Analytical methods are disclosed for determining the quantity of brightener and leveler in an electroplating bath in the presence of other organic additives, such as accelerators, brighteners and suppressors. The methods improve the reproducibility of measuring brighteners and levelers in electroplating baths.

The present invention is directed to a method of analyzing organic additives in electroplating baths. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a method of analyzing organic additives in electroplating baths having improved reproducibility.
Electroplating baths for copper and other metals are typically aqueous, or mostly aqueous, solutions composed of metal compounds or salts, ionic electrolytes, and various additives such as brighteners, suppressors, levelers, accelerators, surfactants, and defoamers. These electroplating baths, which are used to deposit metals or semimetals such as copper, nickel, gold, palladium, platinum, ruthenium, rhodium, tin, zinc, antimony, or alloys such as copper-tin (brass), copper-zinc (bronze), tin-lead, nickel-tungsten, and cobalt-tungsten-phosphide are used in applications such as the fabrication of electronic devices and components, such as conductive circuits for printed circuit boards, multichip modules, and semiconductor devices.
Reliable operation of these electroplating baths in a manufacturing process requires that methods of analysis are employed to determine the appropriate concentrations of the reagent species for bath startup. These analytical methods also are used to determine the concentrations of species in the bath during operation, often with on-line feedback control, to allow the components of the bath to be monitored and adjusted as required to maintain concentrations within pre-determined limits. Bath analytical methods also are used to determine the chemical identity and concentrations of species that are produced in the bath as a consequence of chemical and electrochemical reactions that take place during bath operation and/or idling.
Electrochemical methods are used principally for the analysis of acid copper plating baths used for plating circuitry on printed wiring boards and integrated circuits. Besides the inorganic components of these plating solutions (copper ions, sulfuric acid and small amounts of chloride ions) the baths contain one or more organic additives (brighteners, suppressors and levelers). In the proper concentrations, these organic additives give a bright, smooth deposit with excellent mechanical and electrical properties.
Analyses of plating bath additives are described by Tench and coworkers in U.S. Pat. No. 4,132,605, and Fisher in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,917,774 and 4,917,777. These methods were devised to measure the brightener concentration in a bath containing a suppressor and inorganic components only. These methods cannot measure the presence of a leveler component in a plating bath containing brightener and suppressor.
The electrochemical methods for plating bath analysis described by Tench et al. and Fisher rely on the fact that the brightener and suppressor work in opposition to one another with respect to their effect on the potential of an object being plated. Suppressors, as their name implies, increase the overpotential for plating and thus suppress the plating rate for any given electrical energy input to the bath. In the presence of suppressors, brighteners lower the plating overpotential and cause the plating rate to increase for any given input of electrical energy to the plating bath. Suppressors cause an abrupt suppression of the plating rate at very low concentrations, on the order of 50 parts per million or less. Above that threshold level the plating overpotential changes very little, if at all. Suppressor concentrations are usually kept in the range of several hundreds to several thousand parts per million to ensure that the suppressor concentration is always well above the threshold value.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,917,774 and 4,917,777 essentially describe a stepped potential method where a three electrode cell is employed. The electrodes are 1) a working electrode, 2) a counter electrode, and 3) a reference electrode, which are all immersed in the plating solution to be analyzed. The working electrode is a noble metal such as platinum in the form of a rotating disc. The disc is sealed at one end of a Kel F rod and is rotated during the analysis to ensure that uniform hydrodynamic conditions prevail. The potential of the working electrode is controlled by input from a potentiostat slaved to a computer. For any working potential required, the computer will direct the potentiostat to set the potential difference between the counter electrode and the reference electrode to give the desired potential at the working electrode. The computer and potentiostat can be embodied in a single unit such as the Electroposit™ Bath Analyzer, (Shipley Company, Marlborough, Mass. and S-Sytems, Norwood, Mass.). The potential of a working electrode is held at various potentials in a plating solution to clean, equilibrate, plate and strip the plated deposit from the electrode. A measurement of the initial current flowing during the plating step is directly related to the brightener concentration in the plating solution. When using the Electroposit™ Bath Analyzer, the initial plating current is displayed as Total Brightener Analysis Units ("TBA") units, hereinafter referred to as TBA analysis.
Levelers often are present in plating baths. Like suppressors, levelers cause a reduction of plating rate for any given electrical energy input to the plating bath. Unlike suppressors, whose effect is general in nature, levelers cause a localized depression in plating rate. They act under mass transfer control to suppress the plating rate by adsorbing at locally higher potential regions of the article being plated. The above described electrochemical methods cannot be used when levelers are present in the bath. This is due to the leveler's suppressing effect on the plating rate, which varies with its concentration in the bath. To properly analyze for brightener when leveler is present the leveler concentration must already be known. The techniques described above provide no solution for overcoming the confounding effect of the leveler on the brightener, and therefore cannot be used when these two additives coexist in a plating bath.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,118 to Sonnenberg et al. describes an analysis method that measures both brightener and leveler coexisting with suppressor in a plating solution. In this method the brightener concentration is first determined by the TBA method and, if necessary, adjusted by external addition to a value that gives maximum sensitivity for analysis of leveler. The method then uses a freshly prepared copper coated electrode to monitor the energy input with time to the electrode while plating at an applied current held at a constant value. Such copper coated electrode is prepared by first plating copper from a separate copper electroplating solution free of organic additive on an electrode of a different metal. The electrode typically is platinum. The slope of the resulting energy-time plot is used to quantitatively determine the leveler concentration.
To repeat the analysis method all of the copper is removed from the platinum by a nitric etch, which also removes adsorbed bath components from the electrode. The copper also may be removed with an anodic potential/current. Nevertheless, a nitric acid etch is still needed to remove any adsorbed species on the electrode. The nitric acid etch and the electrochemical stripping of copper from the electrode cleans the electrode of varying amounts of metal oxide and metal chloride on the electrode surface. Such oxides on the electrode surface alter the plating potential and steps for forming a copper film on the electrode, which in turn affects the adsorption behavior of organic additives. Such surface inconsistencies compromise the reproducibility of measuring organic bath additives and increase the error in determining concentrations of the organic additives.
While the Fisher and Sonnenberg patents are improvements over the Tench methods for analyzing organic additives for plating baths, workers in the art are always seeking improved analytical methods that provide measurements that are more reproducible, thus reducing the amount of error. Reducing error in the measurement of organic additives of electroplating baths is highly desirable in the electroplating industry. An undesirable decline or increase in organic additives during electroplating processes may result in a defective end product, thus increasing the cost and decreasing the efficiency of the manufacture of articles prepared by electroplating. Many organic additives in electroplating baths, such as brighteners and levelers, are employed in relatively low concentrations. Accordingly, changes in bath concentrations of such organic additives have a pronounced detrimental affect on the quality of the final product.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need for the analysis of brightener and leveler concentrations in plating baths that works over a wide range of brightener concentrations, is simple to perform and does not require the addition of other components to the bath for the procedure to be performed and provides reproducible measurements.


A system for automatically determining a trade settlement pathway comprising: receiving trade pathway preferences from a first and second party with respect to each other; wherein the trade is settled through clearing if both parties have available accounts with a clearing firm and the trade satisfies each party's clearing account credit limitations; and wherein the trade is settled bilaterally if at least one party does not have an available clearing account or both parties prefer to settle the trade bilaterally, and the trade satisfies each party's bilateral credit limitations.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic trading system. Particularly, the present invention is directed to a system for trading instruments, such as over the counter instruments or futures contracts, on an electronic exchange wherein trades are settled either bilaterally or cleared based on participant preferences.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention relates generally to the trading of instruments such as over the counter instruments and futures contracts. Generally, such trades are arranged through bilateral contracts, i.e., the exchange of written agreements between counterparties. Recently, electronic markets have arisen to facilitate the trading of these instruments. In some circumstances, the trades may be consummated automatically if each counterparty informs the exchange of predetermined credit limitations, and the counterparties satisfy each other's respective limitations. While this method has generally been effective, the increased popularity of trading in these instruments (especially electronically) has created a need for more conventional trading method involving clearing trades through a third party clearinghouse.
Each method of trading, bilateral and cleared, has its own advantages. Bilateral trades are often favored where the parties have a pre-existing bilateral netting agreement, or where clearing a trade may be more expensive. On the other hand, it may be preferable to clear trades through a clearinghouse when one of the parties has reservations concerning the other party's credit worthiness and wishes to have the trade guaranteed by a third party. Current electronic exchanges have not accounted for these preferences. Therefore, there is a need for a system on an electronic exchange in which participants may set preferences to trade either bilaterally or cleared depending upon the circumstances. There is also a need for a system in which the exchange will automatically default to a preferred trading method. It is also desirable to show the products being traded in a single price stream, regardless of how the trade is settled. Thus, the details of the trade (e.g., price, quantity, etc.) should not be affected by the method of settlement. The method of settlement will only be determined at the time of trade confirmation. This system will streamline electronic trading of the products being traded.

