Provided is a film having a low refractive index, which can be formed under normal temperature and pressure while obtaining a lower refractive index, has excellent adhesion with a solid substrate, and does not lose geometric optical properties, such as the diffusibility or light-harvesting capability attributed to the microstructure. Also disclosed is a method for producing the same. The film having a low refractive index is obtained by causing an electrolyte polymer and microparticles to be alternately adsorbed on the surface of a solid substrate and bringing the resulting microparticle-laminated film into contact with a silicon compound solution in order to bond the solid substrate with microparticles and microparticles with microparticles. The silicon compound solution is selected from (1) the hydrolysis product of alkoxysilane (I) wherein the functional groups are formed from hydrolyzable groups and non-hydrolyzable organic groups, and the condensation reaction product thereof, (2) the hydrolysis product of a mixture of alkoxysilane (I) and alkoxysilane (II) wherein the functional groups are formed from hydrolyzable groups alone, and the condensation reaction product thereof; and (3) a mixture of hydrolysis product and condensation product thereof according to (1) and alkoxysilane (II).

A low refractive index film is formed on an optical member as an optical functional film included in an anti-reflection film, a reflective film, a half-transparent half-reflective film, a visible light-reflective infrared-transparent film, an infrared-reflective visible light-transparent film, a blue reflective film, a green reflective or red reflective film, an emission line cutoff filter or a color correction film.
Without being limited to optical members having a flat surface shape, in optical functional members such as a Fresnel lens, a lenticular lens and a microlens, which are used in brightness enhancing lens films for liquid crystal backlight, diffusion films or screens for video projection televisions, desired geometric optical performances are obtained in all of such members by using resin materials having a microstructure. Even for the surfaces of these microstructures, an optical functional film including a low refractive index film is needed.
A low refractive index film serves as an anti-reflection film having a single layer structure and exhibits the anti-reflection performance in a broader range of wavelength. Furthermore, the anti-reflection film having a single layer structure brings about a reduction in cost due to a decreased number of layers as compared with an anti-reflection film having a multilayer structure. In regard to the refractive index of the anti-reflection film having a single layer structure, when the substrate is a transparent material such as a resin material, a low refractive index in the range of 1.2 to 1.3 is desirable.
Examples of the method for forming a low refractive index film include a gas phase method such as a vapor deposition method or a sputtering method, and a coating method such as a dipping method or a spin coating method.
However, a representative thin film having a low refractive index obtained by a gas phase method is an MgF2 film having a refractive index of 1.38 or an LiF film having a refractive index of 1.39, and the performance of these thin films as single layer anti-reflection films is low.
Furthermore, representative examples of the material for a low refractive index film that is obtained by a coating method include a fluoropolymer material having a refractive index of 1.35 to 1.4, and a porous material obtained by fusing microparticles formed of a polymer of a fluoromonomer having a refractive index of 1.37 to 1.46 (see, for example, Patent Document 1). However, a fluoropolymer material having a refractive index of 1.3 or less has not yet been obtained.
Meanwhile, examples of a low refractive index film which is converted from a film having a porous structure obtained by calcination, include a porous SOG film and a porous film of magnesium fluoride (see, for example, Patent Documents 2 and 3).
However, a porous SOG film requires a calcination treatment at 200° C. or higher in order to have a refractive index of 1.3 or less, while a porous film of magnesium fluoride requires a heat treatment for one hour at 150° C. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of the heat resistance of the resin material or the structure maintenance of the microstructure, a low refractive index film requiring calcination is not suitable as an anti-reflection film for the use in resin substrates.
Also in the case where a solid substrate has a microstructure such as a Fresnel lens or a lenticular lens, a low refractive index film having a single layer structure is effective in suppressing reflected light at the lens surface and suppressing the ghost of an image that is projected on a screen for video projection or the like. Furthermore, an anti-reflection film can increase the amount of transmitted light in other optical functional members as well.
In a gas phase method, a thin film can be formed to conform to the shape of a microstructure. However, since a gas phase method requires a vacuum apparatus, the production cost rises. Furthermore, the film formed on the inner walls of the vacuum apparatus peels off and falls on the low refractive index film, remaining as foreign matter. In addition, substrate heating that is commonly carried out to obtain adhesiveness of the low refractive index film, causes cracks in the microstructure formed of a resin due to thermal stress (see, for example, Patent Document 4).
A coating method does not require a vacuum apparatus, and the foreign matter originating from a vacuum apparatus is not generated.
However, in a spin coating method, the coating material cannot be prevented from remaining on the recess areas of the microstructure, and the low refractive index film at the recess areas is thickened. When the low refractive index film does not conform to the shape of the microstructure as such, the geometric optical performance such as diffusibility and light-harvesting capability attributed to the microstructure is impaired.
On the other hand, in a dip coating method or the like, the film thickness can be controlled by the lifting speed, and therefore, it is also possible to make the coating material to conform to the shape of the microstructure.
However, since it is necessary to slow down the lifting speed even to several ten micrometers per second, the production cost noticeably increases (see, for example, Patent Document 5).
As a method for forming a thin film having a thickness in a nanometer scale from a solution, an alternate lamination method has been suggested (see, for example, Non-Patent Document 1). In the alternative lamination method, a thin film is formed by electrostatic adsorption in a liquid, and therefore, a thin film formed in satisfactory conformity with the shape of the microstructure can be obtained. Furthermore, since the method is carried out by a normal temperature process, the method does not cause thermal damage to the resin material.
A thin film obtained by alternately laminating an electrolyte polymer having a positive charge and an electrolyte polymer having a negative charge, is turned into a low refractive index film having a refractive index of about 1.2 by generating voids in the thin film through a hydrochloric acid treatment (see, for example, Patent Documents 6 and 7).
On the other hand, a microparticle single layer film produced by electrostatically adsorbing one layer of microparticles on an electrolyte polymer layer, is turned into a low refractive index film without requiring an acid treatment or the like (see, for example, Patent Documents 8 and 9). The reason why a microparticle single layer film is turned into a low refractive index film is that the surface concavo-convex shape formed by microparticles having a diameter of 100 nm or more continuously changes the refractive index, and the voids between the microparticles decrease the average refractive index.
However, a microparticle single layer film using microparticles having a diameter exceeding 100 nm scatters and diffuses visible light, and is therefore inappropriate for optical members which require transparency.
Furthermore, in the case of an optical member having a microstructure on the surface, for example, when the microstructure is a lens, if the low refractive index film at the lens surface scatters and diffuses light, the low refractive index film causes a decrease in the geometric optical performance, such as inability to focus light.
Meanwhile, in the case of using microparticles having a diameter of 100 nm or less, a transparent microparticle-laminated film is likely to be obtained.
However, the refractive index decreasing effect attributable to the surface concavo-convex shape cannot be obtained. Accordingly, lowering of an average refractive index of the microparticle-laminated film is achieved by increasing the density of voids between the microparticles (see, for example, Patent Documents 10 to 12).
These microparticle-laminated films on optical members need to have adhesiveness to substrates. The microparticle-laminated films also need durability against an adhesive tape used for surface protection, prevention of contamination or fixing at the time of processing, transport, assembly and storage of optical members having microparticle-laminated films formed thereon.
On the other hand, in recent years, under the purpose of further miniaturization and an enhancement of production efficiency of camera modules used in image pickup apparatuses such as mobile phones, production is carried out such that a camera module produced by mounting an image pickup element or the like on a lens module, is packaged on a circuit board having electronic parts mounted thereon, and then the assembly is placed in a reflow furnace to be solder welded.
In this production method, all of the constituent parts need to have heat resistance performance at the reflow temperature.
Furthermore, it is preferable for an image pickup lens module which uses an image pickup element such as CCD or CMOS and is incorporated into a mobile phone or the like, to have staunch reproducibility of object.
Recently, image pickup elements have been miniaturized, and concomitantly with this, the demand for miniaturization and compactization of image pickup lenses that are incorporated into the image pickup elements, is also inevitably increasing.
Additionally, image pickup elements are being produced to have a larger number of pixels in the order of megapixels, while image pickup lens modules using these image pickup elements are demanded to be inexpensive and lightweight.
However, in a small-sized image pickup lens module using a transparent plastic lens, there is a risk that the lens module cannot withstand the reflow temperature reaching up to 260° C. or higher and may be deformed.
Therefore, packaging of an image pickup lens module on a substrate is provided, through the use of connectors and the like, in a separate process after a solder reflow process.
Therefore, the cost for connectors and the cost for installation process are inevitable, and even from the viewpoint of lowering the cost, there is a demand for a small-sized image pickup lens module that can withstand the solder reflow temperature.
Particularly, plastics are vulnerable to heat and are prone to undergo expansion or deformation, and many of them have a problem in the deterioration of quality caused by these properties.
Furthermore, a metal oxide thin film formed by vacuum deposition or the like, or an anti-reflection film based on a metal fluorine compound has a very small coefficient of thermal expansion compared with plastics. Therefore, such an anti-reflection film is prone to have cracks (fissure) that are attributed to the heat-induced expansion and deformation of the plastic that serves as a substrate, and there is a possibility that cracks may occur at temperatures that can be encountered in the daily life, for example, at a site exposed to direct sunlight, inside a car, or in a bathroom.
As a technology previously disclosed in order to solve these problems, Patent Document 13 describes a method for producing an anti-reflection film according to a method of plasma polymerization of an organometallic compound.
Patent Document 14 also describes a method of using a hydrolysis product of an organosilane in an anti-reflection film.

