In brief summary, the invention provides a new message packet transfer system, which may be used in, for example, a multiprocessor computer system. The message packet transfer system comprises a plurality of switching nodes interconnected by communication links to define at least one cyclical packet transfer path having a predetermined diameter. The switching nodes may be connected to, for example, digital data processors and memory to form processing nodes in an multiprocessor computer system, and/or to other sources and destinations for digital data contained in the message packets. The switching nodes transfer message packets each from a respective one of the switching nodes as a respective source switching node to a respective one of the switching nodes as a respective destination switching node. At least one of the switching nodes has a plurality of buffers for buffering a corresponding plurality of message packets that it (that is, the at least one of the switching nodes) receives from another of said switching nodes during a message transfer operation, which ensures that deadlock does not occur during the message transfer operation.

A number of types of multiprocessor computer systems have been developed which integrate a number of processors to increase the system's processing power beyond that which can be provided by a single processor. In a multiprocessor computer system, a plurality of processing nodes are interconnected by communication links which may comprise any suitable mechanism for transferring digital information, including, for example, wires, optical fibers, and the like.
A variety of types of interconnection arrangements have been developed for interconnecting processors in a multiprocessor computer system designed according to the distributed memory model, organized in a number of topologies. For small systems, comprising two or three processing nodes, a simple bus to which all processing nodes are connected may suffice. However, as the number of processing nodes increases, contention for the bus increases, which can slow down information transfer and the processing capability of the respective systems.
Most interconnection topologies that have been proposed, studied and/or implemented, other than the aforementioned bus arrangement, have been developed for systems including a large number of processing nodes, in particular, systems numbering in the hundreds or thousands of processing nodes. However, many systems that are desired commercially are much smaller, having, for example, as few as four or five processing nodes, up to as many as fifteen to twenty. For such systems, interconnection topologies that have been developed for large systems are often not economical. Another problem with such interconnection topologies is that they are typically based on the assumption that the systems with which they are to be used includes a number of processing nodes corresponding to a power of two, and will be most economical for those numbers of processing nodes. If, for example, such a system is required to have a number of processing nodes corresponding to a power of two, it may be necessary to increase the interconnection subsystem considerably even if it is desired to increase the number of processing nodes by only one.
The aforementioned Heller, et al., patent application describes a number of interconnection subsystems for efficiently interconnecting small numbers of nodes, each having a selected "degree", or "radix", (that is, or number of connections to communication links) in a multiprocessor computer system. In a number of the interconnection subsystems described in the Heller, et al., patent application, all of the nodes are of degree "three", so that each processing node can connect to as many as three communication links. Generally, the interconnection subsystems described in the Heller, et al., patent application are effective for interconnecting from as few as two nodes to as many as fifteen to twenty nodes, with no power-of-two limitation.
One problem that can arise in connection with interconnection subsystems such as those described in the Heller, et al., patent application is that deadlocks can develop in transferring information among the processing nodes. Deadlocks can arise in multiprocessor computer systems in a variety of ways; one way in which a deadlock can arise in an interconnection subsystem described in the Heller, et al., patent application is if a number of processing nodes are attempting to concurrently transfer information to and/or through the same processing node. In that case, the processing nodes which are attempting to transfer information will be requiring use of the same resources at the processing node to or through which the information is to be transferred. Since the resources can only be used for the information transfer by one of the processing nodes, all of the processing nodes which need to transfer information are blocked from proceeding. Since such a condition can arise, an interconnection subsystem is only useful if it can be provided with resources to ensure that deadlock cannot occur.

System for performing deadlock free message transfer in cyclic multi-hop digital computer network using a number of buffers based on predetermined diameter


An intermediate compound for total synthesis of ecteinascidins comprising, a compound represented by general formula 2 having thioether group at C4 site, and the substituent R2 of N12 site is trichloroethoxicarbonyl (Troc) to which various substituents can be introduced by mild condition, further having a 10-membered ring structure which can be converted to a ring of other numbered members.

Ecteinascidins is a group of marine alkaloid having antineoplasticity which is isolated from the extracted products from marine tunicate habitat of Caribbean sea by very small amount. Among the ecteinascidins, since Et 743 has a very strong antineoplastic activity, the investigation to put it into practical use as a carcinostatic agent is limited, and the phase II clinical tests are now carried out in ten several countries in Europe and America. It is known that Et 743 has an effect to depress the proliferation of cancer cells by 10 to 100 times more potent than(IC50=0.1−1 nM) Toxol, Camptotesin, Adriamycin or Mitomycin which are currently used carcinostatic agent.
From the back ground mentioned above, various investigations for synthesis were carried out, however, the complete synthesis was only reported by Prof. E. J. Corey of Harvard University in U.S.A. (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1996, 118, 9202-9203, reference document A).
In the process of synthesis of the total synthesis disclosed in Document A (refer to page 9202), the feature of the process is existing in the point that Et 743 is synthesized from the analogous compound to the compound represented by general formula 1 of the present invention via intermediates 4 and 8. That is, according to said process, C4 site of ring B (regarding indication of ring, and the sites of atoms composing 6-members ring, refer to general formula 1) which composes 6-members ring is formed from the intermediate 4 at the first step. And, since to the atom C4 composing B ring of 6-membered ring H which lacks reactivity is bonded, it becomes necessary to have an oxidation reaction to C4 site on B ring. This oxidation reaction is not effective and is carried out by harsh condition, therefore, the production by industrial scale is difficult and also the yield is not good. Further, since atom N12 site of the synthesized intermediate is substituted by alkyl group which lacks reactivity, in this case substituted by methyl group, it is not suited to the synthesis for various compounds. Although the total synthesis was reported, the supplying source of Et 743 is still depending on the natural sample whose supplying amount is very scarce, therefore, the establishment of the method for a large scale production of Et 743 is desired by accomplishing an effective synthesizing process.
Since, Et 743 is known as a medicine having high antineoplasticity, and phthalascidin induced from the intermediate product at the synthesis of Et 743 displays same activity to Et 743, the establishment of the effective and mild method for synthesis of Et 743 and analogous compound thereof is strongly desired.
Therefore, the subject of the present invention is basically to accomplish the effective method for total synthesis of Et 743, further, to provide not only Et 743 but also analogous compounds.
To dissolve the subject, the present invention tried the retrosynthetic analysis, which promises easy synthesis. And it will be possible to form B ring by ring forming reaction at ortho position of phenol which composes A ring to inner molecular aldehyde in a generated compound by 4-8 reaction. Further, the inventors of the present invention considered that the generated compound by 4-8 reaction will be possible to synthesize based on the polycondensation reaction of general formula 4, and general formula 5 via a compound of general formula 3, the total synthesis of Et 743, which is the aimed compound, by way of the compounds represented by general formulae 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 and the specific structure of general formulae 1 and 2. And confirmation of the synthetic route enabled providing the analogous compound of Et 743.

Process for total synthesis of ecteinascidins and intermediates therefor


A method of fabricating a touch panel includes the steps of forming the touch panel from a forming material and a film with a conductive electrode formed with a conductive electrode region constituting a touch surface on a substrate film, and deforming the film with the conductive electrode and integrating with the forming material to fabricate the touch panel with a curved touch surface. The conductive electrode region in the film with the conductive electrode includes a discontinuous part for controlling a breakage of the conductive electrode region so that during a deformation of the film with the conductive electrode, a breakage occurs at one portion of a deformed part of the conductive electrode region and the conductive electrode region retains conductivity at two points sandwiching the deformed part therebetween.

In the conventional technology, capacitive touch panels having a curved touch surface have already been proposed (for example, those disclosed in PTL 1).
A conventional method of fabricating a touch panel employs a forming material and a conductive-electroded film manufactured by making, on a substrate film, a conductive electrode region for constituting a touch surface, and fabricates a touch panel by shaping the conductive-electroded film and combining the shaped film and the forming material. An example of the method of shaping a conductive-electroded film and combining the shaped film and a forming material includes the steps of laminating a conductive-electroded film on a flat forming material and shaping the flat laminate into a curved surface by vacuum and pressure forming.
Unfortunately, conventional conductive-electroded films employed for fabricating curved touch panels have posed a problem, that is, breakage of a conductive electrode on a curved part, i.e., extended or contracted part, of the film, which leads to the loss of conductivity in a single electrode region and poor yield of touch panels fabricated.

