Embodiments of the present invention disclose a data editing method and apparatus. In the present invention, the method includes: obtaining first gesture information entered by a user; creating an enlarged area according to an indication position on a screen of a terminal by the first gesture information; obtaining second gesture information entered by the user, where the second gesture information is used to adjust the enlarged area to be in a stationary state or a movable state; adjusting the enlarged area in the stationary state or the movable state, activating, by using third gesture information, data displayed in an enlarged manner within the adjusted enlarged area to an editable state, and editing the data displayed in an enlarged manner within the adjusted enlarged area. The present invention can improve operation flexibility of data editing.

With development of communications technologies, a terminal has more powerful application functions and has become an indispensable tool in daily life of people, and mobile offices are more widely applied in daily life of people. For example, a user may communicate with a contact by using an instant messaging tool on the terminal, or receive and send an email, process a document, read a book, or browse a web page by using the terminal.
Due to a limited size of a screen of the terminal, a data editing function of the mobile working cannot be conveniently used on the terminal. For example, because a smartphone or a tablet computer has a relatively small touch display screen, content of data information displayed on a display screen is also small-sized. As a result, if a user uses a finger as a cursor to perform an operation, the user cannot easily and accurately adjust a position of the finger when editing data.
Currently, when the terminal performs the data editing function, handles are usually set at positions to be edited. A piece of data is selected by using upper and lower handles. Then, the positions of the handles are changed, and are fine-tuned. However, the data is easily blocked by the upper and lower handles, and it is quite difficult to control the handles. Consequently, it is still relatively inconvenient to edit data.


An exercise apparatus (100) for performing press exercises is disclosed. The exercise apparatus includes a frame (102) and a support assembly (118) adjustably coupled to the frame. A first press arm (108) is coupled to the support assembly and is pivotal about a first pivot axis (140A) between a rest position and an extended position. An adjustment mechanism (152) is coupled to the support assembly and adapted to selectively adjust the support assembly between a first position, wherein when the first press arm is rotated about the first pivot axis a preselected angle, a distal end (304A) of the first press arm scribes a first predetermined path (300A), and a second position, wherein when the first press arm is rotated about the first pivot axis the preselected angle, the distal end scribes a second predetermined path (302A).

The benefits of muscle exercises directed at the upper torso of a user are well known. For example, press exercises directed at the strengthening of the muscles of the upper torso after injury or surgery are well known in their ability to strengthen the muscles, to prevent atrophy of the muscles and return the muscles to normal operation. Further, press exercises are well known for their ability to increase performance, strength, and/or enhance the appearance of one's body. Various press exercises have been developed to exercise the muscles of the upper torso, most of which involve contracting and/or extending one's arms against a resistant force, the resistant force provided by an exercise apparatus.
Although previously developed press exercise apparatuses are effective, they are not without their problems. In a typical embodiment of previously developed press exercise apparatuses, a pair of press arms is coupled to a resistance source, such as a stack of weights. In operation, the user grasps a handle of each press arm and presses the handles outward from the chest of the user to exercise the muscles of the upper torso. Inasmuch as the press arms are restricted to paths extending perpendicularly outward from the chest, the press exercise apparatus fails to permit the user's hands to move inward toward one another during the exercise, in a more natural motion.
A few of the previously developed press exercise apparatuses have addressed this limitation by permitting inward movement of the press arms along a single selected, predetermined path. However, these press exercise apparatuses are not without their drawbacks. For instance, although the press exercise apparatuses allow inward movement, they do not allow the user to configure the press exercise apparatus such that press arms will follow a specific predetermined path selected from a multitude of different predetermined paths. Thus, the user is unable to choose a specific predetermined path that provides optimum comfort, a desired focus of the exercise upon a specific muscle or portion of a muscle, or an optimum orientation of the predetermined path relative to the specific body size of the user.
Previously developed press exercise apparatuses often permit a user to adjust a position of a seat in relation to a rest position of the press arms. Further, previously developed press exercise apparatuses permit the adjustment of the positions of the rest position of the press arms. In some of these devices, though, a user must separately adjust the position of the seat and the rest position of the press arms, resulting in an iterative adjustment process. More specifically, when a user adjusts the position of the seat, the user's orientation relative to the rest position of the press arms is changed, thereby necessitating the user to readjust the rest position of the press arms. Once the rest position of the press arms is changed, the readjustment of the seat position may be necessary. Thus, such adjustment can be an iterative process that can be awkward, time consuming, and frustrating for a user.
Previously developed exercise apparatuses often utilize adjustment mechanisms for adjusting a separation distance between a first part of the apparatus and a second part of the apparatus, to adjust some aspect of the operation of the press exercise apparatus. Previously developed adjustment mechanisms, while permitting a separation distance between a first part and a second part to be varied, permit the distance to be varied even when the adjustment mechanism is under a load. Thus, when a user manipulates the adjustment mechanism to alter the separation distance, the load can be suddenly and undesirably released.

Press station with adjustable, various path feature


The image forming apparatus includes an opening and closing device that can be opened or closed with respect to a main body of an image forming apparatus, a plurality of image forming devices, a recording material containing device which contains a recording material and which can be detachably mounted on the main body, and a positioning device which positions the opening and closing device in an open state. By this arrangement, the ability to detach the image forming devices is improved without increasing the dimensions of the apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus utilizing an electrophotographic process or an electrostatic recording process such as a copying apparatus, a printer or a facsimile apparatus, and more particularly an image forming apparatus provided with an opening and closing device which is opened or closed with respect to a main body of the apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
A prior image forming apparatus particularly utilizing an electrophotographic process is often provided with a process cartridge integrally including a photosensitive member serving as an image bearing member and image forming device, such as a developing apparatus for interaction therewith, or a unit containing consumables to be replaced or replenished by a user, such as a transfer material container (sheet cassette) containing a transfer material such as a paper sheet for image formation. Also various proposals have been made for improving the operability of the replacement of the process cartridge or of the paper replenishment for the sheet cassette.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-115042 discloses a structure in which attach-detach apertures for a unit for an image bearing member and a cassette for a recording medium are positioned on a same side of the main body of the image forming apparatus and have the same attach-detach direction.
Such a conventional structure, however, is a lateral-opening type of apparatus in which a front cover is opened about a vertical axis (hinge) and the front cover is merely supported at the hinge side, so that it is difficult to maintain the same positional precision of the front cover, to the main body of the apparatus, at left and at right (hinged side and opposite side).
Particularly in case an image forming device is mounted on the front cover, the positional precision becomes different at the left and the right sides of the image forming apparatus, thus hindering a satisfactory image formation operation.
Thus, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H6-110262 discloses an apparatus in which a front cover is opened downwards about a horizontal axis (vertical-opening type) for the replacement of a process unit. Such an apparatus allows the maintenance of the same positional precision at the left and the right of the front cover.
It is described that, in such apparatus, a sheet cassette can be mounted and detached from the front side of the apparatus, but a device which determines an open position of the front cover is not described, and the replacement of the process unit is made possible but the replacement of the sheet cassette may be hindered depending upon the open position of the front cover.
Also Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. H8-22157 and 2001-356550 describe an apparatus of the vertical-opening type, but does not describe a device which positions the open/closing member (cover) by determining a certain open position for the open/closing member (cover).
In a full-color image forming apparatus, there are provided with a plurality of process cartridges each having a photosensitive member for respective colors, and an improvement in the maintenance property because of an increased frequency of replacements. Also the presence of plural process cartridges tends to increase the dimension of the apparatus, and there is desired an apparatus capable of suppressing an increase in the dimension thereof even with an improved maintenance property.


A system, method and apparatus for an interactive dynamic interface for wireless distributed capacitor control that comprises a touchscreen display that eliminates the conventional dials and switches that are part of a conventional control, and with these efficiencies can locally, remotely or autonomously implement “personality” settings for the capacitor control that speeds and simplifies custom configurations and recovery in relation to user, electrical and environmental input that meets certain operating criteria, including after a shut-down event, thereby improving the of the capacitor control system to function more appropriately, effectively, and efficiently under a greater range of parameters.

Generally, modern utility distribution infrastructure includes a variety of instruments such as capacitor bank controllers and related devices that operate as components in integrated or centralized control systems for the distribution of electrical power. Such instruments are increasingly employed to develop smart grid networks to improve infrastructure performance through functions such as increasing efficiency, optimizing voltage, reducing powerline losses, automating control functions, improving fault detection, reducing restoration events, synchronizing and integrating functions, improving reliability flexibility, and reducing costs of distribution management by active, integrated monitoring, balancing, control and adjustment.
However, this technology experiences some shortcomings. Control, monitoring, and analysis instruments such as capacitor bank controls or similar devices service powerline networks and electricity distribution infrastructures, often being mounted on powerline poles or at electrical utility substations. When such instruments experience failures, need servicing, or otherwise must be adjusted or changed in the field, they present significant hazards to technicians or users. Many times, they must be accessed in adverse environmental conditions including poor visibility, darkness, rain, snow, ice, or adverse temperatures. This compounds the danger to operators and maintenance personnel, technicians, users, and all personnel, posed by the imminent hazards or conditions experienced whenever working around high voltages including death, severe personal injury, and instrument or equipment damage. Climbing utility poles, accessing powerlines, and substations, or other related field work is dangerous, difficult, and time consuming, and not always effective. Therefore, efforts need to be made to make utility distribution safer, more responsive, and more effective.

