An electro-surgical device for performing tissue resection and cauterization includes an elongated body, a pair of arms extending from a distal end of the elongated body, and an electrode in communication with the pair of arms. The elongated body is adapted to be coupled to a source of energy at a proximal end. The electrode has a first region coated with an insulative coating and a second region for focusing energy emission. The coating can be a diamond-like carbon coating or other coating exhibiting resistance to cracking at high temperatures and high voltages. The coating can be deposited on a base section of a loop electrode while the end sections remain free of the coating. Alternatively, the coating can be unevenly deposited on the electrode. In other embodiments, the electrode can comprise a rollerball and the insulative coating can be deposited on selected or random portions of the rollerball. The insulative coating prevents energy loss to fluid and tissue during the operation, thus allowing resection and cauterization to be efficiently performed.

This invention relates to electro-surgical devices, and more particularly to improved electro-surgical devices having selectively insulated portions for use in resection and cauterization procedures.
There are many medical procedures in which tissue is cut or carved away for diagnostic or therapeutic reasons. For example, a transurethral resectioning of the prostate (TURP) is performed to treat benign or cancerous prostatic hyperplasia. Transurethral resectioning may also be performed in the bladder (TURB). The obstructing tissue can be resected, ablated, or coagulated with any number of electro-cautery devices which are inserted into the urethra through a resectroscope. An electric current heats the tissue sufficiently to break inter-cellular bonds, cutting the tissue, or denaturing the tissue in order to remove or perform coagulation on tissue.
Extensive bleeding can occur as a result of electro-resectioning, which can obstruct the physician""s view and lead to dangerous blood loss levels. Additionally, during these procedures a pressure differential exists between the urinary tract and the circulatory system. This pressure differential may result in an uptake of ambient fluid during the procedure, possibly causing complications. The bleeding can be treated or avoided by coagulating the tissue in the treatment area with an electro-coagulator that applies a low level current to denature cells to a sufficient depth without breaking intercellular bonds.
Existing electro-cautery devices tend to be inefficient when used with an electrolytic fluid such as saline, because energy applied to a resecting electrode rapidly diffuses into the fluid and chips that have already been removed, due to the conductive nature of the fluid and tissue. As a result, resection is either inadequately carried out, or a greater amount of energy is applied to the electrode to perform resectioning, raising a concern that adjacent healthy tissues may be damaged during the resectionig procedure.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an electrosurgical probe that can adequately perform electro-cautery while focusing the energy on the desired location.
The present invention features an electrosurgical device that is made more efficient and safer than conventional electrosurgical probes by selectively coating portions of the electrode in the device with an insulative or dielectric coating. The present invention provides an appropriate insulative coating that is capable of remaining adhered to an electrode during a resectioning procedure, in which the electrode is subjected to extremely high temperatures and voltages. Various polymer materials including Teflon, and ceramic materials have been tried as insulative coatings, however, such materials have been known to crack under a high temperature environment and therefore are unsuitable as coating materials for resecting electrodes.
In one aspect, the invention features an electro-surgical device, having an elongated body, a pair of arms extending from a distal end of the elongated body, and a loop electrode connecting the pair of arms. The elongated body is adapted to be coupled to a source of energy at a proximal end. The loop electrode defines a pair of end sections and a base section, and is formed of a conductive material. Each end section is coupled to an aim and comprises the conductive material having an insulative coating disposed thereon. The base section disposed between the end sections comprises the conductive material free of the insulative coating, thereby focusing energy emission to the tissue undergoing resection and cauterization.
In one embodiment, the insulative coating on the end sections can be a diamond-like coating or other coating having sufficient properties permitting it to withstand high voltages and temperatures. In another embodiment, the diamond-like coating can be vapor deposited onto the end sections. The insulative coating can have a thickness up to about 10 microns.
In another embodiment, the electro-surgical device comprises an elongated body, a pair of arms extending from a distal end of the elongated body, and an electrode in communication with the pair of arms. The elongated body is adapted to be coupled to a source of energy at a proximal end. The electrode has a first region covered with an insulative coating and a second region covered with a sacrificial material. The sacrificial material covering the second region disintegrates during the application of normal energy levels, exposing a conductive region underneath.
In another embodiment, the insulative coating can be vapor deposited on the first region, and the sacrificial material can be deposited on the second region by dipping, spraying, or brushing. The insulative coating is capable of remaining adhered to the first region upon application of a voltage of up to from about 1000 volts to about 2000 volts (rms) at mains frequency. The insulative coating can be a diamond-like coating.
In still another embodiment, the electro-surgical device comprises an elongated body, a pair of arms extending from a distal end of the elongated body, and an electrode in communication with the pair of arms. The elongated body is adapted to be coupled to a source of energy at a proximal end. The electrode has a non-uniformly deposited insulative coating capable of remaining adhered to the electrode upon application of a voltage of up to about 200 volts (rms), wherein the areas where the coating is thinner can degrade exposing the portion of the electrode which comprises the second region, focusing energy emission.
In another embodiment, the insulative coating can have a hardness of greater than 1000 kg/mm2, a dielectric strength of greater than about 100 volts (rms) per xcexcm and an electrical resistivity in the range from 102 ohm-cm to 102 ohm-cm. In yet another embodiment, the electrode can be a cylindrical roller electrode, or a spherical roller electrode.
In another aspect, the invention features a resectoscope assembly. The assembly includes a resectoscope having a channel and an electro-surgical device insertable through the channel. The electro-surgical device includes an elongated body, a pair of arms in communication with the elongated body and a distal electrode in communication with the pair of arms. The electrode has a first region coated with an insulative coating and a second region for focusing energy emission. The insulative coating is capable of remaining adhered to the electrode upon application of a voltage of up to 500 volts (rms) at mains frequency.
In still another aspect, the invention features a method for performing selective cauterization. An electro-surgical device is positioned along a treatment path near tissue to be resected. The electro-surgical device includes an elongated body, a pair of arms in communication with the elongated body and a distal electrode in communication with the pair of arms. The electrode has a first region coated with an insulative coating and a second region for focusing energy emission. The insulative coating is capable of remaining adhered to the electrode upon application of a voltage of up to 500 volts (rms) at mains frequency. The tissue is flushed with a non-osmotic fluid. A plasma field is generated near the second region of the electrode and the tissue. The electro-surgical device is moved along the treatment path to resect and coagulate the tissue.
In each of the above embodiments, the electro-surgical device can be efficiently used with a non-osmotic fluid, such as, for example, saline, glycine or sorbitol. Moreover, the electro-surgical device of the present invention can be used in saline, an electrolytic, non-osmotic fluid without a considerable loss of energy to the tissue undergoing treatment or the fluid. Additionally, the present invention avoids the use of high currents to deliver energy to the treatment site, as energy is effectively focused in the conductive section or sections of the electrode. The result is higher current density, which promotes the generation of a plasma field.
The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following, more particular description of the preferred embodiments of the invention.
This invention is described with particularity in the appended claims. The above and further advantages of this invention may be better understood by referring to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1a is a perspective view of an electro-surgical device positioned within a resectoscope.
FIG. 1b is a perspective view of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 1a.
FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of a-distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 1a.
FIG. 3 is an enlarged top view of the distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 1.
FIG. 4 is an enlarged cross-sectional side view of the distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 1a.
FIGS. 5-9 are cross-sectional side views of the distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 1a in use within a urethra.
FIGS. 10 and 11 are cross-sectional side views illustrating structure and use of another embodiment of an electro-surgical device.
FIG. 12 is a side view of another embodiment of a resectoscope.
FIG. 13 is an exploded, side view of the resectoscope of FIG. 12.
FIG. 14 is an enlarged perspective view of a distal portion of an electro-surgical device used in conjunction with the resectoscope of FIG. 12.
FIG. 15 is an enlarged side view of a proximal portion of the electro-surgical device used lo in conjunction with the resectoscope of FIG. 12.
FIG. 16 is an enlarged partially cross-sectional view of a portion of the handle of the resectoscope of FIG. 12 and a bipolar power connector adaptor.
FIG. 17 is a perspective view of another bipolar power connector adaptor that can be used in conjunction with the resectoscope of FIG. 12.
FIG. 18 is an enlarged side view of a portion of the handle of the resectoscope of FIG. 12 in combination with the bipolar power connector adaptor of FIG. 17.
FIG. 19 is a perspective view of a power connector adaptor for use in conjunction with another type of resectoscope.
FIG. 20 is an enlarged side view, shown in partial cross-section, of the power connector adaptor of FIG. 18 and a portion of the handle of a resectoscope.
FIGS. 21a-21c are cross-sectional side views of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 12 in use within a urethra.
FIG. 22 is a side view of another electro-surgical device that can be used in conjunction with the resectoscope of FIG. 12.
FIG. 23 is a side view of another electro-surgical device in a retracted position within a distal portion of a resectoscope.
FIG. 24 is a side view of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 23 in an extended position within the distal portion of the resectoscope.
FIG. 25 is a cross-sectional view of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 23 within the distal portion of the resectoscope.
FIG. 26 is a side view of another electro-surgical device in an extended position within the distal end of a resectoscope.
FIG. 27a is a perspective view of an electro-surgical device having a loop electrode.
FIG. 27b is an enlarged perspective view of a distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 27a.
FIG. 28 is a cross-sectional view of a dual ion beam deposition chamber for depositing an insulative coating on an electrode.
FIG. 29a is a perspective view of another electro-surgical device having a loop electrode.
FIG. 29b is an enlarged perspective view of a distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 29a.
FIG. 30a is a perspective view of an electro-surgical device having a cylindrical roller electrode.
FIG. 30b is a perspective view of an electro-surgical device having a spherical roller electrode.
FIG. 31a is a perspective view of another electro-surgical device having a loop electrode.
FIG. 31b is an enlarged perspective view from a proximal side of a distal portion of the electro-surgical device of FIG. 31a.
FIG. 32 is a side view illustrating selective resection and cauterization of prostate tissue using the electro-surgical device of the present invention.
FIG. 33a is a side view of a biopsy forcepxe2x80x94, and xe2x80x94FIG. 33b is an enlarged perspective view of a distal end of the biopsy forcep of FIG. 33a.