System for settling over the counter trades


Devices and methods for delivery or retrieval of a distal protection device. A distal protection assembly may comprise an outer sheath, an inner shaft disposed within a lumen of the outer sheath, a distal protection device disposed at a distal end of the inner shaft; and a manifold coupled to a proximal end of the outer sheath that is adapted for moving the outer sheath relative to the inner shaft.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to devices and methods for treating occluded or stenoic blood vessels. More particularly, the present invention relates to devices and methods for using and retrieving a distal protection device from the vasculature of a patient.
2. Description of the Related Art
Atherosclerosis and other forms of vascular disease are a major health problem in the United States and the world. Generally, vascular disease results in blood vessels becoming blocked or narrowed. This blockage can result in a lack of oxygen for the heart. It is critical that the heart muscle be well oxygenated so that the blood pumping action of the heart is not impaired.
Occluded or stenotic blood vessels may be treated with a number of medical procedures including percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA), percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), and atherectomy. These treatments are relatively non-invasive methods of treating a stenotic lesion. Angioplasty techniques typically involve the use of a balloon catheter. The balloon catheter is advanced over a guidewire such that the balloon is positioned adjacent a stenotic lesion. The balloon is then inflated and the stenosis is expanded. During an atherectomy procedure, the stenotic lesion is typically mechanically cut away from the blood vessel wall.
During angioplasty and atherectomy procedures, stenotic debris is often separated from the stenosis and may be free to flow within the lumen of the vessel. If this debris enters the circulatory system, it could block other vascular regions including the neural vasculature or in the lungs. During angioplasty procedures, stenotic debris may also break loose due to manipulation of the blood vessel. Because of this debris, a number of devices termed distal protection devices have been developed to filter out this debris.
Before using a distal protection device, the device will need to be delivered to an area downstream of where treatment will take place. It is important that the device be delivered properly and efficiently. A need, therefore, exists for devices for delivery of distal protection devices.
After an intravascular procedure has been performed, the distal protection device will need to be removed from the vasculature. Because the distal protection devices are typical used in an expanded condition, it may be difficult to remove the device. A need, therefore exists for devices suitable for retrieval of distal protection devices.

Delivery and retrieval manifold for a distal protection filter


An approach is presented for a lensless imaging camera wherein image formation is implemented in software image processing operations rather than by means of a lens. The image formation operations are coordinated with an array of micro-optical elements that impose light diffraction. The array of micro-optical elements can comprise one or more micro-optic layers, and micro-optic layers can be configured so that different portions of the micro-optic layer affect light in different ways. The image formation operation can include deconvolution based on an impulse response determined by the array of micro-optical elements which can be configured to produce a desired spatial light intensity pattern on the array of photosensors so as to optimize detection characteristics. The image formation operation can comprise include frequency-domain division operations, and the system can be configured to avoid division by zero values of the frequency-domain impulse response of the array of micro-optical elements.

1.1 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to multimedia conferencing systems, and more particularly to multimedia-enabled communication and computing devices. Still more particularly, the present invention is a device for providing real-time multimedia conferencing capabilities to one or more companion computers or on a stand-alone basis.
1.2 Background
Early computers were large, clumsy, difficult-to-operate and unreliable room-sized systems shared within a single location. Similarly, early video and graphics teleconferencing systems suffered from the same drawbacks, and were also shared within a single location. With regard to computers, technological innovations enabled the advent of desktop "personal computers." Relative to teleconferencing systems, new technologies were also introduced, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,617,539, entitled "Multimedia Collaboration System with Separate Data Network and AN Network Controlled by Information Transmitting on the Data Network," that brought high-quality, reliable video and graphics teleconferencing capabilities to a user's desktop. In both early desktop personal computers and conferencing systems, there were and remain many incompatible implementations.
Digital technology innovations targeted at working in conjunction with market forces gave rise to standardized desktop computer platforms, such as Microsoft/Intel machines and Apple machines, which have existing and strengthening unifying ties between them. The standardization of converging platforms unified fragmentations that existed within the computer hardware and software industries, such that immense economies of scale lowered the per-desktop development and manufacturing costs. This in turn greatly accelerated desktop computer usage and promoted the interworking between applications such as work processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tool applications that freely exchange data today. As a result, businesses employing such interworking applications became more efficient and productive. The push for greater efficiency has fueled the development of additional innovations, which further led to developments such as the explosion in electronic commerce as facilitated by the world-wide Internet.
Relative to present-day desktop conferencing, there are many networking approaches characterized by varying audio/video (A/V) quality and scalability. In recent years, customers have assumed a wide range of positions in their investments in such technologies. At one end of this range, various types of dedicated analog A/V overlay networks exist that deliver high-quality A/V signals at a low cost. At another end of this range are local area data network technologies such as switched Ethernet and ATM data hubs that function with high-performance desktop computers. These desktop computers and data networking technologies currently support only lower-quality A/V capabilities at a relatively high cost. Despite this drawback, these desktop computers and data networking technologies are believed to be the preferred path for eventually providing high-quality A/V capabilities at a low cost. Other A/V networking solutions, such as ISDN to the desktop, also lie in this range.
Within each of many separate networked A/V technology "islands," various approaches toward providing multimedia applications such as teleconferencing, video mail, video broadcast, video conference recording, video-on-demand, video attachments to documents and/or web pages, and other applications can be performed only in fragmented ways with limited interworking capability. For many years, it has been projected that the desktop computer industry and the data networking industry will solve such fragmentation and interworking problems, and eventually create a unified, low-cost solution. Several generations of these technologies and products have consistently fallen short of satisfying this long-felt need. Furthermore, it is likely to be disadvantageous to continue to rely upon the aforementioned industries to satisfy such needs. For example, if the introduction of today's standardized multi-method fax technology had been held back by those who maintain that the idea that all electronic text should only be computer ASCII (as advocated, for example, by M.I.T. Media Lab Director Negroponte), a great amount of the fax-leveraged domestic and international commerce that has occurred since the early 1980's may not have occurred. Desktop multimedia technologies and products are currently in an analogous position, as it is commonly accepted that it will be only the desktop computer and data networking industries that at some point in the future will make high-quality networked AN widely and uniformly available, and at the same time it is doubtful that this will occur any time soon.
What is sorely needed, given the pace and market strategies of the desktop computer and data networking industries, is an integration of separate technology and application islands into a single low-cost, manufacturable, reliable real-time multimedia collaboration apparatus capable of supporting a wide range of A/V networking technologies; A/V applications; and A/V and data networking configurations in a wide variety of practical environments. A need also exists for a design or architecture that makes such an apparatus readily adaptable to future technological evolution, such that the apparatus may accommodate evolving or new families of interrelated standards.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Lensless imaging camera performing image formation in software and employing micro-optic elements that impose light diffractions


A mold for making an egg-shaped food product includes top and bottom mold halves which cooperate when joined to form an egg-shaped interior mold cavity adapted for receiving a liquid foodstuff. The top and bottom mold halves define a plurality of thermal transit holes passing in registration through the top and bottom mold halves. The thermal transit holes are located adjacent to the interior mold cavity for promoting movement of heat between the interior mold cavity and an environment within which the mold is placed. An injection port is formed in one of the top and bottom mold halves, and communicates with the interior mold cavity for introducing the liquid foodstuff into the interior mold cavity. A fastener joins the top and bottom mold halves together to seal the interior mold cavity.

This application relates to a molded egg-shaped food product, and a method and mold for making an egg-shaped food product. The invention is made of a liquid foodstuff, such as raw egg white or yoke, which is intended to closely resemble a hard-boiled whole egg in miniature form when cooked. Unlike whole eggs, the present egg product is formed in a convenient size suited for marinading in standard-size bottles of salad dressing, or being placed on salads. The egg product is quick and easy to cook, and offers a convenient alternative for those who wish to use less than an entire hard-boiled egg either by itself or as an adornment.

Molded egg-shaped food product, and method and mold for making same


A space and wave division multiplexing and demultiplexing system and method for quantum key distribution (QKD) using free space laser communications. The system operates to transmit a quantum channel, including a key of QKD, included in a combined laser transmission with a classical channel, including an encrypted message of QKD. The laser transmission can be transmitted through free space to a lens, wherein it is diffracted into two separate diffraction patterns and captured by a double clad optical receiver fiber having an inner core and a concentric outer core. The diffraction pattern of the classical channel is captured by the outer core, while the diffraction pattern of the quantum channel is captured by the inner core, thus allowing separate treatment of each channel.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication method that enables two communicating parties to produce a shared secret key known only to them, which key is then used to encrypt and decrypt classical messages sent between the parties. The key in QKD is made up of polarization encoded photons transmitted by a quantum communication channel (i.e. a communication channel capable of transmitting quantum information) at very low power (i.e. near single photon levels in quantum states). When fiber optics are used for the quantum channel, relatively small optical fibers are required to inhibit the loss of the polarization states of the QKD photons of the key as they are transmitted through the fibers, and these small fibers typically consist of only single mode (SM) or polarization maintaining (PM) fibers having a diameter of about 6-12 μm.
On the other hand, the encrypted classical messages are transmitted by classical communication channels (i.e. communication channels not transmitting quantum information), which are typically much higher in power than those used to transmit the key. For this purpose, free space laser communications systems can be used, where a laser is used for transmitted communications through free space to a receiver of fiber optics. The laser is aimed at a receiver optical fiber, which fiber has a relatively large size (e.g. 100-110 pm diameter) and thus provides a relatively large target for the laser transmission of the classical communication channel. However, with respect to a key in QKD, this large fiber is not suitable as the quantum channel to transmit the polarization encoded QKD photons. This is because the large diameter of the fiber allows for a loss of the polarization states of the QKD photons as they are transmitted through such a large fiber.
While smaller sized SM and PM fibers maintain the polarization states of the QKD photons and thus are suitable for carrying the quantum channel, they are not suitable as receiver fibers for free space laser transmissions because their relatively small size of about 6-12 μm diameter makes them a difficult target for receiving the laser transmissions. Thus, there is a difficulty in using optical fibers to receive a quantum channel free space laser communication.