Interactive dynamic interface for capacitor control


An extrusion blow molding machine comprises an extrusion apparatus, an electrically-driven parison thickness programming apparatus, an electrically-driven mold-clamping apparatus with a dual-driving function, and a frame, wherein the extrusion apparatus, the parison thickness programming apparatus and the mold-clamping apparatus with a dual-driving function are installed on the frame. The mold-clamping apparatus with a dual-driving function comprises a driving assembly, a mold-opening/closing assembly, a mold-moving assembly, and a base. The driving assembly includes a servo motor, which actuates both mold-opening/closing and mold-moving assemblies, respectively. The parison thickness programming apparatus is driven by asynchronous motors, which run in a single direction continuously to result in a required axial parison thickness distribution. An extrusion blow molding method is realized using the machine. The present extrusion blow molding machine has an obviously simplified and compact structure, thereby reducing the manufacturing cost, lowering the energy consumption, and improving the transmission efficiency and position accuracy.

The present invention relates to an extrusion blow molding machine used for manufacturing many different products in the polymer industry, and particularly to an electrically-driven extrusion blow molding machine and an extrusion blow molding method realized using the machine.
Blow molding is one of the three major molding technologies used for the polymeric materials. Extrusion blow molding accounts for a large proportion in the blow molding area. The parison thickness programming and mold-clamping apparatuses are both hydraulically-driven in most of the available extrusion blow molding machines. The hydraulically-driven apparatus has some disadvantages, such as poorer control accuracy and repeatability, higher energy consumption and noise, unsuitable for "clean room" manufacturing environments, and so on. Therefore, for some applications, the hydraulically-driven apparatus is facing competition from the electrically-driven one. However, the available electrically-driven blow molding machines still have some disadvantages, such as a complicated structure and a high manufacturing cost. The parison thickness programming apparatus in the available electrically-driven blow molding machine is generally driven by a servo motor. The frequent start and stop and frequent normal and opposite running of the servo motors result in their heating and so shorten their service life. Moreover, the mold-opening/closing and mold-moving assemblies of the mold-clamping apparatus in the available electrically-driven blow molding machines are generally driven by a set of separate electric transmission device including a servo motor, respectively.

Extrusion blow molding machine and blow molding method using the machine


A method and an apparatus for ACK/NACK transmission. When a terminal device only receives a semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in which a downlink assignment index (DAI) value is equal to 1 in a feedback window, the terminal device transmits ACK/NACK feedback information corresponding to the SPS PDSCH and ACK/NACK feedback information corresponding to the PDCCH on PUCCH format 1a/1b resource using PUCCH format 1b with channel selection or ACK/NACK bundling.

This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
In a long term evolution (LTE) time division duplex (TDD) system, a user equipment (UE, i.e., a user terminal device) may feed back acknowledgement (ACK)/negative acknowledgement (NACK) corresponding to multiple downlink subframes in an uplink subframe. After finishing the demodulation and decoding of the data in downlink subframes n-k, the UE feeds back signaling (i.e. ACK/NACK) in uplink subframe n to the base station in order to indicate whether data in the downlink subframe needs to be retransmitted, where kεK, and the value of the set K is related to the TDD uplink (UL)-downlink (DL) configuration adopted by the system and the subframe index, as shown in Table 1.
The "feedback window" refers to K downlink subframes corresponding to the same uplink subframe.
Table 1 Downlink association set index K: {k0, k1, . . . kM-1} for TDD
UL-DLSubframe nConfiguration01234567890——6—4——6—41——7, 64———7, 64—2——8, 7, 4, 6————8, 7, 4, 6——3——7, 6, 116, 55, 4—————4——12, 8, 7, 116, 5, 4, 7——————5——13, 12, 9, 8,———————7, 5, 4, 11, 66——775——77—
Two ACK/NACK feedback modes are supported by an LTE TDD system, i.e., ACK/NACK multiplexing and ACK/NACK bundling. For TDD UL-DL configuration 5, only ACK/NACK bundling is supported. The feedback mode adopted by a UE with ACK/NACK transmission is configured by higher layer signaling. When physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) format 1a/1b is used by a UE to feed back ACK/NACK, PUCCH format 1a/1b resource can be obtained through the following two manners according to the type of the data.
According to manner one, PUCCH resources corresponding to a semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) is configured semi-statically by higher layer.
According to manner two, PUCCH resources corresponding to a dynamically scheduled PDSCH or a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) indicating SPS release is determined by the index of the first control channel element (CCE) occupied by the PDCCH.
When an LTE UE is configured with the ACK/NACK bundling with ACK/NACK transmission, the ACK/NACKs corresponding to codewords with the same index are bundled (i.e., logical AND) across the feedback window. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a conventional ACK/NACK bundling scheme.
For a single codeword transmission, 1-bit bundled ACK/NACK can be obtained and PUCCH format 1a is used for transmission. For multi-codeword (two codewords) transmissions, 2-bit bundled ACK/NACK can be obtained and PUCCH format 1b is used for transmission. The UE determines whether data is missed by the downlink assignment index (DAI) in a PDCCH. As shown in FIG. 1, the DAI value indicates the index of the dynamically scheduled downlink subframe in the current feedback window. The UE transmits bundled ACK/NACK using the uplink control channel resource corresponding to the PDCCH in which the DL DAI value is equal to 1.
When an LTE UE is configured with ACK/NACK multiplexing with ACK/NACK transmission, for the uplink subframe with M>1, where M is defined in Table 1, the ACK/NACKs corresponding to the multiple codewords in each DL subframe are bundled (i.e., spatial bundling), and NACK/discontinuous transmission (DTX) is generated as feedback information for the downlink subframe in which data is not received. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a conventional ACK/NACK multiplexing scheme. As such, M-bit ACK/NACK can be obtained and transmitted using PUCCH format 1b with channel selection according to the mapping relations as shown in Tables 2-4.
nPUCCH,x(1) represents PUCCH resources corresponding to HARQ-ACK(x), and DTX indicates the data packet is not received. 2-bit information b(0) and b(1) and PUCCH resource used for transmission are obtained by looking up the table based on the state composed by M feedback bits. When M=1, the UE directly transmits a 1-bit or 2-bit ACK/NACK using PUCCH format 1a/1b in the only one available channel.
TABLE 2LTE Rel-8/9 ACK/NACK mapping table, M = 2HARQ-ACK(0), HARQ-ACK(1)nPUCCH(1)b(0), b(1)ACK, ACKnPUCCH,1(1)1, 1ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)0, 1NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,1(1)0, 0NACK/DTX, NACKnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0NACK, DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 0DTX, DTXN/AN/A
TABLE 3LTE Rel-8/9 ACK/NACK mapping table, M = 3HARQ-ACK(0), HARQ-ACK(1),HARQ-ACK(2)nPUCCH(1)b(0), b(1)ACK, ACK, ACKnPUCCH,2(1)1, 1ACK, ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)1, 1ACK, NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,0(1)1, 1ACK, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)0, 1NACK/DTX, ACK, ACKnPUCCH,2(1)1, 0NACK/DTX, ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)0, 0NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,2(1)0, 0DTX, DTX, NACKnPUCCH,2(1)0, 1DTX, NACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0NACK, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 0DTX, DTX, DTXN/AN/A
TABLE 4LTE Rel-8/9 ACK/NACK mapping table, M = 4HARQ-ACK(0), HARQ-ACK(1), HARQ-ACK(2),b(0),HARQ-ACK(3)nPUCCH(1)b(1)ACK, ACK, ACK, ACKnPUCCH,1(1)1, 1ACK, ACK, ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, NACK, DTXnPUCCH,2(1)1, 1ACK, ACK, NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0NACK, DTX, DTX, DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 0ACK, ACK, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0ACK, NACK/DTX, ACK, ACKnPUCCH,3(1)0, 1NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, NACKnPUCCH,3(1)1, 1ACK, NACK/DTX, ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)0, 1ACK, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,0(1)0, 1ACK, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 1NACK/DTX, ACK, ACK, ACKnPUCCH,3(1)0, 1NACK/DTX, NACK, DTX, DTXnPUCCH,1(1)0, 0NACK/DTX, ACK, ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)1, 0NACK/DTX, ACK, NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,3(1)1, 0NACK/DTX, ACK, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)0, 1NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, ACK, ACKnPUCCH,3(1)0, 1NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, ACK, NACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)0, 0NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, NACK/DTX, ACKnPUCCH,3(1)0, 0DTX, DTX, DTX, DTXN/AN/A
Currently, aggregation of up to 5 carriers is supported by an LTE-A (long term evolution advanced) system. An LTE-A UE needs to feed back ACK/NACK corresponding to multiple downlink carriers and downlink subframes in one uplink subframe, and a relatively larger amount of information needs to be fed back. Therefore, a new PUCCH format 3 is defined in LTE-A as a scheme for multi-bit ACK/NACK transmission. Up to 20 bits can be transmitted using PUCCH format 3. With A UE configured with PUCCH format 3 for ACK/NACK transmission, 4 PUCCH resources are semi-statically configured by a base station via higher layer signaling. The base station then dynamically informs the UE of which resource is used for PUCCH transmission via PDCCH during data scheduling.
An LTE-A system also supports PUCCH format 1b with channel selection for ACK/NACK multiplexing transmission of no more than 4 bits, and 3 new ACK/NACK mapping tables are defined as shown in Tables 5-7. Compared with previous mapping tables, the new mapping tables do not include overlapping states, thus providing better performances.
TABLE 5LTE-A ACK/NACK mapping table, A = 2HARQ-ACK(0)HARQ-ACK(1)nPUCCH(1)b(0), b(1)ACKACKnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0ACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 1NACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,1(1)0, 1NACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)0, 0DTXNACK/DTXNo Transmission
TABLE 6LTE-A ACK/NACK mapping table, A = 3HARQ-b(0),ACK(0)HARQ-ACK(1)HARQ-ACK(2)nPUCCH(1)b(1)ACKACKACKnPUCCH,2(1)1, 1ACKACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0ACKNACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,2(1)1, 0ACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 1NACK/DTXACKACKnPUCCH,2(1)0, 1NACK/DTXACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)0, 1NACK/DTXNACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,2(1)0, 0NACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)0, 0DTXNACK/DTXNACK/DTXNo Transmission
TABLE 7LTE-A ACK/NACK mapping table, A = 4HARQ-HARQ-HARQ-HARQ-b(0),ACK(0)ACK(1)ACK(2)ACK(3)nPUCCH(1)b(1)ACKACKACKACKnPUCCH,1(1)1, 1ACKACKACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)1, 1ACKACKNACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,0(1)1, 0ACKACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)1, 0ACKNACK/DTXACKACKnPUCCH,3(1)1, 1ACKNACK/DTXACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)1, 0ACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,0(1)0, 1ACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXNACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)1, 1NACK/ACKACKACKnPUCCH,1(1)0, 0DTXNACK/ACKACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)0, 1DTXNACK/ACKNACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,3(1)1, 0DTXNACK/ACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXnPUCCH,1(1)0, 1DTXNACK/NACK/DTXACKACKnPUCCH,3(1)0, 1DTXNACK/NACK/DTXACKNACK/DTXnPUCCH,2(1)0, 0DTXNACK/NACK/DTXNACK/DTXACKnPUCCH,3(1)0, 0DTXNACKNACK/DTXNACK/DTXNACK/DTXnPUCCH,0(1)0, 0DTXNACK/DTXNACK/DTXNACK/DTXNo Transmission
Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.