Apparatus and method for electrode-surgical tissue removal having a selectively insulated electrode


A virtual machine/function of repository is used to collect information for use in providing a particular service to a particular user in a network. The virtual machine/function of repository is dynamically instantiating in a front end of the network upon receiving a request to provision the particular service for the particular user. The collected information pertains only to providing the particular service to the particular user. The virtual machine/function of repository is synchronized with one or more consolidated databases in a back end of the network. The virtual machine/function of repository is deleted upon discontinuation of the particular service for the particular user.

As the entire digital/communication industry moves towards virtualization and creating services and network functions on virtual domains for each subscriber and for each specific service, the need for access to repositories and databases is paramount.
In today's advanced networks there are repositories for network functions, such as call processing and mid-call services, as well as repositories for customer profiles, billing and policy enforcement. Those also include service databases for any service provided to subscribers both internally and via third party services. For example, one mobile service provider maintains over ten platforms for services such as call completion, browsing, texting and third party services such as Twitter® and Facebook®. Currently those repositories exist as individual siloes across the network and must be queried for each subscriber and for each service that a subscriber is using. There are therefore millions of virtual service instances where there is a need for collecting, comparing and changing information with real time or near time access. In each of those instances, latency is created. To be able to accommodate all these inquiries, there is a tremendous need for platform access build-up as well as network backhaul expansion.
It can be seen that there is a need to reduce the latency created by collecting, comparing and changing information required in providing network services. There is furthermore a need to reduce the necessity for network backhaul infrastructure required for collecting, comparing and changing information required in providing network services.

Method and system to dynamically instantiate virtual repository for any services


A cylinder air filling amount is divided into a first amount of air and a second amount of air, the first amount of air and the second amount of air are calculated, and the first amount of air and the second amount of air are totaled to calculate a cylinder air filling amount. The first amount of air is the excess of the cylinder air filling amount with respect to the throttle valve air passage amount occurring due to an intake stroke being performed. The drop in intake pressure occurring due to an intake stroke being performed is detected for each cylinder and the total value of the intake pressure drop in a 720° crank angle range is calculated. The first amount of air is calculated based on an intake pressure drop and the intake pressure drop total value. Due to this, it is possible to simply and accurately calculate a cylinder air filling amount.

Regarding an internal combustion engine provided with a plurality of cylinders, introducing air into an intake pipe extending from a throttle valve to an intake valve through the throttle valve in exactly a throttle valve air passage amount, and discharging air from the intake pipe through an intake valve in exactly a cylinder air filling amount to fill a cylinder at the time of an intake stroke, known in the art is a control system of an internal combustion engine wherein a formula obtained from the Law of the Conservation of Mass for the intake pipe and a state equation for the air in the intake pipe is used to calculate the cylinder air filling amount of the cylinder (see Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2002-70633).
To use the above formula to calculate a cylinder air filling amount, for example, the temperature of the air in the intake pipe and the volume of the intake pipe have to be found. However, to find the air temperature, for example, not only is a temperature sensor necessary, but also, if considering the response delay, even if using a temperature sensor, it would be difficult to accurately find the air temperature. Further, the intake pipe includes manufacturing error, so the volume of the intake pipe cannot be considered equivalent to, for example, the design value. Measurement of the volume for each intake pipe is also extremely impractical.
Further, when using a formula to estimate a cylinder air filling amount, if using a formula obtained based on the Law of the Conservation of Mass and state equation as it is, the formula would become complicated and the calculation load would become huge, so normally this formula is simplified for use. Here, if the intake valve opening/closing timing is set to the retarded side, an intake valve will remain open even after intake bottom dead center. In this case, even if the piston starts to rise, since the intake valve is held in the open state, the air sucked into the cylinder is liable to flow back into the intake pipe. However, if simplifying the formula for use when estimating the cylinder air filling amount as explained above, this backflow of air is not considered and therefore the calculated cylinder air filling amount ends up including error.

Control system of internal combustion engine


A travelling steel form system includes a three-dimentional framework mechanism with multiple faces crossing and coupling with one another. A set of form panels are fixed to the outer side of the framework mechanism on more than two faces thereof, and are capable of connecting to one another to form a predetermined shape and disconnect from one another to change the shape following expanding and retracting movement of the framework mechanism. A driving device is vertically or horizontally retractably mounted on the front end and or rear end of the framework mechanism for driving the latter to perform movements of expanding the outer diameter or reducing the outer diameter. The system is particularly suited for use in concrete placing work in civil engineering constructions.

The present invention relates to a travelling form structure and, more particularly, to a form construction system adapted for use in concrete placing work in such civil engineering constructions as tunnels, culverts, trenches and underground tunnels for form support of concrete paste that has been deposited.
Traditionally, early in civil engineering constructions, wooden boards and braces were utilized as form structures for form support during concrete grouting in the excavation and digging in such works as, for example, tunnels, culverts, trenches or underground tunnelings. Nowadays, for timbering strength and repeated use, form structures are assembled and set up with mostly steel boards together with steel bracings and steel supporting struts. However, because these steel form structures are heavy and clumsy to set up, and also because connections between the individual steel form boards must rely on extensible bolts and screws for vertical as well as transverse interdependency and fitting, the construction work has been rather redundant and time-consuming. When grouting has been completed and the concrete has attained an early hardening strength, the dismantling of the form structures must proceed immediately in order to remove the members of the form boards that have been dismantled to the next section for continuity of the construction. Since the processes of form dismantling, separating, transporting, reassembling and mounting are repeated again and again, it has been time consuming and laborious. Particularly, when mounting of the form structures has been completed and most of the working space has been occupied by vertically and transversely setting up the links and braces, there is little possibility for effective use of those spaces to proceed with construction or work for the next section. As a result, it greatly effects the effective rate of the construction and the work completing period.


Properly detects an anomaly on the basis of directional data that are obtained in sequence from a monitored object. An anomaly detecting method includes: sequentially generating directional data indicating a feature of each piece of monitored data correspondingly to the monitored data which are input in sequence; calculating the dissimilarity of the directional data to a reference vector; updating a moment of the distribution of the dissimilarity appearing when the directional data is modeled with a multi-dimensional probability distribution, based on the moment already corresponding to the monitored data; calculating a parameter determining the variance of the multi-dimensional probability distribution, on the basis of the moment; calculating a threshold of the dissimilarity on the basis of the multi-dimensional probability distribution the variance of which is determined by the parameter; and detecting an anomaly in the monitored data that corresponds to the dissimilarity if the dissimilarity exceeds the threshold.