Touch panel fabricating method and conductive-electroded film


A retractor for percutaneous surgery in a patient which includes an elongate retractor tube composed of circumferentially arranged elongate independent tube segments with proximal ends of the tube segments respectively hinged to a unitary collar whereby the distal ends of the tube segments may be outwardly expanded in umbrella fashion by outwardly pivoting the segments about their respective hinges for thereby retracting surrounding tissue. The distal end of the retractor tube is provided with a tapered distal end suitably dimensioned for insertion into a stab incision. An internally open expansion collet is coaxially received in the collar for adjustable coaxial advancement downwardly into the collar toward the retractor tube segments and fulcrum tabs protrude inwardly and upwardly towards the expansion collet from each tube segment adjacent a respective hinge. The fulcrum tabs are sized for engaging a bottom end of the collet for thereby progressively pivoting the segments outward about their hinges as the collet advances downwardly into the collar.

The present invention relates to expandable retractors for use in surgery. More particularly, the present invention relates to mechanical selectively expandable retractors for moving subsurface tissue in surgery performed percutaneously through a stab incision for performing minimally invasive surgical techniques.
Traditional open surgical procedures performed on locations deep within the body can cause significant trauma to the intervening tissues. Such procedures often require along incision, extensive muscle stripping, prolonged retraction of tissues, denervation and devascularication of tissue. These traditional open surgeries can require extensive operating time and extensive post-operative recovery time, and in some cases, can lead to permanent scarring and more severe pain to the patient.
Accordingly minimally invasive surgical procedures are preferred. Such minimal access procedures utilize a device to expose the operative field with a minimum of trauma to surrounding tissues, most notably musculature. These minimal access devices or retractors generally rely on splitting muscle planes to reach desired operative fields. Accordingly, this minimally invasive approach is more desirable than standard surgical operations which rely on stripping musculature off its attachments. It is an object of the present invention to provide a retractor for minimally invasive surgery which eliminates the requirement of multiple steps to dilate the musculature, or most notably eliminates the requirement or use of a "tube over tube" sequential dilation system, as well as the elimination of the adaptation and use of standard retractor systems for minimal access surgery.

Retractor and method for percutaneous tissue retraction and surgery


An apparatus for manufacturing sections of cotton candy, and synchronously presenting them to the packaging machinery. The apparatus includes an extruder for melting and extruding sugar. The resulting sugar strands are moved onto a belt conveyor, forming a continuous bundle. A cutting blade is slidable, by an actuator, in a direction transverse to the belt conveyor, for cutting the bundle into sections of predetermined length. A paddle conveyor is positioned to receive the cut sections from the first conveyor. A control switch, activated by the passage of the paddles, is provided for controlling the actuation of the cutting blade. The switch is movable to various positions with respect to the paddle conveyor. The position of the switch with respect to the paddle conveyor determines the position of the sections on the paddle conveyor, thus aiding in the synchronization of the cut sections with the packaging machine.

This invention relates to food manufacture, and in particular to apparatus for manufacturing food items in a continuous bundle and packaging that food in sections or packets.
Cotton candy, or more properly spun sugar candy, has long been a favorite confection at carnivals, amusements parks, and the like. Conventionally, sugar is melted and extruded from a spinning extrusion head, the spun sugar then being collected from a stationary dish surrounding the extrusion head and wound on a stick or paper cone. The inherent tackiness of the freshly extruded strands of spun sugar causes them to stick together in a loose mass resembling cotton batting.
Prior to the 1970s, however, cotton candy had not been successfully made and marketed for widespread distribution and later consumption. The main reason for this lack of success was that there were not sufficiently efficient machines for the automatic manufacture and packaging thereof. And because cotton candy is extremely lightweight, portions of it tend to float upward with air currents in the surrounding atmosphere. It was thus important to minimize human involvement with the apparatus, thus requiring essentially fully automatic production machinery.
A first attempt at such fully automatic cotton candy production machinery is shown in Warning, U.S. Pat. No. 3,930,043. This patent showed rotating pans surrounding the sugar extruders, with the cotton candy strands being pulled out of the pans and fed through a conveyor, where it was cut into sections. The sections were later individually packaged, so that they could be sold at some future date. While this device worked well, there was still room for improvement. Particularly, the rotating star blade cutter disclosed therein became filled with the sticky product, and in any case it was impossible to reliably maintain synchronization or adjustment of the star blade cutter and the cut sections of cotton candy with respect to the packaging machinery.
This invention relates to improvements to the apparatus set forth above, and solutions to some of the problems raised or not solved thereby.

Apparatus for making cotton candy and preparing it for packaging


In one embodiment, a printing system includes an inkjet printhead configured to traverse bi directionally over a printzone printing one swath in a first direction, and a subsequent swath in a second direction opposite the first direction, with the printhead rising to a base temperature in response to a pre warming signal prior to beginning a swath. The printing system also includes a temperature sensor configured to monitor the temperature of the printhead. A controller is configured to generate the pre warming signal in response to an end of swath temperature monitored by the temperature sensor following printing the one swath.

Inkjet printheads typically move across print media depositing ink droplets one swath at a time to form a desired image, often in a bi-directional print mode, depositing ink when traveling to the right and then on the return path when traveling to the left, for example. During a print swath, the temperature of a thermal inkjet printhead rises, resulting in larger ink droplets having a higher drop weight being emitted near the end of a swath, appearing as an optical density or color saturation change across the swath.
During the turnaround time between print swaths, the printhead is allowed to cool to preserve printhead life, so on the beginning the next swath a lower drop weight is emitted from the cooled printhead and the image appears lighter than the previous swath. This printhead temperature ramp phenomenon produces a print quality artifact known as "banding," which is particularly noticeable in bi-directional monochromatic printing where an alternating pattern of light and dark bands appear down each edge of the printed image.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A particle blast system includes a feeder assembly having a rotor with a plurality of pockets formed in the peripheral surface. The transport gas flowpath includes the pockets, such that substantially all transport gas flows through the pockets. The seal adjacent the peripheral surface is actuated by the transport gas pressure to urge its sealing surface against the rotor's peripheral surface. At start up, there is no substantial pressure between the seal and the rotor, reducing start up torque requirements.

The present invention relates generally to particle blast systems, and is particularly directed to a device which provides improved introduction of particles into a transport gas flow for ultimate delivery as entrained particles to a workpiece or other target. The invention will be specifically disclosed in connection with a transport mechanism in a cryogenic particle blast system which introduces particles from a source of such particles, such as a hopper, into the transport gas flow.
Particle blasting systems have been around for several decades. Typically, particles, also known as blast media, are fed into a transport gas flow and are transported as entrained particles to a blast nozzle, from which the particles exit, being directed toward a workpiece or other target.
Carbon dioxide blasting systems are well known, and along with various associated component parts, are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,744,181, 4,843,770, 4,947,592, 5,050,805, 5,018,667, 5,109,636, 5,188,151, 5,301,509, 5,571,335, 5,301,509, 5,473,903, 5,660,580 and 5,795,214, and in commonly owned co-pending applications Ser. No. 09/658,359, filed Sept. 8, 2000, titled Improved Hopper and Ser. No. 09/369,797, filed Aug. 6, 1999, titled Non-Metallic Particle Blasting Nozzle With Static Field Dissipation, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Many prior art blasting system, such as disclosed therein, include rotating rotors with cavities or pockets for transporting pellets into the transport gas flow. Seals are used in contact with the rotor surface in which the cavities or pockets are formed. Such seals are usually urged against the rotor surface independent of whether the rotor is rotating or the system is operating. The seal force results in seal drag, creating a resisting torque which has to be overcome by the motor. When the torque is present at the time the rotor is started turning, a substantial start up load is placed on the motor, affecting the size and wear of the motor. The prior art large diameter rotors also provide a sizable moment arm through which the seal drag produces substantial torque.
At least for prior art rotors which utilize pockets formed in a peripheral rotor surface, not all pellets are discharged from the pockets at the discharge station. Additionally, the pocket spacing and lack of thorough, uniform mixing of the transport gas and pellets in the feeder results in pulses.
Although the present invention will be described herein in connection with a particle feeder for use with carbon dioxide blasting, it will be understood that the present invention is not limited in use or application to carbon dioxide blasting. The teachings of the present invention may be used in application in which there can be compaction or agglomeration of any type of particle blast media.
Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiment of the invention, an example of which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

Feeder assembly for particle blast system


Synthesis methods are provided using electro-chemical catalysis. In one method, diesel fuel is made by (1) flowing a mixture of a triglyceride source and an alcohol through a high voltage electrical field, effective to convert the triglyceride into saturated mono alkyl esters; and (2) adding the saturated mono alkyl esters to a petroleum-derived diesel fuel to form a diesel fuel blend. In another method, a high temperature, oxidatively stable lubricant is made by (1) flowing a renewable oil including unsaturated fatty acids through a high voltage electrical field effective to convert the unsaturated fatty acids into saturated fatty acids; and (2) adding one or more functional additives to the saturated fatty acid-containing renewable oil to form a synthetic lubricant. In another method, ethanol is made by flowing a liquid which comprises a simple sugar through a high voltage electrical field effective to convert the sugar into ethanol without fermentation.