Method and apparatus for ACK/NACK transmission

China Academy of Telecommunications Technology


A direct cooling type refrigerator capable of increasing the heat exchange performance of a refrigerant, thereby rapidly cooling its storage compartment. The refrigerator includes an outer casing defining an appearance of the refrigerator, an inner casing arranged within the outer casing, and defined with a storage compartment, an insulator interposed between the outer casing and the inner casing, a compressor for compressing a refrigerant, and an evaporator arranged to be in contact with the inner casing, and adapted to cool the inner casing in accordance with evaporation of a refrigerant passing therethrough.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a direct cooling type refrigerator, and more particularly to a direct cooling type refrigerator in which the contact area between an inner casing defined with a storage compartment and an evaporator is large so that the storage compartment can be rapidly cooled.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, refrigerators may be classified, in terms of their cooling systems, into a direct cooling type refrigerator, in which its inner casing defined with a storage compartment to be used as a freezing compartment or refrigerating compartment is directly cooled by an evaporator, and an indirect cooling type refrigerator, in which cold air produced in accordance with a heat exchange operation of the evaporator is supplied to the storage compartment by a cooling fan.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the direct cooling type refrigerator generally includes an outer casing 2 defining the appearance of the refrigerator, an inner casing 4 arranged within the outer casing 2, and defined with a storage compartment F, and an insulator 6 interposed between the outer casing 2 and the inner casing 4. The direct cooling type refrigerator also includes a compressor 8 for compressing a refrigerant, a condenser 10 for condensing a high-pressure refrigerant gas emerging from the compressor 8 into a liquid phase, a capillary tube 12 for reducing the pressure of the refrigerant emerging from the condenser 10, and an evaporator 14 for performing heat exchange with the inner casing 4, thereby cooling the storage compartment F.
The condenser 10 includes a heat transfer plate 10a, and a condensing pipe 10b attached to one surface of the heat transfer plate 10a such that it is linearly in contact with the heat transfer plate 10a.
The evaporator 14 is a hollow circular evaporating pipe attached to the outer side surfaces of the inner casing 4, and adapted to allow a refrigerant R to pass therethrough.
The evaporating pipe 14 is arranged along the outer surface of the inner casing 54. This evaporating pipe 14 has a plurality of connected pipe portions extending horizontally while being vertically spaced apart from one another. The evaporating pipe 14 is fixed by aluminum tapes 15 attached to the inner casing 54 such that it is linearly in contact with the inner casing.
In the above mentioned conventional direct cooling type refrigerator, the time taken to transfer the heat from the inner casing 4 to the refrigerant R passing through the evaporating pipe 14 is lengthened because the hollow circular evaporating pipe 14 is linearly in contact with the inner casing 4. Furthermore, the evaporating pipe 14 may not be in contact with the inner casing 4 at a certain portion thereof. In this case, there may be problems of an increased deviation in cooling performance. Moreover, the evaporating pipe 14 cannot be firmly fixed because it is fixed to the aluminum tape 15 which is, in turn, fixed to the inner casing 4. For this reason, the contact between the evaporating pipe 14 and the inner casing 4 may be degraded when an external impact is applied to the refrigerator.
FIG. 3 is a sectional view illustrating another example of a general evaporator used in a direct cooling type refrigerator. As shown in FIG. 3, the evaporator includes two heat transfer metal members 30 and 32 bonded to each other by an adhesive 40 coated between the heat transfer metal members 30 and 32 at regions other than a region where a refrigerant passage 36 is to be formed. When high-pressure air is injected between the heat transfer metal members 30 and 32 at the regions where the adhesive 40 is not coated, one of the heat transfer metal members 30 and 32, that is, the heat transfer metal member 32 in the illustrated case, is expanded at the regions where the adhesive 40 is not coated, thereby forming the refrigerant passage 36.
In such an evaporator, however, there may be a problem in that the expansion of the heat transfer metal member by high-pressure air may be non-uniform, so that pressure drop or blocking of a refrigerant flow may occur at a portion of the refrigerant passage 36.

Direct cooling type refrigerator and evaporating pipe fixing method in the refrigerator


A computer program product includes a tangible storage medium readable by a processing circuit and on which instructions are stored for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method. The method includes, upon receiving utility consumption data of a group of elements, defining clusters of elements by like geography and like utility consumption, evaluating a significance of each cluster by comparing an average utility consumption within the cluster with utility consumption of elements neighboring the cluster and determining from a result of the evaluating which clusters exhibit significant differences in utility consumption from the neighboring elements and defining those clusters as regional outliers.

The present invention relates to behavior change detection and, more particularly, to a method for regional human behavior change detection from utility consumption.
Regional human behavior change refers to scenarios in which people in a certain area exhibit significant behavior deviation from their neighbors and their own past. This regional pattern provides important information for urban planning, public security, disease control and sales marketing. Data reflective of regional human behavior change usually reveals underlying changes of living environment, such as regional development, immigration and/or disease breakout and may uncover demographic information from special events such as, for example, start/end of school, holidays or religious holidays. Statistically significant behavior changes exhibit both temporal and spatial characteristics.
Using utility consumption to identify regional behavior change provides for a solution toward analyzing human behavior based on widely, if not publicly, available information. Because of the recent quick development of smart meter infrastructures, this solution becomes possible. However, existing statistic approaches for regional outlier detection do not consider multiple distributions of data, which may lead to failed detection of multiple local outlier regions. In addition, these approaches generally do not provide data-driven scan windows or scalable data access for large data sets.

International Business Machines Corporation


Techniques and medium structures for reducing signal distortions due to mass transfer from the medium surface to the optical head in optical storage devices in both far-field and near-field configurations. In one embodiment, a transparent capping layer is formed on a storage medium to have a sufficient thickness so that a beam spot size of an optical beam on the medium surface is sufficiently large to make a power density of the beam less than a threshold power density for mass transfer from the medium to the optical head.

