An aqueous liquid composition comprising. a) an anionic surfactant or mixtures thereof in cleansing effective quantities, PA1 b) a primary ethoxylated alcohol of the structure R(OCH.sub.2 CH.sub.2).sub.n OH wherein R is an average alkyl of about 10 to about 14 carbon atoms, inclusive, and n is an average number of about 6 to about 10, PA1 c) a carbanilide antibacterial agent present in an antibacterial effective amount but no more than about 2 wt. % of the composition, the quantity of component c being in a wt. ratio to component b of about 1 to 6 to about 1 to 15, and PA1 d) the balance being water.

Antibacterial agents have been placed into cleansing compositions for many years. However, not all antibacterial agents are active or present stable entities in specific cleansing compositions. Some antibacterial agents are easier to stabilize and maintain activity in solid compositions. Other antibacterial agents more readily maintain activity and stability in liquid cleansing compositions. Antibacterial agents of the carbanilide family are well known to be difficult to solubilize and also to stabilize in liquid systems, particularly aqueous liquid systems. The most well known of these carbanilide antibacterial agents is triclocarban.
A composition which has easily solubilizable carbanilide antibacterial effective amounts and which is also stable has now been discovered. The system is aqueous. The system remains preferably clear as shown by the appropriately solubilized carbanilide antibacterial agent. The solubilization can be done at room temperature. The composition remains stable for extended periods of time. The carbanilide antibacterial agent is deposited on the skin as an antibacterial active agent.


The present disclosure is directed to a novel apparatus and novel methods for the separation, characterization, and manipulation of matter. In particular, the invention combines the use of frequency-dependent dielectric and conductive properties of particulate matter and solubilized matter with the properties of a suspending medium to discriminate and separate such matter. The apparatus includes a chamber having at least one spiral electrode element. Matter is separated in the chamber by a dielectrophoretic (DEP) force caused by the energized electrode or electrodes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the fields of molecular separation and particle discrimination. More particularly, it concerns the manipulation of particulate matter utilizing a combination of electrical, hydrodynamic or gravitational forces, which may be useful in diagnostic procedures.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ability to identify, characterize and purify cell subpopulations is fundamental to numerous biological and medical applications, often forming the starting point for research protocols and the basis for current and emerging clinical protocols. Cell separation has numerous applications in medicine, biotechnology, and research in environmental settings. For example, cell separation can make possible life-saving procedures such as autologous bone marrow transplantation for the remediation of advanced cancers where the removal of cancer-causing metastatic cells from a patient's marrow is necessitated (Fischer, 1993). In other applications, such as the study of signaling between blood cells (Stout, 1993), (Cantrell et al., 1992), highly purified cell subpopulations permit studies that would otherwise be impossible. Current approaches to cell sorting most frequently exploit differences in cell density (Boyum, 1974), specific immunologic targets (Smeland et al., 1992), or receptor-ligand interactions (Chess and Schlossman, 1976) to isolate particular cells.
These techniques are often inadequate and sorting devices capable of identifying and selectively manipulating cells through novel physical properties are therefore desirable. The application of the principles of AC electrokinetics has been used for the dielectric characterization of mammalian cells through the method of electrorotation (ROT) (Arnold and Zimmermann, 1982; Fuhr, 1985; Holzel and Lamprecht, 1992; Wang et al., 1994) and for cell discrimination and sorting (Hagedorn et al., 1992; Huang et al., 1993; Gascoyne et al., 1992; Gascoyne et al., 1994; Huang et al., 1992). In these techniques, cells become electrically polarized when they are subjected to an AC electric field. If that field is inhomogeneous, then the cells experience a lateral dielectrophoretic (DEP) force, the frequency response of which is a function of their intrinsic electrical properties (Gascoyne et al., 1992). In turn, these properties depend strongly on cell composition and organization, features that reflect cell morphology and phenotype. Cells differing in their electrical polarizabilities can thus experience differential forces in the inhomogeneous electric field (Becker et al., 1994; Becker et al., 1995). Analysis of the dielectrophoretic motion of mammalian cells as a function of applied frequency permits cell membrane biophysical parameters, such as capacitance and surface conductance, to be probed. Because DEP effectively maps biophysical properties into a translational force whose direction and magnitude reflects cellular properties, some degree of separation occurs between particles of different characteristics. While DEP has been used on a microscopic scale to separate bacteria from erythrocytes (Markx et al., 1994), viable from nonviable yeast cells (Wang et al., 1993), and erythroleukemia cells from erythrocytes (Huang et al., 1992), the differences in the electrical polarizabilities of the cell types in those various mixtures were greater than those to be expected in many typical cell sorting applications.
Field flow fractionation (FFF) has also been generally employed for separation of matter, utilizing particle density, size, volume, diffusivity, thickness, and surface charge as parameters (Giddings, 1993). The technique can be used to separate many different types of matter, from a size of about 1 nm to more than about 100 micrometers which may include, for example, biological and non-biological matter. Separation according to field flow fractionation occurs by differential retention in a stream of liquid flowing through a thin channel. The FFF technique combines elements of chromatography, electrophoresis, and ultracentrifugation, and generally FFF requires the presence of a field or gradient to develop a differential flow. This differential flow creates a flow profile which may be, for example, linear or parabolic. A field is then applied at right angles to the flow and serves to drive the matter into different displacements within the flow profile which travel at differing velocities. Fields may be based on sedimentation, crossflow, temperature gradient, centrifugal forces, and the like. The technique suffers, however, from producing insufficiently pure cell populations, being too slow, or being too limited in the spectrum of target cells or other matter.
Thus, there exists a need in the art for highly discriminate characterization or identification of particulate matter, especially biological matter, that operates without physically modifying the structure of the matter to be separated. Moreover, such an approach should allow for the sensitive manipulation of such particles, which may include characterization and purification of desired matter from extraneous or undesired matter.