Film having low refractive index film and method for producing the same, anti-reflection film and method for producing the same, coating liquid set for low refractive index film, substrate having microparticle-laminated thin film and method for producing the same, and optical member


Articles of clothing and accessories with one or more integrated nodes that facilitate application of pressure to one or more acupoints on the body of a person wearing the article.

Acupuncture and acupressure are methods used by acupuncturists to stimulate acupoints (also referred to as acupuncture points or acupressure points) in the body to facilitate health and wellness. Each individual has hundreds of acupoints. Acupuncture uses a hair-thin needle to stimulate an acupoint. Acupressure, also referred to as pressure acupuncture, applies the same principles as acupuncture to promote health and wellness, but uses firm pressure to massage the acupoints instead of needles.
Acupoints lie along meridians, or channels, in the body. It is believed that 12 meridians connect specific organs or networks of organs, forming a system of communication throughout the body. When a meridian is blocked or out of balance, acupressure or acupuncture may help restore balance. Specifically, applying pressure to acupoints can restore balance to the body's channels of energy. For example, activating an acupoint named "large intestine 11" on the top of the forearm and in line with the elbow may help clear heat out of the body (e.g., hot flashes, fever) and help alleviate constipation. Western medical practitioners attribute positive results achieved by acupuncture and acupressure to factors such as reduced muscle tension, improved circulation, or stimulation of endorphins, which are natural pain relievers.
To locate acupoints, acupuncturists use a unit of measurement called a "cun." The length of a cun for each person is dependent on the size of the person and, specifically, the dimensions of the person's hand. But on average a cun is approximately 1.31 inches. A length of a person's forearm is typically 12 cun. Acupuncturists can determine acupoints along the channels of the body, starting from certain landmarks, such as the apex of the shoulder blade, and spaced apart by a certain number of cun.


The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition for transdermal administration comprising a conjugate of methotrexate and PTD (protein transduction domain). In accordance with the present invention, the methotrexate, which is widely used for the treatment of psoriasis, rheumatoid and inflammation, etc., can be delivered transdermally to a local part of a patient body, in order to minimize the side effect of the methotrexate.

In general, methotrexate is widely known to inhibit the metabolism of folic acid necessary for the synthesis of DNA in cells and the growth and division of cells. Specifically, methotrexate inhibits the enzymatic activity of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), which is one of the enzymes involved in folic acid metabolism. Thus, methotrexate is a drug applicable to various diseases by inhibiting cell proliferation, which is effective against autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, and shows a very fast effect that alleviates the symptoms of the diseases within about 2 weeks after administration. However, methotrexate is difficult to use for a long period of time, because side effects that cause serious liver toxicity, gastrointestinal disorders and injuries of the kidneys and hematopoietic organs have been continuously reported. Also, it is formulated mainly for oral or injection administration, but the oral administration of methotrexate involves significant inconvenience, such as administering the active drug in a dosage of 2.5 mg at 12-hr intervals three times weekly. For this reason, there has been a continued need for the development of a novel method for drug delivery that can increase the drug delivery efficiency of methotrexate to reduce the dosage thereof so as to minimize the side effects and that can eliminate the inconvenience of injection and oral administration.
Meanwhile, PTD (protein transduction domain) is a low-molecular-weight peptide used for the penetration of a physiologically active molecule into host cells, and a first reported PTD is TAT found in the surface protein of the HIV virus in the year 1998. This TAT PTD was reported to effectively deliver large-size proteins having a molecular weight of more than 120 kDa into cells within a short time. Since then, several PTD proteins of different amino acid sequences having functions similar to TAT PTD have been found and research for novel drug development and DDS studies using these peptides has been suggested. Accordingly, leading countries in the medical and pharmaceutical fields have made many efforts to find novel PTD and develop novel drugs using the same. Also, the present inventors have performed studies to develop PTD, and as a result, developed novel PTD that shows a significantly higher effect than the prior reported PTDs in delivering macromolecules (e.g., proteins) into cells in vitro and in vivo (see PCT/KR2003/000121 and PCT/KR2003/000122).
Thus, the present inventors prepared a conjugate of PTD and methotrexate for the effective local delivery of methotrexate, and applied a novel pharmaceutical composition for transdermal delivery containing the conjugate on the skin and observed the results. As a result, we surprisingly found that methotrexate was delivered to lesion sites through the epidermis to show pharmacological effects, thereby completing the present invention.

Pharmaceutical compositions for transdermal delivery


A method and control system for controlling an installation (1) for gathering flexible individual products (10), in which installation a stream of collections (20), which are from supplied streams that each have one individual product type, can be formed and conveyed to further processing (3). Each collection (20) has a predetermined quantity of individual products (10). Faulty collections (20) containing a supply fault with regard to one or several individual products are not processed separately but are regarded as faultless collections (20) under certain conditions. Accordingly, faulty collections are advantageously not conveyed to a fault corrective action until a quota of the faulty collections exceeds a predetermined reference limit.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns the area of conveying and handling objects, in particular printed objects and supplements. It relates to a method, a computer program system and a control system for the control of an installation for the gathering of flexible individual products.
2. Description of the Related Art
When products are collated in the printing industry, a pre-determined selection of products is gathered in a collection and this collection is further processed. Therein employed are e.g. gatherer-stitchers for periodicals, inserting drums for newspapers and other gathering machines for bookbinding. A collection comprises e.g. the following individual products: a periodical, several advertising brochures, a flatpack toy supplement, and a personalized address sheet. In the subsequent processing the collection is e.g. foil wrapped.
The individual products or part products are typically flexible, flat and/or thin, and are directed by associated means of supply into a gathering machine. There a collection is formed e.g. by superposing the individual products on to a clocked product stream. According to the state-of-the-art technology a faultless functioning of the means of supply is of great importance, ensuring that every collection comprises the correct composition, i.e. receives all the required part products. To warrant this, e.g. a particular means of supply is monitored to ascertain its correct functioning, in particular whether it actually puts an individual product into the collection at a specified clock speed. If this is not the case, the incomplete collection is discharged or segregated, in other words removed, rejected or released, prior to further processing. If several individual products repeatedly fail to be supplied, the gathering machine may be switched off or reset. Alternatively, a primary means of supply with important or critical individual products can be provided with a backup means of supply, which inserts the missing individual product during the temporary failure of the primary means of supply. Thus a high quality of collection is guaranteed, this however requires a large expenditure of machinery, the production is slowed down, or requires a laborious process of processing the segregated collections.
In the case of non-critical individual products such a control may not be necessary. Thereby it is accepted, however, that one or several individual products are missing in an unknown or uncontrollable quantity of collections.

Control of an installation for gathering flexible products


Disclosed is a method and composition for nutritionally improving glucose and insulin balance in an individual. The invention further provides a method for treating a comorbidity of diabetes. In one embodiment, the invention provides a nutritional formulation comprising: a protein source; a fat source; and a carbohydrate source, wherein the protein source, the fat source, and the carbohydrate source are in a ratio of about 1:1:1, each comprising about one third of the total calories of the composition.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to nutrition and more particularly to a method and nutritional composition for improving glucose and insulin balance in an individual. In one embodiment, the invention provides a nutritional composition having a carbohydrate:fat:protein ratio of about 1:1:1, useful in the treatment of a disease or condition associated with diabetes, such as cardiovascular disease or metabolic syndrome.
2. Related Art
Obesity and Type 2 diabetes mellitus incidence in the US has increased dramatically in the past 3 decades, and especially the past decade. Incidence of Type 2 diabetes, and co-morbidities, such as cardiovascular disease, has increased in direct relation to obesity. The epidemic of these chronic diseases has led to an emphasis on dietary management of obesity and insulin resistance. Intentional weight loss markedly reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular risks. Alternative diets such as "Atkins" or "Ornish" have become increasingly popular over the last couple of decades. These diets focus on extremes of fat or carbohydrate (high fat or high carbohydrate diets).
A very low carbohydrate diet, such as Atkins, is currently popular as a weight loss diet. However, there is no consensus on the levels of carbohydrates, protein and fat in the diet that is optimal for weight management and insulin sensitivity. Few recent studies suggest that high fat/high protein ketogenic diets favor significant weight loss. But, it is not clear whether high protein or high fat or low carbohydrate, or a combination of these factors, in these diets are responsible for the observed metabolic effects. Thus, the effect of macronutrient composition of diet on adiposity and insulin resistance is still unclear.
Macronutrient balance may be a critical factor. High fat diets generally, according to current literature, induced obesity and adiposity in males and females. High-fat diets and high-carbohydrate ad lib diets in females have been shown to impair insulin sensitivity. Also, high carbohydrate diets markedly elevate liver weights, liver triglycerides and liver esterified cholesterol (EC).
Human studies have reported more weight loss with low carbohydrate diets compared to low fat diets. The low carbohydrate diets included foods high in fat and protein resulting in high fat/high protein content. This suggests that the ratio of dietary fat to protein may be a critical factor in regulating energy balance, adipose mass and weight gain. High carbohydrate diets result in the lowest weight gain when caloric intake was restricted to that of high fat/high protein diet. Glucose metabolism and oxidation has been found to be more efficiently up-regulated according to dietary carbohydrate intake. However, high carbohydrate diets have been reported to increase hepatic lipogenesis and reduce fatty acid oxidation and lipolysis, leading to weight gain, likely due to excess caloric intake as carbohydrate.
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; 1988-94) and Carbohydrate Intake On Obesity (Yang et al. 2003, AJCN 77: 1426) in FIGS. 1-2 shows that high-carbohydrate intake leads to lower insulin secretion. This is accomplished without significant change in the levels of HbA1c, fasting serum glucose, and insulin. This has been interpreted in the literature as insulin is more efficient as carbohydrate increases.
Further, Yang shows that high-fat+high-protein intake leads to higher energy intake, greater BMI, and greater insulin secretion with main shifts occurring at approximately >30% fat (negative impact) and >15% protein (positive impact).
Dansinger, M. et al (JAMA 2005; 293:45-53) compared Atkins Diet (low carbohydrate), Zone Diet (30:30:40 ratio of calories from proteins, fats and carbohydrates), Weight Watchers (low calories, low fat diet) and Ornish (high carbohydrate, low fat). The results showed that at 12 weeks, Ornish, Zone and Weight Watchers all had greater weight loss than Atkins (FIG. 3).
A sample Atkins and Ornish ratio is illustrated in FIG. 4. FIGS. 5-6 illustrate the effect of these diets on weight gain in Diet Induced Obesity (DIO) mice and insulin tolerance on male ApoE-mice.