This disclosure relates to data storage, and more particularly to an optical data storage system that reads and writes data by coupling optical radiation energy to and from a storage medium.
Optical storage systems can achieve high areal density data storage by using a tightly-focused laser beam to write or read information to and from a suitable storage medium, e.g., an optical disk. An optical storage system typically uses an optical head with a large numerical aperture to focus a monochromatic optical beam to a small spot on a recording layer in the storage medium. The optical head also collects the reflected optical beam from the medium to extract useful control or data signals.
The design and performance of the optical head and the storage medium can be critical to the performance of the storage system, including data recording, data retrieval, and beam tracking.
The systems and methods of this disclosure are in part based the recognition that particles can transfer from the medium surface to the optical head due to heating of the medium surface by the focused optical beam. Such mass transfer can contaminate the optical head and hence can cause signal distortions in many optical disk drives in both the far-field configuration where the optical head and the medium are spaced greater than one wavelength of the radiation and the near-field configuration where the optical head and the medium are spaced less than one wavelength of the radiation. In the far-field configuration, the light is coupled between the head and the storage medium by light propagation. In the near-field configuration, at least a portion of the light coupling is through evanescent fields.
It has been discovered that the mass transfer due to the heating of the medium surface by the focused optical beam exhibits a threshold behavior. The effects of the mass transfer become significant to distort the optical signals and to cause potential damages to the optical head when the optical power density on the medium surface is above a particular threshold value. Hence, the storage medium may be structured to allow sufficient optical power density to reach the storage layer for writing and reading while keeping the optical power density at the medium surface below that threshold power density. This can substantially reduce the adverse effects of the mass transfer. When different mass transfer processes are present in an optical storage system and have different threshold power densities, the medium may be structured to keep the optical power density at the surface below the smallest threshold power density.
An optical storage device according to one embodiment includes a storage medium which has a data storage layer formed on a substrate to interact with radiation energy coupled from an optical head. A transparent capping layer is formed over the data storage layer to have a first surface facing the data storage layer and a second surface opposing the first surface to receive the radiation energy from the optical head. The transparent capping layer is operable to transmit a convergent beam of the radiation energy to focus on or near the data storage layer.
The thickness of the capping layer is set to allow a sufficient spacing between the second surface and the data storage layer so that a beam spot size of the convergent beam on the second surface is sufficiently large to make a power density of the radiation beam on the second surface less than a threshold power density for mass transfer from the medium to the optical head.
These and other embodiments and associated advantages of the present disclosure are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below.

Optical storage devices without mass transfer and spots


A fixing apparatus of the invention includes a heating roller, a fixing roller, a fixing belt that is wound around the heating roller and the fixing roller and circulates between the heating roller and the fixing roller, a pressing roller to press the fixing roller through the fixing belt, a first heater that is included in the heating roller and mainly heats a center part of the heating roller, a second heater that is included in the heating roller and mainly heats a peripheral part of the heating roller, and a temperature control unit to control a temperature of the heating roller by an on/off control of the first heater and the second heater, and the temperature control unit performs the on/off control in which when one of the first heater and the second heater is turned on, the other is turned off.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixing apparatus, an image forming apparatus and a fixing method, and particularly to a fixing apparatus for fixing a toner image transferred on a recording sheet or the like, an image forming apparatus and a fixing method.
2. Related Art
In an image forming apparatus, such as a copying machine or a printer, adopting an electrophotographic system, a fixing apparatus for fixing a toner image transferred on a recording sheet is used. As one of modes of the fixing apparatus, there is a heat-pressure fixing apparatus of a fixing belt system.
In this fixing apparatus, an endless fixing belt is wound around a heating roller and a fixing roller, and a pressing roller adjacent to the fixing roller and the fixing roller are brought into press contact with each other through the fixing belt.
A heater is disposed inside the heating roller, and the fixing belt is heated when it moves on the heating roller. The heated fixing belt reaches a nip part (gap between two rollers) formed of the fixing roller and the pressing roller and comes in contact with a recording sheet passing through the nip part, so that an unfixed toner image on the recording sheet is fixed by the heat and pressure.
In order to uniformly perform the fixation of the toner image to the recording sheet, it is important to uniformly keep the temperature of the heating roller within a suitable range. Thus, various techniques relating to heater control inside the heating roller have been conventionally proposed.
For example, JP-A-7-244439 discloses a technique in which plural heaters are provided in a heating roller and the on and off of each of the heaters is independently controlled.
Besides, JP-A-10-301439 discloses a technique in which the periods and ratios of the on and off of plural heaters are selected from a specified range according to the paper quality or temperature and humidity, and the user can suitably change them.
Besides, JP-A-8-234617 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,872,620 discloses a technique in which a main heater to heat the center part of a heating roller and a sub-heater to heat both ends are provided, fine timing of the on and off of these two heaters is controlled, and a reduction in life of a switching element to perform the on/off control can be suppressed.
The above respective techniques are common to each other in that plural heaters are provided in the heating roller, and the temperature control is performed by controlling the period and ratio of the on and off of each heater.
In the case where the on/off control of the plural heaters is performed, there is a possibility that the electric power consumption is significantly changed. For example, in the case where the on periods of all the heaters overlap each other, the electric power consumption becomes very large, whereas in the case where the off periods of all the heaters overlap each other, the electric power consumption approaches zero. When a variation of the electric power consumption is large, a load to a power supply circuit becomes large, and further, in order to ensure the performance also at the time when the electric power consumption is largest (in the case where the on periods of all the heaters overlap each other), a large scale power supply circuit must be provided.
Besides, although the above respective techniques are techniques to equalize the temperature of the heating roller mainly in the axial direction, in the fixing apparatus of the fixing belt system, it is important to equalize the temperature not only in the axial direction of the heating roller but also in the movement direction of the fixing belt.

Fixing apparatus, image forming apparatus and fixing method


A magnetic head of a credit card identification terminal for reading card data which can prevent card data from being illegally acquired. The magnetic head includes a generally box-shaped sealed case having an open side; a bobbin with an electric wire wound thereon provided in the sealed case; a core member extending from the bobbin and having an end protruding to the outside of the sealed case through a through-hole formed through a side of the sealed case opposite the opening; a terminal pin connected to the wire wound on the bobbin; and resin filled in the hollow space in the sealed case, the terminal pin is embedded in the resin filled in the sealed case, one end of a flexible wiring substrate is connected to the terminal pin, and the other end of the flexible wiring substrate extends to the outside of the sealed case from the opening.

In recent years, because of widespread use of the magnetic cards as credit cards, payments for purchases are often made by credit cards. More specifically, when a credit card is inserted into a credit card insertion slot of a credit card identification terminal in each store, the card data on the credit card of the customer is read by a card reader of the credit card identification terminal. Then, the owner of the credit card enters the pin number into the credit card identification terminal to make inquiry, personal identification and payment.
In such a credit card identification terminal, the card reader uses a magnetic head B as shown in FIG. 10 to read card data. The magnetic head B has two magnetic cores 23 made of a magnetic material and arranged opposite each other in a sealed case 22 with their first ends apart to form a gap 26, and the ends of the magnetic cores 23 are located in an opening formed through the magnetic recording medium sliding surface of the sealed case 22. To read the data on a credit card, the credit card is slid over the ends of the magnetic cores 23.
The other ends of the magnetic cores 23 are inserted in both sides of a bobbin 25 in the sealed case 22 and fixedly supported in the sealed case 22 by holders 24. In addition, the hollow space in the sealed case 22 is filled with an epoxy resin, and terminal pins 27 connected to the wire wound on the bobbin 25 protrude as external connection terminals from the bottom of the sealed case 22. Usually, first ends of a signal conductor are connected to the two terminal pins 27, and the signal conductor is connected to a read-write control circuit. A magnetic head having the same configuration as described above is described in JP-A-2002-157702.
In recent years, frequent occurrence of crimes in which a malicious third person illegally acquires personal information as card data on credit cards from credit card identification terminals in business locations where credit cards are used and conducts a commercial transaction or e-commerce via the Internet with a forged credit card including the acquired card data to impose the debit obligation on the legal credit card owner has become a social issue.


A Fischer Tropsch (“FT”) unit includes at least one FT reactor tube. The FT reactor tube is configured to convert syngas into one or more hydrocarbon products. Inside the tube is a nano-sized catalyst particles dispersed in a micro-fibrous substrate. The FT reactor tube may be positioned within a cooling block that may be made of aluminum or another metal. The cooling block includes an aperture, wherein the FT reactor tube is housed within the aperture. At least one cooling channel is located on the cooling block. The cooling channel houses at least one cooling tube that is designed to dissipate the heat produced by the FT reaction.