Methods for determining the degree of an anomaly in multi-dimensional data in a system in which multi-dimensional data are sequentially generated or obtained have been proposed in various fields in the real world.
The following documents are considered herein:                [Patent Document 1]        Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 10-254899        [Non-Patent Document 1]        David Marchette, "A Statistical Method for Profiling Network Traffic", Workshop on Intrusion Detection and Network Monitoring, 1999, pp. 119-128        [Non-Patent Document 2]        Kenji Kita, Kazuhiko Tsuda, and Masami Shishibori, "Information retrieval algorithm", Kyoritsu Shuppan, 2002        [Non-Patent Document 3]        Nadeem Ahmed Syed, Huan Liu, and Kah Kay Sung, "Handling concept drifts in incremental learning with support vector machines", "Proceedings of the fifth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pp. 317-321, 1999        [Non-Patent Document 4]        Tom M. Mitchel, "Machine Learning", McGraw Hill, Chapter 6, 1997        [Non-Patent Document 5]        A. Banerjee, I. Dhillon, J. Ghosh, and S. Sra, "Generative model-based clustering of directional data", Proceedings of the Ninth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pp. 19-28, 2003        [Non-Patent Document 6]        Scott C. Deerwester, Susan T. Dumais, Thomas K. Landauer, George W. Furnas, Richard A. Harshman, "Indexing by Latent Semantic Analysis", Journal of the American Society of Information Science, Vol. 41, No. 6, pp. 391-407, 1990        [Non-Patent Document 7]        C. D. Manning and H. Schutze, "Foundation of Statistical Natural Language Processing", MIT Press, Section 7.2.1, 2000        [Non-Patent Document 8]        T. Joachims, "Text categorization with support vector machines: Learning with many relevant features", Proceedings of ECML, 1998        [Non-Patent Document 9]        H. Li and K. Yamanishi, "Text classification using ESC-based stochastic decision lists", Proceedings of the ACM CIKM, pp. 122-130, 1999        [Non-Patent Document 10]        M. Ghil, M. R. Allen, M. D. Dettinger, K. Ide, D. Kondrashov, M. E. Mann, A. W. Robertson, A. Saunders, Y. Tian, F. Varadi, and P. Yiou, "Advanced Spectral Methods for Climatic Time Series", Reviews of Geophysics, 40 (2002), pp. 1-41, 2002        [Non-Patent Document 11]        N. Golyandina, V. Nekrutkin and A. Zhigljavsky, "Analysis of Time Series Structure: SSA and Related techniques", Chapman and Hall/CRC 2001
For example, in a study, the probability of connection requests to each port number of a computer system is represented by a feature vector and an intrusion into the computer system is detected by using a clustering technique for the feature vectors (see Non-Patent Document 1).
The method described above can be used in text information processing. For example, in a text classification problem, a text is represented by a vector which has elements consisting of the occurrence frequency of words or elements consisting of the quantity obtained by converting the occurrence frequency of words by using tf-idf. This type of modeling of text data is called a vector-space model (see Non-Patent Document 2). Then, the similarity, such as the cosine measure, of the text vector of text to be classified newly to the typical vector of a each category is calculated and, from the similarity, whether or not the text belongs to the category is determined or whether or not classification performed by using a classifier is proper (see Patent Document 1, for example). This processing classifies the text vector according to its dissimilarity to the known typical vector and therefore it can be said that the text classification problem is a form of anomaly detection.
(1) Directional Data:
In anomaly detection in multi-dimensional data, the data in which an anomaly is to be detected is often normalized to directional data. Directional data can be defined as a vector whose L2 norm is normalized to a constant value such as 1 (that is, a vector where the sum of squares of the elements is equal to a constant value such as 1). Therefore, the directional data is data only whose direction has a meaning. For example, in a text classification problem, a text vector, which is a multi-dimensional vector, is generated based on the occurrence frequency of a word. It is necessary to generate the directional vector by normalizing the text vector to a certain norm in order to properly compare the similarities because the larger the total number of the words in the text, the greater the norm of the text vector.
While in some cases, a vector may be used whose L1 norm, instead of L2 norm, is normalized in the meaning of normalizing the probability (see Non-Patent Document 1), each element can be readily reformulated so as to represent the probability amplitude (that is, a quantity the square of the absolute value of which gives probability) and therefore the problem using a vector whose L1 norm is normalized resolves itself into a directional data problem.
As has been described above, the problem of detecting an anomaly by comparing directional data provided by normalizing monitored data with a reference vector can be applied to various fields. Hereinafter, an object in which anomaly is detected in this way is called a "dynamic system."
(2) Distance Measure of Directional Data:
As the distance measure used in comparison between a directional data item and a reference vector, the cosine measure defined by Expression (1) is widely used.
Expression1Z≡l−rTu  (1)
Here, r denotes a predetermined reference vector (directional data), u denotes an observation vector (directional data) observed from a monitored dynamic system, and the superscript T denotes transpose. As apparent from Expression (1), z is equal to 0 if the observation vector matches the reference vector, but is equal to 1 if the observation vector is orthogonal to the reference vector. Because of this nature, z can be used as the index of the dissimilarity of the observation vector to the reference vector.
(3) Anomaly Detection:
In a text classification problem, if the dissimilarity z in Expression (1) of an observation vector u obtained from given text data to the reference vector r corresponding to a given category exceeds a threshold zth (z>zth), it is usually determined that the text data does not belong to the category. That is, a reference vector r and a threshold zth are set for each category and the dissimilarity z is compared with the threshold zth for each category to determine whether or not the text data belongs to the category.
The following are problems to be solved by the invention. The art described above have the following problems:
(1) Difficulty of Setting (the) Thresholding Condition
In the anomaly detecting method described above, appropriate determination criteria must be set. However, it is difficult to set appropriate determination criteria with the prior arts. More specifically, if the nature of a text to be classified and the set of the texts to be classified are known, the anomaly thresholding condition can be found based on the result of classification of the text data. However, in a case where unknown text data arrive sequentially online, t is difficult to set a threshold zth properly even if the values of already arrived data are available. This is because it is difficult to properly evaluate the size of each cluster resulting from the classification. In conventional approaches, the threshold zth is determined typically by comparing the deviation from the average value with standard deviation, assuming that the distribution of dissimilarity z is substantially equivalent to normal distribution. Generally, this assumption does not hold. Especially when directional data is used, it is not appropriate to use this assumption because the directional data is normalized.
(2) Difficulty of Updating the Thresholding Condition
In a state where observational data arrive in succession online, it is desirable that the thresholding condition be updated appropriately. However, except in special cases where the dissimilarity z is normal distribution, it is difficult to obtain the distribution function of the dissimilarity z. Accordingly, it is difficult to respond to changes in the thresholding condition over time with conventional approaches. For example, in a text classification problem, it is a significant challenge to capture the drift of categories from a practical standpoint. To respond to changes in the thresholding condition over time is one of the main subjects in machine learning (see for example Non-Patent Document 3), and it is desired to solve the problem.
(3) Difficulty of Dealing with Directional Data
The degree of freedom of directional data is smaller than the dimension of the vector space by 1 due to the condition that its norm is constant. Therefore, directional data is seemingly easier to deal with than vectors without normalization. However, dimensional data is statistically more difficult to deal with. That is, if each dimension of a multi-dimensional vector is independent, its dispersion can be properly modeled by using multi-dimensional normal distribution. The normal distribution is considerably easy to deal with mathematically. For example, it is well known that a multi-dimensional vector classification problem can be formulated mathematically into a maximum likelihood estimation problem of mixed normal distribution and can be readily solved with the so-called expectation maximization method (see for example Non-Patent Document 4). Therefore, it maybe possible to deal with directional data with normal distribution by neglecting normalization conditions and assuming the degrees of freedom to be independent of each other. However, it is empirically known that this method does not provide an appropriate model.
In this way, because directional data u is normalized, natural distribution of the directional data u is not multi-dimensional normal distribution. Letting the direction corresponding to the reference vector r be the mean direction, the distribution that provides the maximum entropy for directional data u distributed around that direction is the von Mises-Fisher distribution shown in the Expression (2).
                    [                  Expression                                                              2                ]                                                                      f                                (                                          u                ❘                r                            ,              Σ                        )                          =                                            ∑                              1                -                                  N                  /                  2                                                                                (                                      2                                        π                                    )                                                  N                  /                  2                                                                                I                                                            N                      /                      2                                        -                    1                                                                                (                                      1                    /                    Σ                                    )                                                                                exp                                      (                                                r                  T                                                                  u                  /                  Σ                                            )                                                          (        2        )
Here, N denotes the dimension of the reference vector and the directional data, Σ denotes a scalar parameter that defines the variance of the von Mises-Fisher distribution, and Iv (c) denotes the modified Bessel function of the first kind of v stages.
Considering that the maximum entropy principle gives the multi-dimensional normal distribution if the constraint of norm is removed, it is obvious that the von Mises-Fisher distribution is the most natural (most expressive) distribution for the directional data. Accordingly, the anomaly detection problem for the directional data u can be formulated in principle by using the von Mises-Fisher distribution or its mixture models.
However, because the von Mises-Fisher distribution is difficult to deal with mathematically (especially because it contains the modified Bessel function), it has not thoroughly been discussed in the context of anomaly detection in the past. It was not until recently that formulation with the expectation maximization method of the von Mises-Fisher distribution was discussed in the context of clustering (see Non-Patent Document 5). Moreover, because the maximum likelihood estimation of the von Mises-Fisher distribution involves complex mathematical operations including approximation of the special function in Expression (3) and the solution to the maximum likelihood equation is given as the solution to a transcendental equation, it is difficult to provide rules for updating parameters that determine the distribution online.

Anomaly detection based on directional data

International Business Machines Corporation


Provided are microfluidic systems and methods for detecting, sorting, and dispensing of low abundance events such as single cells and particles, including a variety of eukaryotic and bacterial cells, for a variety of bioassay applications. The systems and methods described herein, when implemented in whole or in part, will make relevant microfluidic based tools available for a variety of applications in biotechnology including antibody discovery, immuno-therapeutic discovery, high-throughput single cell analysis, target-specific compound screening, and synthetic biology screening.