Method and apparatus for manipulation using spiral electrodes

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


A fixed type constant velocity universal joint includes an outer joint member, an inner joint member, a plurality of balls for transmitting torque provided between track grooves of the outer joint member and track grooves of the inner joint member, and a cage for retaining the balls. Grease is enclosed in the fixed type constant velocity universal joint which includes a thickener and a lubricant component which is constituted by base oil. The grease contains 90% by mass or more of paraffinic mineral oil with respect to the total mass of the lubricant component of the grease, and 3 to 8% by mass of the thickener with respect to the total mass of the components of the grease.

As shown in FIG. 6, a Rzeppa type constant velocity universal joint which is a fixed type constant velocity universal joint includes an outer joint member 3, an inner joint member 6, balls 7, and a cage 8. The outer joint member 3 has a spherical inner surface 1 in which a plurality of track grooves 2 are formed in the circumferential direction at regular intervals and along the axial direction. The inner joint member 6 has a spherical outer surface 4 in which track grooves 5 opposite the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3 are formed in the circumferential direction at regular intervals and along the axial direction. The balls 7 for transmitting torque are provided between the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3 and the track grooves 5 of the inner joint member 6. The cage 8 for retaining the balls 7 is arranged between the spherical inner surface 1 of the outer joint member 3 and the spherical outer surface 4 of the inner joint member 6. The outer circumference of the outer joint member 3 and the outer circumference of a shaft coupled to the inner joint member 6 are covered by a boot to enclose grease as a lubricant in the joint (not shown).
As shown in FIG. 6, the center of curvature of the spherical inner surface 1 of the outer joint member 3 and the center of curvature of the spherical outer surface 4 of the inner joint member 6 are both formed at a center O of the joint. On the contrary, a center of curvature A of the track grooves 2 of the outer joint member 3 and a center of curvature B of the track grooves 5 of the inner joint member 6 are offset from the center O of the joint by an equal distance L in the axial direction. With this, when the joint forms an operating angle, the balls 7 are always guided onto a plane which bisects the angle formed between both axes of the outer joint member 3 and the inner joint member 6 to transmit rotational torque at an equal speed between two shafts.
By the way, in an automobile left in an extremely cold region for a long time, the fixed type constant velocity universal joint used for driving the front wheels has a low temperature (e.g., −20° C. or lower) equal to outside-air temperature, and grease enclosed in the fixed type constant velocity universal joint has the same low temperature.
In such a case, immediately after torque is inputted to the fixed type constant velocity universal joint at a high operating angle, stick slip can occur due to temporary lack of lubricity between the track grooves in the joint and the balls guided in the track grooves. When such stick slip occurs, the driver can hear abnormal noises. The abnormal noises are called abnormal noises at low temperatures. Since the abnormal noises at low temperatures disappear immediately when the joint is rotated to generate heat for increasing the temperature therein, the noises become a problem only when the vehicle left in a low temperature environment for a long time is driven and do not become a problem other than immediately after it is driven.
There has been a constant velocity universal joint which can prevent abnormal noises, not the abnormal noises at low temperatures, from occurring (Patent Documents 1 and 2). Patent Document 1 describes a plunging type constant velocity universal joint in which the center portions in the circumferential direction on pocket wall surfaces opposite in the joint axial direction of a cage pocket are ridged, with the ridged portions being as desired ball interference, thereby preventing the abnormal noises from occurring.
Patent Document 2 describes a fixed type constant velocity universal joint in which the clearance between a cage pocket and balls is 0 to 30 μm and grease having a friction coefficient of 0.13 or less is applied to track grooves, thereby preventing hammering sound from occurring.