The field of this invention generally is related to chemical production methods employing electro-catalytic reaction mechanisms, and more particularly, to methods and systems using vegetable oil and other non-petroleum oil feedstocks to make synthetic compounds useful as or in a variety of specialty chemical products or other useful materials.
Chemical syntheses are ubiquitous and important to numerous industries throughout the world, particularly the industries involved in the production of organic chemicals, polymers, pharmaceuticals, inorganic chemicals, and specialty chemicals. Due to the time and cost of various chemical synthesis processes, industries are continually striving to reduce processing time and cost, to eliminate or simplify purification/separation steps, to decrease the energy cost of production, to increase overall product yields, and to improve the efficiency of chemical synthesis.
Biodiesel
Fossil fuels, particularly coal, oil, and natural gas, are the primary fuels of industrialized society. However, the supply of fossil fuel is limited and non-renewable, and its use is believed to contribute to substantial environmental pollution and health issues. Thus, there is a tremendous resource and environmental burden to find alternative renewable energy sources to the non-renewable fossil fuel.
A viable alternative to fossil fuel is biodiesel, a renewable source of energy. Biodiesel (or bio-fuel) is the name for a variety of ester-based fuels (e.g., fatty esters) generally made from vegetable oils, such as soybean oil, canola or hemp oil, or sometimes from animal fats through a simple transesterification process.
Biodiesel offers many advantages. Biodiesel runs in any conventional, unmodified diesel engine; thus, no engine modifications are necessary. Biodiesel can be used alone or mixed in any amount with petroleum diesel fuel. For example, a 20% blend of biodiesel with (petroleum-based) diesel fuel is called "B20," a 5% blend is called "B5." This fuel can be stored anywhere that petroleum diesel fuel is stored, and all diesel fueling infrastructure including pumps, tanks and transport trucks can use biodiesel without modifications. In addition, biodiesel can provide a net reduction in CO2 emissions and produce no sulfur dioxide when burned.
Conventional biodiesel improves engine emissions in most categories when compared to pipeline petroleum diesel fuel. Blends containing higher concentrations of conventional biodiesel, however, disadvantageously show a proportional increase in emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOX). For instance, it is documented that use of a conventional biodiesel blended with petroleum diesel fuel in an 80% petroleum/20% biodiesel blend increases nitrous oxide emissions by 2 to 11%. Presently, NOX emissions are a significant limitation to the widespread adoption of biodiesel fuels.
Some researchers have sought to address the NOX issue by incorporating certain fuel additives into the biodiesel. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,090 to Bradin discloses a fuel additive composition including fatty acid alkyl esters and glyceryl ethers. The additive-containing fuel is made by a multi-step process that includes separation of glycerol from biodiesel, conversion of glycerol to glycerol ether, and then addition of the glycerol ether back into the biodiesel fuel. Other researchers describe controlling engine emission NOX by adding water to the fuel, which cools the combustion process and reduces the formation of NOX. However, that process undesirably lowers fuel BTU value by replacing fuel with water. It would be desirable to provide a biodiesel fuel that would lower NOX emissions without lowering fuel BTU value, and to provide simpler and less expensive methods producing such fuels.
Conventional methods of producing biodiesel fuel or fuel additive are based on conventional surfactant manufacturing processes. Traditionally, biodiesel is synthesized via transesterification, as exemplified in FIG. 1. Transesterification, in relation to biodiesel, involves providing a triglyceride molecule or a complex fatty acid, neutralizing the free fatty acids, removing the glycerin, and creating an alcohol ester. This is accomplished by mixing a wood alcohol, e.g., methanol, with sodium hydroxide to make sodium methoxide, which is then mixed into vegetable oil. As the reaction proceeds, contaminant formation of glycerol and possibly some surfactant occurs. The entire mixture then settles, with glycerin on the bottom and methyl esters, or biodiesel, on top (supernatant). Expensive separation of these contaminants is required to produce pure methyl ester or biodiesel.
This typical industry process method includes the use of catalytic reactions with high temperature and pressure. Production challenges include issues of improving the decontamination processes for regenerating the catalysis, reducing dependency on homogenous catalysis that produce unwanted species during the reaction, developing continuous, large volume processes to help reduce costs, reducing environmental impact of decontamination processes, constructing better heterogeneous catalysis without dependency on rare earth materials, constructing a catalysis to work more efficiently with heavier crude oils, improving pharmaceutical process purity with better catalytic reactions, lower temperature and pressure requirements of catalytic reactions, improving surface pour area of catalysis to accept larger molecules, reducing contamination reactions inside the catalysis during production operations, researching to find catalysis that perform reactions in a shorter time period, and improving molecular bonding during catalytic reactions.
After the reaction, the unreacted methanol, or ethanol, and the catalyst must be removed to purify the methyl ester. The expense of this further processing is, at least in part, why conventionally produced biodiesel fuels typically are not cost competitive with petroleum diesel fuel. The production cost of most biodiesel fuels is more than 1.5 times greater than that of petroleum derived diesel. There accordingly is a need in the industry for biodiesel production methods to reduce the use of catalysts and increase useable byproducts, such as hydrogen gas.
Another problem of conventional biodiesel fuel is the cost of refined oil. Crude vegetable oil has considerable free fats that react with the catalyst to form fuel contaminants, such as surfactant and glycerol. Therefore, crude vegetable oil is not a suitable oil source for conventional biodiesel production. These contaminants are costly to remove and formation must be avoided or reduced whenever possible. Conventional biodiesel production requires a homogenous catalysis, which produces unwanted side reactions; these side reactions desirably should be minimized or eliminated from the process.
Reaction time for conventional batch processes of making biodiesel typically ranges from 1 to 8 hours, and separation time for contaminant removal adds another 8 to 16 hours. Researchers have attempted to speed up the slow reaction rate. Examples include the use of non-reactive co-solvents, which converts the two-phase system into a single-phase system. For instance, Canadian Patent Application No. 2,131,654 discloses using simple ethers, such as tetrahydrofuran (THF) and methyltertiarybutylether (MTBE) as co-solvents. Molar ratios of alcohol to triglyceride of at least 4.5:1 are disclosed, with typical ratios being in the range of 6:1 to 8:1. However, this process still produces numerous byproducts which require expensive and time-consuming purification techniques. For these reasons, conventional processes are not economically competitive with petroleum diesel.
Various esterification processes are described in the art. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 4,164,506 to Kawahara et al. (disclosing steps (a) esterification of free fatty acids in the presence of an acid catalyst, (b) allowing the product mixture to separate into a fat layer and an alcohol layer so as to obtain a refined fat layer, and (c) then subjecting the fat layer to transesterification with a base catalyst); U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,411 to Stern et al. (disclosing a multi-step reaction involving acid transesterification with alcohol in the presence of 1-60% water and separating a resulting glycerol phase, reducing the free acidity of the remaining ester phase and then transesterification in the presence of a base catalyst); U.S. Pat. No. 4,698,186 to Jeromin et al. (disclosing a process for reducing the free acid content of fats and oils by esterification with an alcohol in the presence of an acidic cation exchange resin); U.S. Pat. No. 5,525,126 to Basu et al. (disclosing esterification of mixtures of fats and oils using a calcium acetate/barium acetate catalyst, with undesirable process conditions of 200° C., 500 psi, and a reaction time of three hours); U.S. Pat. No. 5,713,965 to Foglia et al. (disclosing use of lipases to transesterify mixtures of triglycerides and free fatty acids, with reactions requiring 4 to 16 hours to reach conversion rates of 95%); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,708 to Johnson et al. (disclosing reaction of triglycerides with methanol in the presence of base to produce fatty acid methyl esters). Various carboxylation processes also are known. Examples include U.S. Pat. No. 5,476,971 to Gupta (disclosing reacting pure glycerol with isobutylene in the presence of an acid catalyst in a two phase reaction to produce mono-, di- and tri-tertiary butyl ethers of glycerol); U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,524 to Tyssee (disclosing method of electrolytic carboxylation and dimerization of olefinic nitrites, esters and amides); and U.S. Pat. No. 4,028,201 to Tyssee (disclosing a procedure for electrolytic monocarboxylation of olefinic nitrites, esters and amides in which the reaction is moderated by protons to direct it toward monocarboxylation); U.S. Pat. No. 5,225,581 to Pintauro (disclosing electrocatalytic process for hydrogenating an unsaturated fatty acid, triglyceride, or mixtures thereof as an oil or fat); U.S. Pat. No. 5,891,203 to Ball et al. (disclosing use of blends of diethanolamine derivatives and biodiesel as an additive for improving lubricity in low sulfur fuels and to fuels and additive concentrates comprising said lubricity additives.)
Examples of other fuel production methods are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,440,057 to Ergun et al., which discloses a method for producing fatty acid methyl ester, including compounding saturated and unsaturated higher fatty substances from at least one of vegetable and animal with an alkaline solution dissolved in alcohol to form a mixture, and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,248,230 to Min et al., which discloses a method for manufacturing cleaner fuels, in which NPC (Natural Polar Compounds), naturally existing in small quantities within various petrolic hydrocarbon fractions, are removed from the petrolic hydrocarbon. U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,645 to Quiqley discloses low sulfur fuel compositions, which exhibit improved lubricity compared to the low sulfur fuels alone.
In sum, biodiesel made by conventional methods has not been widely accepted because of high levels of contaminants, low BTU values, high NOX upon combustion, or a combination of these factors. Methods are therefore needed to improve the production of biodiesel, for example by increasing efficiency of conversion reactions, improving final product purity and energy values, and/or lowering production costs.
Polymerization
Improved devices and methods are also needed for efficient synthesis of polymers. Many conventional polymerization techniques result in multiple reactions, necessitating tedious separation and/or purification steps. Reducing these purification and separation steps would be invaluable to industries, saving millions of dollars in production cost and reaction time. For example, polyesters are important polymers with multiple uses. Industries would benefit from a more efficient synthesis techniques.
Surfactant
Surfactant production is another chemical industry that could benefit from process enhancements. Surfactants, which are materials that may greatly reduce the surface tension of water when used in very low concentrations, are made of water soluble (hydrophilic) and water insoluble (hydrophobic) components. The hydrophobe may be, for example, the equivalent of an 8- to 18-carbon hydrocarbon, and can for example be aliphatic, aromatic, or a mixture of both. The synthesis of surfactant typically requires some form of catalyst, an oil or fat, and strong base, such as sodium hydroxide. Similar to the syntheses described above, the current methods and devices for the production of surfactant requires several separation and/or purification steps and the use of catalysts, which can be toxic. The sources of hydrophobes are normally natural fats and oils, petroleum fractions, relatively short synthetic polymers, or relatively high molecular weight synthetic alcohols. It would be desirable to provide improved and more efficient processes and devices for surfactant synthesis.
Bioacids
A "bioacid" is an acid composed of esters, which has the formula RCOOH, where R is a long carbon chain. Bioacids are used in a variety of products and processes, including the formation of various polymers that absorb water, settle solids in waste treatment processes, among other applications. Acids used in polymerization processes are usually unsaturated acids (e.g., acrylic, acid, and the like). It would be desirable to provide improved methods of making unsaturated acids from vegetable oil similar to acrylic acid and other bioacids, which would produce fewer unusable byproducts and which would obviate or diminish the need to use organometallic catalysts.
Fatty Acids
A variety of useful and important fatty acids are known. Two essential fatty acids are polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) that cannot be made in the body: linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid (FIGS. 2 and 3). Within the human body, these can be converted to other PUFAs, e.g., arachidonic acid, or omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
Linoleic acid is an omega-6 fatty acid. It is biologically inactive before it is catalyzed by the body into other omega-6 fatty acids gamma linoleic acid (GLA), dihomo-gamma linoleic acid (DHGLA) and arachidonic acid (AA). Linoleic acid occurs widely in plant glycerides or fats. Common sources include many vegetable oils such as flax seed, safflower, soybean, peanut, and corn, as well as dairy fats. Linoleic acid is essential in human nutrition and is used also for soaps, animal feeds, paints, drying protective coatings, emulsifying or wetting agents. Other useful fatty acids include oleic acids, as well as palmitic (C15H31COOH) and steric acids (C17H35COOH). Soybean triglycerides contain linoleic and oleic polyunsaturated fats. Fatty acids, such as these, would be useful as or useful in dietary supplements (e.g., fat burners, cholesterol reducers, paints, coatings, emulsifiers, pharmaceuticals, animal feed, soaps, and margarine. It would be desirable to provide new synthetic methods for making fatty acids such as linoleic and oleic polyunsaturated fats.
Ethanol
Ethanol is ubiquitous in industrial processes and consumer products. All beverage ethanol and more than half of industrial ethanol is made by fermentation. Ethanol produced by fermentation typically uses corn as the source of simple sugars. Even though fermentation utilizes mild processing conditions and a renewable resources of raw materials, batch fermentation processes are inefficient, have a slow reaction rate, and yield relatively impure ethanol products.
Other conventional methods for making ethanol use high cost petroleum products, such as alkenes, as the starting material. For example, ethanol is manufactured by reacting ethene with steam, using a catalyst of solid silicon dioxide coated with phosphoric (V) acid. The gas phase reaction is reversible, and must be fractionally reacted in multiple stages at 300° C. at 60 atm to complete the reaction. While these processes are efficient, have a rapid reaction rate, and yield a relatively pure ethanol product, the process requires substantial energy input and uses non-renewable raw material resources (based on crude oil). It would be desirable to provide efficient techniques for producing ethanol and other alcohols from renewable plant-derived raw materials.
Lubricants
Lubricants are widely used, for example, in industrial processing, in transportation equipment, and in various consumer products. Representative examples include hydraulic fluids (tractor, traction motors, tug boats, and the like), transmission fluids (e.g., automobile, truck, tractor, heavy equipment, and the like), bar/chain lubricants, 2-cycle engine oil, crankcase oil, metal cutting, gear oil, greases, coatings (e.g., for metal, wood, or paper), penetrating oils, and inks. Many applications require the lubricant to be thermally and oxidatively stable, such that the lubricant does not degrade over time or during use, particularly in high temperature and high pressure environments. Plant-derived oils, such as soy, cottonseed, and corn oil have different levels of C16 and C18 ester chains with varying levels of unsaturation. The unsaturation levels of most vegetable oils render them insufficiently stable to oxygen and high temperatures. It would be desirable to provide vegetable- or animal-derived oils that exhibit high thermal and oxygen stability for use as or in synthetic oils and lubricants.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Chemical synthesis methods using electro-catalysis