Space-and-wave-division de-multiplexing of a quantum key distribution and classical channels into a single receiving optical fiber

United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of National Aeronautics and Space Administration


A chemical mechanical polishing method for polishing an oxide film and a protective film formed on a substrate having recesses comprises four steps. The first step planarizes the oxide film using a polishing pad and a polishing agent containing cerium oxide particles by causing relative rotational motion between the substrate and the polishing pad. The second step continues polishing the oxide film to maintain the planarized property of the oxide film. The third step polishes the oxide film until at least a portion of the protective film becomes exposed. The fourth step polishes the oxide film until the oxide film is substantially removed and the protective film is substantially exposed. During the four steps, torque values are measured on the substrate or the polishing pad, and changes in torque with time are calculated. This information is used to determine the status of each of the steps during the polishing run.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), and in particular to methods and apparatus for removing an oxide film from a protective film formed over a substrate having depressions or recesses by chemical mechanical polishing.
2. Background Information
In recent years, in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, mounting density has been increasing and element construction has been rapidly becoming finer. Design rules are already shifting to the order of sub-half micrometers (i.e., submicrons). To realize such fine dimensions, CMP techniques in the planar process are employed for the surface of the substrate material. This improves the flatness (planar property) of the pattern exposure surface in the manufacture of semiconductor devices. As a result, it is possible to improve yield and device reliability. CMP has therefore become an indispensable technique in the planar process of interlayer insulation films formed on the substrate material surface, and in other processes such as separating elements.
For separation of elements that are larger than 0.5 micrometers, a technique known as Local Oxidation of Silicon (LOCOS) has been used. For elements that are finer than 0.5 micrometers, Shallow Trench Isolation (STI) methods are used to cope with the decrease in the element separation width. To use STI, CMP is first employed to remove excess oxide film, such as silicon dioxide laid on a substrate. As a preparatory layer for an oxide film, a protective film of silicon nitride (SixNy) is typically formed as a stop layer for the polishing.
While silica-based slurries have been widely used as a polishing agent in CMP processes, cerium-based slurries containing cerium particles are increasingly being used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices with submicron elements. This is due to the high selectivity between the oxide film and the protective film (high polishing speed ratio) as well as other factors such as improved polishing speed, lower pattern dependence of the polished surface, reduction in metallic impurities, etc.
In a CMP process, the excess portion of the oxide film must be removed appropriately, and therefore control over the polished amount is important. The detection of a stop or end point of the polishing is also important. To accurately detect the polishing end point, various methods are used. Japanese Patent Publication No. 3177549, Patent Publication No. 6-31850, and Patent Publication No. 10-202522 describe methods or devices for detecting the end point of a CMP process by indirectly measuring the polishing amount from the torque of the substrate holder during polishing, its differential value, and the change in its integral values. A more accurate method for detecting the end point is also disclosed using a laser beam to measure the thickness of the surface being polished and determine the polished amount. The latter method is generally deemed to be advantageous for situations where a higher accuracy is required for the end point detection, such as situations associated with finer processing dimensions.
Unfortunately, conventional optical methods for end-point detection in CMP processes using cerium-based slurries have shown some difficulty in reliably detecting the end point. The optical detection intensity is poor when compared to silica-based slurries used under the same optical measurement conditions, and satisfactory improvement was not recognized. It is believed that light scattering through the cerium-based slurry may cause these problems.
End point detection by the conventional torque methods has been attempted using cerium-based slurries. Both real-time torque values and differential/integral values of the change in torque have been used for end-point detection. In both cases, accurate detection of the end point was prone to be difficult. In many cases, the end point was either not detected or a plurality of end points were detected.
Accordingly, the use of CMP with cerium-based slurries, particularly when forming elements by STI, presents process management or control problems. Methods and devices as therefore needed that allow for adequate process management and process control when using these CMP techniques.


A printed circuit board reinforcement structure for a printed circuit board receiving a plurality of surface mounting devices, and an integrated circuit package using the same. The structure includes a hard layer having one or more openings formed at areas corresponding to one or more surface mounting devices with a thickness exceeding a predetermined thickness; and a soft layer bonded to a side of the hard layer so that the soft layer can accommodate the protrusion of the surface mounting devices. The structure prevents defects of a printed circuit board, such as deformation, fracture or the like, while substantially reducing the size of a package by applying a reinforcement structure to a thin printed circuit board, thereby reinforcing the rigidity (mechanical strength) of the thin printed circuit board.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an IC (Integrated Circuit) package, and in particular to a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) reinforcement structure for preventing the deformation of and damage to a thin printed circuit board (for example, a printed circuit board having a thickness of not more than 0.4 mm), and an integrated circuit package using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to the miniaturization, thinning, and weight reduction of electronic appliances, highly integrated circuit packages are required. For this reason, the super-thin design of printed circuit boards is also required.
A printed circuit board serves to mechanically fix electronic parts mounted thereon, beyond electrically interconnecting the electronic parts. Therefore, such a printed circuit board should maintain mechanical strength to such an extent that it is not deformed or damaged during a fabrication process of electronic appliances or a packaging process of the printed circuit board.
In general, however, if the thickness of a printed circuit board is reduced, the rigidity (mechanical strength) of the printed circuit board is also reduced, whereby the printed circuit board is subjected to deformation, such as flexure, distortion, etc., and its reliability is deteriorated. Therefore, the practical lower limit for printed circuit board thickness has been limited to about 1.0 mm up to now.
The conventional method for overcoming the limitation in thickness of a printed circuit board is to reinforce a printed circuit board material with filler, such as glass fiber, so as to increase the rigidity of the printed circuit board. However, this conventional method induces a quality problem, such as the deterioration of molding workability, and a difficult recycling problem due to the use of a material harmful for human body and environment.
There is another conventional method for increasing the strength of the printed circuit board by introducing resin between a printed circuit board, on which a SMD (Surface Mounting Device) process is completed, and a mold, and then curing the resin. However, according to this method, the processes for making the mold come into close contact with the printed circuit board, and introducing the resin are very complicated. In addition, since resin residue remains in a gap between the printed circuit board and the mold, a post process for smoothing the surfaces of the printed circuit board is required. Consequently, this method is not suitable for mass production. Specifically, there is a disadvantage in that the resin contracts while it is being cured, thereby rendering the printed circuit board warped.
Another conventional method for increasing the strength of a printed circuit board is to spray resin on a printed circuit board, on which a surface mounting device processing is completed, and then curing the resin. However, the length of time required for spraying the resin is long. In addition, it is necessary to separately block one or more areas, to which the resin shall not be applied. Consequently, this method is also not suitable for mass production.

Printed circuit board reinforcement structure and integrated circuit package using the same


A binding machine is operable to hyper-deflect the rings of a binding element against non-planar surfaces to achieve an advantageously forward presentation of free ends of the rings for ergonomic and convenient insertion of a perforated stack of sheets. An embodiment of the binding machine has a base, a plurality of stationary hooks fixed to the base, and a comb member which is pivotally mounted to the base. The comb member may be fixed to a shroud which is mounted to effect the pivotal movement of the comb member. Additionally, this shroud may be axially shifted. When the binding element is supported against the comb member, the axial and pivotal motions of shroud respectively cause (1) engaging of rings of the binding element with the stationary hooks and (2) uncurling deflection of the rings.