Composition for nutritionally improving glucose control and insulin action


Documents bearing a thin reflective extruded security stripe comprising a leafing aluminum pigment having a gloss characteristic of from 20 to 24 as measured on a Gardner/BYK Microglass meter at a 60.degree. angle. A water soluble dye may be incorporated in the stripe. A method of making the document and a dye containing leafing aluminum pigment for extrusion on the document are also disclosed.

Airlines and others continue to seek improved techniques for securing their tickets against counterfeiting and against fraudulent duplication and alteration. Because tickets can have substantial values, tickets remain a target for potential counterfeiters and forgers.
Accordingly, features which can be added to documents such as ticket stock and tickets which will prevent or deter their fraudulent alteration and counterfeiting or which will swiftly and easily indicate that forgery or counterfeiting may have occurred regarding such documents are important potential additions to such documents. That is particularly so if the features are of a relatively low cost, do not require special equipment to be associated with their use, do not alter the documents in ways which will interfere with the equipment with which they are normally used, and which can be employed with documents such as tickets which are otherwise conventional.

Tickets with extruded security stripe and method of making same


The method for implementing transmitting diversity includes receiving a symbol from a destination mobile terminal, by a mobile terminal which is in the same mobile terminal group with the destination mobile terminal, wherein the symbol is also sent from the destination mobile terminal to a base station; and processing, by the mobile terminal, the symbol and transmitting the symbol processed to the base station. The method for implementing receiving diversity includes receiving, by a mobile terminal, a symbol from a base station; finding a destination mobile terminal which is in the same mobile terminal group with the mobile terminal if the mobile terminal is not the destination of the symbol; and forwarding the symbol to the destination mobile terminal. Embodiments of the present invention solve the problem of excessive size of a mobile terminal used for implementing transmitting diversity and receiving diversity, and also reduces bit error rate (BER).

The demand for a better communication quality and a higher transmission rate is brought forward by a future radio communication system, and a Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) system with multiple antennas is extensively expected for its better channel capacity. A diversity technique is of a special importance among massive techniques which are researched and applied to the MIMO system. According to the diversity technique, a signal in a wireless network is transmitted or received via multiple antennas so as to prevent a system loss; here the system loss is caused by a deep channel fading from which the signal suffers. The application of the diversity technique is based on communication channels independent of each other. Generally speaking, two spatial channels provided by two antennas are considered to be independent of each other when the distance between the two antennas is greater than half of a wavelength adopted. For example, in wireless LAN series standards which are compatible with the Bluetooth technology, some standards may require that two antennas are more than 7 cm away from each other to ensure that the spatial channels provided by the antennas are independent of each other, while other standards may require that the two antennas are more than 2.8 m away from each other. It can be concluded that, since multiple antennas cannot be installed into sufficient space in a mobile terminal to ensure the independence of multiple communication channels due to the volume limitation of the mobile terminal, a receive diversity technique on the downlink and a transmitting diversity technique in uplink cannot be implemented.
In a conventional method, a virtual multiple antenna system consisting of a plurality of mobile terminals is capable of improving spectrum efficiency in the radio communication system. In the virtual multiple antenna system, a plurality of mobile terminals are regarded as one transmission device. In uplink, signals are transmitted to a base station which may isolate the signals from each mobile terminal by using decoding principles in a spatial multiplex technique.
For example, in uplink of the radio communication system, there are two mobile terminals and a base station, the two mobile terminals can be regarded as a transmission devices capable of transmitting signals to the base station with the antennas of the mobile terminals. The base station receives a data stream which is combined by two independent data streams. It can be seen that the virtual multiple antenna transmission device adopts a spatial multiplexing technique.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a virtual multiple antenna system, in which Mobile Terminal 1 transmits signals to a base station via an antenna while Mobile Terminal 2 also transmits signals to the base station via its antenna. In such case, the whole uplink can be regarded as a virtual multiple antenna transmission system which equals a transmitter with two antennas capable of transmitting signals to the base station, and the base station receives two independent data streams.
However, the above scheme is just applicable to the transmission of uplink and unable to be used in the transmission of downlink, that is to say, the virtual multiple antenna system is just able to implement transmitting diversity but unable to implement receiving diversity.
In addition, the spatial multiplexing technique used in the scheme is unable to get a low system Bit Error Rate (BER) while improving spectrum efficiency. Since the signals received in the scheme are the combination of signals transmitted by a plurality of mobile terminals, the interference among the signals transmitted by a plurality of mobile terminals imposes on the virtual multiple antenna system a BER higher than the BER in a single antenna system. Even though the maximum likelihood (ML) criteria detection which is the most effective error detection method is adopted in the receiver, the BER of the virtual multiple antenna system is still relatively high.

Method and system for implementing transmitting diversity and receiving diversity


Disclosed are methods for the determination of virulence determinants in bacteria and in particular bacteria of the genus Mycobacterium. Also disclosed are compositions and methods for stimulating an immune response in an animal using bacteria and virulence determinants identified by the methods of the present invention.

