting to spell. If the list does contain the word, it is often cumbersome to locate the correct word in a list containing many alternative spellings. Thus, while current spell checking is a helpful feature, it is not efficient in terms of required user interaction.
Examples of spell checkers that use databases of similarly spelled words are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,443 issued to Nielsen on Feb. 23, 1999. This patent discusses the use of remote databases available on the Internet and is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. Examples of "background" spell checking are discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,451 issued to Mogilevsky on Jul. 28, 1998, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. "Background" spell checking refers to spell checking performed during idle periods of the word processor. The spell checker performs "background" spell checking so that spelling errors can be conveniently highlighted through the document during an editing session.

System and method for improved spell checking

International Business Machines Corporation


A composite heat resistant sewing thread comprising a core form of at least one strand of a yarn having an elongation, at least one bottom cover wrapped around the core in a first direction at a rate sufficient to provide substantially complete coverage of the core, at least one outer cover wrapped around the at least one bottom cover, at least one bonding agent, and a lubricant.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the area of fire resistant yarns and products made therefrom, particularly in the area of fire resistant sewing threads.
2. Discussion of the Background
A demand has developed for sewing thread that is heat and fire resistant. Such thread is used in sewing together the cover fabric for pillows, mattresses, bedding, and quilts for institutional use, as well as for sewing together the fabric used in safety apparel.
Sewing thread, because of the nature of its use, must be able to withstand the stresses created thereon by the many repeated bends and jerks occurring during the conventional sewing operation. Therefore it must be able to elongate without breaking.
Conventional sewing threads are made of cotton, nylon, or polyester. Each of these will either burn or melt in the presence of flame or high heat. Such fibers as aramids (KEVLAR®, CONEX®, and NOMEX®) are known to be heat resistant, but they are relatively inelastic and do not elongate. When used alone, threads made from these fibers do not provide as high a level of sewing performance as that provided by threads made from conventional fibers. These and other high performance fibers are also very expensive. Thus the use of such fibers has generally been limited to yarns for knitting and weaving.
Fiberglass is known to have excellent fire resistant capabilities, but problems exist with weaving or knitting it by itself. Therefore it only exists when blended, entangled or twisted with other fibers or filaments.
There still exists a need for a sewing thread that, in addition to functioning as a sewing thread, will withstand the high temperatures (greater than 1,000 degrees centigrade) of a fire. In such a case the sewing thread must maintain its integrity in the presence of high temperatures and flames to keep the seams of mattresses, pillows, and similar products intact, so that more flammable materials inside are not exposed to the flames. In the case of apparel the seams must remain intact to protect the worker.

Fire-resistant sewing yarn and the products made therefrom


A CVD device has a reaction furnace (39) for processing a wafer (1); a seal cap (20) for sealing the reaction furnace (39) hermetically; an isolation flange (42) opposite to the seal cap (20); a small chamber (43) formed by the seal cap (20), the isolation flange (42), and the wall surface in the reaction furnace (39); a feed pipe (19b) for supplying a first gas to the small chamber (43); an outflow passage (42a) provided in the small chamber (43) for allowing the first gas to flow into the reaction furnace (39); and a feed pipe (19a) provided downstream from the outflow passage (42a) for supplying a second gas into the reaction furnace (39). Byproducts such as NH4Cl are prevented from adhering to low temperature sections such as the furnace opening and therefore the semiconductor device production yield is therefore increased.

In upright thermal CVD device that performs processes such as forming Si3N4 film on the multiple substrates by utilizing dichlorosilane (SiH2Cl2) and ammonia (NH3), other than the silicon nitride (Si3N4) film comprising the target film, byproducts such as ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) are generated and adhere to low temperature sections such as the wall surface inside the furnace opening at the lower section of the reaction furnace. These adhering byproducts are a source of particles and create problems. One method for resolving this problem is a technique for heating low temperature sections such as the furnace opening on the lower section of the reaction furnace to an extent where the byproducts will not adhere (see for example Japanese Patent Non-Examined Publication No. 2002-184769).
However, there are temperature limits even on this heating method due to the O-ring for sealing between the reaction furnace and the furnace opening seal cap for sealing the reaction furnace, and the rotation mechanism for rotating the boat inside the reaction furnace in the vicinity of the furnace opening. Technology is therefore required for preventing byproducts such as NH4Cl from adhering to low temperature sections such as the furnace opening, without heating.
In order to resolve the above problems with the prior art, the present invention has the object of preventing byproducts such as NH4Cl from adhering to low temperature sections such as the furnace opening, without applying heat.

Substrate processing apparatus and method for manufacturing a semiconductor device


A one piece device for temporarily holding fly fishing line stripped from a reel and prior to being cast. The device is made from a single piece of continuous metal rod, bent at various locations along the rod to form a holding arm and a base clip. The fishing line is hung in coils from the holding arm. The clip may be attached to clothing, thereby securing the device on or about an angler, so that when a cast is made, the line uncoils from the arm.