Single cell analysis technologies are critical to biotechnological research and development due to the complex heterogeneity of cells, and their interconnectedness with each other. A widely used single cell analysis tool is flow cytometry (FC), which is able to analyze individual cells according to their size, shape, and the fluorescence properties of cell surface and intracellular markers. It is called fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) when the device also enables the sorting of specific cells from a heterogeneous cell population.
The great success of FACS is in part due to its high throughput for screening individual single cells based on fluorescent detection at up to tens of thousands of cells per second. However, FACS can neither be used to probe secreted factors from individual single cells, nor probe the interactions between two single cells.
A variety of microfluidic technologies have been developed for single cell analysis, including microchambers, micro-wells, and droplets. Microchambers and nano-wells have limited applications due to their relatively low throughput. In the past decade, droplet microfluidics has gained increasingly more attention. Droplet microfluidics are uniquely advantageous due to the ultra-small assay volume (usually less than 1 nanoliter (nL)), flexible throughput (thousands to hundreds of millions of cells), and maneuverability such as merging, splitting, trapping, detecting, and sorting, which fit well for many biological assays of individual single cells including genomic analysis and live cell assays.
Despite the progress of droplet technologies, there remain major bottle necks that limit important applications requiring highly accurate and efficient single cell or particle detection and isolation. For example, antigen-specific high-quality T or B cells are generally low abundance events among a T or B cell immune repertoire, respectively. There are significant unmet demands to further improve the accuracy and efficiency of current droplet technologies, which will enable the effective isolation of such low abundance events prevalent in many biological applications.

Microfluidic determination of low abundance events


A liver cancer metastasis therapeutic device, comprising: a base plate, a prone support, an abdomen massager, a medicated gauze, a sprocket bracket, a transmission shaft, a sprocket, a chain, rotary plates, pedals, a handwheel bracket, handwheels, and an adjustable speed motor. The prone support is fixedly installed on the middle of the base plate, and the abdomen massager covered with the medicated gauze is installed on the prone support. The sprocket bracket is fixedly installed on the base plate and is provided with the transmission shaft and the sprocket, the rotary plates are fixed on two ends of the transmission shaft, and the sprocket is configured to cooperate with the chain for transmission; the handwheel bracket is fixed on two sides of a front center of base plate, and is provided with the handwheels.

Human's body structure is designed for horizontal motion, while prone horizontal motion is the foundation for human beings to improve general functions so as to adapt to life existence, of which crawling exercises and swimming can help improve abdominal digestive functions, thus being conducive to treat metastasis of liver cancer and cancers related to gastrointestinal digestive systems. Patent ZL201320254913.7 has disclosed a lung cancer metastasis therapy apparatus on Dec. 25, 20013, which adopts supine horizontal motion but with little space for abdominal exercises due to the action of gravity. Thus, it is not beneficial to improve abdominal digestive functions or treat metastasis of liver cancer and cancers related to gastrointestinal digestive systems.

Hepatocarcinoma metastasis therapy apparatus and method for using the same


The inertial exerciser and entertainment device includes a central axle on which is mounted pair of pendulums. Each pendulum includes an elongated pendulum rod, a spherical weight provided on one end of the pendulum rod, and an eyelet provided on the other end. The pendulum rods and the spherical weights of the exerciser are configured such that when the pendulums are mounted on the common axle, side by side, the spherical weights are aligned and are configured to oscillate and collide in the same plane.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved inertial exerciser and entertainment device which uses inertia to amplify exercise performed with the device.
2. Description of Background Information
Some conventional inertial exercisers, such as the exercisers disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,714,946; 4,513,963; and No. 4,043,553; include eccentric weights. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,714,946 discloses an exerciser including a disk provided with two opposed handles. U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,963 discloses an exerciser including a tubular member having bearings provided within the tubular member. U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,553 discloses an exerciser including a pair of hand grips rotatably secured to an eccentrically weighted cross shaft.
Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,613, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, discloses an inertial exerciser device including first and second rotatably mounted weights, a chamber that at least partially encloses the weight system, and a grip mechanism for the user to grip the exerciser. The inertial exerciser device includes a spigot and yoke system to allow the spherical weights of the pendulums to rotate in the same plane. The method of exercising with this device is theoretically quite satisfactory. However, this exercise device may have the disadvantage that it is difficult to provide an equal mass for the two pendulums, as they have different shapes. Further, as a straight rod is rigidly connected to the spigot, the point of attachment of the rod to the spigot is subjected to excessive torsion forces, reflected in Lissajous lines, while in use. These excessive torsion forces may tend to induce material fatigue that will debilitate the pendulum's structural resistance, particularly if the elements are formed of molded plastic material, such as, for example, polyethylene. Additionally, since the pendulums of U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,613 are not exactly alike, they must be produced by two different manufacturing processes. Thus, manufacture of this device does not produce economies of scale. Further, in the case in which plastic material is used, two different molds must be used, which produces higher fixed costs and shorter production runs. Another consideration is that it is more aesthetically pleasing to provide a matched set of pendulums, since the pleasant appearance of a product is important for marketing and in the market place. Additionally, elimination of the circular cover would provide a lighter and more economical device to produce.
Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 6,776,742 discloses a handheld exerciser including a handle to be gripped by a user, and at least two weights which are one of freely rotatably mounted and freely orbitally mounted about an axis passing through the handle.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Inertial exerciser and entertainment device


A sleeve includes an inner sleeve part securely fitted on a handle end portion of a golf club, and two outer sleeve parts; the inner sleeve part has circular concavities spaced apart on an outer side thereof; the outer sleeve parts are positioned around the inner sleeve part, and each stuck to the inner sleeve part at two ends thereof in a sealing manner such that an air containing sealed room is formed between it and the inner sleeve part, making the sleeve capable of functioning like an air cushion with increased capability to absorb reaction force from hitting a golf ball.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sleeve of a handle of a golf club, more particularly one, which is made in such a way as to function like an air cushion with softer touch and increased capability to absorb reaction force from hitting a golf ball.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Referring to FIGS. 3 and 4, a conventional golf club 3 has a soft rubber sleeve 31 securely fitted around a handle portion thereof. The sleeve 31 has a fitting room 11, in which the handle portion is held, and a slip-prevention outer side 312. Because the sleeve 31 is made of soft rubber, it can reduce the reaction force against the user's hands when the golf club hits a ball. And, the slip-prevention outer side 312 of the sleeve 31 will prevent slip of the golf club while the club is being swung.
However, it is found that the sleeve has a limited shock absorbing capability, and the user's hands will hurt when the golf club hits a ball.

Air cushion type sleeve of a handle of a golf club


A connection device for connection of an electrical conductor includes: a housing which has an insertion opening for insertion of an electrical conductor; a spring element arranged on the housing, which spring element has a spring leg for locking a conductor inserted in the insertion opening; and an adjusting element which is arranged adjustably on the housing. By adjustment of the adjusting element, the spring leg is movable between a clamping position in which a conductor inserted in the insertion opening is lockable in the insertion opening, and a release position in which a conductor may be inserted into the insertion opening, or a conductor inserted in the insertion opening is releasable from the insertion opening. The spring element has an actuation section arranged on the spring leg on which the adjusting element acts during an adjustment for the movement of the spring leg.

Such a connection device serves for the connection of an electrical line. Such a connection device can be used, for example, on an electrical installation, a switchgear cabinet or another electrical assembly, such as a printed circuit board or the like, in order to electrically connect an electrical conductor by inserting the conductor into an insertion opening.
Such a connection device comprises a housing, which has an insertion opening for inserting an electrical conductor, and a spring element arranged on the housing, which spring element has a spring leg for locking a conductor inserted into the insertion opening. An adjusting element is adjustably arranged on the housing such that, by adjusting the adjusting element, the spring leg can be moved between a clamping position in which a conductor inserted into the insertion opening can be locked in the insertion opening, and a release position in which a conductor can be inserted into the insertion opening or a conductor inserted into the insertion opening can be released from the insertion opening.
In conventional connection devices of this type, it can be provided that the slide element is to be acted upon by means of a tool in order thereby to adjust the spring leg of the spring element. This may require a user to hold the connection device and any electrical conductor to be attached, as well as the tool, in his hands simultaneously and to actuate them, which can be cumbersome and impractical.
There is therefore a need for a connection device which allows easy handling by a user, especially for inserting an electrical conductor or for releasing an electrical conductor from the connection device.
In a connection device known from U.S. Pat. No. 8,113,858, a spring element is arranged in a housing and can be adjusted by a manually operable slider element. The slider element is designed to act on the spring element in order to enable a conductor to be plugged in, wherein the spring element locks the electrical conductor on the housing in an electrically contacting manner after the conductor has been attached and after the slider has been retracted.
In a connection device known from DE 20 2009 007 573 U1, a slide element is provided which is adjustable for adjusting a spring leg of a spring element.
In a connection device known from DE 10 2015 115 612 A1 in the form of a connecting terminal, a connecting element is formed on a spring leg of a spring element via which the spring leg is coupled to an actuation element in the form of a pivot lever such that the spring leg can be pulled out of a clamping position in the direction of a release position by pivoting the actuation element.
In the connection device known from DE 10 2015 115 612 A1, the connecting element is formed integrally with the spring leg by bending the spring element made as a punch part from spring steel. Also depending on the rolling direction of the spring steel, a relatively large bending radius can also be required for such a bend, which can increase the installation space of the spring element.

Connection device for connection of an electrical line


A method and a computer system with a specialized graphic user interface for processing trajectory data of a spacecraft and planets. The preferred graphic user interface is capable of representing the orbital trajectory of the spacecraft traveling from one planet to another in 3D and providing user interactions to display the orbit information at any time and position.