Paratuberculosis (Johne's disease) is an incurable, fatal disease of domestic and wild ruminants. Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (M. paratuberculosis) is the etiologic agent of this disease. Mycobacterium avium (M. avium) and M. paratuberculosis are slow-growing faculative intracellular mycobacteria able to grow in mononuclear phagocytes. DNA-DNA hybridization studies have shown that these micro-organisms belong to a single genomic species (Hurley et al., Intl. J. Syst. Bacteriol., 38:143-146, 1988), and it has been proposed to reclassify M. paratuberculosis as a subspecies of M. avium (Thorel et al., Intl. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 40:254-260, 1990). Furthermore, all M. paratuberculosis strains are characterized by the presence of the insertion sequence IS900 (Green et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 17:9063-9073, 1989), which is absent from most M. avium strains. Phenotypic differences between M. avium and M. paratuberculosis, such as mycobactin requirement, ability to grow on egg medium, growth stimulation by pyruvate, and tolerance to cycloserine correlate with variations in pathogenicity and host range (Thorel et al., Intl. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 40:254-260, 1990).
Johne's disease is manifested by chronic diarrhea and weight loss. After months of diarrhea and wasting, the affected animals either die or are culled. In the United States, the prevalence of M. paratuberculosis infection in dairy and beef cattle herds has reached 34% in certain areas (Collins et al., J. Am. Vet. Med. Assn. 187:323-329, 1992; Collins et al., J. Am. Vet. Med. Assn. 204:636-641, 1994) and results in millions of dollars in lost revenues annually. Furthermore, M. paratuberculosis has been tentatively linked to Crohn's disease, a chronic granulomatous ileitis in humans. Evidence supporting the possibility that M. paratuberculosis is the etiologic agent of Crohn's disease includes culture of M. paratuberculosis is from intestinal tissue, and amplification by PCR of the subspecies-specific IS900 sequence of M. paratuberculosis from biopsy specimens.
Natural infection in cattle is usually acquired in the first months of life. The age of onset of clinical Johne's disease varies, being most frequent during or after the second lactation in dairy cattle. The prolonged incubation time and the difficulty in diagnosing subclinical cases facilitate the insidious spread of the infection within a herd. Bacteriologic culture is the most definitive diagnostic method, but requires substantial time and labor (Stabel, J. Vet. Diag. Invest., 9:375-380, 1997), and it is unable to detect infected animals that do not shed acid-fast bacilli. Progress has been made by combining fecal culture, PCR detection (IS900), and tests for humoral (ELISA) or cellular immunity (IFN-γ test) (Collins, Proceedings of the Fifth Intl. Colloq. Paratuberculosis, Chiodini et al., eds., Intl. Assn. for Paratuberculosis, 1997, pp. 232-241.). More recently, a gene unique to M. paratuberculosis (hspX) was identified and has promise as a new diagnostic tool (Ellingson et al., Mol. Cell Probes 12:133-142, 1998).
Currently, treatment of paratuberculosis in cattle is limited to the extra label use of therapeutic agents (St.-Jean et al., Vet. Clin. N. Am. Food Anim. Pract., 7:793-804, 1991; St.-Jean, Vet. Clin. N. Am. Food Anim. Pract., 12:417-430, 1996), and no antibiotic treatment is recommended for clinical cases of Crohn's disease. Even with a prolonged drug regimen paratuberculosis in cattle is invariably fatal.
Little is known about M. paratuberculosis immunogens and virulence determinants (Cocito et al., Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 7:328-345, 1994). Lipoarabinoman (Sugden et al., J. Clin. Microbiol., 29:1659-1664, 1991), glycopeptidolipid 1 (Camphausen et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 82:3068-3072, 1985), and 35 kDa (p35) antigen (El Zaatari et al., J. Clin. Microbiol., 35:1794-1799, 1997) are three major immunogens. Antigen p35 was recognized by sera from all clinically diseased cattle and by fifteen out of twenty cattle with subclinical diseases. This antigen, however, is not specific for paratuberculosis, since it is widely present in other strains of the M. avium complex. Several protein antigens have been identified by two-dimensional immunoelectrophoresis with hyperimmune sera, but only a subset of these antigens are recognized by sera from animals with paratuberculosis (Gunnarsson and Fedstand, Acta Vet. Scand. 20:200-215, 1979). Comparison of the two-dimensional gel electrophoretic profiles of M. paratuberculosis and M. avium cells grown in Middlebrook 7H9 medium followed by Western blot analysis, using antiserum from clinically infected cows, revealed a 42 kDa protein which may be specific for M. paratuberculosis (White et al., Am. J. Vet. Res., 55:1399-1405, 1994). Using the same methodology, AHPC gene products were identified that may be antigenic (Hsieh et al., Proceed. Fifth Intl. Colloq. Paratuberculosis, Chiodini et al., eds., 1997, pp. 82-87).
M. paratuberculosis antigens that have been cloned include the heat shock proteins HSP65 and HSP70, the transposase form IS900, a putative serine protease, bacterioferritin, the 34 kDa antigen bearing major B cell epitopes (reviewed by Stevenson and Sharp, Vet. J. 153:269-286, 1997), and more recently, the 35 kDa antigen (El Zaatari et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 35:1794-1799, 1997) and the fled protein from IS900 (Doran et al., Microbiol. 143:547-552, 1997). In addition, a novel extracellular ferric reductase enzyme activity with a potential role in the evasion of intracellular defense mechanisms has been identified (Homuth et al. Infect. Immun., 66:710-716, 1998). Secreted proteins of M. paratuberculosis have received attention as potential immune targets early in infection. Some of these proteins are present as glyconjugates and different epitopes in the glycosylated and non-glycosylated moieties seem to be recognized in cattle and sheep (Mutharia et al, Infect. Immun. 65:387-394, 1997).
Diagnosis and control of paratuberculosis presents a significant challenge. Although vaccination does reduce clinical signs of Johne's disease, it does not prevent losses in milk production (van Schaik et al., Vet. Rec., 139:624-627, 1996). Improved vaccines and diagnostic tools are urgently needed. Likewise faster, specific, and more accurate and sensitive diagnostics need to be developed, especially to detect animals in the early stages of the disease. These tools preferably should also be able to discriminate between vaccinated and infected animals.
Identification of M. paratuberculosis virulence determinants is a critical step in developing suitable methods of diagnosis and control, and requires a systematic method by which virulence determinants can be found. U.S. Pat. No. 5,783,386 to Jacobs et al. describes a method for identifying virulence determinants of mycobacterial species involving the preparation of a genomic DNA library and constructing shuttle vectors containing inserts from the library constructed. These vectors are then used to transform a virulent organisms to form recombinants. Virulence determinants are identified by inoculating animals with the transformed recombinant organisms to select virulent recombinants and then identifying the DNA sequences that confer virulence. Cavaignac, et al. (Arch. Microbial. 173:229-231, 2000) studied virulence mechanisms in M. paratuberculosis by the introduction of random mutants using transposon mutagenesis. Two thousand mutants were screened on the basis of auxotrophy and altered cell wall. Pelicic et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,096,549) disclose a method for inserting a transposon into a mycobacterium strain using a vector containing the sacB gene. Use of this vector to identify virulence determinants is also disclosed. The present disclosure teaches an alternative method utilizing transposon mediated mutation and positive selection of mutants by antimicrobial agents that kill growing mycobacteria.

Method for identification of virulence determinants

Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for assigning levels of priority to selected source code functions. One of the methods includes for each selected function, a respective associated first set of functions reachable from the selected function by at most N steps, and a respective associated second set of functions that are each reachable from the selected function by more than N steps and less than M steps are computed. A first partition having all selected functions whose respective associated first set of functions has at least one of the subject functions is computed. A second partition having selected functions not in the first partition and whose respective associated second set of functions has at least one of the subject functions is computed. Selected functions belonging to the first partition are assigned a higher priority than selected functions belonging to the second partition.

This specification relates to testing source code.
Source code is typically maintained by developers in a code base of source code using a version control system. Version control systems generally maintain multiple revisions of the source code in the code base, each revision being referred to as a snapshot. Each snapshot includes the source code of files of the code base as the files existed at a particular point in time.
Snapshots stored in a version control system can be represented as a directed, acyclical revision graph. Each node in the revision graph represents a commit of the source code. A commit represents a snapshot as well as other pertinent information about the snapshot such as the author of the snapshot, and data about ancestor commits of the node in the revision graph. A directed edge from a first node to a second node in the revision graph indicates that a commit represented by the first node is a previous commit than a commit represented by the second node, and that no intervening commits exist in the version control system.
A common approach to software testing is to require that a commit passes a suite of testing functions before the snapshot is merged into the code base. For large software projects with comprehensive test suites, running tests can take many hours. In many cases, a single test failure is sufficient to bar a commit from merging. Thus, when a test fails, all the time spent running the previous tests was time wasted. In other words, if the failing test had been run first, none of the other tests would have been required to run.


An electronic part mounting substrate has a ceramic substrate, a metal member bonded to one side of the ceramic substrate, a metal plate of aluminum or an aluminum alloy, one side of the metal plate being bonded directly to the other side of the ceramic substrate, and an electronic part bonded directly to the other side of the metal plate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electronic part mounting substrate and a method for producing the same. More specifically, the invention relates to an electronic part mounting substrate wherein an electronic part, such as a semiconductor chip, is mounted on a metal/ceramic bonding substrate, and a method for producing the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, power modules are used for controlling heavy-current for electric vehicles, electric railcars, machine tools and so forth. In a conventional power module, a metal/ceramic insulating substrate is fixed to one side of a metal plate or compound material called base plate by soldering, and a semiconductor chip is fixed to the metal/ceramic insulating substrate by soldering. On the other side (reverse) of the base plate, a radiating fin or cooling jacket of a metal is mounted via a thermal conduction grease by means of screws.
Since the soldering of the base plate and semiconductor chip to the metal/ceramic insulating substrate is carried out by heating, the base plate is easy to warp due to the difference in coefficient of thermal expansion between bonding members during soldering. Heat generated from the semiconductor chip passes through the metal/ceramic insulating substrate, solder and base plate to be radiated from the radiating fin or cooling jacket to air or cooling water. Therefore, if the base plate warps during soldering, clearance increases when the radiating fin or cooling jacket is mounted on the base plate, so that there is a problem in that heat sink characteristics extremely deteriorate. Moreover, since the thermal conductivity of the solder itself is low, power modules for heavy-current are desired to have more improved heat sink characteristics.
In order to solve such a problem, there is proposed a metal/ceramic circuit board wherein a base plate of aluminum or an aluminum alloy is bonded directly to a ceramic substrate without soldering the base plate to the ceramic substrate (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-76551).
In the metal/ceramic circuit board disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-76551, it is not required to solder the base plate to the metal/ceramic insulating substrate, so that thermal conductivity is improved therebetween. However, it remains being required to solder a semiconductor chip to the metal/ceramic circuit board.
In recent years, it is desired to use lead-free solders. Thus, it is also desired to use a lead-free solder when an electronic part, such as a semiconductor chip, is mounted, by soldering, on the metal/ceramic circuit board disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-76551. However, if a high-temperature solder must be used for soldering the part, it is difficult to use a lead-free solder since an alternative lead-free material having characteristics equal to or better than those of conventional high-temperature solders has not been developed.
If an electronic part, such as a semiconductor chip, is fixed by means of a solder, heat sink characteristics are insufficient since the thermal conductivity of the solder is insufficient. In addition, voids are easily produced, so that there are some cases where heat sink characteristics and reliability deteriorate. Moreover, there are some cases where it is required to improve solder wettability by plating a metal plate before the electronic part is mounted on the metal plate by soldering, so that production costs increase.