Books, papers and documents are often bound by a plastic binding element which has a spine and a plurality of flexible curl-shaped plastic rings. The rings extend through a series of holes punched along a common side of the pages of the stock. It is known to apply these plastic binders to a perforated stack by using a conventional binding machine that spreads open the binding element to uncurl the rings, permitting the stack to be assembled with the binder by inserting the rings through respective perforations in the stack.
A conventional binding machine typically includes a plurality of movable L-shaped hooks and a non-pivotal, stationary comb member with a plurality of spaced tines. The spine of the binding element is supported against the comb member so that the tines of the comb are alternatingly positioned between the rings of the binding element. While the stationary comb member holds the spine of the binding element, the hooks move in unison to cooperatively engage an inner side of the curled rings and then uncurl the rings away from the spine, spreading open the binding element.
Such a binding machine having a stationary comb member employs a conventional binding mechanism which moves the hooks through predetermined planar motions. In particular, the conventional binding mechanism moves hooks as follows: (1) the hooks first shift in unison in an axial direction (parallel to the comb member and the binding element) to individually engage respective rings of the binding element; and then (2) the hooks move in unison perpendicularly away from the comb member to pull and deflect the rings. These deflected rings are "uncurled" together until their free ends are accessible to be inserted through the series of punched perforations in the stack of pages.
In order to achieve the desired hook motion relative to the stationary comb member, a prior art binding mechanism typically has a flat plate drivable to slide under a planar work surface adjacent the stationary comb member, so that the plate is moveable in a plane parallel to the work surfaces. The hooks are fixed to the moveable plate, extending upwardly through a series of grooves in the work surface. Because the hooks are fixed to move with the sliding plate, the hooks have a planar movement from a position near the comb element, shifting axially and then sliding transversely away from the comb element. After the punched pages are assembled onto the rings, the described conventional hook motion is reversed, permitting the rings to curl back to their original shape and closing the binding element. Such a conventional binding machine having a stationary comb and planar-movable hooks is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,419,668, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
To cause the axial shift of the hooks for engaging and releasing the rings, the conventional binding mechanism includes a cam device which causes the plate to slide in a L-shaped pattern, resulting in the predetermined shifting and sliding hook motion. In another known binding machine, the comb member is axially shifted to move the binder rings into an engaged relation with the hooks, and the hooks are then linearly moved to spread open the rings of the binding element.
Binding machines are also known which have a stationary comb and rotary-moving hooks that uncurl the rings of a binding element against a stationary cylindrical-shaped surface.
Certain problems can arise with the described movable-hook style binding machines. Firstly, such machines can be complicated to manufacture because numerous parts are required to cause the planar hook motion. Secondly, the linear pulling motion of the hooks which uncurls the rings can sometimes cause an uneven degree of uncurling of rings along the length of the binder. This is known as "hook skew" which undesirably results in non-uniform or non-linear alignment of the free ends of the rings. This makes the insertion of the punched stack onto the rings difficult. Thirdly, the typical planar motion of the hooks uncurls the rings so that a linearly deflected portion of each ring is forced to lie flatly against the planar unrolling surface. Because of the rearward curvature of relaxed portions of the rings, their the free ends tend to angle rearwardly, and therefore, a substantial length of each ring must be flatly uncurled in order to achieve a suitable angle for accessing the free ends.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a binding machine that is easy to use and which minimizes nonuniform opening of a binding element.
A further object of the invention is to provide a binding machine that has few parts which is easy to manufacture and assemble.

Binding machine with pivotal comb member


A configurable connection fabric between a switching fabric and a backplane allows any of the ports of the backplane to be connected to any of the ports of the switching fabric. The connection fabric receives bandwidth load requirements from modules connected to the backplane and uses these load requirements to determine the number of ports required to make a particular connection.

The present invention relates generally to the field of switching systems, and more particularly to switching fabrics that can be configured to meet different switching requirements.
Advances in switching technology and the introduction of commercial chipsets have made centralized switching engines more desirable. Conventional switching engines, however, with fixed modules or elements connected over a backplane, have bandwidth limitations that limit the effectiveness of the new switching technologies.
Conventional backplanes for Wide Area Networks and Local Area Networks use one three types of architectures: bus, ring, or star. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a bus-based architecture with three elements 100, 110, and 120, using a shared bus 130. Bus-based architectures usually distribute the switching function, or "switching fabric," by incorporating parts of the fabric, 102, 112, and 122, into bus access logic 104, 114, and 124, respectively, of elements 100, 110, and 120, respectively.
Bus-based architectures offer some cost advantages because new elements only add costs for connectors and module space. Distributing switching functions in such architectures, however, can increase other costs. For example, a bus-based architecture may require memories to be replicated in all of the elements, or may require mechanisms to provide either distributed or centralized bus access. In addition, the bus limits the bandwidth of the system.
Merely adding a centralized fabric to a bus-based system does not necessarily create significant benefits. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a system with a centralized switch fabric 240. The system, however, not only requires significant bus-access functions but increases bus usage. Traffic must travel from the receiving point, across the backplane to the switching fabric, and then back again over the backplane to the transmitting point. This doubles the bus traffic. Although dual buses could relieve the load from such doubling, that solution would further increase costs.
An alternative to the bus-based architecture is a ring-based architecture, which is often used in stackable units. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of such an architecture in which elements 300, 310, and 320 are connected in a ring through ring access components 305, 315, and 325. This architecture makes expansion easy when the ring can be broken, which offers special advantages for stacks of separate boxes. Rings are difficult to use in a chassis, however, because they require active elements in each slot to complete the ring, even if that slot has no element.
As with busses, the bandwidth of the ring, which requires a parallel path for higher bandwidth systems, limits the bandwidth of the system. Also, as with busses, applying centralized switching functions is difficult, and ring architectures do not provide significant cost or performance advantages by centralizing.
Centralization has been effective, however, for star-based architectures, which have emerged with the advent of significantly less expensive integrated circuit switching functions. For example, products have been built for both 10/100 Mbps Ethernet and ATM. These architectures use a central switching fabric with one or more dedicated port connections to each slot.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of such a product in which elements 400, 410, and 420 include link access components 405, 415, and 425, respectively, and element 420 is the only element with switch fabric 428. This star-based design allows the use of low cost switching, and its bandwidth is limited only by the number of slots, the bandwidth of the switching chips, and the bandwidth of the channels to each element. Multiple paths to the slots, increase the bandwidth of this architecture as needed.
Another advantage of this architecture is a lower cost of the I/O module because the communication over the backplane link is in the proper switching format. Also, because the direct connection to the switch is operating in a "native" mode, there is no need for buffering or other sophisticated access techniques at the card level.
The disadvantage of this design, however, is that the chassis is relatively inflexible. For example, a chassis with eight I/O slots with two channels to each slot is inherently designed for sixteen times the bandwidth of the interconnect. The fixed connection between a switch point and the slot cannot be changed, for example, to only eight switched interconnects or to use only a single interconnect path to a module. This limitation requires that the chassis be purchased initially in a complete switching configuration, greatly increasing the initial cost. For example, existing designs often incur more than 50% of the cost of a port in the base chassis and switching module, and unused ports or underused ports cost the same as fully used ports.

Configurable connection fabric for providing serial backplanes with adaptive port/module bandwidth


The present invention is directed to DNA constructs suitable for gene expression in mammalian cells and which are characterized by the presence of a mammalian promoter under the control of a tet operator/repressor system. The DNA may be used as part of a system for expressing recombinant protein. In addition, the tet operator/repressor system can be used to engineer cis- and trans-destructive viruses which are capable of replicating in the presence of the tet repressor, but not in the absence of the repressor. These viruses can be used either directly in the treatment of patients with corresponding viral diseases, as vehicles for the delivery of nucleic acids that can serve as therapeutic agents and as part of vaccines designed to immunize people or animals against viral diseases.

The ability to specifically regulate transgene expression has been a central concern in molecular biology for many years. In the case of mammalian cells, the in vitro regulation of recombinant genes has most often been accomplished through the use of inducible promoters that respond to agents such as heavy metal ions (Brinster, et al., Nature 296:39-42 (1982); heat shock (Nover, in Heat Shock Response, pp. 167-220, CRC, Fla. (1991)); and hormones (Klock, et al., Nature 329:734-736 (1987)). Unfortunately, these promoters generally provide only a relatively a low level of expression even in the presence of inducer and most of the inducers that have been used in vitro have unacceptable side effects in vivo.
As an alternative to inducible promoters, attempts have been made to control mammalian gene expression using well-characterized prokaryotic regulatory elements. In most cases, regulatory systems have relied upon strong interactions between prokaryotic operators and repressor proteins as a means for either targeting eukaryotic transcription modulators to specific sites within a host cell genome (see e.g., Labow, et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 10:3343-3356 (1990)) or in attempts to directly inhibit gene expression using the prokaryotic repressor (see e.g., Brown, et al., Cell 49:603-612 (1987)).
In the case of prokaryotic elements associated with the tetracycline resistance (tet) operon, systems have been developed in which the tet repressor protein is fused with polypeptides known to modulate transcription in mammalian cells. The fusion protein has then been directed to specific sites by the positioning of the tet operator sequence. For example, the tet repressor has been fused to a transactivator (VP16) and targeted to a tet operator sequence positioned upstream from the promoter of a selected gene (Gussen, et al., Proc. Nat'l Acad. Sci. USA 89:5547-5551 (1992); Kim, et al., J. Virol. 69:2565-2573 (1995); Hennighausen, et al., J. Cell. Biochem. 59:463-472 (1995)). The tet repressor portion of the fusion protein binds to the operator thereby targeting the VP16 activator to the specific site where the induction of transcription is desired. An alternative approach has been to fuse the tet repressor to the KRAB repressor domain and target this protein to an operator placed several hundred base pairs upstream of a gene. Using this system, it has been found that the chimeric protein, but not the tet repressor alone, is capable of producing a 10 to 15-fold suppression of CMV-regulated gene expression (Deuschle, et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 15:1907-1914 (1995)). The main problem with these types of systems is that the portion of fusion proteins corresponding to the mammalian transactivator or repressor tends to interact with cellular transcriptional factors and cause pleiotropic effects.
Ideally, a system for regulating mammalian gene expression should be highly specific for a selected gene and subject to induction by factors suitable for use both in vitro and in vivo. The present invention discloses such a system and describes how it can be used to regulate transgene expression. In addition, the invention describes how this system can be adapted to engineer viruses to serve as vectors, therapeutic agents and vaccines.