A back-up power source and a back-up storage device are utilized to power a processor and a volatile memory device during a primary power failure. An emergency data-storage algorithm is invoked to create a table of modified data analogous to data residing in a non-volatile memory device associated with a different processor. This table of modified data is written to the back-up storage device.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related in general to the field of data storage in computer systems. In particular, the invention consists of scanning a read/write cache during a power loss to construct and save a write cache analogous to one residing in a different processing device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Computer storage systems typically include a high-capacity disk array for storing digital information. To provide redundancy, a computer storage system may utilize multiple data processing servers or may use a single processing server consisting of multiple processing clusters. Each data processing server or processing cluster may be substantially identical and redundant. Additionally, each processing cluster typically has access to the entire disk array.
It is customary for one or more hosts to send requests to the processing clusters to read data from or write data to the disk array. The requests are delivered to the processing clusters over a multi-path communication device such as a bus, switch, router, bridge, point-to-point network, local area network, or other similar connecting device. Once a cluster receives a read-data request, the relevant information is retrieved from the disk array and placed into a read/write memory cache. This read/write cache is relatively fast compared with other storage mechanisms and is typically volatile memory, i.e., data stored in this cache will become corrupted should the cache lose electrical power. Accessing the data from the read/write cache is much faster than retrieving information directly from the disk array. The information is passed to the requesting host and a copy is maintained in the read/write cache in case it is again requested by a host. Because the information has not been modified, there is no need to maintain another copy of the data elsewhere in the computer storage system, other than the original copy residing in the disk array.
If a host transmits a write request to a processing cluster, either new information is being written to the disk array or information already residing in the disk array is being modified. These write request tasks are more critical than simple read requests, as a failure to deliver the new or modified information to the disk array may result in a permanent loss of information. To provide redundancy, write requests may be sent to a primary processing cluster and a secondary processing cluster. The primary processing cluster places the new data in its volatile read/write cache and then transfers it to the disk array.
While the new information is being written to the volatile read/write cache of the primary processing cluster, a copy of the data is also written to a non-volatile memory device in the secondary processing cluster. The non-volatile memory device is intended to maintain a copy of the information in the event that electrical power to either processing cluster is interrupted. However, non-volatile memory is usually much smaller than volatile memory due to cost considerations.
In a truly redundant computer storage system, each processing cluster may dominate access to a portion of the disk array. If this cluster fails, then another cluster may access the portion of the disk array dominated by the first processing cluster. However, modified data which has not yet been written to the disk array may be lost, corrupted, or non-accessible. While the primary processing cluster maintains a copy of its own modified data, this copy resides in the volatile memory and is interspersed with read data. The typically smaller non-volatile memory only maintains write requests from other processing clusters. It is desirable that a processing cluster be able to retrieve modified data from the volatile read/write cache before it becomes corrupted due to a power loss. Additionally, it is desirable to save this modified data to a static storage device such as a hard-drive, floppy disk-drive, optical disk drive or a non-volatile memory device.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,8535,996, James Brewer et al. disclose a method and system for protecting user data during power failures on a network-computer-class data processing system. The network-computer-class data processing system is integrated with a power supply having an early power-fail warning signal to ensure that unsaved changes to user data files are saved before a complete power failure strikes the data processing system.
An important aspect of Brewer's invention is that a table of file changes is maintained in non-volatile memory. The entire contents of the table are saved to non-volatile storage in the time interval between the early power-fail warning signal and the complete power failure. The table of user data changes can then be applied to recreate the user's data after power is restored. However, Brewer does not address recovering data which has been sent to more than one processing cluster. Additionally, the Brewer method requires consistent, persistent, and continuous overhead to maintain the table residing in non-volatile memory. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to incur this overhead only in the event of a power loss and provide a means of replicating information residing in the non-volatile memory of other processing clusters.