The present invention relates generally to fly fishing and, more particularly, to a device used for holding an article, such as a fly fishing line after stripped from a fly fishing reel.
The practice, art, sport, or hobby of fly fishing generally refers to using a long, light-weight rod. The fly rod typically has several guides or eyelets aligned along the rod. The line passes through these guides, and is fed from a fly reel attached to the butt end of the fly rod. For casting, typically there is a required amount of line with a lure or artificial fly tied to the tip end of the line pulled from the reel. Casting uses the momentum of the line created by the forward and reverse movement of the fly rod to place the lure or fly on the water.
Both before and after a cast is made, the line is usually "stripped." For example, before casting, the line is pulled out from the reel in a sufficient amount to make the initial cast. After a cast is made, the line is also stripped in order to retrieve it in preparation for the next cast. The line can be stripped by pulling it by hand toward the butt end of the rod. Between casts, the stripped line generally ends up on the ground, on the water, on the floor of a boat, or floating downstream. The loose line may get in the way of the next cast, or tangle at the angler's feet or in nearby rocks, stumps, branches or weeds. Further, the loose line can pick up dirt or other matter, which may cause abrasive wear or damage to the line, and also impact the distance or accuracy of the next cast because of drag on the line.
Many attempts have been made to temporarily store stripped fishing line, but all have drawbacks in their use or cost of manufacture. For example, line stripping baskets have been tried in many sizes and shapes. They are expensive and cumbersome to operate and carry around. They also limit the view and range of work area immediately in front of the angler.
A line storage device which sits on the ground may work in some circumstances but, even in those circumstances, it is not very mobile and is susceptible to being stepped on and interfering with the cast.
Another known line storage device includes a spring held on the angler's clothing. The spring pinches the line to hold it in place. However, this type of device may not hold very much line and, while trying to attach the line to the spring on the storage device, the angler is often distracted from watching the line on the water.


A polymeric foam has a thermoplastic polymer matrix defining multiple cells, the foam characterized by: (a) the polymer matrix having greater than 50 weight-percent copolymer containing at least two different monomers at least one of which is a methacrylate monomer, each monomer having a solubility parameter lower than 20 (megaPascals)0.5 and a chemical composition where twice the mass fraction of oxygen plus the mass fraction of nitrogen, fluorine and silicon is greater than 0.2; wherein the monomers comprise at least 90 weight-percent of all monomers in the copolymer; (b) at least one of the following: (i) a nucleation site density of at least 3×1014 effective nucleation sites per cubic centimeter of foamable polymer composition; (ii) an average cell size of 300 nanometer or less; (c) a porosity percentage greater than 30%; (d) an absence of nano-sized nucleating additive; and (e) a thickness of at least one millimeter.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to polymeric foam articles having nanometer sized cells (nanoporous polymeric foam articles) and processes for preparing such polymeric foam articles.
2. Description of Related Art
Polymeric foam articles (or simply "polymeric foams") are common in thermal insulation applications. Many characteristics of polymeric foams affect the thermal conductivity through the foam and, hence, the effectiveness of the foam as a thermal insulator. For instance, it is known that heat transfer through polymeric foam insulation can occur by conduction, radiation and convection (see, for example, teachings in United States patent application publication 2009/0148665). In typical polymeric foam insulation the dominant mode of heat transfer is cell gas conduction, which contributes approximately 75% of the total thermal conductivity. Hence, reducing conduction of cell gas can significantly reduce heat transfer through polymeric foams.
One characteristic affecting thermal conductivity contribution of cell gas is cell size. Cell size has little influence on gas thermal conduction when the cell size is between about one micron and one millimeter in size. Above one millimeter convection behavior tends to increase thermal conductivity. When the cell size of foam is less than about one micron the gas conductivity decreases due to what is known as the Knudsen Effect (see, for example, the relationship illustrated in FIG. 1. The curve follows the methodology in Lee, et al., "Determination of a mesopore size of aerogels from thermal conductivity measurement", Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, March 2002, Vol. 298, pages 287-292). The Knudsen Effect is a phenomenon that results in a decrease in thermal conductivity as fewer cell gas molecules are available within each cell to collide and transfer heat within each single cell. The Knudsen Effect becomes significant as the cell size and connectivity between cells becomes on the same order of magnitude as the mean free path of the gas filling the cells. Thermal conductivity due to cell gas reduces almost in half when the cell size reduces from one micron to 300 nanometer (nm), and reduces by almost ⅔ when the cell size reduces from one micron to below 100 nm.
Homogeneous cell sizes in this range are desirable to maximize the Knudsen Effect in view of the fact that even occasional large cells can reduce the thermal insulation effect of the small (300 nm or less, preferably 150 nm or less) cells. Therefore, all things being equal, reducing the average cell size of foam to 300 nm or less and particularly to 150 nm or less is desirable to achieve lower thermal conductivity through the foam, especially in foam having a homogeneous cell size distribution. However, it is difficult to reduce the cell size without affecting other properties of a polymeric foam article.
Porosity, the ratio of void volume to foam volume, also affects the thermal conductivity of polymeric foam. Generally, decreasing porosity results in an increase in thermal conductivity. That is because thermal conductivity through the polymer network that makes up the walls defining cells of foam is typically greater than thermal conductivity across gas within the cells.
Polymeric foam having an average cell size of 300 nm or less and a porosity of greater than 0.50 is highly desirable but difficult, and highly improbable, to achieve with known blown foam technology heretofore. Notably, blown foam technology is desirable because unlike aerogel technology, for instance, blown foam technology does not require large volumes of solvents to manufacture.
In developing a process for producing foam having a particular cell size it is useful to consider the number of effective nucleation sites. Effective nucleation sites are the number of sites in a foamable polymer composition that form voids, or cells, when the foamable polymer composition expands into foam (also known as "cell density" in, for example, a paper entitled "A Process for Making Microcellular Thermoplastic Parts" by Kumar and Suh, Polymer Engineering and Science, October 1990, Vo. 30 No. 20, pages 1323-1329). By controlling the number of effective nucleation sites and the porosity one controls the average cell size of the foam. In order to achieve a desirable thermally insulating foam it is desirable to prepare polymeric foam having at least 3×1014 effective nucleation sites per cubic centimeter of foamable polymer composition and expand that to have a porosity that is greater than 0.30 (porosity percentage greater than 30%).
It would be a desirable advancement in the art of thermally insulating polymer foam to be able to prepare polymeric foam having a thickness of at least one millimeter and having at least 3×1014 effective nucleation sites per cubic centimeter of foamable polymer composition and that has expanded to have a porosity percentage that is greater than 30%. Even more desirable would be such polymeric foam that has an average cell size of 300 nm or less, preferably 250 nm or less, and more preferably 150 nm or less. Such a foam has been developed containing nanometer-sized filler particles (nanofiller) as reported in pending patent application U.S. Ser. No. 61/264,407. However, it is still more desirable to be able to prepare such a foam without requiring such a filler; that is, in an absence of nanofiller.