Tetracycline repressor regulated mammalian cell transcription and viral replication switch


A method for drawing glass objects from glass feedstock, wherein a dimension of the glass object is measured on-line and controlled by a control structure which compensates for the deadtime between a change to the drawing speed and the measurement of the effect of that change to the measured dimension. The model which compensates for the deadtime is preferably nonlinear, and the control gains and model parameters are preferably continuously calculated during the drawing process. The invention is particularly applicable to drawing optical waveguide cane from optical waveguide preforms.

This invention relates, in general, to a method and apparatus for making glass objects from glass feedstock in which the control of a dimension of the glass object is greatly improved. This invention relates particularly to the processing of core preforms to form optical waveguide cane from which overclad preforms can be produced for drawing into optical waveguide fibers. This invention also relates to the manufacture of optical waveguide components, such as couplers and planar optical waveguides, which require dimensional control during manufacture.
In the manufacture of optical waveguide, fiber, one process which is known involves the manufacture of a core preform from which optical waveguide cane is drawn. The optical waveguide cane is then overclad to form an overclad preform which is then drawn into optical waveguide fiber. This "two-step" process has the advantage of better control of the refractive index profile of the resulting fiber and of more efficient manufacturing which leads to lower costs.
A critical parameter to control, when drawing cane from a core preform, is the diameter of the cane. Variations in the diameter of the drawn cane can result in changes in the core-clad ratio of an optical fiber drawn from an overclad preform produced from such cane. These variations in the core-clad ratio will degrade the transmission characteristics of the resulting optical fiber.
A typical apparatus for drawing cane from a core preform is shown in FIG. 1. A blank feed mechanism 1 lowers a blank 5 into a furnace 2. The furnace 2 heats an end of blank 5 to its softening temperature. A cane drawing mechanism 4 draws cane 6 from the softened end of blank 5. The diameter of cane 6 is measured by a measuring device 3. The drawing rate is controlled by a computing device 8 to achieve cane with a predetermined diameter. Measuring device 3 is generally a non-contact, optical measurement to avoid damage to the pristine surface of the cane as it is drawn.
As blank 5 is softened, a cone-like root section 7 is formed from which cane 6 is drawn. The length of this cone-like root is a function of the length of the hot zone of furnace 2, with cone-like root section 7 being longer for furnaces with longer hot zones.
Although the cane diameter is generally determined by the drawing speed of mechanism 4, disturbances in the diameter of the drawn cane may be caused, for example, by variations in the physical characteristics of blank 5 and changes in the ambient conditions surrounding the cane drawing apparatus. Because of the relatively long distance between measuring device 3 and cone-like root section 7 where the cane is formed and the relatively slow speed at which the cane is drawn, the control of the diameter of cane 5 is characterized by a significant deadtime between the actual variation in the diameter of cane 6 and its detection at the measuring device 3.
In the past, changes to the drawing speed of the cane, V.sub.c, were determined by a proportional-integral (PI) control algorithm, based on the error between the measured diameter and the desired diameter or set point. The PI algorithm can be expressed as: ##EQU1## where EQU E=OD.sub.sp -OD (2)
OD.sub.sp =diameter set point PA1 OD=2*R.sub.c =measured outside diameter PA1 R.sub.c =cane radius PA1 V.sub.c (0)=initial drawing speed PA1 P=proportional control gain PA1 .tau..sub.I =integral reset time PA1 t=time PA1 h=control interval PA1 I=integral control gain
When implemented by a computer, the PI control algorithm in equation (1) above is realized in the discrete time domain as
V.sub.c (t)=V.sub.c (t-h)+P[E(t)-E(t-h)]+IhE(t) (3)
where
It is sometimes beneficial to smooth the measured diameter, OD, by a filter that reduces the impact of high frequency disturbances. That filter may include, for example, an N-point moving average to generate a filtered outside diameter, OD.sub.f, which is used in the PI control algorithm error of equation (2): ##EQU2## Equation (2) is then rewritten as: EQU E(t)=OD.sub.sp -OD.sub.f (t) (5)
As the economic benefits of larger blanks force the use of larger furnaces in the redraw process, the deadtime discussed above increases, posing severe problems for this conventional PI control algorithm which degrade the control of the outside diameter of a drawn cane. For example, when a variation occurs in the outside diameter of the preform, a corresponding change will occur in the outside diameter of the cane being drawn from the preform. This change in diameter will be measured by measuring device 3 and the diameter control loop will cause a change in the drawing speed of mechanism 4. The effect of this change on the outside diameter of the cane will not be measured by measuring device 3 until a length of time equal to the deadtime has expired. Because the control interval, h, is smaller than the deadtime, the diameter control loop will continue to adjust the drawing speed of mechanism 4 based on the measured values of the outside diameter of the cane. If the control interval is equal to or greater than the deadtime, the diameter control loop will not be responsive enough to short term disturbances.
Loxley et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,652,248 discloses a process for drawing microbore quartz glass tubing, the diameter of said tubing being about 0.1 inch or less, wherein the stability of the outer diameter is enhanced by applying cooling jets of air or inert gas about 1 to 2 inches below a flame heat source used to soften the glass rod feedstock. These cooling jets stabilize the point at which the drawn tubing solidifies to a constant diameter. Adjustments to the fuel mixture to the flame heat source and the cooling gas are made by "skilled operators" based on observations of a thickness gauge reading to obtain the desired final diameter. col. 6, lines 63-73. There is no disclosure or suggestion in Loxley et al. of any control algorithm on which changes to these flow rates are based.
Mellor et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,512 discloses a method for producing a clad glass rod from which optical fiber is drawn. These rods have diameters between 1.5 mm and 8 mm with the diameter controlled to within .+-.5%. Mellor et al. discloses the use of a "high gain closed loop system" utilizing "a proportional plus integral controller" to regulate the speed of drawing the glass rod based on the measured diameter of the formed rod. col. 2, lines 46-68. There is no disclosure or suggestion in Mellor et al. of any compensation for the deadtime between a change in the drawing rate and the measurement of the change in outside diameter of the glass rod corresponding to the change in drawing rate.
Clark et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,079 discloses a method for drawing glass rods wherein a portion of a glass rod is heated to a first temperature high enough for reflow of the glass, the heated portion is necked down to approximately the desired diameter, the rod is cooled, the necked down portion is progressively reheated to a temperature less than the first temperature but sufficient for reflow, and the rod is stretched during the progressive reheating to the desired final diameter. col. 2, lines 16-27. By reheating the rod at a lower temperature, the viscosity of the glass is increased, and diameter fluctuations in the final drawn rod are reduced because the response of the rod to stretching conditions is dampened by the higher viscosity. Clark et al. does not disclose or suggest any measurement of the diameter of the glass rod during the heating or reheating steps described above. There is also no disclosure in Clark et al. of any control system for regulating stretching conditions to control the diameter of the drawn rod.

Method controlling the draw rate in the drawing of a glass feedstock


Infections caused by parasitic nematodes of the genera Strongyloides, Ancyclostoma, Necator, Haemonchus, Ascaris, or Trichuris in humans and other mammals are treated by administration to an infected individual of an amount of a C8-C16-alpha,beta-unsaturated aliphatic aldehyde. Such compounds are useful for killing nematode worms of the genera listed above. A particularly useful compound of this class, effective against S. stercoralis infections, is E-2-dodecenal, having structural formula (1).