The Fischer Tropsch ("FT") process, which is sometimes called FT synthesis, is a chemical reaction used routinely in oil and gas processing. This process involves the conversion of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas into a hydrocarbon chain and water. This reaction may be summarized as follows:CO+2H2→—CH2—+H2O ΔH=−165 KJ/mol
Generally, a catalyst is used in this reaction. This FT process usually occurs at high temperatures and high pressures, such as, for example, at pressures of 150-600 psig and temperatures ranging from 200-300° C. (The input stream that is input into the FT reaction vessel is often called synthesis gas or "syngas"). FT technology provides a method for conversion of hydrocarbons from one form (e.g. standard natural gas, biomass) to another form (e.g. kerosene & diesel fuel).
The FT process will generally produce a mixture of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons (—CH2— molecules). In general, the liquid hydrocarbons (such as octane, hexane) tend to be more valuable than the gaseous products (such as methane, ethane, etc.) because these liquid products may be used in producing kerosene, diesel fuel and other desirable products.
The FT process is highly exothermic (with a ΔH=−165 KJ/mol). If the produced heat is not removed as part of the reaction conditions, the metallic catalyst can be damaged and the products generated will tend to be gases rather than the more valuable liquids and gases. Further, care must be taken to insure that sulfur-containing compounds are not part of the syngas as these chemicals tend to poison the catalysts, thereby causing the reaction to fail.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a new device and method for FT processing that is more efficient and will better remove the heat produced during the reaction, thereby ensuring that the more valuable liquids are produced during the process. Such a device and method is disclosed herein.

Compact FT combined with micro-fibrous supported nano-catalyst


In order to improve the fuel consumption by maintaining the lock-up clutch as tightly as possible during the down-shift operation, a lock-up clutch control apparatus is provided. The lock-up clutch control apparatus comprises a revolution control device for predicting the number of revolutions of the an input axis of transmission and the number of revolutions of an engine after the speed change before a down-shift operation; a torque converter judgement device for judging the state of the torque converter in terms of whether or not a torque ratio of the torque converter will be in the torque amplification range when the lock-up clutch is turned off, from the number of revolution of the input axis of the transmission and the engine speed obtained by the revolution prediction device; and a control device for turning off the lock-up clutch, if the lock-up clutch before the speed change is in a tight condition, in the case when the judgement device judges that the torque converter will be in the torque amplification range when the lock-up clutch is turned off.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lock-up clutch control apparatus for controlling a engaging force of a lock-up clutch which transmits an output power of an engine to an input axis of the transmission while distributing the output power transmission with a torque converter.
This application is based on Patent Application No. Hei 9-264587 filed in Japan, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Background Art
An example of the lock-up clutch control apparatus for transmitting the output power of the engine to the input axis of the transmission while distributing the output power transmission with the torque converter is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 7-332479. Conventionally, this type of lock-up clutch control apparatus is designed such that, during speed shifting of the transmission, the lock-up clutch is turned off (wherein, the engaging force is zero) irrespective of conditions of the clutch before gear-shifting, so that the output of the engine is transmitted to the input axis of the transmission only by the torque converter.
It is preferable to make the lock-up clutch as tight as possible (maximize the engaging force) from the point of view of improving the fuel consumption.
The present invention is directed to the execution of speed shifting while maintaining the lock-up clutch in a tight condition, when the lockup clutch is in a tight condition before the gearshift.
When the gearshift is executed while maintaining the lock-up clutch in a tight condition, it is only necessary to shift the gear ratio. However, when a driver desires to increase a car speed by a down-shift operation, it is preferable to realize a state so as to be able to transmit as possible much amounts of an engine torque to the wheel side after the down-shift operation is completed.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a lock-up clutch control apparatus which enables transmitting a larger amount of torque to the wheel side after the down-shifting operation, in order to improve the fuel economy by reducing fuel consumption by maintaining the lock-up clutch as tightly as possible during the down-shifting operation.


A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided for processing of an original batch of documents in which any document of the original batch that fails to comply with the predefined specification is identified to be a non-compliant document. At least one non-compliant batch is then formed that contains the non-compliant documents. The non-compliant batch is distinct from at least one compliant batch that contains any documents that do comply with the predefined specification. At least one of the non-compliant and compliant batches advantageously includes a plurality of documents. The complaint batch(es) may then be forwarded for further processing without awaiting rework of the non-compliant documents included in the non-compliant batch(es).

Batch processing techniques are utilized to efficiently process multiple documents in a consistent manner. In the health care industry, for example, claims submitted by various medical providers to various payers, such as insurance companies or the like, may be submitted and processed in batches. Similarly, orders, ticket requests or the like may be submitted in batch form to a prospective vendor.
While batch processing may be utilized in a wide variety of circumstances, batch processing provides particular efficiency in instances in which the batches may contain many documents, such as hundreds or thousands of documents. In order to efficiently process the plurality of documents included within a batch, standardized procedures are generally adopted that govern the manner in which the documents will be processed. As such, the documents can generally be processed in batch form in an automated manner.
In some instances, the procedures governing the manner in which batches of documents are to be processed specify that a batch of documents should be rejected if any one of the documents included in the batch does not comply with certain predefined specifications, such as the specifications defining the syntax according to which the documents are to be submitted. As such, a batch containing thousands of documents could be rejected if any one of the documents included in the batch had a syntactical error. Since the entire batch is rejected, numerous documents included in the batch that complies with the predetermined specifications, such as by having the predefined syntax, are rejected along with the non-compliant documents. As will be apparent, the rejection of the entire batch of documents slows down the processing of the documents since the sender must address any syntactical or other errors and then resubmit the entire batch.
By way of example, the submittal of many types of documents by health care providers to various payers is governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) that mandates batch processing of the documents as described below. HIPAA addresses a variety of topics including limitations on exclusions for pre-existing conditions, availability of health insurance coverage for small employers, strengthening of federal health care fraud and abuse laws and administrative simplification and privacy. With respect to administrative simplification, HIPAA was designed to improve the efficiency of the health care system by standardizing the electronic exchange of data and protecting the security and privacy of the health information exchanged thereby.
The administrative simplification component of HIPAA has five (5) elements, each with supporting regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The five elements are: (i) code sets that require the use of standard codes in completing electronic health care transactions, (ii) privacy that restricts the use and disclosure of health information by providers, health plans, health care clearinghouses and their respective business associates, (iii) security that requires reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards for electronic protected health information, (iv) unique identifiers that require the use of standard unique identifiers for employers, providers, payers and individuals and (v) electronic transactions that require the use of standard electronic formats for eight (8) different health care transactions.
The regulations governing the electronic transactions conducted pursuant to HIPAA require payers and providers to utilize standard formats and content for each of the following transactions:
Transaction TypeHIPAA StandardEligibility Inquiry and ResponseASC ANSI X12N 270/271Claim Status Inquiry and ResponseASC ANSI X12N 276/277Referral/Precertification RequestASC ANSI X12N 278and ResponseHealth Plan Premium PaymentASC ANSI X12N 820Benefit Enrollment and MaintenanceASC ANSI X12N 834Claim Payment and RemittanceASC ANSI X12N 835Professional, Institutional, orASC ANSI X12N 837Dental Health Care Claim/EncounterProfessional, Institutional, orDentalPharmacy ClaimNCPDP version 5.1
As used in the foregoing table, ASC ANSI represents the Accredited Standards Committee of the American National Standards Institute. ASC ANSI X12, also known merely as X12, is considered to be the primary standard for North American trading using electronic data interchange (EDI). As the above table indicates, the transaction regulations have developed several standards premised upon the X12 standard. For the various types of transactions that have associated standards, the electronic transactions must be conducted according to those standards. While providers may conduct these transactions either electronically or on paper, providers that conduct the transactions electronically must utilize the standard format. Moreover, payers are required to accept the electronic transactions if the electronic transactions are submitted in standard form.
Since not all payers are capable of communicating with providers in accordance with the HIPAA regulations, payers may contract with health care clearinghouses 12 to sit between the providers 10 and the payer 14 so as to translate the messages communicated therebetween, as shown in FIG. 1. In this regard, the providers who transmit electronic transactions according to the HIPAA regulations may direct the electronic transactions to the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse receives the electronic transactions and translates those transactions to a proprietary format utilized by the payer. The translated message is then communicated to the payer. Conversely, messages from the payer intended for the provider are received by the clearinghouse and translated from the proprietary format utilized by the payer to the standard format defined by the HIPAA regulations. The clearinghouse can then provide the translated message to the provider. As also shown in FIG. 1, the clearinghouse need not always receive the electronic transactions directly from the providers, but may, instead, communicate with another clearinghouse or with a billing service, repricing company, switch or other intermediate entity 16 which, in turn, communicates with the provider.
The X12 standard defines the message structure which, in turn, defines the order in which documents and other data are to be presented. In this regard, documents are transmitted pursuant to the X12 standard in packages termed interchanges as shown in FIG. 2. As described below, the documents are organized into various envelopes that provide information relating to the enclosed documents and facilitate proper processing of the documents. As will be known to those skilled in the art and as shown in FIG. 2, each envelope generally includes a header and a corresponding trailer or footer with the header preceding the enclosed documents and the trailer or footer following the enclosed documents.
The outermost envelope is the ISA/IEA envelope 20, also known as the interchange envelope, that isolates one group of transmitted documents from another group. Several dissimilar types of business documents can be included in an interchange envelope with each different type of business document separated from other types of business documents as described below. Among other parameters, each interchange envelope includes a control number that serves to identify the interchange envelope. This control number is sequential between a provider and a payer and can be utilized for statistical control, audit control and to provide error recovery information. As several different versions of the same interchange standard may exist, the interchange envelope also generally defines the particular version of the interchange envelope.
Within the interchange envelope 20 are one or more GS/GE envelopes 22, also known as functional group envelopes. Each GS/GE envelope isolates one group of documents from another. As such, while several dissimilar types of documents can be included within one interchange envelope, each different type of document is contained in a respective GS/GE envelope. Thus, medical claims from several different providers for several different subscribers may be included in one GS/GE envelope, while a functional acknowledgement is included in another GS/GE envelope within the same interchange envelope. Among other parameters, the header and/or footer of the GS/GE envelope identifies the type of documents included within the envelope as well as the version, data dictionary and segment directory that may be utilized to interpret the documents included therein.
Within the GS/GE envelope 22 are one or more ST/SE envelopes 24, also known as transaction set envelopes, that serve to isolate one batch of documents from another. In this regard, several batches of the same type of document can be contained within the same GS/GE envelope with each batch of documents being contained in its own ST/SE envelope. Within a single GS/GE envelope, for example, one ST/SE envelope may include medical claims from one provider while another ST/SE envelope may include medical claims from another provider. The header and/or footer or trailer of the ST/SE envelope may include a control number for audit trail purposes, as well as other parameters.
As a more particular example, the hierarchal structure defined by ASC ANSI X12N 837 for professional, institutional, or dental health care documents is shown in FIG. 3. In this example, a single GS/GE envelope 22 is included within a single ISA/IEA envelope 20, thereby indicating that the file includes one group of similar documents. Within the GS/GE envelope are two ST/SE envelopes 24. Within each ST/SE envelope 26 is a batch 26 of documents submitted by a respective provider such that all of the documents included in a particular ST/SE envelope originate from the same provider. The batch of documents submitted by a respective provider may include documents relating to one or more subscribers or patients. In the first batch included in the first ST/SE envelope, for example, a first provider designated by HL*20 has submitted two documents for a first subscriber designated HL*22 with claims CLM*1 and CLM*2 and a single document for a second subscriber designated CLM*1. By way of another example, the second batch depicted in FIG. 3 was submitted by a second provider designated as HL*20 and includes a single document for a first subscriber denoted HL*22 with claim CLM*1 and two documents for a second subscriber designated HL*22 with claims CLM*1 and CLM*2.
Upon submittal of a batch of documents, the payer 14, or a clearinghouse 12 if the payer is not capable of receiving and properly processing messages formatted according to the X12 standard, reviews the batch of documents to see if the claims are compliant with the predefined specifications set forth by the HIPAA regulations. As described above, if any one or more of the documents included in the batch are non-compliant, such as by having an improper syntax, the entire batch is rejected. In this regard, a rejected batch is returned by the payer, or its clearinghouse, to the provider such that the provider 10 can cure any error, such as any syntactical error, and then resubmit the batch at some point in the future. With reference to the example provided in FIG. 3, an error in the documents submitted for the second subscriber in the first batch would cause the entire first batch to be rejected even though both documents submitted for the first subscriber in that same batch complied with the specifications.
As such, it would be desirable to provide an improved technique for increasing the speed and efficiency with which suitably formatted documents are processed. In this regard, it would be desirable for processing batches of documents in order to permit documents that comply with the predefined specifications to be paid or otherwise further processed in a timely manner without being delayed pending resolution of errors identified in one or more of the other documents.