Computers can be used to present information in the form of images on a display device. An image, which the user can visualize, includes graphics, characters, words, and text as well as other display features such as colors. A display device that can display graphical output is called a graphical user interface ("GUI").
A GUI is a type of computer interface which allows accessing actual objects that a user can access and manipulate. The GUI provides a visual aid to assist the user to enter values as well as entering the various objects and attributes to create a graphical representation.
One type of graphical representation that is difficult to visualize is that of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional display device. The creation of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional display device is known as 3D rendering. Resource intensive calculations are often necessary in order to render three dimensional space from a particular point of view. The calculations are more resource intensive with respect to viewing trajectories of celestial bodies and spacecraft (e.g., satellites) in three-dimensions. This is at least in part due to the complexity of the trajectories of the celestial bodies and spacecraft that is caused by the nature of multi-body interaction therebetween. Currently, personal computers usually cannot be utilized to view 3D graphic representation of space trajactories because a graphical user interface does not exist whereby a user is able to view and edit a spacecraft's trajectory in three-dimensions.
The inventors of the present invention recognized a need to create a tool that allows current GUIs to enable a user to visualize a spacecraft's trajectory as well as allow the user to edit and select the data they wish to view. Furthermore, the inventors recognized a need for real time rendering in determining the position and velocity of celestial bodies with respect to one another at some finite time interval. That is, they recognized a need for a tool which can calculate the trajectories of various objects, i.e., planets, satellites, spacecrafts, comets, asteroids, at a particular time interval.
Many exploratory spacecraft travel to various planets in our solar system. Most persons conceptualize the orbit line of the spacecraft as launched from Earth and traveling to the target destination in a straight line path. In actuality, a spacecraft orbits in the planet's gravitational pull around the Sun. The orbit of each planet is approximately an ellipse with the Sun as one of the focus points. A spacecraft usually escapes from a planet's gravitational pull by following a trajectory that is substantially parabolic. In this way, a spacecraft launched from the Earth travels in orbit around the Earth and then coasts either further from or closer to the Sun, depending upon its destination, until it crosses the orbit of the next planet. Therefore, the spacecraft's trajectory would appear substantially parabolic where the beginning point is where the spacecraft is launched from and the ending point is the final destination of the spacecraft.
For example, if a spacecraft was to travel from Earth to Jupiter, the spacecraft would not travel directly in a straight line between the two planets. Instead, the spacecraft is usually launched in the same direction that the Earth moves around the Sun. The spacecraft coasts outward from the Sun until it crosses an orbit into Mars and continues to orbit Mars until it escapes into Jupiter's orbit.
The inventors recognized that this path is completely counter-intuitive. The inventors recognized that what is needed, therefore, is a system and method for object selection and trajectory modification which provides visually intuitive and directly manipulable ways of editing the spacecraft's trajectory, on a GUI, in the context of real time.
The inventors of the present invention recognized a need for a tool that allows the GUI to display objects in three-dimensions, and draw each celestial body or satellite in its current location in space. This tool may be used for educating the general public on their perception of the spacecraft's trajectory. In accordance with the invention, a preferred GUI displays the relationship of each celestial body with respect to another body. A user may select to and from where they wish to view the three-dimensional trajectory for the objects whose ephemeris files are calculated. In addition, the user may flexibly and conveniently display and edit the trajectory to any date and time the user wishes to view.
The present embodiment generates a three-dimensional graphical representation of the environment, i.e., the user's perspective of a graphical universe including items such as a satellite's trajectory. Furthermore, the present invention displays trajectories of various objects in three-dimensions while permitting the user to edit the features by directly manipulating the data.
Accordingly, the inventors recognized a need in three-dimensional processing for real time three-dimensional rendering which allows a user to move the three-dimensional space in real time along any axis of a reference frame and which can further allow the user to view a satellite's trajectory on a personal computer system.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved computerized method and apparatus for representing a three-dimensional view of space with celestial bodies and spacecrafts.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for rendering a three-dimensional space on a two dimensional graphics display in real time.
It is yet another object of the present invention to allow a user to efficiently translate and rotate the viewing position along any axis.
It is yet another object of the present invention to visualize a three-dimensional representation of a spacecraft's trajectory.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an interactive computer system which allows a user to move the celestial bodies and spacecrafts forwards and backwards in time.
The present invention addresses these needs by a trajectory visualization tool that enables a user from a computer including a personal computer, to view a three-dimensional representation of a spacecraft's trajectory and the trajectories of any planets or spacecrafts of interest. The tool reads in two ephemeris files which include tables of the computed positions of celestial bodies and spacecrafts. One of these files is for the spacecraft and one is for the planets. The tool uses these to calculate the Cartesian coordinates of the objects and their trajectories. This information is then plotted and displayed on the GUI. Using a pointing device (e.g., a mouse), the user can manipulate a slider on the GUI to move the spacecraft and planets forward or backward in time to their relative positions at any point within the time span of the ephemeris file. This allows the user to visualize trajectory information.
This tool allows a user who is unfamiliar with celestial mechanics to grasp the details, complexities, and constraints of a spacecraft's trajectory.
Accordingly, there is provided an interactive computer system that reduces the time and skill-level to project a trajectory visualization tool that presents a three-dimensional picture of a spacecraft's trajectory and provides vital orbital information.
A preferred computer system for processing data of a spacecraft's trajectory comprises: first memory means for storing positioning and timing information of said spacecraft and a plurality of celestial bodies including the Earth and Sun; first data processing means for calculating ephemeris data of said spacecraft and said celestial bodies; an user interface for entering user option data on said spacecraft's trajectory, said user option data comprising launching location and time and landing location and time of said spacecraft; graphic processing means for rendering graphic representation of said ephemeris data of said spacecraft and said celestial bodies, said graphic rendition being dictated by said user option data; and a graphic display for displaying said spacecraft's trajectory.

Three-dimensional representation of a spacecraft's trajectory


An ultrasonic linear motor of the present invention comprises an ultrasonic vibrator which has an electromechanical energy converting element and presses a driven member to produce a driving force for driving the driven member, a pair of pressing members which are arranged so as to sandwich the vibrator and exert a pressing force on the driven member at the positions corresponding to nodes of a standing wave on the vibrator, a support member which pivotally supports the pressing members, and an elastic member which exerts simultaneously on the pair of pressing members a deflecting force serving as a pressing force to the driven member.

This invention relates to an ultrasonic linear motor using an electromechanical energy converting element as a driving source, such as an ultrasonic linear motor that moves a driven member linearly by means of a standing-wave ultrasonic motor.
In recent years, an increasing number of ultrasonic motors have been used in the fields of precision machines and optical instruments, because ultrasonic motors have the advantage of being smaller in size, producing a higher torque, having a longer stroke, and providing a higher resolution than electromagnetic motors. Such ultrasonic motors are roughly divided into the rotary type and the linear type. Ultrasonic motors of the linear type have been disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-284752 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,375.
To the ultrasonic motor disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-284752, an electromechanical energy converting element is stuck. The longitudinal dimension and breadthwise dimension of the ultrasonic motor are set so that the resonance frequency at which the electromechanical energy converting element expands and contracts longitudinally may coincide with the frequency at which a traverse elastic wave whose propagation direction is the direction in which the converting element expands and contracts should stand.
Furthermore, the ultrasonic motor is provided with a vibrator on which an expanding and contracting vibration and a standing wave are generated simultaneously according to the vibrational displacement of the electromechanical energy converting element and with sliding projections that are provided so as to project from the position corresponding to bellies of the standing wave on the surface of the vibrator and are driven by the vibration of the vibrator so as to draw a rotary locus. Additionally, the ultrasonic motor is provided with a support shaft so that it may project from both side faces of the vibrator at the position corresponding to a node of the standing wave on the vibrator. When the support shaft is pressed downward, the vibrator is pressed against the driven member, causing the driven member to be moved according to the vibration of the vibrator.
FIGS. 9A and 9B schematically show the configuration of an example of the above-mentioned ultrasonic liner motor. FIG. 9A is a plan view and FIG. 9B is a front sectional view. As shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, the vibrator 2 is composed of an elastic material 3 taking the form of an almost rectangular parallelopiped. At the top of the elastic material 3, two rectangular cutouts 3a are made in the lengthwise direction. Into each of the cutouts 3a, a laminated piezoelectric element 4 is fitted and fixed. In the two positions on the bottom surface of the elastic material 3 at which bellies of the vibration appear, sliding members 5 are stuck with a one-to-one correspondence. The vibrator 2 is provided with a support shaft 6 so that the shaft may project from both sides of the elastic member 3 at the position that corresponds to a node of the second-order standing wave and is between the two laminated piezoelectric elements 4.
The vibrator 2 is supported, via the support shaft 6 acting as a force acting point, by a hook member 7 with a recessed section that engages with the support shaft 6, and is pressed toward a driven member 9 via the sliding members 5. The hook member 7 is fastened to one end of a cantilever plate spring 11 with a screw 121. The other end of the plate spring 11 is secured to a base 14 via a pedestal 13 with a screw 122. In Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 6-284752, in addition to the aforementioned configuration, a configuration where the way of installing the plate spring and the shape of the plate spring have been improved, has also been disclosed as means for exerting force on the vibrator 2.
The aforementioned ultrasonic linear motor has the advantage of having a high resolution and a long stroke. To make use of these advantages, the ultrasonic linear motor is provided with a linear guide that moves the driven member accurately. In the conventional example, however, the related construction between the base 14 to which the plate spring 11 is secured and the driven member 9 has not been disclosed clearly and therefore it cannot be said definitely that the ultrasonic linear motor has a compact, high-performance structure. It is known that in the ultrasonic linear motor, a change in the force pressing the vibrator 2 results in a change in the driving thrust. Thus, the force pressing the vibrator 2 has a great effect on the characteristics of the motor.
The aforementioned ultrasonic linear motor, however, has a disadvantage in that since the pressing force is determined by the plate spring 11 used, errors in producing the remaining component parts including the plate spring 7 lead to a change in the pressing force, having an effect on the characteristics of the motor. In the case of a compact ultrasonic linear motor, in particular, the span of the plate spring 11 cannot be made too long, and inevitably a plate spring with a large spring constant is used, making the motor more liable to be affected by the aforesaid errors in production. There is another problem: because the plate springs 11, 11 press the support shaft 6 on both sides of the vibrator 2 separately, a difference in force between the two plate springs 11, 11 occurs, which prevents the vibrator 2 from being pressed perpendicularly against the driven member 19, making the movement of the driven member 9 unstable.
On the other hand, U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,375 has disclosed an ultrasonic linear motor where a coil spring is used to press the vibrator against the driven member and the pressing force of the coil spring is adjustable with an adjusting screw. In such an ultrasonic linear motor, the frame supporting the coil spring is larger than the miniaturized vibrator. The support member supports the vibrator so as to prevent the vibrator from being moved in the direction in which the driven member moves, while the vibrator is being pressed by the coil spring. A construction for supporting the vibrator, however, has not been disclosed clearly in the publication. If a concrete support mechanism is used, the configuration will become larger, causing a problem: the dimensions of the entire ultrasonic linear motor will be larger and production cost will rise.
As described above, the conventional ultrasonic linear motors have the problem that although the vibrator has been miniaturized, means for supporting and pressing the vibrator has not been miniaturized, resulting in a larger configuration and in the difficulty of producing a stable pressing force to the vibrator.