Scanning modified data during power loss

International Business Machines Corporation


A compound of chemical formula (I) and its pharmaceutically acceptable salt: ##STR1## wherein X and Y are each hydrogen, halogen, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, halosubstituted C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkoxy, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkylthio, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkylsulfinyl, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkylsulfonyl, or tri(C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkyl)silyl; Ar.sup.1 and Ar.sup.2 are each independently aryl or heteroaryl, optionally substituted by halogen; A is --CO-- or -(CH.sub.2)-; Z-A- is at the 2 or 3 position on the quinuclidine ring; and Z is --OH, C.sub.1 -C.sub.6 alkoxy, NR.sup.1 R.sup.2 or the like. Representative compounds are (3S,4R,5S,6S)-5-3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)-benzyloxy!-N,N-dimethyl-6-diphen ylmethyl-1-azabicyclo2.2.2!octan-3-carboxamide, and -3-carboxylic acid. These novel benzyloxyquinuclidines are active as substance P receptor antagonists and are thus useful for treating gastrointestinal disorders, central nervous system disorders, allergy, inflammatory diseases, asthma, pain, emesis, migraine, urinary incontinence, or angiogenesis in mammals, especially humans.

This application is the U.S. national phase of PCT Patent Application PCT/JP94/01092, which was filed in the Japanese Receiving Office on Jul. 5, 1994.
This invention relates to novel and useful benzyloxyquinuclidines of interest to those in the field of medical chemistry and chemotherapy. More particularly, it is concerned with a novel series of benzyloxyquinuclidines, including their pharmaceutically acceptable salts and pharmaceutical composition thereof, which are of special value in view of their ability to antagonize substance P (SP). In this way, these compounds are of use in treating gastrointestinal disorders, central nervous system disorders, allergy, inflammatory diseases, asthma, pain, migraine, emesis, urinary incontinence and angiogenesis in mammalia.
Substance P is a naturally occurring undecapeptide belonging to the tachykinin family of peptides, the latter being so-named because of their prompt stimulatory action on smooth muscle tissue. More specially, substance P is a pharmaceutically active neuropeptide that is produced in mammals (having originally been isolated from gut) and possesses a characteristic amino acid sequence that is illustrated by D. F. Veber et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,283. The wide involvement of substance P and other tachykinins in the pathophysiology of numerous diseases has been amply demonstrated in the art. For instance, substance P has recently been shown to be involved in the transmission of pain or migraine (see B. E. B. Sandberg et al., J. Med. Chem., 25, 1009 (1982)), as well as in central nervous system disorders such as anxiety and schizophrenia, in respiratory and inflammatory diseases such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, respectively, and in gastrointestinal disorders and diseases of GI tract, like ulcerative colitis and Crohn's diseases, etc (see D. Regoli in "Trends in Cluster Headache" edited by F. Sicuteri et al., Elsevier Scientific Publishers, Amsterdam, 1987, PP. 85-95).
It is reported that the tachykinin antagonists are useful for allergic conditions (Hamelet et al., Can. J. Pharmacol. Physiol., 66, 1361, 1988), immunoregulation (Lotz et al., Science, 241, 1218, 1988; and Kimball et al., 3. Immunol., 141, 3564, 1988), vasodilation, bronchospasm, reflex or neuronal control of the viscera (Mantyh et al., PNAS, 85, 3235, 1988) and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (Yankner et al., Science, 250, 279, 1990). Recently the efficacy of the substance P antagonists for the treatment of emesis (EP 0533280 A) and the relationship between substance P antagonists and sunburn (F. Gillardon et al, Involvement of neuropeptides and nitric oxide in the sunburn reaction following cutaneous ultraviolet irradiation. abstract 129, 1993, 5th Interscience World Conference on Inflammation, Antirheumatics, Analgesics, Immunomodulators, 1993, Geneva) are discussed.
In the recent past, some attempts to develop the tachykinin antagonist such as substance P have been carried out for the purpose of the treatment of the above disorders or diseases (John A Lowe, III, et al., Drugs of the Future, 17(12), 1115, 1992).
JP Kokai No. 78354/93 (EP-0499313A1) discloses a wide variety of azabicyclic compounds as tachykinin antagonists such as substance P antagonists, including a number of quinuclidine compounds having diarylmethyl and benzyloxy substituents. However, none of the individual compounds described in JP Kokai No. 78354/93 (EP-0499313A1) is a 6-diarylmethyl-5-benzyloxyquinuclidine having an additional substituent at the 2- or 3- position.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide the novel benzyloxyquinuclidines with substance P antagonistic activities. In addition, the purpose of the invention is also to provide a composition, which includes a benzyloxyquinuclidine as an active ingredient, in treating of gastrointestinal disorders, central nervous system disorders, allergy, inflammatory diseases, asthma, pain, migraine or emesis in mammalia, especially humans.

Benzyloxyquinuclidines as substance P antagonists


In photo-shaping a target object executed by a photo-shaping machine (10) along with a computing device (1), a first path (P1) is generated as a light beam irradiation path on the basis of contour data of each section sliced at a specified pitch of three-dimensional CAD model data of the target object desired to be formed, and the first parameter data. A second path (P2) is generated as a removal processing path on the basis of the three-dimensional CAD model data, the second parameter data, and removing timing data showing a timing of executing the removal process. Driving programs (P3) are generated for executing the photo-shaping process including the light beam irradiation and the removal process, on the basis of the first path data, second path data and removing timing data, thereby performing the photo-shaping and removal process according to the driving programs.

A conventional photo-shaping method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-115004 (patent document 1). In this method, a light beam is irradiated onto a specified position of a powder material layer to sinter (including a case of once melt) a corresponding portion of the powder material layer to form a sintered layer. The sintered layer is then covered with a new powder material layer, and a light beam irradiated onto a specified position thereof to sinter a corresponding portion of the new powder material layer, thereby forming a new sintered layer integrally united with the underlying sintered layer. While repeating this process of forming the sintered layers, the outer face of a formed body obtained by laminating the sintered layers is subject to removal process during repetitive steps of forming the sintered layers.
In this conventional photo-shaping method, as disclosed in patent document 1, on the basis of STL model data obtained from three-dimensional CAD model data of a three-dimensional object to be created, processing paths of light beam irradiating means and removal processing means are calculated for carrying out the light beam irradiation process and removal process by the two means, so that the light beam irradiating means and removal processing means are driven based on the obtained processing path data.
In this processing, the processing path used in the removing process (i.e., second path) to be inserted in laminating the sintered layers to form an object can be obtained by sequentially specifying a processing range in a height (vertical) direction even in the conventional CAD. However, when the number of divisions increases in the height direction, it takes much labor and time, and operator's errors are likely to occur.
For example, in the case of performing the removing process when laminating every 10 layers at laminating pitch of 0.05 mm, if the height of formed body is 100 mm, the number of divisions is 200, and if five types of removing tools are used, the total number of divisions becomes 1000. If the second path is calculated by such number of times in setting and entering the height range, this leads operator's labor to be excessive, and errors are likely to occur. Besides, a program must be generated by arranging such number of second paths in the order of processing, and must be transferred to the removal processing means, and this job also takes much time and labor when manually done.