Fixed type constant velocity universal joint


Transition duct assemblies and gas turbine engine systems involving such assemblies are provided. In this regard, a representative a transition duct assembly for a gas turbine engine includes: an impingement sheet having cooling holes formed therethrough, an inlet end and a non-flanged outlet end, the impingement sheet being operative to be positioned about an exterior of a transition duct such that cooling air is directed to flow about the transition duct; the non-flanged outlet end of the impingement sheet being operative to attach the impingement sheet to the transition duct such that the inlet end is positioned adjacent to an intake end of the transition duct and the outlet end is positioned adjacent to an exhaust end of the transition duct.

1. Technical Field
The disclosure generally relates to gas turbine engines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Gas turbine engines that are primarily used for the generation of electricity are oftentimes referred to as industrial gas turbine engines. Typically, engines of this type are land based and incorporate components that are rather robust, large and heavy. No exception to these characteristics is a common transition duct, which is used to interconnect various flow components of a combustion section with downstream turbine section components.


A toothbrush having a head portion (1) which has bristles (2) attached, a handle portion (3) and an intermediate portion (4) of reduced cross-section with regard to the head and handle portions (1), (3). The intermediate portion (4) of the toothbrush is non-resiliently deformable to change the angular relationship between the head portion (1) and the handle portion (2). If this angular relationship is changed after brushing, the user is applying excessive pressure during brushing. The shape of the toothbrush may be changed by the user to suit the user's particular mouth shape.

Recently, several advances have been made in toothbrush design. Among these are what are usually called "angled toothbrushes" which are more convenient for brushing, most especially the back teeth, due to a bend or angle in the brush between the head portion and the handle portion.
Many designers have come up with what they consider to be the "perfect angle" for brushing, however as everyone is an individual, certain angled brushes are better than others depending upon the mouth and teeth of the user.
There are also known in the prior art several types of "resiliently deformable" toothbrushes. These resiliently deformable or flexible toothbrushes may have either a portion of the handle or neck which is resiliently deformable, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,796,001 and 4,520,526 and International Patent Application No. WO88/06417, or may alternatively have a resilient head portion, as disclosed in several patents including U.S. Pat. No. 1,327,807, 2,445,651, 2,631,320 and 3,994,038.
The alleged advantage of these "resiliently deformable" or "flexible" toothbrushes is that in use, the resilient portion deforms in response to a force applied by the user, there ensuring that the pressure applied to the teeth and gums is the correct pressure to facilitate thorough cleaning without damaging the teeth or gums of the user.
The pressure applied to the teeth and gums by the user of these resilient deformable toothbrushes is, however, a function of the resilient characteristics of the toothbrush, these characteristics being dependent upon the material from which the toothbrush is constructed and the shape of the toothbrush.
Clearly, one such resilient toothbrush, for example, may assist a user to avoid applying exclusive pressure to his or her teeth and gums however, another user of the same toothbrush may not be applying the correct pressure to his or her gums even though it is the same pressure as that applied by the previous user, since a single resiliently deformable toothbrush does not take into consideration the individual characteristics of each user, each toothbrush being limited by its own resilient characteristics.
It can therefore be seen that in order for these resilient toothbrushes to in fact apply the correct pressure for each and every user, the resilient characteristics of each toothbrush must be tailored to suit the particular individual user.
Further, when these resilient type toothbrushes are removed from the mouth, they return to their original undeformed shape thereby giving no indication as to whether or not an excessive pressure was applied to the teeth and gums.
It will be clear to the person skilled in the art therefore that a user could use such a "resiliently deformable" toothbrush under the impression that it is applying the correct pressure to his or her teeth when, in fact, there is no indication whether or not that the particular "resiliently deformable" toothbrush suits that individual. Its use may have applied an excessive pressure to the teeth and gums of the user causing damage.
There are also known toothbrushes in which prior to use a user may select the desired oriententation between the head and the handle, such a toothbrush is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,621. U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,266 discloses a dental whisk in which the head and handle rejoined by a region of reduced cross-sectional area to allow the angle between the head of the whisk. In each of these patents it is the intention of the designer that once the angle between the head and the handle of the brush or whisk is selected it will remain as selected during use even if the user applies excessive brushing pressure. There is no teaching in either patent of the desirability of the angle between the head and the handle of the brush or whisk changing due to the application of excessive brushing pressure.
Clearly there is also a need for a toothbrush the shape of which can be individually matched to the user's mouth, by the user and which will positively indicate to the user that he or she has been applying excessive brushing pressure to his or her teeth.