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to killing of nematodes (round worms and more particularly to treatment of infections caused by parasitic nematodes.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Strongyloides stercoralis is an intestinal parasitic nematode infecting more than 100 million persons worldwide. It is the most common parasitic nematode that is able to recycle and proliferate within its host. Chronic, usually asymptomatic, gastrointestinal infections result in the majority of otherwise healthy individuals, but in immunocompromised hosts or persons receiving immunosuppressive therapy inordinate multiplication of the parasite follows with dissemination of larvae and adults to virtually all organs of the body. This is a grave and often lethal condition.
Other parasitic nematodes, for example, of the genera Strongyloides, Ancyclostoma, Necator, Haemonchus, Ascaris, and Trichuris are also medically significant pathogens in humans and other mammals. Infections with Ascaris species afflict some 1200 million persons worldwide, and Trichuris infections afflict some 800 million persons.
Treatment of disseminated strongyloidiasis with ethically prescribed pharmaceuticals has met with problems of poor efficacy and harmful side effects. To date, the benzimidazole group of drugs has proved the most valuable. Thiabendazole has remained the drug of choice for the last 30 years, but twin disadvantages of unreliable efficacy and significant toxicity generally call for a search for a more reliable and safe compound. Some investigations point to the potential usefulness of a broad-spectrum anthelmintic, albendazole, for the treatment of strongyloidiasis, whilst others argue the efficacy of ivermectin, a macrocyclic lactone produced by the actinomycete Streptomyces avermitilis.
The use of natural products in the treatment of intestinal helminths, which is venerated in Caribbean folklore, has received only limited attention. Reports and descriptions of such therapeutic uses may be found, for example, in Asprey & Thornton (1953) West Ind Med J 2:223-41; Davis & Persaud (1970) West Ind Med J 19:101-10; Lowe (1972) Jamaica Journal 8:20-4; Campbell (1974) Jamaica Journal 8:60-5; Honychurch (1980) Caribbean Wild Plants and Their Uses, Macmillan Press; Ayensu (1981) Medicinal Plants of the West Indies, Reference Pubs Inc.; Seaforth et al (1983) A Guide to the Medicinal Plants of Trinidad, Commonwealth Secretariat; McCallum (1985) UWI Med. Biography; Robinson et al (1990) West Ind. Med J 39: 213-7; Dias (1995) Newsletter—G-15 Gene Banks 718:4. About one hundred naturally occurring phytoproducts have been accredited with anthelmintic activity in vitro. On a wider scale, estimates indicate some 25,000 species of higher plants are used medicinally throughout the world where 80% of the population, most living in the tropic zones, rely heavily on traditional plant-based medications for health care. The potential of indigenous medicines is also recognised in the developed world, although to a much smaller extent. In the USA, for example, close to 100 secondary plant products have been incorporated as purified ingredients in more than 25% of prescribed preparations dispensed from the 1980's to the present time.
Accordingly, a need has continued to exist for the application of naturally occurring phytochemicals in the treatment of disease.

Method of treating strongyloides infections and medicaments therefor


A metal seal ring disclosed herein includes a front side surface having a plurality of first sealing areas and second sealing areas, and a back side surface having a plurality of spaced-apart protrusions having a radially innermost surface located at a first radial distance from a longitudinal axis of the seal and a first axial distance from an axis of symmetry of the seal. The back side also includes a plurality of recesses located between one of the protrusions and the axis of symmetry, each recess having a radially outermost surface located at a second radial distance from the longitudinal axis and a second axial distance from the axis of symmetry. A ratio of the second axial distance to the first axial distance falls within the range of about 0.38-0.63, and a ratio of the second radial distance to the first radial distance falls within the range of about 0.79-1.32

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure is directed to an improved metal seal ring that is used to establish a sealed connection between two mating components.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many industries, a sealing connection must be established between two mating tubular components. In some applications, the sealing connection is established by use of a connector that contains a locking means for clamping the hubs of the two components together, with a metal seal positioned therebetween, so as to establish the seal between the two components. The structure and configurations of the hubs, the metal seal and the connector, as well as the mechanisms used to establish the sealing connection between such hubs is vast and varied.
FIG. 1 simplistically depicts one illustrative application in the oil and gas industry where a metal seal ring or seal ring 14 is employed to achieve a sealed connection between two tubular components 12A, 12B. Subsea wells normally have a large tubular wellhead 12A (i.e., a first tubular component) positioned at the sea floor. A riser 12B (i.e., a second tubular component) that extends from the wellhead to the surface, e.g., to a drill ship or a platform, is used during at least drilling operations. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the illustrative riser is but one example of various components that may be coupled to a subsea wellhead. Other examples include, but are not limited to, tubing heads, Christmas trees, etc. The second component 12B is adapted to be sealingly coupled to the wellhead 12A by the use of a simplistically depicted metal seal ring 14 and a hydraulically actuated connector 16. In a subsea application, the metal seal ring 14 must provide a seal that prevents high pressure fluids within the well from escaping to the ocean and provide a seal that prevents ingress of sea water into the well due to external hydrostatic pressure. Typically, the sealing connection between the two components 12A, 12B is established by actuating one or more hydraulic cylinders to force "dogs" into engagement with a profile (e.g., grooves) formed in the outer surface of the wellhead 12A. When installation is complete, the sealing surfaces 14A of the seal ring 14 sealingly engage the components 12A, 12B. Another example from the oil and gas industry is subsea flow lines wherein connections must be made between two tubular shaped flow lines that carry hydrocarbon fluids and gases. Of course, there are many industrial applications where such connections must be established that are not in a subsea environment, e.g., refineries and petrochemical plants, on-shore drilling operations, etc. Additionally, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, there are many forms of tubular components, seals and connectors employed within many industries. Moreover, the vertical orientation of the components 12A/12B shown in FIG. 1 is by way of example only, as they may be oriented in any direction.
The present disclosure is directed to various embodiments of an improved metal seal ring that is used to establish a sealed connection between two mating components.


Methods and apparatus are described for routing data traffic in a network having a plurality of layers including physical, data link, and network layers. The data traffic is received and one of a plurality of routing options for the data traffic is selected with reference to information outside of the physical, data link, and network layers. The data traffic is then routed according to the selected routing option.