Electronic part mounting substrate and method for producing same


An antenna supplied with power by a coaxial line including an inner conductor, an outer conductor, and a dielectric provided between the inner conductor and the outer conductor is disclosed. The antenna includes an antenna part including a first conductor and a second conductor, the second conductor including a conical shape having an apex thereof opposing the first conductor; and a transition area having an effective dielectric constant different from the dielectric constant of the dielectric in the coaxial line, the transition area being provided in the end part of the coaxial line connected to the antenna.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to antennas, and more particularly to an antenna omnidirectional in a horizontal plane usable for mobile communications equipment, small-size information terminals, and other radio equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Monopole antennas and discone antennas are known as antennas that are omnidirectional in a horizontal plane (hereinafter also referred to as "horizontal-plane omnidirectional antennas") formed of a conductive base plate and a radiating element.
FIG. 1 is a side view of a conventional monopole antenna 100. Referring to FIG. 1, a coaxial connector 120 is attached to a disk conductor 110 from its lower side so that a center conductor 130 of the coaxial connector 120 extends upward, being isolated from the disk conductor 110. The length h of the radiating element of the monopole antenna 100 is required to be approximately a quarter of the wavelength of an electromagnetic wave of the lowest resonance frequency. At this point, the detailed size of the radiating element is determined depending on the impedance characteristics.
FIG. 2 is a side view of a conventional discone antenna 200. The discone antenna 200 is structured by shaping the center conductor 130 of the monopole antenna 100 like a cone. This shape may also be considered as the one formed by shaping one of the conical conductors of a biconical antenna like a disk. The discone antenna 200 has a conical conductor 210, whose diameter is indicated by d in FIG. 2.
An ideal discone antenna is infinite in size, and is not frequency-dependent. However, in a discone antenna having finite size, the upper limit of its operating wavelength is restricted to approximately four times the length h of the radiating element.
A case where the bandwidth is increased and a case where lower frequencies are covered in the horizontal-plane omnidirectional antenna formed of a conductive base plate and a radiating element as described above are shown below.
FIGS. 3A and 3B are a perspective view and a side view, respectively, of a first conventional antenna 300. As shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, the antenna 300 includes a skirt part 310 and a top load part 320. The skirt part 310 includes a conical base body 311 and a spiral conductive element 312 formed along the exterior surface of the conical base body 311. The top load part 320 includes a flat base body 321 disposed in the vicinity of the apex part of the skirt part 310 and a meandering conductive element 322 formed on the surface of the flat base body 321.
In this antenna 300, the bandwidth is increased because the meandering conductive element 322 formed on the flat base body 321 has a relatively broad belt-like form and because multiple meandering lines make it possible to achieve multiple resonance. Further, the spiral conductive element 312 formed on the skirt part 310 make it possible to achieve electrical length longer than it appears. Accordingly, the antenna 300 can be reduced in size compared with the conventional discone antenna 200 (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-083238).
FIGS. 4A and 4B are a side view and a plan view, respectively, of a second conventional antenna 400. As shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B, the antenna 400 includes a conductor 410 having an outer shape like a semioval body of revolution and a flat base plate 420. In the antenna 400, the bandwidth is increased and the size is reduced by shaping the radiating element like a semioval body of revolution or a hemisphere (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-153727).
However, according to the first conventional antenna 300 (FIGS. 3A and 3B), it is necessary to form a meandering or spiral conductor pattern on the base body 321, and the conductor pattern density should be increased with an increase in the bandwidth, thus resulting in a complicated structure.
On the other hand, according to the second conventional antenna 400 using the flat base plate 420 (FIGS. 4A and 4B), a frequency band in which the antenna 400 is usable is subject to the dimensional elements of the radiating element. Accordingly, the antenna 400 should be increased in size in order to make it usable at lower frequencies.


A method and apparatus for modifying a sprite containing a cutout feature for compositing with a background image modifies colors of pixels in the sprite according to their distances from the edge of the cutout feature to achieve desired visual effects such as edge softening. A distance mask for the sprite is generated which stores distance values representing distances of corresponding pixels in the sprite from the edge of the cutout feature. The distance mask can be efficiently generated by a chamfering technique. A clamping function is applied to the distance mask to determine scaling values for the respective pixels in the sprite. A modified sprite is constructed from the original sprite by modifying the colors of the pixels of the input sprite according to their respective scaling values. The modified sprite is then composited with the backgorund image to form a composite image.

Interactive computer graphics is the most important means of producing pictures since the invention of photography and television. With the aid of a computer, digital graphic images can be edited to create a variety of effects not easily obtainable with conventional graphic editing techniques.
A very common and powerful digital graphic editing operation is compositing, which involves overlaying a cutout feature on a background image to form a composite image. In order to blend the cutout feature with the background image, it is often desirable to soften the edge of the cutout feature to provide a smooth transition between the cutout feature and the background image. For images stored in the RGB.alpha. format, edge softening is often achieved by modifying the alpha values (which indicate degrees of transparency or opacity) of pixels of the cutout feature near its edge to make those pixels more transparent. As a result, the background image pixels under the cutout feature become partially visible, thereby creating a visual effect of a softened edge of the cutout feature.
The alpha value modification for edge softening is typically performed by blurring the alpha mask associated with the cutout feature around the edge of the cutout feature. The blurring operation involves a convolving process which uses a blur mask with a pre-selected blurring width. Because the convolving process involves many pixels, edge softening by blurring is calculation-intensive and is therefore relatively slow. The slow response makes iterative graphic editing a time consuming process and thus impacts negatively on the interactive aspect of the computer graphic editing application. If the user is not satisfied with the result of edge softening with a previously selected blurring width and wants to try a different blurring width, another complete convolving operation has to be performed. Due to the long computational time required for convolving, the resultant composite image may not be ready for viewing in real time.

Method and apparatus for modifying a cutout image for compositing


Computer method and apparatus for managing traceability of a software program are disclosed. Given a subject software program, the invention method/apparatus provides a respective history log for each artifact of the program. The invention method/apparatus records in the respective history log changes made to an artifact of the subject software program. During a change being made to the artifact, a processor routine determines from the respective history log related artifacts. An indication of the determined related artifacts is displayed to a user as impact analysis results.

Software development is typically performed as group projects. A subject software system is developed through design efforts, test efforts, implementation efforts and maintenance efforts. There may be different groups and different group members participating in each of these efforts. Throughout these efforts and among the work group members, various modeling and other development tools are used for increased communication and consistency in developing the subject software system. A software traceability management system is one such tool.
When a software development artifact is modified, the developer would like to know what other artifacts need to be modified in order for the subject system to remain consistent. An "artifact" is the persistent result of work done by a user, typically persisted in a file system such as a model and source code. Being able to perform impact analysis before changing an artifact has been a longstanding (but elusive) need in software development for years. One of the main issues is managing change to software/system requirements. Without the ability to perform impact analysis, artifacts produced as part of the development process drift apart and become inconsistent. This leads to misunderstandings, wasted time, schedule slips and non-conformance to requirements. In short, failure to manage change leads to higher development costs.
For example, when two software artifacts are connected by a dependency traceability relationship, a change to the first artifact might require a change to the second artifact in order to maintain the semantics of that relationship. These dependence traceability relationships are an essential mechanism for determining impact analysis, i.e., determining what other artifacts need to be updated following a change to a given set of artifacts.
Traditional solutions attempt to solve the problem using manually created and maintained traceability links. Links are manual because the variety of artifact types spans domains: for example, requirements are human readable while code is written in a formal technical language. Complex software systems have hundreds, if not thousands of requirements, and there are many to many relationships between artifact types: requirements, needs, designs, tests, code, etc.
Past attempts to create and maintain the traceability relationships fail because the cost to the development team outweighs the benefit. Maintaining traceability links is an arduous task even for a relatively small development effort and this is one of the main reasons existing traceability solutions fail. There are many accounts that document this issue and the difficulty in solving it.

Activity-based software traceability management method and apparatus

International Business Machines Corporation


A low NOx combustion process and burner apparatus in which a mixture of a primary fuel and air, with the air in excess of the stoichiometric requirement, is passed to a surface burner element. The mixture is distributed over the downstream side of the element where it is combusted in a primary combustion zone. Secondary fuel is mixed with surface combustion products from the primary zone and then combusted in a secondary combustion zone with a portion of excess oxygen from the surface combustion products. In certain embodiments the temperature of surface combustion products is reduced by heat transfer to the surface burner element, and in another embodiment by heat transfer to a screen or other element placed within the primary combustion zone, from which the heat is then extracted to a load, and in another embodiment by mixing the additional fuel or combustion products with cooled furnace gases. In other embodiments the placement of the secondary fuel jets is varied to achieve different combustion results.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to burners for use in furnaces, boilers, fired heaters and other combustion apparatus for industrial applications. More particularly, the invention relates to low NOx burners and combustion processes for use in such applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
In surface burners, premixed fuel and air burn close to the surface of a porous matrix, fibrous matrix or channeled surface element, with radiative heat loss from the surface reducing the peak flame temperature and NOx. Examples of this type of surface burner are described in Morris U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,481 and Otto U.S. Pat. No. 5,077,089. Burners of this type are limited in their firing rates. As the firing rate is increased, the flame moves away from the surface and this decreases heat transfer back to the surface and thereby decreases radiative heat loss from the flame. Under these conditions, flame temperature and therefore NOx production increase. The limited surface firing rate needed to maintain low NOx limits the application of such burners. Recently, higher firing rate surface burners have been developed, such as described in Duret U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,372, but their NOx emissions are high. To maintain low NOx, these burners must be operated at high excess air, but that in turn reduces their fuel efficiency. The loss in efficiency results because higher excess air leads to higher flue heat losses for a given flue temperature. Secondary fuel injection is also known in the art for low NOx emissions, as for example Johnson U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,650.
The need has therefore been recognized for a low NOx burner and combustion process which obviates the foregoing and other limitations and disadvantages of prior art burners and processes. Despite the various burners and processes in the prior art, there has heretofore not been provided a suitable and attractive solution to these problems.