A software multi-tap input method requires only two taps to input most characters. This is especially beneficial for languages where existing multi-tap methods require on average more than two strokes per character, and where handwriting recognition is currently an unacceptable alternative. The described system employs a touch-screen input that contains a selection of displayed “buttons” substantially fewer in number than the number of potential characters in the language of interest. An input area contains an array of symbols, each symbol being associated with a group of candidate characters. A candidate area contains an array of characters associated with a most recently selected group symbol in the input area. To select a particular character, a user pushes a group symbol in the input area and then selects the desired character in the candidate area.

As computing and communication devices shrink in size and increase in mobility and popularity, there arises a greater need to provide user-friendly input methods that require a minimal amount of user time and effort to actuate. Many devices, such as certain cell-phones, have a hardware keyboard or keypad, through which the user may input information. Other devices have touch screens to allow user input. In some cases, a combination of input methods may be supplied.
With respect to devices that are too small to practically support a full keyboard in the appropriate language, a number of input techniques have been devised. Primary examples include a multi-tap hardware input method as well as a number of predictive methods. The multi-tap hardware method may be easily understood by considering a typical cell phone having a display-only screen (i.e. not touch screen) and 12 data entry buttons (0–9, * and #). Most buttons are assigned to a certain sequence of letters etc. For example, a typical phone, cell phone or otherwise, has at least the following key assignments: 2 (a,b,c), 3 (d,e,f), 4 (g,h,i), 5 (j,k,l), 6 (m,n,o), 7 (p,q,r,s), 8 (t,u,v), 9 (w,x,y,z), 0 (space).
In order to input a letter via such an array of buttons, such as during input of a word, the user typically pushes a particular button one or more times. Thus, to enter the word "phone" the user pushes the following sequence of buttons: 7, 4 (×2), 6 (×3), 6(×2), 3(×2). Note that the buttons usually cycle, and thus pushing "6" five times in a row would yield a single letter, n. Thus, to enter consecutive letters using the same button, the user must either wait for a time out to occur after arriving at the candidate for the first letter before moving on to entry of the second letter via the same button, or must push a "determine" key between the entry sequences. As will be appreciated, this input method can result in an undesirably high number of strikes for each character actually entered. Indeed, some in the art have noted that the average number of keystrokes per character using the multi-tap method is slightly greater than two for English. For other languages with greater numbers of characters or elements, the number of keystrokes per character can be much higher depending upon the actual number of entry buttons relative to the number of possible characters.
The predictive methods mentioned above attempt to lower the number of keystrokes per character by predictively finishing the input for the user. Typically, predictive techniques present a scrollable assortment of possible words that the user may be trying to spell, with the most probable choices listed higher in the list. The user selects the appropriate choice by scrolling if necessary and selecting, rather than finishing the letter-by-letter input. However, an erroneous user resolution of an ambiguity can take significant input time and keystrokes to correct, and the device may not know the particular word that the user is trying to write depending upon its dictionary size and source.
A related technique is referred to as disambiguation, because although a single multi-assigned keystroke may be ambiguous, multiple keystrokes can generally be resolved, or disambiguated, to a specific intended word with reasonable probability. In this technique, a user hits each multi-assigned button only once during sequence entry, and the device decides, after several characters, or after entry ends, which word or word portion in a stored database fits the input sequence. If multiple words or word portions in the database fit the sequence, then the user must select from among the possibilities. While this technique may work reasonably well with respect to English, it is impractical to implement in many other languages. Moreover, this technique shares certain drawbacks with the predictive techniques in that an erroneous user resolution of an ambiguity can take significant input time and keystrokes to correct.
Other input mechanisms include handwriting recognition, such as from a stylus entry pad or otherwise. However, the rate for correct recognition is fairly low for English implementations, and recognition rates in other languages are even worse. For example, handwritten Japanese characters are extremely difficult to correctly recognize, and an incorrect recognition consumes time and effort to correct.