Nanoporous polymeric foam having high cell density without nanofiller


A load supporting stand that having a longitudinal axis is disclosed. The supporting stand has an upper column that includes a shaft having a first end and a second end that extends along the longitudinal axis. The shaft has a first diameter. The upper column also includes a shelf attached to the first end of said shaft. The upper column also has a load bearing pin that extends transversely through the shaft. The stand also has a base portion that receives the upper column that includes a receiving conduit that extends along the longitudinal axis and has a second diameter greater than the first diameter. The conduit has a third end and a fourth end and a slot that extends between the third and fourth ends along with a series of notches extending therefrom. The base portion has a base plate connected to the receiving conduit.

Elevating a portion of a vehicle typically involves using some sort of jack. For example, many automobiles carry or employ a scissor-type jack to elevate a portion of the automobile in order to change a tire or otherwise view the under side of the automobile. Typically, during operation the jack is placed under a portion of the frame of the automobile and the jack is slowly raised until a platform on the jack engages the frame of the automobile. Thereafter, a user uses the principle of leverage to elevate a portion of the frame. Often, more than one location on the frame needs to be elevated so that a user can repair a portion of the automobile that is only accessible from the bottom. Because most standard jacks are movable, so that the jack may be easily moved to many different portions of the frame, a vehicle supported solely by the jack may be unstable and unsafe to work under. For this reason, a user may place a jack stand or load bearing stand under the frame and lower the jack so that the vehicle is supported on the jack stand instead of the jack itself. Alternatively, the jack stand may be used solely to support the vehicle in such cases where it is not desired to employ a jack or elevate the automobile.
The jack stand is typically a stable platform for supporting the vehicle. Because the jack and jack stand have individual and separate support structures, the jack stand and jack typically cannot support the vehicle at same location on the frame. Or, the jack stand or jack must engage the frame of the automobile only at designated positions or areas which can be difficult to identify said locations. This can cause a problem when a manufacturer designates only certain locations as jacking locations. Generally, vehicle manufacturers reinforce certain locations on the frame of a vehicle so that those certain locations can support a portion of the weight of the vehicle when the vehicle is elevated with a jack or some sort of support mechanism.
Generally, jack stands can vary in size, shape and geometry. For example, some designs comprise pyramid-shaped structures having three or four sides and an adjustable support platform disposed in the top of the jack stand. Such designs further include a telescoping support member extending from a top portion of the pyramid and a curved horizontal support, often having a U-shape, at the top of the telescoping support member to cradle a portion of the vehicle frame. The support member is often adjustable with a ratchet type mechanism. Problems occur with placement of this type of platform as only certain parts of the frame or undercarriage can fit in the curved horizontal support. While a jack stand is usually more stable than a jack, the jack stand cannot support the vehicle at the same point that is occupied by the jack. As a result, the jack stand often must be placed a considerable distance away from the jacking location in order to find a portion of the frame or undercarriage that is compatible with the top of the support platform, necessarily requiring a higher jacking elevation to accommodate the jack stand location. Also, the aforementioned designs each typically have to be operated with both hands as it is very difficult to operate with a single hand. Moreover, said designs employ several components which must be cast or machined to fine tolerances which can be a drawback as casting can be inconsistent with regard to tolerances and machining tends to be expensive.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a jack stand that may be positioned in a confined space beneath a vehicle. Moreover, it is desirable to provide a jack stand that allows technicians to place the stand and raise it to a desired height with a single hand. It is further desired to provide a jack stand that is easily operated by a single handle and is economical to manufacture and produce.