Methods, apparatus and computer program products for processing claims


An adjustable two-way valve device is described that is embodied as a rotary valve. According to the invention the use of the rotary valve as a two-way valve is achieved by the skillful arrangement of passage openings of a valve plate with respect to control openings of a valve element. Thus it is possible to control mass or mixed flows independently of or dependent on one another with only one valve element. In particular a use in the field of exhaust gas recirculation with a bypass line and an exhaust gas cooler is advantageous, since mixed flows and thus temperatures can be run.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an adjustable two-way valve device for a combustion engine with a housing in which a first and a second outlet or inlet channel, a third outlet or inlet channel, and at least one valve element are arranged, whereby the at least one valve element is movable via a control unit such that a fluid connection can be produced at will between the first or the second outlet or inlet channel and the third outlet or inlet channel.
2. Background Art
Such two-way valve devices are known for example as combined exhaust gas recirculation and bypass valve devices in which two valve elements are activated translationally via a continuously adjustable control unit in order to reduce the emissions of a combustion engine in that in the warm-up phase the exhaust gas is conducted via the bypass channel and after heating of a catalyst, the exhaust gas is conducted via the EGR cooler of the combustion engine.
Accordingly, in DE 100 25 877 an exhaust gas recirculation system with a valve device is described, which valve device features one exhaust gas inlet and two exhaust gas outlets, whereby one of the exhaust gas outlets leads to a cooler and the other exhaust gas outlet is connected fluidly to a bypass channel that bypasses the cooler. In a housing between the exhaust gas inlet and the two exhaust gas outlets respectively a valve seat is arranged, which valve seats are governed respectively by a disk-shaped valve element. The valve elements are arranged on a valve rod that is movable translationally via a control unit, whereby the first valve element is fixed on a first valve rod and the second valve element, which is arranged closer to the control unit, is arranged immovably on a second tubular valve rod surrounding the first valve rod. The control unit is embodied so that two springs are arranged in the control unit, via which the two valve disks are pressed onto their valve seats in a tensioned position. The inner and outer valve rods are arranged so that they can be displaced with respect to one another, so that the pneumatic or electromotive control unit is embodied such that depending on the direction of movement, only one of the valve rods and thus also only one of the two valve elements is lifted from the corresponding valve seat.
Moreover in DE 198 12 702 A1, a valve arrangement for controlling a recirculated exhaust gas stream is described, whereby the latter is arranged downstream of a bypass channel and an exhaust gas cooler, so that this valve arrangement features two inlets and one outlet. The two valve elements arranged on the valve rod and each corresponding to a valve seat are respectively pressed onto the valve seat via two helical springs arranged in the channel. Each of the two valve elements features a hole in the middle through which the joint valve rod extends at least partly. Two coils are embodied on the valve rod, via which the valve elements can respectively be activated individually in the direction of opening against the spring force via the coil when the valve rod is activated, whereby the respective other valve element is to slide on the valve rod, since it is pressed onto the valve seat by the spring force.
Two-way valve devices in other fields of application are likewise known, whereby these are controlled electromagnetically as a rule. For example corresponding holes are arranged in the movable armature of the electromagnetic valves, which correspond to inlets or outlets embodied in the housing. These valves are usually embodied so that exactly two or three different positions of the armature can be controlled with respect to one another to connect the different paths. As a rule these are not continuously adjustable and for example are not suitable for regulated exhaust gas recirculation via a cooler or a bypass, since the movable armature situated in the stream would be too sensitive to soiling and sufficient flow cross-sections are not ensured in such valves.
Moreover from DE 101 01 412 A1 an exhaust gas recirculation device in the form of a rotary valve for a combustion engine is known. With this rotary valve, a disk-shaped switching element is rotated via a control unit. The switching element features control openings that correspond to passage openings in a valve plate, whereby these passage openings respectively form one end of individual channels leading to the air-intake channel system. However, such a valve cannot be used as a two-way valve device, since the outlet channels cannot be opened or closed individually, but always jointly and simultaneously, so that an identical mass flow is made available to each outlet channel.
In the known embodiments of two-way valve devices, the disadvantages of high cost and a large number of components are evident. It is very expensive to embody the control units with two meshing valve rods. Moreover there is a high sensitivity to soiling in embodiments with springs arranged in the channel and valve elements sliding on the valve rod, since rust deposits may form on the valve rod, as a result of which problem-free functioning is no longer ensured. In addition, the expense of production and assembly is very high due to the large number of components.

Adjustable two-way valve device for a combustion engine


A method of ameliorating neurogenic tremor in mammals, which comprises topically administering to a mammal, which has been diagnosed with a neurogenic tremor, an effective amount of a topical anesthetic.