The present invention relates to transmission of data in a network environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for improving the efficiency with which data are transmitted over the Internet. Still more specifically, the present invention provides techniques by which routing decisions for particular data packets are made with reference to the nature of the data being transmitted, e.g., content routing.
Generally speaking, when a client platform communicates with some remote server, whether via the Internet or an intranet, it crafts a data packet which defines a TCP connection between the two hosts, i.e., the client platform and the destination server. More specifically, the data packet has headers which include the destination IP address, the destination port, the source IP address, the source port, and the protocol type. The destination IP address might be the address of a well known World Wide Web (WWW) search engine such as, for example, Yahoo, in which case, the protocol would be TCP and the destination port would be port 80, a well known port for http and the WWW. The source IP address would, of course, be the IP address for the client platform and the source port would be one of the TCP ports selected by the client. These five pieces of information define the TCP connection.
Given the increase of traffic on the World Wide Web and the growing bandwidth demands of ever more sophisticated multimedia content, there has been constant pressure to find more efficient ways to service data requests than opening direct TCP connections between a requesting client and the primary repository for the desired data. Interestingly, one technique for increasing the efficiency with which data requests are serviced came about as the result of the development of network firewalls in response to security concerns. In the early development of such security measures, proxy servers were employed as firewalls to protect networks and their client machines from corruption by undesirable content and unauthorized access from the outside world. Proxy servers were originally based on Unix machines because that was the prevalent technology at the time. This model was generalized with the advent of SOCKS which was essentially a daemon on a Unix machine. Software on a client platform on the network protected by the firewall was specially configured to communicate with the resident demon which then made the connection to a destination platform at the client's request. The demon then passed information back and forth between the client and destination platforms acting as an intermediary or "proxy."
Not only did this model provide the desired protection for the client's network, it gave the entire network the IP address of the proxy server, therefore simplifying the problem of addressing of data packets to an increasing number of users. Moreover, because of the storage capability of the proxy server, information retrieved from remote servers could be stored rather than simply passed through to the requesting platform. This storage capability was quickly recognized as a means by which access to the World Wide Web could be accelerated. That is, by storing frequently requested data, subsequent requests for the same data could be serviced without having to retrieve the requested data from its original remote source. Currently, most Internet service providers (ISPs) accelerate access to their web sites using proxy servers.
Unfortunately, interaction with such proxy servers is not transparent, requiring each end user to select the appropriate proxy configuration in his or her browser to allow the browser to communicate with the proxy server. For the large ISPs with millions of customers there is significant overhead associated with handling tech support calls from customers who have no idea what a proxy configuration is. Additional overhead is associated with the fact that different proxy configurations must be provided for different customer operating systems. The considerable economic expense represented by this overhead offsets the benefits derived from providing accelerated access to the World Wide Web. Another problem arises as the number of WWW users increases. That is, as the number of customers for each ISP increases, the number of proxy servers required to service the growing customer base also increases. This, in turn, presents the problem of allocating packet traffic among multiple proxy servers.
Another technique for increasing the efficiency with which data requests are serviced is described in commonly assigned, copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/946,867 for METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING NETWORK DATA TRANSMISSIONS filed Oct. 8, 1997, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. The invention described in that copending application represents an improvement over the proxy server model which is transparent to end users, high performance, and fault tolerant. By altering the operating system code of an existing router, the router is enabled to redirect data traffic of a particular protocol intended for a specified port, e.g., TCP with port 80, to one or more caching engines connected to the router via an interface having sufficient bandwidth such as, for example, a 100baseT interface. If there are multiple caching engines connected to the cache-enabled router, the router selects from among the available caching engines for a particular request based on a simple algorithm according to which a particular group of addresses is associated with each caching engine.
The caching engine to which the request is re-routed "spoofs" the requested destination platform and accepts the request on its behalf via a standard TCP connection established by the cache-enable router. If the requested information is already stored in the caching engine, i.e., a cache "hit" occurs, it is transmitted to the requesting platform with a header indicating its source as the destination platform. If the requested information is not in the caching engine, i.e., a cache "miss" occurs, the caching engine opens a direct TCP connection with the destination platform, downloads the information, stores it for future use, and transmits it to the requesting platform. All of this is transparent to the user at the requesting platform which operates exactly as if it were communicating with the destination platform. Thus, the need for configuring the requesting platform to suit a particular proxy configuration is eliminated along with the associated overhead. Moreover, traffic may be easily allocated among as many caching engines as become necessary. Thus, content caching provides a way to compensate for the bandwidth limitations discussed above.
Another specific embodiment of a packet redirection protocol which may be used to implement such a network caching technique is described in , commonly assigned, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/168,862 for METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REDIRECTING NETWORK TRAFFIC filed Dec. 2, 1999, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. According to a specific embodiment described in that application, the network caches have the capability of determining that particular redirected packets should be transmitted back to the redirecting router and reinserted into the original traffic flow. This may be done in a manner transparent to the source or destination of the packets. An example of a case in which packets would need to be reinserted in the original flow might be where the cache recognizes the source and destination pairs identified by the packets as corresponding to a connection requiring IP-based authentication. Another example would be where the cache is overloaded and is currently unable to handle all of the redirected traffic.
A technique conceptually related to content caching referred to as content co-location has also been developed to provide faster access to certain types of data. That is, a large amount of Internet content resides on machines in the U.S. Client machines in remote geographic locations such as New Zealand or Australia typically have two ways of retrieving such content, i.e., via terrestrial links (bidirectional and fast, but expensive) and satellite links (mostly unidirectional and relatively cheap, but slow).
Content co-location provides one way to facilitate faster access to such content for geographically remote users. According to this technique, servers are provided in the geographically remote areas which store at least some of the content of the original site, e.g., image files. Akamai and Sandpiper provide such "co-loc" facilities to content providers. When a client requests a page containing such objects, the html refers to the objects by object names which correspond to the co-loc provider. These object names are then resolved by the client's browser to an IP address corresponding to the closest co-loc facility.
While content co-location techniques have proven to be relatively effective, content providers pay a huge premium for this service. In addition, implementation of content co-location requires some relatively complex and computationally intense protocols. For example, coherency must be maintained between content at co-loc facilities and the content at the original site. In addition, browsers must constantly perform the object name resolution when parsing ordinary html to access the correct co-location facility.
Another limitation associated with various network devices, e.g., routers, switches, gateways, and some caches, is that routing decisions are made only with reference to the lower level network layers, i.e., the physical, data link, and network layers. FIG. 1 illustrates the relationship of one such network device, i.e., a gateway, to the various network layers. Assume that the user application layer protocol 102A in host A sends an application protocol data unit (PDU) to an application layer protocol 102B in host B, such as, for example, a file transfer system. The file transfer software performs a variety of functions and sends file records to the user. In many systems, the operations at host B are known as server operations and the operations at host A are know as client operations.
As indicated by the downward arrows in the protocol stack at host A, this unit is passed to the transport layer protocol 104A, which performs a variety of operations and adds a header to the PDU passed to it. At this point, the unit of data is often referred to as a segment. The PDU from the upper layers is considered to be data to the transport layer.
Next, the transport layer passes the segment to the network layer 106A, also called the IP layer, which again performs specific services and appends a header. This unit (now called a datagram in internet terms) is passed down to the lower layers. Here, the data link layer adds its header as well as a trailer, and the data unit (now called a frame) is launched into subnetwork 110 by the physical layer 108A. Of course, if host B sends data to host A, the process is reversed and the direction of the arrows is changed.
Internet protocols are typically unaware of what goes on inside the network. The network manager is free to manipulate and manage the PDU in any manner necessary. In some instances, however, the internet PDU (data and headers) remains unchanged as it is transmitted through the subnet. In FIG. 1, it emerges at the gateway where it is processed through the lower layers 114 and passed to the IP (network) layer 112. Here, routing decisions are made based only on the destination address provided by the host computer. After these routing decisions have been made, the PDU is passed to the communications link connected to the appropriate subnetwork (comprising the lower layers). The PDU is re-encapsulated into the data link layer frame and passed to the next subnetwork 116, where it finally arrives at the destination host.
One of the limitations inherent in the traffic routing approach described above is that the routing decisions are made with reference only to information in the lower network layers. Because data transmissions in these layers are virtually indistinguishable from one another it is difficult if not impossible to make intelligent routing decisions based on the type of data being transmitted or requested, or any other high level information. As a result, opportunities for improving the efficiency with which networks operate are lost.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for techniques by which network devices can make intelligent routing decisions about specific types of data traffic which are less expensive in terms of network resources than currently available solutions.


A process of preparation of non-bitter high arginine peptide from groundnut, which has an arginine to lysine ratio of at least 5 and a yield of 17–20%.