Combustion process and burner apparatus for controlling NOx emissions


A unique collapsible apparatus for supporting an article; the apparatus has at least a first, second, and third leg assembly, an upper end of each leg assembly pivotally secured to extend from an upper support member in a generally symmetrical fashion. A lower end of each leg assembly pivotally secured to extend from a lower support member (which may be in the shape of a collar). Each leg assembly has a unique hinge-fitting interconnecting a first and second elongated subassembly; a hinge-fitting may comprise a first and second extension pivotally enjoined. Each hinge-fitting permits a pivot range of rotation; preferably, this pivot range may be up to 90-degrees, up to 170-degrees, or just under 180-degrees. The elongated subassemblies may each be comprised of a plurality of telescoping tubular sections adapted for interlock. The telescoping tubular sections of an elongated subassembly may be sized for interchangeability with telescoping tubular sections of another elongated subassembly. Upper support member may have a plurality of fork extensions to which upper ends of the leg assemblies are pivotally secured. Upper support member may have an aperture for accepting an article, e.g., aperture will be sized to accept the periphery of the article. Lower collar support member may be adapted for accepting a lower-end of the article for placement on/in connection with a ground.

In general, the present invention relates to portable support stands, such as those used for supporting a camera, survey equipment, telescope, holiday trees, as well as printed sheet music stands—all of which utilize multiple legs (most often in a tripod style) to support a specifically identified article for which the stand has been designed. While many of the current stand designs provide a certain basic amount of stability, each of these stands is quite limited in that each is designed to support the item for which it was specifically designed. Furthermore, most all of these traditional stand designs cannot be set up on ground that is not planar and level; few of these conventional designs provide much, if any, support when a gust of wind or inclement weather hits (heavy wind, rain, etc.); and in most-every case, traditional stand designs are suitable for use to support a single article.
As one will readily appreciate in connection with the instant technical disclosure, applicant has designed a unique portable, collapsible, multi-purpose structure having at least three leg assemblies, each of which has an adjustable length that pivotally interconnects at least one upper support member with one lower support member, for use to support a wide variety of items/articles in a wide variety of environments. More-particularly applicant's invention is directed to a structure having multiple leg assemblies pivotally secured to extend from upper and lower support members. Each leg assembly is of a variable-length style, whereby at least first and second elongated subassemblies are paired and. interconnected by a hinge-fitting; at least one of the subassemblies being adjustable in length. The hinge-fitting mechanism is adapted to permit a pivot range, preferably this can be up to ˜90-degress to up to nearly 180 degrees of rotation, through which the hinge-fitting may be rotated to allow for handy adaptation to uneven ground (various configurations of the unique apparatus of the invention may be achieved) as well as for collapsing the structure to facilitate transport and storage between use. Each hinge-fitting mechanism is adapted with appropriate stabilizing, gripping/frictional, rolling-frictional, etc. means to aid in balance as well as positioning, or repositioning, of the structure in use. An upper-end of each leg assembly is pivotally secured to and extends from the upper support member in a symmetrical fashion; likewise, a lower-end of each leg assembly is symmetrically pivotally secured to extend from the lower support member.
One can readily appreciate the many fundamental distinguishing features of the instant invention from conventional tripod-type and unipod-type camera stands such as those distributed by Davis & Sanford; and taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,881 issued 8 Apr. 1980 to Davidson; U.S. Pat. No. 6,454,228 B1 issued 24 Sep. 2002 to Bosnakovic, "Portable Vertical Support;" and U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,135 B1 issued 23 Apr. 2002 to Eason, et al. entitled "High Strength Engineered Collapsible Tripod."

Multi-purpose upright support stand with leg assemblies having hinge-fitting


The present invention provides a reliable, high-repetition rate, production line compatible high energy photon source. A very hot plasma containing an active material is produced in vacuum chamber. The active material is an atomic element having an emission line within a desired extreme ultraviolet (EUV) range. A pulse power source comprising a charging capacitor and a magnetic compression circuit comprising a pulse transformer, provides electrical pulses having sufficient energy and electrical potential sufficient to produce the EUV light at an intermediate focus at rates in excess of 5 Watts. In preferred embodiments designed by Applicants in-band, EUV light energy at the intermediate focus is 45 Watts extendable to 105.8 Watts.

The semiconductor industry continues to develop lithographic technologies, which can print ever-smaller integrated circuit dimensions. These systems must have high reliability, cost effective throughput, and reasonable process latitude. The integrated circuit fabrication industry has recently changed over from mercury G-line (436 ram) and I-line (365 nm) exposure sources to 248 nm and 193 nm excimer laser sources. This transition was precipitated by the need for higher lithographic resolution with minimum loss in depth-of-focus.
The demands of the integrated circuit industry will soon exceed the resolution capabilities of 193 nm exposure sources, thus creating a need for a reliable exposure source at a wavelength significantly shorter than 193 nm. An excimer line exists at 157 nm, but optical materials with sufficient transmission at this wavelength and sufficiently high optical quality are difficult to obtain. Therefore, all-reflective imaging systems may be required. An all reflective optical system requires a smaller numerical aperture (NA) than the transmissive systems. The loss in resolution caused by the smaller NA can only be made up by reducing the wavelength by a large factor. Thus, a light source in the range of 10 to 20 nm is required if the resolution of optical lithography is to be improved beyond that achieved with 193 nm or 157 nm. Optical components for light at wavelengths below 157 nm are very limited. However, effective incidents reflectors are available and good reflectors multi-layer at near normal angles of incidence can be made for light in the wavelength range of between about 10 and 14 nm. (Light in this wavelength range is within a spectral range known as extreme ultraviolet light and some would light in this range, soft x-rays.) For these reasons there is a need for a good reliable light source at wavelengths in this range such as of about 13.5 nm.
The present state of the art in high energy ultraviolet and x-ray sources utilizes plasmas produced by bombarding various target materials with laser beams, electrons or other particles. Solid targets have been used, but the debris created by ablation of the solid target has detrimental effects on various components of a system intended for production line operation. A proposed solution to the debris problem is to use a frozen liquid or liquidfied or frozen gas target so that the debris will not plate out onto the optical equipment. However, none of these systems have so far proven to be practical for production line operation.
It has been well known for many years that x-rays and high energy ultraviolet radiation could be produced in a plasma pinch operation. In a plasma pinch an electric current is passed through a plasma in one of several possible configuration such that the magnetic field created by the flowing electric current accelerates the electrons and ions in the plasma into a tiny volume with sufficient energy to cause substantial stripping of outer electrons from the ions and a consequent production of x-rays and high energy ultraviolet radiation. Various prior art techniques for generation of high energy radiation from focusing or pinching plasmas are described in the background section of U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,199.
Typical prior art plasma focus devices can generate large amounts of radiation suitable for proximity x-ray lithography, but are limited in repetition rate due to large per pulse electrical energy requirements, and short lived internal components. The stored electrical energy requirements for these systems range from 1 kJ to 100 kJ. The repetition rates typically did not exceed a few pulses per second.
What is needed are production line reliable, systems for producing collecting and directing high energy ultraviolet x-radiation within desired wavelength ranges which can operate reliably at high repetition rates and avoid prior art problems associated with debris formation.


A casing hopper for sausage encasing machines includes a hopper having a downwardly sloping bottom terminating in a downwardly extending fence wall. A chute wall is substantially vertically disposed in parallel spaced condition to the fence wall to form a substantially vertical casing passageway with respect to the fence wall. The chute wall terminates in an inclined flange that extends upwardly and inwardly below the passageway to form a cradle portion to receive a single hollow casing from the passageway. The passageway is of sufficient width to receive a plurality of longitudinally vertically stacked elongated hollow casings.

Sausage linking machines form long strands of sausage links. The links are created by stuffing a cylindrical thin wall-casing with meat emulsion, and then portioning the filled casing to create the individual links. The casing material comes in the form of cylindrical sticks (called casings) that must be loaded into the sausage machines. When one casing is consumed, another must be loaded in its place. The casings are thirty feet or more in length but are compressed to a shirred telescopic condition so as to form a shirred casing of ten or twelve inches in length. When placed on a meat stuffing tube of the machine, the meat emulsion is extruded through a discharge end of the tube into the casing which is progressively slidably removed from the outer surface of the tube as it is progressively being penetrated by the stuffing tube and then sequentially filled with meat emulsion.
A clamping mechanism is typically used to release the shirred casings from the hopper into a position where they can be filled sequentially with meat emulsion.
A principal object of this invention is to provide an improved method and apparatus for loading casings onto the stuffing tube of a sausage making machine.
A further object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for loading the casings onto a stuffing tube of a sausage making machine without the use of clamps or the like.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for loading casings onto the stuffing tube of a sausage making machine to avoid any bridging of the casings in the hopper before they are in a position for being filled with meat emulsion.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a method and apparatus for loading casings onto the stuffing tube of a sausage making machine which is efficient and which is relatively free from maintenance.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Method and apparatus for loading casings onto the stuffing tube of a sausage making machine