An electrical connector has a base, a terminal set, a pair of holding pieces, an insulating body and a shell. The base has two holding piece slots respectively formed in two sides of the bottom of base. The pair of holding pieces is assembled into the holding piece slots respectively. Each holding piece is C-shaped and has a notch formed in a rear end of the holding piece and serving to hold a PCB board. A front end of each holding piece is assembled into the base. Given the pair of holding pieces with an assemblable structure, the size of the holding pieces can be tailored to the requirement of customers. The shell is formed by a two-stage of drawing process to enhance overall strength of the shell to facilitate the plating process afterwards.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector capable of being assembled with a pair of holding pieces.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical connectors are widely used in electronic devices nowadays. In view of booming 3C smart devices, everyone seems to have possession of one smart device. As such, electrical connectors become an essential and critical electronic element for 3C smart device. Conventional electrical connectors having the USB (Universal Serial Bus) type-C connector are taken as the electrical connectors for the specification of USB 3.0 and other later revisions. What worth mentioning about USB 3.0 is its support of forward and reverse plug for ensuring normal operation regardless of whether a USB type-C plug is plugged in a USB type-C socket forwardly or reversely. Furthermore, USB 3.0 is advantageous in much faster transmission speed while the circuit board connected with a USB 3.0 connector has higher power consumption than that connected with a connector with an earlier revision. This is the reason why the USB 3.0 connector is connected with circuit boards operated under a higher power environment.
With reference to FIG. 9, a conventional USB 3.0 type-C plug includes a shell 12 and a pair of holding legs 14. The shell 12 is made of iron or other alloy. The pair of holding legs 14 is formed on a back side of the shell 12 with left-right symmetry. The holding legs 14 are used to hold a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) 16. The PCB board 16 is an electrical element in connection with the conventional USB 3.0 type-C plug. The drawback of the conventional USB 3.0 type-C plug is that the pair of holding legs 14 is integrally formed with the shell 12 and is a part of the shell 12. When subject to a drawing process, the shell 12 needs to undergo additional processes, such as trimming and bending in generation of elbows, for manufacture of the pair of holding legs 14 as shown in FIG. 9. However, due to collision, it is easy for the pair of holding legs 14 to be not held in place when the PCB board 16 is plugged in the pair of holding legs 14. An insertion gap between an upper portion and a lower portion of the pair of legs 14 is widened because of the insertion of the PCB board 16. What is worse is that the conventional USB 3.0 type-C connector may become useless when the pair of holding legs 14 is damaged and fails to clamp the PCB board 16 tightly.
The present invention thus develops an electrical connector to mitigate or solve the problems mentioned above.

Electrical connector having holding pieces with a notch for holding a circuit board


A power generation cell includes a membrane electrode assembly and first and second metal separators sandwiching the membrane electrode assembly. The first metal separator is a thin metal plate. A first seal member is formed integrally around the outer end of the first metal separator. A portion defining an orifice is provided in an outer marginal region of the first metal separator. The thickness H1 of the first seal member in the area covering the portion defining the orifice is larger than the thickness of the H2 of the first seal member in the area covering other portions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fuel cell formed by stacking a metal separator and a membrane electrode assembly including a pair of electrodes and an electrolyte membrane interposed between the electrodes. Further, the present invention relates to a metal separator for the fuel cell.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, a solid polymer electrolyte fuel cell employs a polymer ion exchange membrane as a solid polymer electrolyte membrane. The solid polymer electrolyte membrane is interposed between an anode and a cathode to form a membrane electrode assembly. Each of the anode and the cathode is made of electrode catalyst and porous carbon. The membrane electrode assembly is sandwiched between separators (bipolar plates) to form the fuel cell. In use, generally, a predetermined number of the fuel cells are stacked together to form a fuel cell stack.
In the fuel cell, a fuel gas such as a gas chiefly containing hydrogen (hereinafter also referred to as the hydrogen-containing gas) is supplied to the anode. An oxidizing gas such as a gas chiefly containing oxygen (hereinafter also referred to as the oxygen-containing gas) is supplied to the cathode. The catalyst of the anode induces a chemical reaction of the fuel gas to split the hydrogen molecule into hydrogen ions and electrons. The hydrogen ions move toward the cathode through the electrolyte membrane, and the electrons flow through an external circuit to the cathode, creating a DC electrical energy.
In the fuel cell, for example, a metal plate is used for fabricating the separator. The strength of the metal separator is high in comparison with a carbon separator, and the metal plate is suitable for fabricating a thin separator. The metal separator, which defines reactant gas flow fields having the desired shape, is fabricated by press forming in order to reduce the thickness of the metal separator, and reduce the overall size and weight of the fuel cell.
A resin seal is provided on the metal separator for electrical insulation and sealing. For example, in a production method disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-309746, as shown in FIG. 7, a thin metal plate 3 is supported between surfaces of a fixed die plate 2a and a movable die plate 2b of an injection molding die 1. In a mold cavity, a resin channel 4 is formed in a marginal region of the thin metal plate 3, i.e., a cross sectional part 3a.
Liquid silicone resin 6 is injected into the mold cavity from a gate 5 of the thin metal plate 3 to form a silicone resin layer 7 which covers the marginal region on both surfaces of the thin metal plate 3.
Normally, the thin metal plate 3 has a corrugated surface defining the reactant gas flow field and an orifice in the outer marginal region for improving the rigidity. The corrugated surface and the orifice are fabricated by press forming. In these portions, dimensional variation is likely to occur at the time of fabrication. Thus, for example, when the silicone resin layer 7 is formed integrally on the thin metal plate 3, the position of the orifice may be deviated from the position of the silicone resin layer 7 due to dimensional variation, and the metal portion around the orifice may be exposed to the outside to cause insulation failure. Consequently, the yield rate of the metal separator is lowered. In this case, the production cost is high, and the metal separator is not produced economically.

Fuel cell and metal separator for fuel cell


There is provided a ubiquitous monitoring system comprising a plurality of sensor nodes, one or more agent adapters receiving sensing data from the plurality of sensor nodes and determining to where the sensing data is transmitted according to one of characteristics of the plurality of sensing nodes and characteristics of the sensing data, one or more first monitoring agents receiving the sensing data from the agent adapter, one or more second monitoring agents receiving the sensing data from one of the agent adapter and the first monitoring agent, one or more third monitoring agents receiving the sensing data from one of the agent adapter and the second monitoring agent, and a monitoring engine receiving the sensing data from the third monitoring agent and monitoring the received sensing data.

Source monitoring systems with scalability have been applied to be used before intelligent system monitoring, scheduling, load balancing, and tasks. Such technology provides scalability and Fault-Tolerant technique but is not suitable to satisfy conditions for various deadlines existing in a real-time system. Software modules for monitoring information on a status of an embedded device have performed using kernel wrapper technique. Such technique may improve implantation of a monitoring system in other systems and reduce time for designing the monitoring system. However, since there is an overhead required in wrapping a kernel, such technique is not suitable for real-time mass monitoring.