Photo-shaping method, photo-shaping system, and photo-shaping program


Per-interface electronic device protection switching systems and methods are disclosed. An electronic device and each communication line interface provided in the device are monitored, and device information and interface information are generated. The device and interface information is periodically sent to a mate electronic device in a protection group to which the electronic device belongs. Mate device information and mate interface information are also received by the device from the mate device. Activity states of each device interface are controlled based on at least one of the device information, the interface information, the mate device information, and the mate interface information.

Redundancy protection switching for electronic devices involves switching of activity between a working device and a protection device. The working device and the protection device are typically substantially identical devices, one of which is selected to be active at any time. In a communication network for instance, identical signals are transmitted over a working line and a protection line which connect working line cards and protection line cards in different switches. Although the working line and the working line cards are normally active, operation may be switched to the protection line and the protection line cards in the event of a failure of the working line or one of the working line cards.
This type of device-based protection switching causes all services supported on a working device to be switched to a protection device, and is therefore particularly suited to implementations in which a working device supports only one service, as in the case of a line card having a single interface, for example. However, for such devices as multiple-interface devices which support multiple services, device-based protection switching may unnecessarily switch all services to a protection device when one or more of the services remain operable on a working device. Instead of switching only failing services, some current multiple-interface devices provide only device redundancy and thus switch all device functions when any of the functions require switching.
An alternative protection switching system provides for per-port protection switching for line cards by switching line interface functionality independently of line termination functionality via a system midplane. In this type of system, line interfaces are separate from line cards. This technique is only feasible, however, for line cards having a midplane and separate line interfaces.
As those skilled in the art will appreciate, increasing interface densities in multiple-interface devices may reduce costs, in that resources in a single device may be shared between multiple interfaces. Multiple-interface devices may also provide further advantages, including increasing bandwidth through a switch, for example. Therefore, multiple-interface devices and per-interface protection switching techniques for such devices are becoming more important.

Protection switching methods and systems for electronic devices


A memory of a computer system is sized and configured after the memory has been loaded with data. The sizing and configuration of the memory causes the data to become scattered among memory chips on a single memory module or among two or more memory modules. To gather the data, gather code loads itself into the instruction cache of the computer system and while executing from the instruction cache configures the memory and gathers the data in the memory such that it is again located at the same address it held before the configuration occurred.

This invention relates generally to the configuration of memory within a computer system and more particularly to maintaining the integrity of data stored within the memory prior to configuration once configuration of the memory is completed.
As is known in the art, a memory configuration is typically performed before the computer system has stored any information in memory. By performing the configuration before memory is used, there is no danger of readdressing the data in memory and thus making it difficult if not impossible to access.
Memory configuration is usually performed before the memory is used during initialization of the computer system. Typically, the software used to perform the configuration is stored in and executed from the Read Only Memory (ROM) or it is loaded into cache and executed before any information is stored in the memory itself. In this way, the memory configuration does not readdress the data stored in memory thus making it impossible to access under the new configuration without causing an error condition.
As computer systems have become more complex and the memory configuration and initialization software has become correspondingly more complex however, the cache memory within computer systems is too small to fit all of the software needed to perform the configuration and initialization. As a result other solutions have had to be addressed which permit these lengthy and complex software solutions to be stored and executed to effectuate the configuration of memory as well as the initialization of the computer system. What is needed is a solution which will allow the memory of the system to be used in a simple configuration to store the initialization and reconfiguration software prior to the memory being reconfigured to the final and more complex configuration.

Method for altering memory configuration and sizing memory modules while maintaining software code stream coherence


Lower joints of aircraft wing assemblies are disclosed. In some embodiments, a lower joint includes an outboard lower wing panel, a center lower wing panel, a rib, and a lower joint assembly that includes two outboard flanges operatively coupled to the outboard lower wing panel, an inboard flange operatively coupled to the center lower wing panel, and an upper flange operatively coupled to the rib. In some embodiments, a lower joint assembly includes one or more splice plates, an upper T-fitting, and one or more intermediate plates. In some embodiments, the outboard lower wing panel, the center lower wing panel, and the lower joint assembly are constructed substantially of different materials.

Historically, the primary structural elements of aircraft have been constructed of aluminum alloys. Recently, many aircraft manufacturers are utilizing composite materials, such as fiber reinforced composite materials due to their high strength-to-weight ratios. However, the tooling and the manufacturing processes associated with such composite materials are not inexpensive. Accordingly, it may be desirable for an aircraft to utilize aluminum alloys for some structural elements and composite materials for other structural elements. However, aluminum alloys and composite materials are not typically compatible with each other from a corrosion standpoint or from a thermal expansion standpoint.

Lower joints between outboard wing boxes and center wing sections of aircraft wing assemblies


The present disclosure presents glucose sensing methods and systems. One such system comprises an electrospun-nanofibrous-membrane (ENFM)-based amperometric glucose sensor integrated on a silicon chip, in which the glucose sensor has a working electrode, a reference electrode, and a counter electrode, wherein the working electrode comprises an ENFM-based sensing electrode. The system further comprises a potentiostat circuit integrated on the silicon chip such that the potentiostat circuit comprises a voltage control unit to control a voltage difference between the working electrode and the reference electrode and a transimpedance amplifier to measure a current flow between the working electrode and the counter electrode, in which a strength of the current flow corresponds to an amount of glucose present in a sample of blood on the glucose sensor.

Diabetes has an impact on populations around the world and is currently cited as a public health epidemic. Being one of the leading causes of health disparities, disabilities, and death, diabetes is a disease triggered by high glucose levels in the blood, which may arise due to insufficient production of insulin. When unmonitored over time, diabetes can lead to severe health issues, such as blindness, organ failure (e.g. kidney, heart), and gangrene and subsequent amputation. To assist in the prevention of these long term complications, the Diabetes Care and Complications Trial (DCCT) suggests continuous monitoring of blood glucose and insulin levels could be key.
Such a continuous glucose monitoring system needs to be power efficient, compact, portable, sensitive, and have a linear response for targeted levels. Electrochemical enzymatic biosensors have become popular for point-of-care monitoring of glucose levels in the blood. The sensitivity of these biosensors can be significantly enhanced by the utilization of nanostructures in sensor fabrication. More specifically, an electrospun-nanofibrous-membrane (ENFM) can increase detection, sensitivity, provide larger surface-to-volume catalyst loading, and create a platform for effective enzyme binding. ENFMs are easily fabricated, cost effective, and can be tailored to detect a wide range of biochemical reactions with the appropriate materials and functionalization.
Potentiostats are generally used for electrochemical analysis such as chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, and impedance spectroscopy and are a popular choice of measurement in amperometric biosensors. A general design for applying constant voltages and measuring a current in an electrochemical cell requires both positive and negative power supplies for the circuits. Some designs have sacrificed the exact potential that has to be appeared between the working and reference electrodes for the operation of the circuit with a single supply. Many enzyme functionalized working electrodes must maintain a negative potential with respect to the reference electrode. This limits the use of grounded counter electrode potentiostats in amperometric glucose sensors.
A potentiostat circuit required for three electrode electrochemical sensors has two parts, a voltage control unit (VCU) and a transimpedance amplifier (TIA). Different configurations may be used to design the TIA, one of which is an instrumentation amplifier. This instrumentation amplifier uses a large number of components generating high noise making it difficult to measure a low current level. A switched capacitor configuration in a more complex TIA helps to overcome the thermal noise in the feedback resistance, but the substrate noise due to digital switching remains an issue for output linearity. Furthermore, when using a current mirror configuration in a TIA design for biosensing, a single-ended output is used to control the cell potential, which limits the current measurement in only one direction and causes nonlinearity at high current levels. With recent advancements in the bioelectronics arena, increasing demand for power reduction in potentiostats has presented a challenge to the industry. In a robust integrated circuitry, very low-power consumption, and low-noise performance is essential.

CMOS-based low-power, low-noise potentiostat circuit and its integration with an ENFM-based glucose sensor


A plurality of display units are provided in corresponding relations to individual performance keys. A table stores, for each of a plurality of chords, information which defines plural groups of notes that are always available for the chord, temporarily available (e. g., a tension note) for the chord and unavailable for the chord. In response to designation of a chord according to a chord progression, the information is read out from the table and the display units are controlled according to the read-out information so as to dislay in different forms, depending on which one of the groups the performance keys corresponding to the display units correspond to. A performer can operate a desired key in consideration of different display forms. Thus, there is provided a music performance assisting system which is suited for use in executing an adlib performance with notes well conforming to a designated chord.