An ejector mechanism for a card connector (1) is disclosed. The connector has an elongate housing (101) fixedly receiving a number of contacts (11). The housing has a bottom face for proximity to a PCB (3) on which the connector is mounted and a top face. The connector further includes a lower shielding (15) fixed to the bottom face, an upper shielding (13) fixed to the top face and a guiding frame (12) fixed to lateral ends of the housing for guiding a card into/out of the connector. The ejector mechanism has a push-rod reciprocally mounted on the guiding frame. The push-rod has a distal end (1211) with an L-shaped configuration defining a hole (1214) between a horizontal section (1213) and a vertical section (1212) thereof and a proximal end (1221) for receiving a push force. An ejector lever 1120 is pivotably mounted on the lower shielding member and has a force-receiving end (1121) bent away from the lower shielding member into the hole in the distal end of the push-rod. An ejector plate (1110) is reciprocally mounted on the ejector lever and drivably connected therewith whereby when the ejector lever is pivoted by pushing the proximal end of the push-rod toward the housing, the ejector plate moves away from the housing to eject a card inserted into the card connector.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ejector mechanism for a card bus connector, and particularly to an ejector mechanism having a connecting structure provided between a reciprocally mounted push-rod and a pivotably mounted ejector lever of a card bus connector.
2. The Prior Art
A card bus connector is usually equipped with an ejector mechanism for ejecting an inserted card. As shown in FIGS. 1A to 2, a conventional card bus connector 2 mounted on a printed circuit board 3 includes a housing 20, a guiding frame 21 for guiding a card (not shown) into/out of the connector 2, an ejector mechanism, an upper shielding member 30 attached to a top face of the housing 20, and a lower shielding member 40 attached to a bottom face of the housing 20. The upper shielding member 30 forms eight grounding tabs 32 for engaging with eight grounding contacts on the card inserted into the connector 2. The ejector mechanism consists of a push-rod 22 reciprocally mounted on a right arm of the frame 21 and having a distal end 222 and a proximal end 221 formed as a push-button for receiving a push force to activate the ejector mechanism, an ejector lever 23 pivotably mounted on the lower shielding member 40 and having a force-receiving end 232 horizontally extending through a slit 2221 defined in the distal end 222 of the push-rod 22, and an ejector plate 24 drivably connected with the ejector lever 23, whereby when the ejector lever 23 is pivoted by pushing the push-button 221 toward the housing 20, the ejector plate 24 moves in a direction away from the housing 20 to eject an inserted card.
Particularly referring to FIG. 2, the ejector mechanism of the conventional card connector 2 has the following disadvantages concerning the connecting portion between the push-rod 22 and the ejector lever 23.
To securely connect the ejector lever 23 and the push-rod 22 for avoiding a separation thereof after an extended period of use of the connector 2, the slit 2221 defined in the distal end 222 of the push-rod 22 should have a dimension only slightly larger than that of the force-receiving end 232 of the push-rod 23, whereby great care must be taken during assembly of the push-rod 22 to the ejector lever 23(resulting in low assembly efficiency.
Furthermore, as the ejector lever 23 is mounted on the lower shielding member 40, the force-receiving end 232 thereof is extended slightly above the PCB. In this situation, a bottom edge 224 of the distal end 222 of the push-rod 22 must extend downward very close to the PCB 3 in order to provide a sufficient area to form the slit 2221 large enough to receive the force-receiving end 232 of the ejector lever 23. Since the bottom edge 224 of the distal end 222 of the push-rod 22 is very close to the PCB, a standoff must be provided on the bottom of the connector 2 to space it from the PCB 3; otherwise, the bottom edge 224 of the distal end 222 of the push-rod 22 will scratch the circuit (not shown) on the PCB 3 and cause breakage thereof after the push-rod 22 has been reciprocally moved. However, a standoff provided to space the connector 2 from the PCB 3 will increase the occupied space of the connector 2, which is unfavorable in view of the compact design of computer components.
Taiwan Patent Application No. 84210016 discloses a card bus connector wherein the distal end of the push-rod defines a notch in a middle portion thereof, and the force-receiving end of the ejector lever is bent upward to be retentively received in the notch. Although such a design does not scratch the PCB since the bottom edge is formed at a higher position, the distal end of the push-rod and the force-receiving end of the ejector lever still cannot be easily connected.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,421,737, 5,456,610, 5,324,204 and 5,443,395 disclose card connectors having ejector mechanisms with push-rods connected to ejector levers. Although these patents are not particularly related card bus connectors, they form the background art for the present invention.
Hence, an improved ejector mechanism for a card bus connector is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of current card bus connectors.

Ejector mechanism for card bus connector


Latex copolymers of vinyl halide and vinylidene halide reacted in the presence of a polymeric surfactant are advantageously employed as binders in waterborne stains and other coating compositions. Monomers from which the latex is polymerized may additionally include acrylates, vinyl esters, and/or unsaturated epoxies.

This invention relates to latex polymers and compositions incorporating such latices adapted for staining and/or sealing porous substrates such as wood.
Reduction of the amounts of organic solvents in coating compositions has been a desirable objective for the sake of reducing the amount of volatile organics released into the atmosphere. Therefore, waterborne coating compositions have come into widespread use. Waterborne stains have also been proposed (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,432,797 and 4,976,782), but providing acceptable performance with a waterborne stain has generally been hampered by the tendency of water to raise the grain of the wood to which a waterborne stain is applied. Another problem is that in some cases the water soluble dyes that are used in waterborne stains can be redissolved by subsequently applied waterborne coatings.
In order to provide a barrier to hold out subsequently applied coatings, it is desirable for the stain to include a resin that at least partially seals the wood surface. Resins proposed for this purpose include aqueous polyvinyl chloride latex (e.g., "GEON" from B. F. Goodrich Co.), but they are not as satisfactory as would be desired because they require relatively high levels of organic solvent to aid coalescence of the latex particles to form a film, thereby limiting the reduction in volatile organic content. A further disadvantage is that the water-miscible organic solvents that are included for the sake of coalescence tend to increase penetration of the water into the wood, thereby worsening grain raising. Additionally, the prior art vinyl latex tends to be milky in appearance initially after spraying onto a substrate, which is undesirable because the applicator cannot observe the effect of the composition on the substrate so as to correct any deficiencies. The inclusion of ammonia or amines in prior art waterborne compositions is also believed to worsen the grain raising problem.
Additional features that are desirable in a stain composition include application properties such as low drag and workability, i.e., the ability to wipe the stain for a period of time before drying. One prior art approach to reduce grain raise is to increase the amount of pigment in the stain composition, but this tends to speed the drying rate, thereby undesirably decreasing the working time. It is known that the drying rate can be retarded by adding an oil to the composition, but the oil can have a negative effect on adhesion.

Latices and waterborne compositions for wood stains, sealers, and the like


An analysis filter bank corresponding to a plurality of sub-bands, comprising: multiple sub-filters with different center frequencies which perform multiple complex-type first-order infinite impulse response filtering operations on an audio input signal to generate multiple sub-filter signals; a first set of binomial combiners, each of which performs a weighted-sum operation on a first number of the sub-filter signals with a first set of binomial weights to generate one of multiple sub-band signals; a second set of binomial combiners, each of which performs a weighted-sum operation on a second number of the sub-filter signals with a second set of binomial weights to generate one of multiple lower sub-band-edge signals or one of multiple higher sub-band-edge signals; and multiple envelope detection with decimation devices, which perform multiple envelope detection with decimation operations on the sub-band signals, the lower sub-band-edge signals, and the higher sub-band-edge signals to generate multiple fine spectrums.