Ajou University Industry Cooperation Foundation


Apparatus, method, computing devices, and computer programs related to photodiagnosis and photodynamic therapy, methods of use thereof, and a method for detecting abnormal tissue, are provided.

Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to photodiagnosis and photodynamic treatment.
Background Art
"Genital human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection (HPVI) in the United States. More than 40 HPV types can infect the genital areas of men and women, including the skin of the penis, vulva (area outside the vagina), and anus, and the linings of the vagina, cervix, and rectum. These types can also infect the lining of the mouth and throat. HPV types are often referred to as 'low-risk' (wart-causing) or 'high-risk' (cancer-causing), based on whether they put a person at risk for cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found that 13 HPV types can cause cancer of the cervix; one of these types can cause cancers of the vulva, vagina, penis, anus, and certain head and neck cancers. The types of HPV that can cause genital warts are not the same as the types that can cause cancer." Centers for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/basic_info/.
Certain HPV types are highly associated with cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer and are considered to be causative. Walboomers et al., J. Pathology 189:12-19 (1999). Annually, hundreds of thousands of women around the world die of cervical cancer, a condition that affects millions of women, especially those who are economically disadvantaged. Diagnosing and treating HPVI of the cervix and cervical dysplasia in their early stages will lower the incidence of cervical cancer, thus lowering its associated morbidity and mortality.
The current standard for diagnosis is the pathological examination of cervical tissue samples, e.g., the Papanicolaou test or "Pap smear" and biopsy with aid of colposcopy. However, these diagnostic methods require a delay between the time a tissue sample is taken and the time the test results are known. They also require at least one return visit for treatment. Moreover, in disadvantaged populations, these diagnostic methods simply are not available. When and where they are available, biopsies can present patient complications including local inflammation, pain, infection, and/or bleeding. In addition, the accuracy of the pathological examination is dependent on the pathologist's and doctor's training and experience. In addition, HPVI and cervical dysplasia can affect multiple sites of the exocervix and endocervix. Thus, a common problem in the diagnosis and treatment of cervical dysplasia and cancer is the failure to detect and treat all existing lesions.
There are several modalities for the treatment of cervical dysplasia and cancer, most of them involving variable degrees of surgical interventions such as CO2 laser vaporization, cryotherapy, electrocautery, or local excision. Surgical removal of visible lesions is the most commonly modality and may result in patient complications. In addition, an inability to identify all existing lesions allows undetected HPVI and/or dysplasia to evolve into terminal cervical cancer. If the cervical dysplasia progresses to cervical cancer, more extensive surgical procedures are used, typically a hysterectomy and removal of lymph nodes. The entire diseased organ must be removed to assure that all microscopic disease is treated. Since the percentage of these lesions that will advance to a frankly malignant state is unknown and may be a minority of instances, indiscriminate destruction or surgical removal of the entire organ is, in fact, a radical and excessive treatment. For cervical cancer survivors, persistent local lesions, anatomical deformities secondary to surgical interventions, emotional and mental scaring, and other treatment sequalae increase public health costs. This burden is especially hard on emerging economies.
A device is needed for an accurate, noninvasive, rapid, and low cost method for diagnosing and for treating HPVI, cervical dysplasia, cervical precancer, and cervical cancer.

Diagnostic device, therapeutic device, and uses thereof


An electric kitchen appliance has a pot for receiving food to be processed using the electric kitchen appliance. An ultrasound transmitter and an ultrasound receiver are provided in order to determine the fill level of the food in the pot. The ultrasound transmitter and the ultrasound receiver are attached to the upper edge of the pot such that an ultrasound signal can be transmitted onto the surface of the food by the ultrasound transmitter, and an ultrasound signal reflected by the surface of the food can be received by the ultrasound receiver. In this manner, an electric kitchen appliance is provided which allows the fill state of the food in the pot to be determined in a simple and reliable manner.

The invention relates, in the first instance, to a kitchen appliance designed with an electrical power supply, which has a pot for purposes of accommodating foodstuffs to be processed with the kitchen appliance, and forming a foodstuffs fill surface, whereby for purposes of determining the fill state of the foodstuffs in the pot an ultrasound transmitter and an ultrasound receiver are provided, and the pot has a pot wall with a wall thickness and a cylindrical or conically developed internal surface.
The invention further concerns a kitchen appliance provided with an electrical power supply with a pot for purposes of accommodating foodstuffs to be processed with the kitchen appliance.
Kitchen appliances that have a pot for purposes of accommodating foodstuffs to be processed with the electrical kitchen appliance, and also frequently a lid for purposes of covering the pot, are well known in the prior art. For example, reference should be made to pressure cookers, and also to multifunctional kitchen machines. The latter are as a general rule provided with such a pot, which enables the accommodation of foodstuffs such that these can be processed in various ways. Such processing of the foodstuffs can, for example, take the form of comminution, stirring or kneading. Moreover, there are such pots of kitchen machines of known art that provide additional functions, such as weighing, and/or heating of the foodstuffs contained therein.
When filling the foodstuffs into such a pot, it is often of great importance to avoid overfilling the pot. For example, if the pot is filled with foodstuffs such as a liquid beyond a predetermined amount, the risk can exist that during the processing of the foodstuffs, e.g. during a mixing process, the foodstuffs exit from the pot. This can be prevented by providing the electrical kitchen appliance with a fill level determination device for purposes of determining the fill level of the foodstuffs in the pot. Here the fill level determination device does not have to enable a regular quantitative measurement of the fill level of the foodstuffs in the pot. On the contrary, it is generally sufficient for the fill level determination device to detect whether the fill height of the foodstuffs in the pot is in fact below a maximum permissible fill height.
From EP 2 633 790 B1 an electrical kitchen appliance with a fill level determination device is already of known art. It is described therein that a transmitter and a receiver for purposes of transmitting or receiving radiation are mounted on the lid in such a way that the fill level in the pot can be detected even when the lid is open.
From US 2004/0112225 A1 a cooking vessel with two temperature sensors is of known art. The evaluation of the temperature sensors is used to deactivate the heating if a difference between the temperatures measured by the two sensors is greater than, or equal to, a predetermined temperature difference.
From US 2010/0058856 A1 a cup-form measuring device is of known art, in which the measuring device has an ultrasound sensor, which is arranged on the upper edge of the cup, protruding into the interior of the cup. From GB 2 076 536 A a device for detecting a fluid level is of known art, in which ultrasound transmitters and receivers are arranged at the rear of a vessel wall, whereby the sound propagation within the wall of the vessel is essential for the determination of the fluid level. US 2010/0000315 A1 shows an electro-optical device integrated into a lid for purposes of detecting a liquid level in a container. JP 11113738 A describes a measuring device on the basis of an ultrasound sensor, which is integrated into a handle of a vessel for purposes of detecting a water level when cooking rice. For purposes of detecting a liquid in a vessel, FR 2 617 965 A1 describes a sensor for purposes of exciting and detecting elastic waves, which passes through an opening in the wall of the vessel.


A fuel cell system and a control method thereof are disclosed. The system includes a fuel cell stack having an anode and a cathode, an anode recirculation loop including the anode, a fuel supply device for providing a fuel gas via a fuel feed path, an air supply device for providing air to the cathode, an anode blower and a switching element. The loop has a first path and a second path, and the anode is arranged in the second path. During normal operation of the system, the fuel feed path and the first path are combined to form the second path, and the second path is split into the first path and a fuel exhaust path. The anode blower is configured for driving circulation through the loop. The switching element is located in at least one of the first path and the combining point and is configured to force the fuel gas to flow through the second path to the fuel exhaust path in the event of failure of the anode blower.

This disclosure relates generally to the field of fuel cells, and more particularly to a fuel cell system with anode protection and a method for controlling the fuel cell system.
Fuel cells are electro-chemical devices which can convert chemical energy from a fuel into electrical energy through an electro-chemical reaction of the fuel, such as hydrogen, with an oxidizer, such as oxygen contained in the atmospheric air. Fuel cell systems are being widely developed as an energy supply system because fuel cells are environmentally superior and highly efficient. To improve system efficiency and fuel utilization and reduce external water usage, the fuel cell system usually includes an anode recirculation loop. As single fuel cell can only generate voltages of about 1V, therefore, a plurality of fuel cells are usually stacked together (usually referred to as a fuel cell stack) to get a desired voltage.
The fuel is supplied to the anode recirculation loop. The anode recirculation loop includes an anode blower path and an anode path. An anode blower is arrange in the anode blower path and an anode of the fuel cell stack is arranged in the anode path. The anode path is split into the anode blower path and a fuel exhaust path at a splitting point. The anode blower is used to provide a driving force for the anode recirculation loop.
An anode of a typical solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is commonly made of a nickel (Ni) cermet. Nickel in the anode serves as a catalyst for fuel oxidation and current conductor. During normal operation of the fuel cell system, SOFC stacks are typically operated at above 700° C. and the nickel (Ni) in the anode remains in its reduced form due to the continuous supply of primarily hydrogen fuel gas.
However, when any failure or abnormal event occurs on the anode blower, the anode recirculation loop would break. The purge gas supplied (usually using a mixture of the fuel and steam) can escape from the anode blower path instead of the anode path, which could not guarantee the required reducing gas passing through the fuel cell stack.
Furthermore, After the loss of anode recirculation, a reformer in the anode recirculation loop could not recover heat from an anode exhaust anymore. The reformer may cool down faster than the anode due to the endothermic steam reforming reaction by using the mixture of the fuel and steam as the purge gas. After the reformer inlet temperature drops below a certain value, which could be in the range of 400° C. to 650° C. depending on the catalyst used, the steam reforming reaction stops. Then, no H2 rich reducing gas is available for the anode.
When the anode is subject to lack of reducing gas atmosphere, the Ni in the anode may undergo a re-oxidation, where the Ni may react with the oxygen in the air diffused from the cathode layer or introduced into the anode chamber to form nickel oxide (NiO) at temperatures above approximately 350° C. The formation of NiO in the microstructure of the anode may result in volumetric expansion of the anode layer, which exerts stress on the overall SOFC structure. During rapid oxidation, the electrolyte is unable to expand as fast as the forming nickel oxide, resulting in the potential to crack the electrolyte. The integrity of the fuel cell stack would be compromised.