The present invention relates generally to a music performance assisting technique of illuminating visual display units corresponding to keys to be operated so as to provide a visual guide for a player's manual performance, and more particularly to a music performance assisting system which is suited for use in executing an adlib performance with pitches well conforming to a designated chord or the like.
Electronic musical instruments, such as electronic pianos, have been widely used in recent years on which a player can play a desired melody with a background automatic performance. Among various examples of such known electronic pianos are ones provided with a "music performance assisting system" which typically includes luminous visual display units, such as light emitting diodes, provided in corresponding relations to individual keys on the keyboard and where predetermined ones of the visual display units for the keys to be depressed in a desired melody performance are sequentially turned on or lit in accordance with progression of an automatic performance. With such a music performance assisting system, the desired melody performance can be executed accurately by just depressing one key after another as visually designated by the lighting of the corresponding display units.
However, the conventionally known performance assisting systems are completely useless or unsatisfactory when used in performing a melody adlib rather than in a predetermined manner. Further, in the adlib performance, it is important to accurately select tone pitches conforming to each designated chord or the like, but such an accurate pitch selection was very difficult to even considerably experienced players.

System and method for supporting an adlib performance


A novel image sensor structure formed on a substrate of a first conductivity type includes a photosensitive device of a second conductivity type and a surface pinning layer of the first conductivity type. A trench isolation region is formed adjacent to the photosensitive device pinning layer. The structure includes a dopant region comprising material of the first conductivity type formed along a sidewall of the isolation region that is adapted to electrically couple the pinning layer to the substrate. The corresponding method facilitates an angled ion implantation of dopant material in the isolation region sidewall by first fabricating the photoresist layer and reducing its size by removing a corner, or a corner portion thereof, which may block the angled implant material. To facilitate the angled implant to the sidewall edge past resist block masks, two methods are proposed: 1) a spacer type etch of the imaged photoresist; or, 2) a corner sputter process of the imaged photoresist.

CMOS image sensors are beginning to replace conventional CCD sensors for applications requiring image pick-up such as digital cameras, cellular phones, PDA (personal digital assistant), personal computers, and the like. Advantageously, CMOS image sensors are fabricated by applying present CMOS fabricating process for semiconductor devices such as photodiodes or the like, at low costs. Furthermore, CMOS image sensors can be operated by a single power supply so that the power consumption for that can be restrained lower than that of CCD sensors, and further, CMOS logic circuits and like logic processing devices are easily integrated in the sensor chip and therefore the CMOS image sensors can be miniaturized.
Current CMOS image sensors comprise an array of CMOS Active Pixel Sensor (APS) cells, which are used to collect light energy and convert it into readable electrical signals. Each APS cell comprises a photosensitive element, such as a photodiode, photogate, or photoconductor overlying a doped region of a substrate for accumulating photo-generated charge in an underlying portion thereof. A read-out circuit is connected to each pixel cell and often includes a diffusion region for receiving charge from the photosensitive element, when read-out. Typically, this is accomplished by a transistor device having a gate electrically connected to the floating diffusion region. The imager may also include a transistor, having a transfer gate, for transferring charge from the photosensitive element across a surface channel to the floating diffusion region, and a transistor for resetting the floating diffusion region to a predetermined charge level prior to charge transfer.
As shown in FIG. 1, a typical CMOS APS cell 10 includes a pinned photodiode 20 having a pinning layer 18 doped p+-type and, an underlying lightly doped n-type region 17. Typically, the pinned diode 20 is formed on top of a p-type substrate 15 or a p-type epitaxial layer or p-well surface layer having a lower p-type concentration than the diode pinning layer 18. As known, the surface pinning layer 18 is in electrical contact with the substrate 15 (or p-type epitaxial layer or p-well surface layer). The photodiode 20 thus has two p-type regions 18 and 15 having a same potential so that the n-type doped region 17 is fully depleted at a pinning voltage (Vp). That is, the surface pinning layer 18 is in electrical contact to the substrate. The pinned photodiode is termed "pinned" because the potential in the photodiode is pinned to a constant value, Vp, when the photodiode is fully depleted.
As further shown in FIG. 1, the n-type doped region 17 and p+ region 18 of the photodiode 20 are spaced between an isolation region, e.g., a shallow trench isolation (STI) region 40, and a charge transfer transistor gate 25 which is surrounded by thin spacer structures 23a,b. The shallow trench isolation (STI) region 40 is located proximate the pixel image cell for isolating the cell from an adjacent pixel cell. In operation, light coming from the pixel is focused down onto the photodiode through the diode where electrons collect at the n-type region 17. When the transfer gate 25 is operated, i.e., turned on by applying a voltage to the transfer gate 70 comprising, for example, an n-type doped polysilicon layer 70, the photo-generated charge 24 is transferred from the charge accumulating doped n-type doped region 17 via a transfer device surface channel 16 to a floating diffusion region 30, e.g., doped n+ type.
As mentioned, in each pixel image cell, the surface pinning layer 18 is in electrical contact to the substrate 15 of the same conductivity type. Currently, the surface pinning layer (e.g., p-type doped) of the CMOS image sensor collection diode is connected to the substrate via a well implant structure 150 (e.g., doped p-type) located on one of the edges of the collection diode 20. In practice, the underlying substrate well structure 150 is created by a mask implant technique, as are the photodiode and pinning layer structures and each are formed in separate processing steps. As a mask implant is used to form the p-well, there is a resulting alignment tolerance associated with the p-well 150 and connecting pinning layer 18. This tolerance is depicted by the double-sided arrow shown in FIG. 1 and results in potentially misalignment of the connection leading to collection diode device performance deficiencies such as current leakage.
It would thus be highly desirable to avoid the connection misalignment issues that potentially exist between the underlying substrate well structure and the surface pinning layer of the collection well diode.

Masked sidewall implant for image sensor


Universal Serial Bus (USB) repeater circuits and methods of operating the same for communicating data signals from a first pair of data terminals to a second pair of data terminals of the repeater. In a first channel, an amplifier stage in a receiver amplifies a differential signal received at the first pair of data terminals to generate a differential signal at first and second output nodes of the receiver, and a transmitting circuit transmits a differential signal at the second pair of data terminals responsive to the differential signal at the first and second output nodes of the receiver. The receiver includes a hysteresis stage that receives an offset in opposition to the differential signal at the first and second output nodes of the receiver. End-of-packet (EOP) dribble in USB communications in the HS mode is reduced by the offset at the hysteresis stage.