It is generally believed that animal proteins are hypercholesterolemic while plant proteins are hypocholesterolemic. Studies on number of plant and animal proteins have shown that groundnut protein produces the highest concentration of serum cholesterol in rats fed on cholesterol-free diet. It has been shown that the ratio of lysine to arginine of a protein may affect on serum cholesterol levels and atherogenicity. Numbers of studies have indicated the source of dietary protein and more specifically, the dietary amino acid ratio within these proteins seem to relate to changes in serum cholesterol levels.
Arginine is present in most of the proteins, including meats, nuts, milk, cheese and eggs. In particular, nuts and grains have high arginine to lysine ratio. Arginine is essential to the metabolism of ammonia that is generated from protein breakdown. It is also needed to transport the nitrogen used in muscle metabolism. Arginine is one of the body building amino acids and influences several hormone functions. L-arginine is shown to improve/decrease liver functions, to lower cholesterol levels and to inhibit the growth of certain tumors in animal system. Arginine participates in many other important reactions such as nitric oxide synthesis and augmatine or creatine formation. It's the body's most potent blood vessel expander and main blood pressure regulator. Several studies have shown that lysine:arginine of a protein is a critical factor determining its effect on cholesterol metabolism Feeding excess lysine has been reported to produce hypercholesterolemia in rats. A low lysine:arginine ratio in protein has been shown to reduce serum and aortic cholesterol.
Several protein additives have been developed from plant sources to serve as functional ingredients in formulated food systems. Flours, concentrates and isolates from plant sources such as groundnut, sunflower, cotton seed and rapeseed/mustard possess a broad spectrum of functional properties. The oilseed meals are excellent protein rich raw material for a number of fabricated food products. However, they, have limited use due to lack of some of the desirable functional properties. One of the ways of improving the functional attributes of oilseed proteins is the modification of the proteins. Modification of protein can be accomplished by using the chemical or enzymatic methods. Acid and alkali hydrolysis of protein leads to decrease nutritive amino acids, production of toxic constituents like lysino alanine.
Enzymatic methods accomplish protein hydrolysis selectively without causing structural changes in the amino acids that make up the proteins. The peptide profile generated by enzymatic methods is well defined. The protein retains its nutritive value in enzymatic hydrolysis than any traditional acid/alkali hydrolysis.
The most commonly used raw materials in the preparation of protein hydrolysates are oilseed flours, legume flours, casein and animal proteins.
Groundnut is grown primarily as oilseed crop. Major portion of the groundnut is converted to oil. The cake after oil extraction contains 40% protein. The defatted meal contains 45–50% protein. In addition to protein, it is also a good source of vitamins and minerals.
Protein hydrolysates are used in diets of patients suffering from problems of digestion or poor absorption, intestinal diseases due to food allergies. Protein hydrolysates are also used as supplement for people who have special protein needs such as elderly, athletes and people on weight control diets.
The protein hydrolysates can be good additives to improve the functional characteristics and nutritional value of the end products. Some of the drawbacks of the hydrolysates prepared using acid hydrolysis are humin formation, high temperature involvement, color formation, high salt content in the product, destruction of some of the essential amino acids and low yields.
At present, there are no patents available for the production of protein hydrolyzate from groundnut with high degree of hydrolysis (DH) for use in food formulations.
Reference may be made to T. Sumura et. al., (2000) U.S. Pat. No. 6,022,702 wherein, A process for producing a soy protein hydrolyzate with a low content of glycinin is described. Then the process aqueous suspension of soy protein isolate containing glycinin and β-conglycinin hydrolysed with pepsin at a concentration of about 0.001% to 0.5% by weight of the isolate at a pH of 1–2.8 at a temperature of 20–50° C. and neutralized with sodium hydroxide. The hydrolyzate is heated at 140° C. for 15 seconds and spray dried. The drawback of the method is that neutralization of the acid hydrolyzate results in salts formation, which leads to salty taste in the product when added.
Reference may be made to Chervan et. al. (1984) U.S. Pat. No. 4,443,540 wherein, a process for the hydrolysis of protein using a selected protein material by enzymatic method, separation of the hydrolysed protein by ultra filtration to recover the low molecular weight protein. In the process soy protein isolate is hydrolysed at alkaline pH of 7–9 with alkaline protease pronase at a temperature of 25–60° C. The hydrolysed material is separated to a lower molecular level of 10,000 daltons and the high molecular weight fractions are further hydrolysed. The drawback of the method is repeated hydrolysis of the high molecular weight protein. The process is not cost effective and number of steps involved in the preparation is more time consuming.
Reference may be made to Hamm, D. J. (1993) U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,597 wherein, a process for the production of hydrolysed proteins containing no detectable level of monochlorohydroxyproparol has been described. In the process wheat gluten is hydrolysed with prozyme6, a neutral protease at a temperature of 40–50° C. at a pH of 6.5–7.0, enzyme concentration of about 0.5–1% by weight for 4 h. The hydrolysed protein is separated, concentrated, and treated with gaseous hydrochloric add to deamidate free amino acids. The acidified hydrolyzate from the deamidation is then neutralized to pH 5 to 7 with sodium hydroxide. The drawback of the method is that the hydrolysis is not controlled to prevent bitterness.
Reference may be made to Ernster J. H. (1991) U.S. Pat. No. 5,077,062 wherein, a low sodium, low monosodium glutamate soy hydrolyzate is prepared from soy material such as soy flour, soy meal or soy grits by hydrolyzing the soy material with a protease enzyme in water. The hydrolysis carried out at 90° C. for 2 h. The resulting hydrolyzate contains about 45–55 enzymatic hydrolysed soy based protein. The enzymatically hydrolysed soy protein hydrolyzate has an average molecular weight of about 670,000±50,000. The drawback of the process is that the hydrolysis carried out at high temperature for long time. The process is energy consuming.
Reference may be made to Satoh et. al., (1988) U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,007 wherein, a process for preparing two kinds of hydrolysates is described using protease from soy protein. The soy protein isolate is hyrolysed at pH 7 with papain for 6 h, acidified to pH 3.0 and subjected to centrifugation. The precipitate is neutralised to pH 6.8 and hydrolysed the protein with pepsin for 4 h at 55° C. (pH 6.8). The separation is done by ultra filtration with a molecular weight cut off of 15,000–20,000. The filtrate is freeze dried. The drawback of the process is that it involves acidification to lower the pH to 2.5–5.0 and separation of two kinds of hydrolyzate mixture, which leads to increase the salt content in the product.
Reference may be made to Cheruppanpulil et. al. (2002) U.S. Pat. No. 6,420,133 wherein, a process for preparation of high protein hydrolyzate using mixed flour from different oilseeds such as soybean, sesame and groundnut. Hydrolysis for 2–3 h with fungal enzyme alkaline protease followed hydrolyzing with a plant enzyme papain as second enzyme at temperature of 50–60° C. for 1–2 h. The drawback of the process involves two stage hydrolysis with two different enzymes and also time consuming. The enzyme used in this process is different.
Reference may be made to Yamamoto Ko et. al. (2003) European Patent No. 1331273 A1 wherein, a process for producing a liquid protein hydrolyzate involves dispersing the defatted soybeans in water at pH 3 and 6 and heated to 120–150° C. The denatured proteins are treated with microorganism Koji mould. The drawback of the process is heating the protein at a high temperature in acidic pH may lead destruction of some of the amino acids. The enzyme and the source of protein used are different from the enzyme used in the present study.
Reference may be made to a published paper titled "Production and characterization of enzymatic hydrolyzate from soy protein isolate" Netto, F. M. and Galeazzi M. A. M., Lebenson, Wiss. U. Technol. 31, 624–631 (1998) wherein, the soy protein isolate is enzymatically hydrolysed using pancreatin enzyme to a degree of hydrolysis of 14.5%. The drawback of the protein hydrolyzate preparation is loss of some of the essential amino acids, which have to be supplemented to meet the specific needs.
Reference may be made to Cipollo, K. L. and Wagner, T. J. (1987) European Patent No. 0148600 B1, wherein a process is described to prepare protein hydrolyzate from soy protein isolate after jet cooking or dynamic heating at 104–204° C. The material is cooled and hydrolysed using bromelian and dried. The process involves multi steps during isolation. The enzyme used is different from the present invention.
Reference may be made to Olsen H. S. (1981) U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,805 wherein a method is described to produce soy protein hydrolyzate from fat containing soy material by washing with aqueous medium at an acidic pH; the partially defatted material is treated with enzyme alkalase and deactivating the enzyme by reducing the pH to 4, treated with carbon and concentrated by reverse osmosis and freeze dried. The drawback of the process is that it involves multi steps and the raw material used is partially defatted flour, the left over oil comes into hydrolyzate, which may lead to off flavors. The enzyme inactivation is done by addition of acid, which is likely to lead to increase in salt content of the product.
Reference may be made to published article titled "Effect of dietary protein and amino acids on the metabolism of cholesterol carrying lipoproteins in rats" Park, M. C., and Liepa, G. V., 1982, J. Nutrition, 112, 1892–1897, wherein the effect of various dietary proteins and amino acids on serum lipid metabolism is studied in rat model. Rats fed a diet containing protein from animal sources had greater serum and high density lipoprotein (HDL)—cholesterol concentrations as well as increased lecithin:cholesterol acryltrans ferase (LCAT) activities than those fed a diet containing protein from plant sources. Animal fed arginine—supplemented casein diet showed a decrease in both serum and HDL cholesterol compared casein alone. Addition of lysine to cotton seed protein diet caused an increase in serum and HDL—cholesterol fractions. The drawback is that all the plant proteins are not compatible with lysine and to reduce the cholesterol.
Reference may be made to published article tided "Lysine:Arginine ratio of a protein influences cholesterol metabolism part I—Studies on sesame protein having low lysine:arginine ratio". Rajamohan, T., and Kurup, P. A., 1997, Indian Journal of Experimental Biology, 35, 1218–1223, wherein the effect of globulin fraction with a lysine:arginine ratio 0.67 and the diet containing casein with a ratio of 2.0 were fed to rats to study the effect on cholesterol metabolism. The study indicated that rats fed with sesame globulin showed significantly lower concentrations of cholesterol in the serum and aorta. The study clearly suggests that the lysine:arginine ratios of a protein exert hypocholesterolemic effects.
Reference may be made to published article titled "Vegetable protein and Atheroselerosis". Kritchevsky, D., 1979, A.O.C.S., 56, 136–140, wherein stated that the vegetable proteins appears to be less cholesteremic than animal protein. It is hypothesized that a high ratio of lysine to arginine may be important.
Reference may be made to the published paper titled "Lysine:Arginine ratio of protein and its effect on cholesterol metabolism". Rajamohan, T., and Kurup, P. A., 1986, Ind. Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics, 23, 294–296, wherein the lysine arginine ratio of the protein had significant effect on the metabolism of cholesterol in rats fed cholesterol diet. The results indicated that lysine:arginine ratio of 1.0 significantly lowered cholesterol in the serum, liver and aorta and increased hepatic cholesterogenesis as well as degradation of cholesterol to bile acid when compared to lysine:arginine ratio of 2.0.
Reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,193, Shimamura et al., 1997, wherein a peptide mixture from whey protein hydrolyzate with specific amount of free amino acid is described. The peptide mixture is low in phenyl alanine content. The present invention relates to the method of producing a peptide mixture with high arginine and low lysine content from groundnut protein hydrolyzate by an enzymatic method.
Reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,714, Westfall et al., 1992, wherein a high quality soy protein isolate with a significant reduction in phytate and aluminium is prepared via ultrafiltration. The present invention is related to production of a peptide mixture and not whole protein and the source of protein is groundnut.
Peptides that have bitter taste often contain high proportions of leucine, valine and aromatic amino acid residues. Very bitter peptides contain proline residues. The specificity of the protease determines the hydrophobicity and amount of such peptides in the protein hydrolysate. Typically bitter peptides have high average hydrophobicity. In the hydrolysed peptides, the ratio of hydrophilic to hydrophobic amino acid was high which makes them non-bitter.
Groundnut protein isolate has been used for the first time to obtain non-bitter high arginine peptide. Fungal protease, which has been used to hydrolyze the raw material, cleaves the groundnut protein in such a way under the specified conditions of temperature, pH and time of hydrolysis to give a non-bitter taste to the hydrolyzate from which an arginine rich peptide fraction is separated based on molecular sieving by ultrafiltration. The selective separation of peptides to enrich the arginine content by ultrafiltration results in a peptide fraction that is non-bitter.
There are no patents available on the preparation of hydrolyzate from groundnut. Many cited literature have used a number of protein sources for preparing the hydrolysates. In the present invention the raw material used to prepare protein hydrolyzate is groundnut.

Process for the preparation of high arginine peptides

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