An image inspection apparatus for inspecting an image output on a recording medium. The image inspection apparatus includes processing circuitry that obtains data of an output-target image used by an image forming apparatus to conduct an image forming operation, generates read data from the data of the output-target image, and generates an inspection reference image from the data of the output-target image. The apparatus also performs position alignment between the read image and the inspection reference image, conducts an inspection which determines a defect in the read image based on the difference of the aligned read image and the inspection reference image, and determines whether a position alignment defect exists in the read image based on the defect detected during inspection.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, system, and method of inspecting an image formed by an image forming apparatus, and a recording medium storing an image inspection control program.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the inspection of printed matter has been performed by human operators. In recent years, inspection apparatuses that automatically inspect printed matter have been widely used, mainly in the field of offset printing. For example, in conventional devices, a master image is generated by reading specific printed matter that is selected based on the image quality, as a reference image. The corresponding portions of the master image and a subsequently read image of printed matter would be compared to determine, by the degree of difference therebetween, whether there was a defect in the printed matter.
Printing apparatuses, such as electrophotographic apparatus, have been widely used to print a small number of pages. For example, a printing apparatus may perform variable printing in which the printed contents differ on each page. In such case, comparing the printed matter with the master image generated from the previously printed matter would be inefficient. In view of this, the master image has typically been generated based on print data and then compared with the printed image to be inspected.
With respect to the comparing inspection of the image, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-007659-A proposes a method of generating image data of a defective part in a resolution higher than at the time of the inspection of the printed matter in which the defect was detected, and enlargedly displaying an enlarged depiction of the defective part.
In consideration of a position shift with the master image and the read image of the printed matter, a comparison process can be performed multiple times while shifting the master image and the read image vertically and horizontally. Utilization of the comparison result of a state with few degrees of the difference can also be performed. Accordingly, since the starting point at the time of comparing the master image with the read image is set as correctly as possible, position alignment with the master image and the read image may be performed utilizing the comparison process and shifting of the images vertically and horizontally.
Moreover, the position alignment of the master image and the read image of printed matter involves performing a rotational correction process with respect to one side based on a certain reference point. As a reference point, a printer's mark used as the mark of a cutting and some characterizing portions (i.e., a corner part, etc.) in an image can be used.
However, a reference point suitable for position alignment cannot always be extracted from an image. Therefore, when a reference point suitable for position alignment cannot be extracted, the rotational correction process may become inadequate for aligning the read image and the master image. If a shift has arisen such that position alignment is inadequate in the comparison area of both images, it may be determined that there is a defect despite normal printed matter if during inspection it is determined that the degree of the difference is high.
Accordingly, in order to provide a more accurate inspection, the range over which the image is shifted vertically and horizontally in the case of the comparison of the read image and the master image is extended. Each difference value is then calculated and considered in order to extract a reference point suitable for position alignment. However, such a process may increase the computation time and when the processing time for an inspection has restrictions, such as the processing capacity of an inspection apparatus, the inspection process may end in the middle of a calculation due to the restrictions on processing time. In such an instance, the inspection process may not be completed and the correct result may not be obtained and it may be erroneously determined that the printed matter has a defect.
Accordingly, during the inspection of the printed matter by an inspection apparatus, even though there is no defect in the printed matter it may be determined that a defect exists in the printed matter based on a defect in the position alignment thereby providing an incorrect inspection result. Therefore, the user will then need to confirm whether the printed matter judged to be defective is truly defective thereby creating a large burden for the user. Moreover, even if it is a case where the technique of JP No. 2006-007659-A is employed such that the resolution of the defective part of the printed matter is made high and is prominently displayed, it still cannot be determined whether the printed matter truly contains a defect without confirmation from a user.

Apparatus, system, and method of inspecting image, and recording medium storing image inspection control program