This relates to serial data communication, and is more specifically directed to repeater circuits and functions in serial data communication.
Communication among modern electronic devices and peripherals using the Universal Serial Bus (USB) technology has become commonplace in recent years. USB communications are carried out according to industry standard specifications for cables and connectors, and for interface protocols over those cables and connectors. These protocols control the connection, communication, and power supply interfacing among computers (including smartphone handsets), peripherals, and other devices connecting to those computers. USB has largely supplanted other interconnection technologies for wide variety of consumer and enterprise level devices.
One attractive attribute of USB communications technology is its ease of use, particularly the flexibility with which the user can interconnect USB peripherals to a host or to other devices, particularly via hubs and bus splitters. The USB network is essentially self-configuring, allowing the user to simply plug in or remove a device from an ad hoc USB network without configuring device settings, interrupts, I/O addresses, and the like. From the manufacturer's standpoint, USB eliminates the need for the system designer to develop proprietary interfaces to later-developed peripheral devices, or to implement interface hardware and software that maintains "legacy" compatibility.
By way of background, USB standards provide for communication at a number of data rates, with each data rate class defined by protocols at the physical layer. Beginning with USB version 1.0, a "full-speed" (FS) USB data rate of 12 Mbps and a "low-speed" (LS) data rate of 1.5 Mbps have been defined. Later revisions of the USB standard, beginning with "Universal Serial Bus Specification Revision 2.0" (2000), defines a "high-speed" (HS) data rate of 480 Mbps. While the physical layer operating specifications and protocols for FS and LS communications are quite similar, the physical layer operating specifications and protocols for the HS data rate differ significantly from those for FS/LS communications.
By way of further background, "Embedded USB2 (eUSB2) Physical Layer Supplement to the USB Revision 2.0 Specification," Revision 1.1 (2018), describes signaling and protocols for an alternative USB physical layer technology, referred to as "embedded USB," "eUSB," or "eUSB2." More specifically, embedded USB is an implementation of USB 2.0 for small process nodes such as cellphones, tablets, and the like that are not well-suited to support the 3.3 v input/output signaling levels of conventional USB. In eUSB2, the signaling levels are reduced to 1.2 v for the FS and LS modes, and for the HS mode, to about half the levels of the USB2 HS signaling levels. eUSB2 also provides other enhancements that facilitate power efficiency. eUSB2 supports all of the LS, FS, and HS communication protocols of USB 2.0, and uses the same two data line configuration as USB 2.0 though operating at the lower signaling levels.
eUSB2 connections may be made in two common configurations. In one mode, referred to as "native mode," an eUSB2 connection is directly made between two integrated circuits (e.g., between two so-called "system on a chip" or "SoC" devices), one serving as the "host" and the other as a USB "device." Native mode eUSB2 is most often used as a dedicated connection between SoC devices on the same circuit board because the lower signal levels of eUSB2 are incompatible with external USB ports. In this native mode configuration where both SoC devices are powered from the circuit board, the eUSB2 connection involves only the two data lines eD+ and eD−. Native mode eUSB2 communications are typically limited to relatively short interconnect trace lengths (e.g., on the order of 10 inches).
For USB communications between an SoC device (e.g., as a USB host) on a circuit board and an external USB device, a "repeater mode" eUSB2 configuration is used. In this repeater mode configuration, an eUSB2 repeater device, typically located on the same circuit board as the host SoC, communicates with the host SoC via eUSB2 and communicates with the external USB device using standard USB 2.0. eUSB2 repeaters can be configured as host repeaters, device repeaters, or even dual-role device repeaters that swap roles based on commands from the SoC. The USB interface of the eUSB2 repeaters can be paired with any of the standard USB connectors and can connect to USB hosts, hubs, devices, and can connect to other eUSB2 repeater-based applications.
USB-to-USB repeaters are also known in the art. For example, USB port isolators are repeater devices that implement galvanic isolation between USB ports, and thus block large voltage differences, prevent ground loops, and block common mode transients between different ground potentials of USB devices on either side of the isolator. Commonly owned and copending U.S. application Ser. No. 17/246,137, entitled "Isolated Universal Serial Bus Repeater with High Speed Capability," filed Apr. 30, 2021 and incorporated herein by reference, describes an example of such a USB port isolator. The term "USB repeater" will be used in this specification to refer to any type of repeater for USB communications, including eUSB2-to-USB repeaters, USB-to-USB repeaters, USB port isolators, and the like.
Unlike retimers, USB repeaters do not perform clock and data recovery, and instead operate to agnostically pass through received signals, with amplification and level shifting as appropriate (e.g., eUSB2-to-USB, or vice versa). Conventional USB repeaters include squelch detection to inhibit the transmission of noise received at its input as amplified signals at its output. For example, noise may be received at the input side of a USB repeater when both data lines (e.g., D+ and D− data lines for USB, or eD+ and eD− for eUSB2) are driven to a ground level following an end-of-packet (EOP) sequence in HS USB transmission. Because of inherent propagation delay, the squelch detection function does not immediately inhibit signal transmission when both input data lines go to ground following the EOP sequence, allowing noise on the input data lines to be retransmitted at the output of the USB repeater as spurious signal levels. These spurious signal levels are referred to in the art as "EOP dribble." Universal Serial Bus Specification Revision 2.0 specifies that EOP dribble may result in up to four random bits being added by the repeater data path.
It is within this context that the embodiments described herein arise.

Rejection of end-of-packet dribble in high speed universal serial bus repeaters


A video reproduction apparatus reproduces a video based on a video bit stream having a plurality of pictures and also having a picture type of each of the plurality of pictures. The apparatus includes a picture type detection section for, while a still picture is being reproduced, detecting a picture type of a picture corresponding to the still picture; a bit rate calculation section for, while the still picture is being reproduced, calculating a number of bits included in the picture, and while a moving picture is being reproduced, calculating an average bit rate per predetermined time unit; and a video signal generation section for, while the still picture is being reproduced, generating a first bit rate video signal for displaying the picture type and the number of bits, and while a moving picture is being reproduced, generating a second bit rate video signal for displaying the average bit rate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video reproduction apparatus and a video reproduction method, and in particular to a video reproduction apparatus and a video reproduction method for, when a video bit stream having a compressed video signal, such as an MPEG video signal, recorded therein is input and expanded to decode the compressed video signal into an original video signal, displaying information regarding a bit rate of the video bit stream.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a conventional video reproduction apparatus 400. The video reproduction apparatus 400 reproduces a video signal based on a video bit stream including a plurality of pictures and having a picture type of each of the plurality of pictures recorded therein.
In this specification, the term "picture type" refers to a type of inter-motion compensation frame encoding in an MPEG video encoding system as is well known, and can be one of three picture types of I picture (intra-coded picture), P picture (predictive coded picture) and B picture (bidirectionally-predictive coded picture). In general, a number of bits per picture is largest in the I picture, second largest in the P picture, and smallest in the B picture (I picture>P picture>B picture).
The video reproduction apparatus 400 includes a video decoder 41 for receiving and expanding a video bit stream and thus outputting a video signal, a picture start point detection circuit 42 for receiving the video bit stream and detecting a picture start point which represents a start point of each of a plurality of pictures included in the video bit stream, and a frame count circuit 43 for counting a number of times that the picture start point detection circuit 42 detects the picture start point and measuring a predetermined time unit. The video reproduction apparatus 400 also includes a bit rate calculation circuit 44 for counting a number of bits included in each of the pictures in the video bit stream for the predetermined time unit and outputting the counted number of bits as an average bit rate, and a video signal generation circuit 45 for receiving the output from the bit rate calculation circuit 44 and generating a bit rate video signal for displaying the average bit rate. The video reproduction apparatus 400 further includes a video signal addition circuit 46 for adding the video signal output from the video decoder 41 and the bit rate video signal output from the video signal generation circuit 45, an NTSC conversion circuit 47 for converting the video signal obtained by the video signal addition circuit 46 into a video signal of an NTSC format, and a D/A conversion circuit 48 for converting the output from the NTSC conversion circuit 47 into an analog signal.
The video reproduction apparatus 400 having the above-described structure operates as follows.
The video decoder 41 receives and expands a video bit stream, and thus outputs a video signal. The picture start point detection circuit 42 receives the video bit stream and detects a picture start point which represents a start point of each of a plurality of pictures. The frame count circuit 43 counts a number of times that the picture start point detection circuit 42 detects the picture start point and measures a predetermined time unit. The bit rate calculation circuit 44 counts a number of bits included in each of the pictures in the video bit stream while the frame count circuit 43 measures the predetermined time unit, and outputs the counted number of bits as an average bit rate. The video signal generation circuit 45 receives the output from the bit rate calculation circuit 44 and generates a bit rate video signal for displaying the average bit rate. The video signal addition circuit 46 adds the video signal output from the video decoder 41 and the bit rate video signal output from the video signal generation circuit 45. The NTSC conversion circuit 47 converts the video signal obtained by the video signal addition circuit 46 into a video signal of an NTSC format. The D/A conversion circuit 48 converts the output from the NTSC conversion circuit 47 into an analog signal.
In a conventional video reproduction apparatus, while a moving picture including a plurality of pictures is being reproduced, the average bit rate representing the total of the number of bits included in a plurality of pictures per time unit is displayed. However, while a still picture is being reproduced, the average bit rate relating to the plurality of pictures is not displayed since display of such an average bit rate is meaningless.
A reproduction apparatus is now demanded which, even while a still picture is being reproduced in, for example, a pause mode or in a frame-by-frame reproduction mode, can display information relating to the bit rate, such as the picture type or the number of bits of the picture corresponding to the still picture.

Method and apparatus for reproducing images

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A plurality of variable gain amplifier stages are coupled by an attenuation circuit that receives a voltage input to be amplified. A control circuit activates each of the variable gain amplifier stages in a seamless manner in accordance with a control signal applied to a voltage control node, while maintaining no more than one of the stages active at any time. Fractions of the reference signal voltage level are set to define boundaries between control voltage level ranges of the amplifier stages. A unique control voltage level range is thus established for each amplifier stage. A control voltage hysteresis range can be provided to avoid oscillations between stages at the transition voltages.

A variety of circuit applications require high accuracy variable gain amplification over wide frequency bandwidths. For example, linear-in-db true power detectors have been needed for measurement and control of true electrical power over an operating frequency range from low frequency to as high as 2.5 GHz, with a 60 dB dynamic range. As these operating ranges continue to increase, challenges are presented to provide the required high accuracy amplification. A variable gain amplifier, operable over an extended frequency bandwidth should consume a minimum of power while maintaining high accuracy over a wide range of temperature variation.

Wide dynamic range switching variable gain amplifier and control