"Tremor" refers to rhythmic shaking of a body part. Tremor is one of the most common involuntary movement disorders seen in clinical practice. In addition to consideration of a detailed history, the differential diagnosis of tremor is mainly clinically based on the distinctions made at rest, postural or intention; activation condition; frequency; and topographical distribution. The causes of tremor are heterogeneous and a tremor can present alone (e.g., as with essential tremor) or as a part of a neurological syndrome, such as traumatic brain injury, hypoxic brain injury, cerebrovascular accident, and/or multiple sclerosis, etc. This latter type of tremor is referred to as "neurogenic tremor".
Essential Tremor (ET) is the most common type of tremor. Although it is called a "benign" condition, essential tremor may be far from benign. Essential tremors may be frustrating, embarrassing, or even disabling to the patient. Essential tremor is a very common and complex neurological movement disorder. One characteristic of essential tremor is that it is not caused by another neurological condition or the side effect of a medication. ET usually affects the hands, but it may also affect the head and neck (causing shaking), face, jaw, tongue, voice (causing a shaking or quivering sound), the trunk and, rarely, the legs and feet. The tremor movement associated with ET may be a rhythmic "back-and-forth" or "to-and-fro" movement produced by involuntary contractions of the muscle. It is a syndrome characterized by a slowly progressive postural and/or kinetic tremor, usually affecting both upper extremities. The pathophysiology of ET is not known. No pathological findings are known to be associated consistently with ET. Essential tremors are characteristically postural (occurring with voluntary maintenance of a position against gravity) and kinetic (occurring during voluntary movement) and usually resolve when the body part relaxes. ET probably represents a syndrome and multiple etiologies have been identified. Most or all of these causes are probably genetic as evidenced by the fact that ET is familial in at least 50-70% of cases. Severity of the tremors can vary greatly from hour to hour and day to day. Some people experience ET only in certain positions, i.e. as a postural tremor. Tremor that worsens while writing or eating is called kinetic or action-specific tremor. Most people with ET have both postural and kinetic tremor.
Neurogenic tremors, on the other hand, occur as a part of a neurological syndrome, such as with traumatic brain injury, hypoxic brain injury, cerebrovascular accident, and/or multiple sclerosis, etc. As far as physical impairments following brain injury and/or neurological diseases are concerned, neurogenic tremors can be particularly debilitating. Neurogenic tremor is a movement disorder that is associated with rhythmic, involuntary muscular contractions of reciprocally innervated, antagonistic muscle groups characterized by rhythmic oscillations ("to-and-fro" movements) of a part of the body about a fixed plane in space. The most common of all involuntary movements, neurogenic tremor can affect various body parts such as the hands, head, facial structures, vocal cords, trunk and legs, although most tremors occur in the distal upper extremities; e.g. hands. Given that the upper extremities are most commonly affected, various aspects of activities of daily living (ADLs) can be adversely affected including self-feeding, fine motor manipulation, writing, and dressing, etc. Although neurogenic tremor is by no means life threatening, it can be the cause of significant functional disability and therefore require use of either adaptive aids and/or assistance from others to compensate for the impairment.
Generally, neurogenic tremors are manifest as the following sub-classifications of tremor "type": resting, postural and kinetic.
1) "Resting tremor" occurs when the muscle is at rest, for example, when the hands on left lying on a surface. This type of tremor is normal 4 to 6 hertz in frequency with medium amplitude. This type of tremor is often seen in patients with Parkinson's disease. Currently treatment of resting tremors is predominantly focused in pharmacotherapies involving dopamine agonist drugs such as L-dopa, amantadine, and parlodel, etc., and anticholinergic agents, such as benztropine and trihexyphenidyl.
2) "Postural tremor" occurs when a patient attempts to maintain posture such as holding the hands outstretched. Postural tremors include physiological tremor, tremor associated basal ganglia disease/injury, cerebellar postural tremor, tremor with peripheral neuropathy, and alcoholic tremor. There is no established drug treatment for this type of tremor, although beta-blockers, isoniazid, anticonvulsants and other drugs have been used with some limited success.
3) "Kinetic tremor" occurs during purposeful movement, for example, during finger-to-nose testing. Kinetic tremors tend to be low frequency tremors and tend to occur ipsilateral to the side of cerebellar involvement, including but not limited to, the cerebellar outflow tracts. This type of tremor can also be seen with certain degenerative brain diseases. Numerous medications have been used, albeit with quite limited success, including but not limited to: beta-blockers, anticonvulsants, benzodiazepines, anticholinergics, and buspirone.
Symptomatic drug therapy is available for several types of neurogenic tremors. For example, for some types of neurogenic tremors there are specific pharmacological approaches to management of the tremors, such as anti-Parkinsonian drugs for Parkinson-related resting tremor. However, the majority of tremors do not have well established drug treatments, as determined either by practitioner consensus nor evidence based research. In addition, many of the drugs that are currently used to modulate tremor have also been noted to have potential and significant deleterious side effects including sedation, metabolic toxicities and/or cognitive depressant actions.
For those cases of tremor in which there is no effective drug treatment, physical measures such as teaching the patient to brace the affected limb during the tremor are sometimes useful. Physical treatments such as limb weighting have also been advocated for modulating certain types of tremor such as cerebellar postural tremor and kinetic tremor; however, these interventions tend to be cumbersome with difficulty maintaining patient compliance due to the perceived "socially unacceptability" of these modalities.
In addition, surgical intervention such as thalamotomy or deep brain stimulation may be useful in certain cases (Bogey et al: "Rehabilitation of movement disorders", Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 85(Suppl 1): S41-45, 2004.
An intervention that is effective, easily transportable and has an acceptably low side effect profile would be ideal for modulating this type of disabling condition. Based on available evidence, the novel application of topical anesthetics for modulation of neurogenic tremor meets these criteria.
To date, topical anesthetics have never been proposed for use in treatment of neurogenic (e.g. neurological) tremors. The first study to suggest that tremor might be reduced, in any fashion, through treatment with anesthetics, although not through topically to the skin, was published in 1993 in Parrent et al., "Tremor Reduction by Microinjection ofLidocaine During Stereotactic Surgery", Acta Neurochirurgica, 58:45-47 (1993). This study examined the effects of lidocaine microinjections into the thalami of ten patients undergoing stereotactic thalamotomy for the treatment of Parkinsonian or Parkinsonian tremor. In overall ⅔ of cases, the test, microinjection of the lidocaine replicated the effects of microstimulation. The authors concluded that longer term follow-up would be required to determine whether lesions made on the basis of lidocaine induced tremor suppression would result in a lower rate of tremor recurrence than those based on stimulation induced tremor suppression.
A study by Levy et al. "Lidocaine and Muscimol Microinjectionand Subthalamic NucleusReversed Parkinsonian Symptoms", Brain 124(Pt10):2105-2118 (2001) demonstrated that application of lidocaine centrally in the subcortical areas of the brain ameliorated tremor through the inactivation of neuronal activity in the subthalamic nucleus; thereby, improving motor symptoms, possibly by alternating the oscillatory activity of neurons located beyond the inhibited area.
Finally, Pozos et al., "Effective Topical Anesthesiaon Essential Tremor", Electromyography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 32(7-8): 369-72 (1992), looked at the effects of skin desensitization on essential tremor in study that used a single-blinded approach. The researchers found that topical anesthetic significantly suppressed essential tremor amplitude and associated electrical activity in all patients with the mean tremor amplitude being reduced by 40%. However, there was no apparent follow up study that has either replicated this finding and unfortunately treatments developed for the treatment of essential tremor have not proved to be indicative of efficacy in treating neurogenic tremors.

Application of topical anesthetics for modulation of neurogenic tremor


A developing roller having a surface layer which contains a urethane resin composed of a reaction product of an isocyanate with a group of specific alcohols and has a surface having a contact angle to ethylene glycol of from 60.0 degrees or more to 90.0 degrees or less and a contact angle to diiodomethane of from 30.0 degrees or more to 38.0 degrees or less. The developing roller is highly reliable as having controlled banding which is an image difficulty caused at the part of contact between the developing roller and a developer feed roller.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing roller used in, e.g., electrophotographic image forming apparatus such as copying machines and laser beam printers, and also relates to a process for its production, and a developing assembly and an image forming apparatus which make use of the developing roller.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrophotographic image forming apparatus which employ a pressure development process are known as electrophotographic image forming apparatus such as copying machines, laser beam printers, and receiving sets of facsimile machines. The pressure development process is a development process in which a non-magnetic one-component developer is used as a developer and the developer is made to adhere to an electrostatic latent image held on a photosensitive drum, to render the latent image visible. This process is widely used because it requires no magnetic material, facilitates manufacture of simple and compact apparatus, and also facilitates preparation of color developers.
An electrophotographic image forming apparatus employing such a pressure development process has, as shown in FIG. 3, an image bearing member for holding thereon an electrostatic latent image such as a photosensitive drum 21 rotatable by a rotating mechanism, and, disposed around this photosensitive drum 21, a charging member 22 which makes the photosensitive drum 21 charged electrostatically. This electrophotographic image forming apparatus further has an exposure unit. It makes laser beam 23 irradiate the photosensitive drum 21 and thereby, the photosensitive drum 21 is discharged at the area where the laser beam 23 irradiates, and electrostatic latent images are formed on the photosensitive drum 21 which correspond to the images to be finally formed. This electrophotographic image forming apparatus still further has a developing assembly and a transfer roller 29. The developing assembly feeds a developer to the electrostatic latent images formed on the photosensitive drum 21, to perform development, and the transfer roller 29 transfers the developer having adhered to the electrostatic latent image, onto a transfer material (recording material). It still further has a cleaning blade 30 which destaticizes the surface of the photosensitive drum 21 from which the developer has been transferred and performs cleaning, and a fixing assembly 32 which fixes the developer held on the transfer material. The above developing assembly is provided with a developing roller 25, a developer feed roller 26 which coats the surface of the developing roller 25 with a developer 28 held in a developer container 34, and a developing blade 27 which adjusts to a more uniform thin layer the developer with which the surface of the developing roller 25 is kept coated. The developing roller 25 rotates while feeding to the photosensitive drum 21 the developer made uniform by the aid of the developing blade and coming into contact or proximity to the photosensitive drum 21, to make the thin-layer developer adhere to the latent images formed on the photosensitive drum 21 and render visible the latent images formed on the photosensitive drum 21.
The developing roller is required to be well durable to the heat generated when electrified at a high voltage for a long time, not to cause contamination of the photosensitive drum 21 particularly because of decomposition of a high molecular material member, and not to cause changes in electrical resistance of the member (Japanese Patent No. 3186541). The developing roller may further undergo environmental changes in temperature, moisture and so forth to come to cause deflection of electrical resistance in a large width, and this may cause a great change in image density (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H07-13415). Further, when an electrophotographic image forming apparatus is kept unoperated for a long period of time, the developing roller and a developer feed roller, both of which are at standstill, are brought into contact with each other for a long period of time. In such an occasion, any components bled out of the developer feed roller, hereinafter called "bleeding component", may adhere to the surface of the developing roller, and such a developing roller may result in an undesirable "banding" or a density variation in the direction of drum rotation in an electrophotographic image. The banding is conspicuous in a halftone image or low-contrast image, and may remarkably occur when the electrophotographic image forming apparatus is kept unoperated under an environment of high-temperature and high-humidity, e.g., 40° C./95% RH over a long period of time.