Frequency shifting is a common type of audio processing, which shifts each frequency component of an audio input signal by a specified amount of frequency shifting (hereinafter referred to as shift amount) to implement specific functions/applications, such as the key shifting or the pitch shifting of the speech and music signals, or the frequency lowering of an audio signal or part of the frequency bands thereof to increase the audibility or speech intelligibility. The concept of the frequency shifting can be illustrated by a typical input-output frequency mapping characteristic in FIG. 1 (hereinafter referred to as frequency shifting characteristic and abbreviated as FSC; in FIG. 1, ½fSAM denotes one half of the sampling rate of the audio input signal fSAM, which is the highest frequency of the digitized audio and referred to as Nyquist frequency). If a frequency shifting system shifts each frequency component of the audio input signal by a shift amount in proportion to the center frequency of the frequency component, the system possesses a linear FSC. Conventional speech/music pitch shifting or vocoder operations belong to this category. If a frequency shifting system shifts each frequency component of the audio input signal by a shift amount non-proportionally with the center frequency of the frequency component, the system possesses a non-linear type FSC. Such design is widely applied in hearing aids or hearing assistive devices. Because most hearing-impaired listeners suffer from high-frequency hearing loss, the frequency shifting with a non-linear type FSC may help part of the hearing-impaired listeners perceiving the high-frequency information without changing the pitch of the speech signal. However, due to the destruction on the harmonicity relationship of the sound components, the frequency shifting with a non-linear type FSC is not preferable for music processing. In addition, to support different types of applications, more flexibility on the FSC should be considered, for example, it can be set as a many-to-one mapping characteristic (i.e., a non-monotonic characteristic suitable for a listener with a narrow audible frequency range), one-to-many mapping characteristic (i.e., shifting multiple replicas of a frequency component to different frequencies), or can be even dynamically changed depending on the type of the audio input, these belongs to the design variants with modified FSCs.
To date, there are a variety of well-known frequency shifting algorithms that support the aforementioned FSCs, such as: performing frequency transposition in a frequency range on a time-domain audio waveform (refer to Reference 1), adjusting an audio waveform by performing the synchronized overlap-add (SOLA) method or its variants followed with a resampling operation (refer to Reference 2), transforming an audio waveform to spectrums and performing the phase vocoder algorithm or its variants (refer to Reference 3), and performing frequency-division filtering (i.e., performing multiple filter processing different in center frequency to separate the audio components of different frequencies) on an audio waveform for the Rollers frequency shifting algorithm (refer to Reference 4) and so on. These algorithms are different in multiple aspects. They are suitable for different signal processing architectures (e.g. time-domain processing or frequency-domain processing). Each of them introduces different types of artifacts. Each of them faces different restrictions, such as the applicability of on-line and off-line applications, the applicability of processing monophonic and polyphonic audio, the FSC type support (e.g. linear FSC, non-linear type FSCs, etc.). Moreover, they are with large variation in computational complexity. To provide an audio output with high quality, natural sounding, minimized artifacts, and very low processing delay in a real-time audio processing system, the Rollers frequency shifting algorithm best fits these requirements. The implementation of the Rollers frequency-shifting algorithm is based on a filter bank design. In short, the filter bank is composed of multiple paralleled filters respectively corresponding to multiple frequency bands called sub-bands. Therefore, the paralleled filters are referred to as sub-band filters, and the output signal of each sub-band filter is referred to as a sub-band signal.
The Rollers frequency shifting algorithm can be illustrated by the block diagram of FIG. 2. A Rollers frequency shifting system 200 comprises a large infinite impulse response (hereinafter abbreviated as IIR) filter bank 201, multiple paralleled real-to-complex converters and frequency shifters 202, and a summation device 203. The filter bank 201 includes a large number of sub-band filters (the number of filters suggested in the literature is about hundreds to thousands), and each sub-band filter is implemented by a fourth-order Butterworth filter to reduce the computational complexity of the frequency-division filtering. The IIR filter bank 201 passes a real-type audio input signal through the sub-band filters to generate multiple real-type sub-band signals respectively (*1). The real-to-complex converters and the frequency shifters 202 pass the real-type sub-band signals through single-side-band modulation (which is an approximate function of the Hilbert transform) so as to convert the sub-band signals to complex type signals. After that, the frequency shifting operation of each complex-type sub-band signal is performed according to the specified shift amount (determined by substituting the center frequency of the corresponding sub-band into the FSC) to obtain one of a plurality of shifted sub-band signals. Finally, the summation device 203 combines the shifted sub-band signals into an audio output signal. Since the audio output signal is of real type, the summation is performed only on the real part values of the shifted sub-band signals. The Rollers frequency shifting system 200 based on the filter bank is suitable for sample-based signal processing, and the processing delay of the system is mainly contributed by the group delay of each sub-band filter of the filter bank. It is usually significantly lower than the processing delay of the frequency-domain signal processing (*2), hence it is suitable for the system design with low processing delay requirement. In addition, the main body of this architecture includes a large number of paralleled IIR filtering, single-side band conversion, and frequency shifting operations. These operations are highly parallelized (i.e., operations of the respective sub-bands have no dependency on each other), which are suitable for hardware implementation or execution on a multi-processor platform.
(*1): If the sub-band filters of a filter bank share the same input signal, the filter bank is referred to as an analysis filter bank. The IIR filter bank 201 is an analysis filter bank.
(*2): Frequency-domain signal processing is a frame-based processing. Because it is accompanied by a time-to-frequency transform and its inverse transform, the algorithmic delay of the signal processing (a processing delay under zero arithmetic computation delay assumption, which is the theoretical minimum processing delay) is basically not less than one frame interval. However, the frame length has to be set long enough to make the frequency resolution of the spectrum meet the requirements of subsequent signal processing operations. Therefore, the frequency resolution and delay requirements are a dilemma in real-time audio processing systems.Though with good output sound quality, low processing delay, simple and highly parallelized architecture, the feasibility of implementing the Rollers frequency shifting architecture on low-power mobile devices, wearable devices, and the real-time software platforms is still limited due to the large number of the high-order filtering and the single sideband conversion operations (according to the literature, it is more suitable to implement on a personal computer). Therefore, seeking a filter bank design suitable for supporting the frequency shifting operation while with low computational complexity is the key of implementing the time-domain frequency shifting algorithms for real-time applications on low-power wearable devices, mobile devices, or even on software platforms.

Analysis filter bank and computing procedure thereof, audio frequency shifting system, and audio frequency shifting procedure


A method for executing water jet peening for giving an impact force to a surface of a structure member by a crushing pressure of a water jet and cavitation and improving residual stress, or washing, or reforming said surface,

The present invention relates to a method for executing a water jet peening for giving an impact force to a surface of a structure member by a crushing pressure of a water jet and cavitation and improving the residual stress, or washing, or reforming the surface.
In Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 7(1995)-328855, in a water jet peening method, to enhance effect of the water jet peening, it is disclosed to change the stand-off distance, injection pressure, or injection collision time. In Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 6(1994)-047668, in a water jet peening apparatus, to enhance effect of the water jet peening, it is disclosed to detect an impact pulse when cavitation is generated, and to set the conditions of the distance between an injection nozzle and a execution object of the water jet peening and the injection pressure from the injection nozzle.

Abstract: wherein said water jet peening is executed so as to make a natural frequency of oscillation of said structure member and a excitation frequency of oscillation of water jet peening different from each other.


Substrates having nanostructures disposed thereon and methods of forming nanostructures on the substrates are disclosed. In particular, embodiments of the present invention provide for structures having a substrate having a non-planar surface. In an embodiment, a portion of the non-planar surface has at least one layer of nanostructures disposed thereon.

Nanostructures have been incorporated into many kinds of sensors to obtain high sensitivity and specificity. For example, in surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) based sensors, using colloidal silver nano-particles, researchers were able to detect single dye molecules with an enhancement factor on the order of 1014-1015; in surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based sensors, silver or gold nano-particle films have been used to dynamically tune the resonance wavelength. Also, using fiber optics in SERS or SPR, one can miniaturize the device while maintaining the sensitivity. So far, there are several limited methods for preparing nanostructures on fiber optical probes suitable for SERS and SPR based sensors, for example, sputtering or e-beam evaporating metal thin films onto optical fiber tips, or dipping functionalized optical fibers into colloidal solutions. Nanostructures prepared by the dipping method are random, and the reproducibility is poor. It is also important that the fabrication technique is compatible with current microfabrication processes.

Structures having aligned nanorods and methods of making

University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc.


A duplexer includes a substrate including an insulation layer, an upper interconnection layer provided on an upper surface of the insulation layer, a lower interconnection layer provided on a lower surface of the insulation layer, and an inner interconnection layer provided in the insulation layer, the inner interconnection layer including an inner ground pad, at least one acoustic wave filter chip mounted on an upper surface of the substrate, signal pads provided on the upper interconnection layer and connected to signal electrodes of the at least one acoustic wave filter chip, and an upper ground pad that is provided in the upper interconnection layer so as to be located between the signal pads and is connected to a ground electrode of the at least one acoustic wave filter, wherein D1>D2 and D1>T1 where D1 is a minimum distance between the signal pads and the upper ground pad, D2 is a minimum distance between the signal pads and the inner ground pad, and T1 is a thickness of the insulation layer between the upper interconnection layer and the inner interconnection layer.

Recent development of information-oriented society has popularized mobile communication equipment such as portable phones and portable information terminals. The portable phones use an RF band such as a 800 MHz-1.0 GHz band and 1.5 GHz-2.0 GHz band. Accordingly, a duplexer that utilizes an acoustic wave such as a surface acoustic wave filter (SAW filter) or a film-bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) are used. It is also considered to use another type of duplexer using a boundary acoustic wave filter.
The recent portable phones have progressed to multiple bands and multiple modes, and are further equipped with an additional radio interface such as wireless LAN or GPS. In the above situation, the duplexer is demanded to have improvements in size and performance. Particularly, the duplexer is desired to achieve both downsizing and reliable isolation between pads.
There is proposal to provide a shield electrode between patterns of multiple SAW filters and to thus improve the isolation characteristics (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-60747). There is another proposal to prevent interference between signals by arranging input and output terminals for making external connections so as to diagonally connect corners of the shape of a device having multiple filter elements (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-76829).

Duplexer having specified relationship of the minimum distances between signal pads and specific ground pads


Dual sequential defibrillation (DSD) systems and methods include the use of a timing device. The timing device can assist a user with DSD administration by providing notifications spaced apart by the inter-shock timing. The user can use these notifications to trigger the administration of defibrillation in a sequential manner. The timing device can also be coupled to two defibrillation devices and can output a signal to each of the defibrillation devices to cause the defibrillation device to administer a defibrillation. The output of the signals by the timing device can be spaced apart by the inter-shock timing. Additionally, the signals can be QRS-like in nature to cause the defibrillation devices to administer a defibrillation when in a sync mode.

Dual sequential defibrillation (DSD), is a treatment protocol that is growing in use and popularity to treat patients suffering from cardiac arrest. For a patient in ventricular fibrillation, and especially for a patient suffering from recurrent and uncontrolled ventricular fibrillation, the use of DSD or simultaneous defibrillation can be an effective treatment in restoring the patient's normal heart rhythm. DSD is considered by rescuers as a desperate last ditch effort to save the life of a cardiac arrest victim. Administration of DSD can be haphazard, poorly timed, and uncoordinated. DSD involves sequential defibrillations administered using two separate defibrillators, such as an automated external defibrillator (AED) and/or a standard defibrillator or monitor/defibrillator. Human rescuers have been observed to manually time the two (or more) defibrillation shocks to be delivered to the patient spaced apart by an inter-shock timing interval. Depending on the type of arrhythmia experienced by the patient, the timing of the shocks is different and the precision with which the shocks must be delivered for effective treatment is of great importance.
Relying on human ability and/or judgment to administer shocks from two separate defibrillators in a coordinated manner is an imperfect system that often results in ineffective therapy outcomes due to improper inter-shock timing. Improper timing of the sequential shock delivery can also lengthen the time a patient experiences the cardiac event and treatment or can cause fatal additional arrhythmias to the patient's heart.
There exists a need for systems and/or methods that improve the accuracy of the inter-shock timing in a dual sequential defibrillation administration.

Dual sequential defibrillation systems and methods