Fuel cell system and control method thereof


A data shuffling and encryption system may include data storage to store a key and a coding module to shuffle and encrypt an input data sequence. The shuffling and encrypting may include determining an n-dimensional space and populating the n-dimensional space with the input data sequence. A quasi-random function may be applied to sample the n-dimensional space, and samples may be used as an index into the n-dimensional space to determine an output data sequence from the n-dimensional space.

Data security is becoming vital especially given the increasing willingness of individuals to provide their confidential information to other parties and the growing popularity of shared data storage, such as on cloud computing systems. For example, it is not uncommon for a person to allow an online retailer to store their credit card information or agree to allow a social media site to use their information for marketing or other reasons. To protect the individual, it is not uncommon to anonymize the data and store the data in secure data storage.

Configurable key-based data shuffling and encryption


A vehicular generator unit includes an alternator and a generator control system that controls the alternator. The alternator is driven by an engine to achieve the power generation for charging a battery. The generator control system includes a transistor for intermitting a field current therethrough so as to control the power generation of the alternator. The system further includes a switching circuit which suppresses the duty of the transistor to a low value, where the alternator can not perform the power generation for the battery, until complete engine start-up or self-rotation is detected. On the other hand, when start-up is detected, the duty of the transistor is switched to a value where the alternator can perform the power generation for the battery. The duty of the transistor is then increased gradually to 100%.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle generator control system for controlling the power generation of a generator driven by an internal combustion engine, and more specifically, to a vehicle generator control system which is capable of ensuring the excellent starting property of the engine as well as the stable operation of the engine immediately after the engine start-up.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have been various techniques proposed, wherein the power generated by the generator is limited during cranking for starting the engine or immediately after the engine start-up when the engine is unstable, in order to improve the starting property of the engine and stabilize the rotation of the engine.
For example, Japanese First (unexamined) Utility Model Publication No. 59-157555 discloses a technique, wherein an alternator performs the power generation until the complete explosion or start-up of the engine (i.e., the state in which the engine is selfrotating or rotates independent of the starter); is detected, while the power generation is stopped for a given period of time after detection of the complete explosion. The power generated is and restarted thereafter so as to ensure the stable engine rotation immediately after the engine start-up.
Japanese First (unexamined) Patent Publication No. 6-261466 discloses a technique, which detects the termination of engine cranking based on the output voltage of a generator.
The exciting current to the generator is limited to a constant value for a given period of time so as to substantially stop the power generation of the generator, and then the exciting current to the generator is gradually increased. Because this technique, reduces the power generation load immediately after the engine start-up and subsequently increases the power generation load the stable engine rotation immediately after the engine start-up is ensured.
However, in the foregoing techniques, because the maximum exciting current is fed to the generator during engine cranking, the power generation torque required at that time causes a reduction in the cranking speed thereby comprising the engine starting property. Further, because the power generation is substantially stopped for a given time period after the completion of cranking and at a time where various electrical loads in the vehicle start to operate, there is a tendency for a shortage of power to occur.
In view of this, various techniques have been proposed wherein the power generation is stopped while the engine is under cranking.
For example, Japanese First (unexamined) Patent Publication No. 3-143300 discloses a technique wherein an alternator stops the power generation for a given time period after an ignition switch is operated to a starter drive position, so as to reduce a load applied to the engine.
Japanese First (unexamined) Patent Publication No. 3-173324 discloses a technique wherein exciting current to a generator is limited to a constant value so as to substantially stop the power generation immediately after starting the generator. After a lapse of time, the exciting current is then gradually increased to enhance the power generation, thereby shifting to the normal power generating operation.
However, unevenness in the time periods required for starting up the engine or stabilizing the engine rotation due to temperature conditions can not be dealt simply by stopping the power generation for the fixed time period as described above.
Because of this, other techniques have been proposed, that monitor actual engine operating conditions so as to control the power generation without relying on timers.
For example, Japanese First (unexamined) Patent Publication No. 61-171879 discloses a technique wherein a generator stops the power generation during engine cranking and starts the power generation when the termination of cranking is detected, based on the monitored engine speed.
Japanese First (unexamined) Utility Model Publication No. 59-189498 discloses another technique wherein the output of a generator is suppressed while the engine speed is not greater than idling speed.
However, in these techniques, the generator abruptly starts the power generation as the engine cranking is finished or the engine speed increases to exceed the idling speed, so that the corresponding load is abruptly applied to the engine. This tends to cause unstable engine rotation and, in some cases, engine stall.


The present invention relates to an automatic document feeder having a mechanism for releasing paper jam by disconnecting the transmission device. The automatic document feeder includes a driving motor, a transmission device, a plurality of paper transfer rollers, a swing arm and a releasing arm. The driving motor is used for providing driving power. The transmission device and is coupled to the driving motor for transmitting the driving power. The swing arm is coupled to some of the transmission elements and operated in either a connection state or a disconnection state. The releasing arm is selectively contacted with the swing arm to have the swing arm enter the disconnection state or separated from the swing arm to have the swing arm enter the connection state. The paper jam is released when the swing arm is operated in the disconnection state.

Image scanning apparatuses such as image scanners, copiers, printers and multi function peripherals (MFPs) are widely used in daily lives or offices for scanning images of objects such as paper sheets. As known, the image scanning apparatus usually has an automatic document feeder for automatically and continuously feeding many paper sheets one by one. During operation of the automatic document feeder, the paper sheet is readily jammed. For example, the paper sheets that are too thick or too thin may cause jams. In addition, if the paper sheet is too wet or too dry such that the paper sheet may be softened or hardened, or if the smoothness or length of the paper sheet is improper, the paper sheet is transported across the feeding path with difficulty. Moreover, if the paper feeding operation is abruptly interrupted, the possibility of getting jammed paper sheet is increased. Conventionally, the automatic document feeder has a paper release mechanism for removing the jammed paper sheet.
Referring to FIG. 1, a schematic cross-sectional view of an automatic document feeder having a mechanism for releasing paper jam is illustrated. The automatic document feeder includes a first transfer roller assembly 100, a second transfer roller assembly 110 and a third transfer roller assembly 120. During operation of the automatic document feeder, the paper sheet is moved along the feeding path 130 and successively transported across the first transfer roller assembly 110, the second transfer roller assembly 110 and the third transfer roller assembly 120.
The first transfer roller assembly 100 and the second transfer roller assembly 110 are coupled to the upper cover 140 of the automatic document feeder. A first transfer follower roller 111 of the first transfer roller assembly 100 and a second transfer follower roller 121 of the second transfer roller assembly 110 are both coupled to the upper cover 140. In a case that the paper sheet is jammed in the vicinity of the first transfer roller assembly 100 or the second transfer roller assembly 110, the user may uplift the upper cover 140 in the direction as indicated by the arrow 150 to release the first transfer roller assembly 100 and the second transfer roller assembly 110 while easily pulling out the jammed paper.
In contrast, if the paper sheet is jammed in the vicinity of the third transfer roller assembly 120, the user needs to pull out the jammed paper in the direction as indicated by the arrow 160 or 170 by exerting a pulling force. Since the pulling force needs to be large enough to pull out the jammed paper, the paper sheet may be fractured or broken in the feeding path 130 of the automatic document feeder.
Please refer to FIG. 1 again. A transmission mechanism is arranged between the third transfer roller assembly 120 and a motor 180. The transmission mechanism includes a plurality of gears. These gears are engaged with each other. During the process of pulling out the paper sheet jammed in the third transfer roller assembly 120, the motor 180 may generate a damping-reinforced effect and thus the resistive force is increased. That is why the paper sheet jammed in the third transfer roller assembly 120 is pulled out with difficulty.
In views of the above-described disadvantages resulted from the prior art, the applicant keeps on carving unflaggingly to develop an automatic document feeder having a mechanism for releasing paper jam in order to minimize the damping-reinforced effect and facilitate easily releasing the jammed paper.

Automatic document feeder having mechanism for releasing paper jam