Developing roller, process for its production, developing assembly and image forming apparatus


The present invention provides a light guide panel and a backlight module using the light guide panel. The light guide panel is disposed corresponding to a light source module of the backlight module. The light guide panel mainly comprises a plate, a plurality of microstructures and a plurality of protrusions. The plate is disposed close to the light source module and includes a microstructure surface. The microstructures and the protrusions are disposed on the microstructure surface, and the heights of the protrusions are greater than those of the microstructures, and a plurality of the microstructures are disposed between the adjacent protrusions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to light guide panels and backlight modules using the same, and more particularly to a light guide panel for liquid crystal display (LCD) devices and a backlight module using the light guide panel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
LCD devices have been used extensively in liquid crystal televisions (LCTVs), computers, cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Due to the ever increasing size and the product standard keeps enhancing, for LCD devices having advantages such as lightweight, low power consumption and low radiation, the market boundary for these devices keeps expanding. The backlight module is one of the important elements in LCD devices. Since liquid crystal materials in the LCD devices are not self luminous, the backlight modules are needed to provide light and to achieve display effect. As the application level of various panel dimensions of the LCD devices keep expanding, the backlight module industry has been on an upward trend over a long period or time. Especially, the market demand for LCD devices in recent years has increased considerably. In order to accord with functional and outward appearance requirements of the LCD devices, the backlight module design for LCD devices has gradually become multidimensional.
A backlight module mainly comprises a light guide plate, a light source module, a reflector and one to a plurality of optical films. In order to achieve design objectives of backlight modules, such as low power, high brightness, uniform luminosity and controllable view angle, the optical elements within the backlight module use various optical designs to enhance light utilization efficiency. The primary function of a light guide plate is to guide the light path and to achieve uniform brightness. Due to the fact that the refractive index of a light guide plate is greater than ambient atmosphere, light paths within the light guide plate travel mostly by way of total reflection. In addition, a plurality of microstructures is disposed on part of the bottom surface or top surface of the light guide plate to enhance overall light output uniformity and luminance.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional backlight module. As shown in FIG. 1, the backlight module comprises a light guide plate 80, a light source module 40, a light source diffusion module 60 and a reflector 20. The light source module 40 is disposed on the lateral side of the light guide plate 80, the reflector 20 is disposed under the light guide plate 80, and the light source diffusion module 60 is disposed above the light guide plate 80. A plurality of microstructures 83 is disposed on a bottom surface 81 of the light guide plate 80. The microstructures 83 are V-shaped grooves, and pointy ends 85 are formed between the two grooves. As shown in FIG. 1, the bottom surface 81 of the light guide plate 80 and the reflector 20 are superimposed, and the pointy ends 85 touch against the reflector 20.
In the conventional backlight module design in FIG. 1, the microstructures 83 on the light guide plate 80 contact directly with the reflector 20. However, the contact between the microstructures 83 and the reflector 20 frequently damages the microstructures 83 and the reflector 20. For example, abrasion between the microstructures 83 and the reflector 20 caused by transport, vibration tests or other relative movements results in scrapes on the microstructures 83, and further white spots, luminance streaks (mura) and poor pervious to light on LCD panel. The scrape issue of the microstructures may cause the loss of optical characteristics of the light guide plate, disable it to reach the intended performance, result in a defective product, and even the overall production yield of the backlight module is reduced and the cost of production is increased. Accordingly, how to protect the light guide plate and the optical elements next to the light guide plate from scrape and abrasion has posed a major challenge to the backlight module design.
FIG. 2 shows an improved structure of a conventional backlight module. As shown in FIG. 2, the backlight module comprises a light guide plate 90, a light source module 30, a light source diffusion module 50 and a reflector 10. The light source module 30 is disposed on the lateral side of the light guide plate 90, the reflector 10 is disposed under the light guide plate 90, and the light source diffusion module 50 is disposed above the light guide plate 90. A plurality of microstructures 93 is disposed on a bottom surface 91 of the light guide plate 90. The microstructures 93 are V-shaped grooves, and plane surfaces are between the two grooves. As shown in FIG. 2, the bottom surface 91 of the light guide plate 90 is superimposed with the reflector 10, and the plane surfaces 95 touch against the reflector 10.
The improved structure eliminates the contact issue of pointy ends of the microstructures in the conventional backlight module, and planar contact is utilized to distribute the concentration of force, thus the contact abrasion between the microstructures 93 and the reflector 10 is reduced, and scrape and abrasion occurrences of the light guide plate 90 is reduced as well. However, the microstructures 93 and the reflector 10 still have a fairly large surface contact in this improved structure. Although the plane surfaces 95 touching against the reflector 10 help reduce the abrasion degree of the microstructures 93, the planar surface contact between the plane surfaces 95 and the reflector 10 may still create scrape and abrasion issues.

Light guide panel and backlight module using the same


A tire alarm device gives a warning against the runflat operation limit of a pneumatic tire during runflat operation, the tire having a reinforcement layer disposed in each sidewall thereof for enabling the runflat operation. The device includes a tire temperature sensor used to warn of the runflat operation limit, and the tire temperature sensor is disposed on the inner surface of one of the sidewalls facing the reinforcement layer therein.

In response to demands in the market, there have been proposed many technologies which allow a vehicle to urgently travel (travel in a runflat mode) several hundred kilometers even when the pneumatic tire is punctured while running; in recent years, safety tires and tire/wheel assemblies in which such technologies were put into practical use are gradually prevailing. Even when the inner pressure of the safety tires or tire/wheel assemblies decreases due to, for example, puncturing, it is not easy to find the decrease in the tire inner pressure apparently; therefore, the safety tires and tire/wheel assemblies are required to be used in conjunction with an apparatus for monitoring the tire condition because of assuring safety thereof.
As a conventional apparatus for monitoring the condition of a tire, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 6-211012, for example, discloses a tire condition monitoring apparatus having an air pressure detecting means for detecting the air pressure of a tire, a temperature detecting means for detecting the temperature of a tire, and a burst generation prediction means for predicting the generation of burst of a tire based on the air pressure detected by the air pressure detecting means and the tire temperature detected by the temperature detecting means. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-355203 discloses a tire air pressure warning apparatus that detects the air pressure of a tire with a pressure sensor to inform the vehicle side of it by radio.
The above-described apparatuses can suitably be used as apparatuses for monitoring the condition of a normal pneumatic tire mounted on a vehicle; however, when the above apparatuses are used for the foregoing safety tires or tire/wheel assemblies, they can not give the driver a warning against the limit of runflat operation (the limit where the operation is stopped before the breakdown of the tire) with high accuracy during runflat operation.


Devices and methods for reducing stray magnetic fields from an inductor are disclosed. In some aspects, a device includes a substantially U-shaped component configured to attach to a conductive surface of a printed circuit board and configured to substantially surround a lengthwise portion of an inductor on three sides of the inductor.

An inductor can be constructed as a copper wire with a core wrapped around it. The core can be formed of a ferromagnetic material and include an air gap. In operation, inductors generate a stray magnetic field. In some implementations, the inductor can be wrapped with a conductive band (e.g., a copper band) to reduce the stray magnetic field emitted from the inductor. Wrapping the inductor with a conductive band is one way to reduce the stray magnetic field from the inductor; however, it can have disadvantages. For example, it can be difficult to wrap the inductor with the conductive band.