Software multi-tap input system and method


A method and apparatus for precisely locating, aligning, targeting, and marking locations for fastener holes in structures is disclosed. The method and apparatus utilizes laser devices to project laser beams through alignment tools to determine the proper location and orientation of the fastener holes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses for aligning and installing fasteners. In particular, the present invention relates to marking blank removable and interchangeable panels for drilling fastener holes.
2. Description of Related Art
Current methods for marking blank removeable and interchangeable panels include the use of hole finders, stud bolts, and/or custom jig tools. In the hole-finder and stud-bolt methods, hole locations are transferred to a parallel surface offset from the substructure. The main problem with these methods is that they are not sufficiently precise in replicating hole locations, i.e., they are not accurate within close tolerances and become increasingly more difficult to use as the curvature of the panel becomes more complex. Although custom jig tools provide a more accurate transfer of the hole locations to the blank panel, the monetary cost and process time make the use of custom jig tools prohibitive.
Thus, many shortcomings remain in the area of aligning and marking blank removable and interchangeable panels for the installation of fasteners.

Method and apparatus for locating and aligning fasteners


The invention relates to a milk foaming device with a mixing chamber, which is arranged downstream of a steam supply pipe and which is connected to a milk and/or milk/air supply pipe, and a discharge device for the mixture arranged downstream of the mixing chamber, which has a number of discharge channels. The emitted milk foam flow is to be improved. To achieve this the discharge openings of the discharge channels are sloped at an angle to the cross-sectional plane of the discharge channel and the slope angles of the discharge openings of the discharge channels have the same vertex.

A device of this nature is, for example, known from DE 20204085 U1. Here, the milk/air mixture is passed into the milk chamber where it is mixed with steam. Directly following the mixing chamber is a settling section consisting of a number of settling channels in parallel to the flow, each of which forms a discharge opening on an open end for the discharge of a milk foam flow to the outside. According to the associated EP 1344477 B1 the clearance diameter of the cross-section of each of these settling channels should be dimensioned in a ratio to its length which is 1 to at least 10 overall divided by the number of settling channels. Due to very long settling channels which are relatively small in cross-section, the steam/air/milk mixture flows as evenly as possible from the device and no splashes arise. The disadvantage is however that the channels are relatively small in cross-section, but relatively long, resulting in the requirement for continual cleaning. Otherwise the channels become very quickly blocked with clinging milk protein. Moreover, the relatively long settling section also leads to the forming of a relatively long foaming device.
Further measures for settling the steam/air/milk mixture discharged from the mixing chamber are described in EP 0858757 B1 and in EP 1115317 B1.


A set of requests for a shared dependent service are generated by a first cmicroservice of a set of collaborating microservices. A microservice request data set is received from request flow controller modules of other microservices of the set of collaborating microservices. The microservice request data set includes information indicative of requests to the shared dependent service made by the other collaborating microservices. A request flow controller module of the first microservice of the set of collaborating microservices synchronizes between the requests generated by the first microservice, and the requests indicated in the microservice request data set. The synchronized requests from the set of collaborating microservices to the shared dependent service are maintained according to processing capabilities of the shared dependent service.

The present invention relates to provision of cloud services and more particularly to provision of cloud services where multiple requesting microservices share a dependent service.
There is no industry consensus yet regarding the properties of microservices, and an official definition is missing as well. For purposes of this document, a "microservice" is defined as set of code that includes instructions and data for performing a computational function (called a "service") in a manner so that: (i) the microservice can be used with other microservices to make applications in the form of collections of loosely coupled services; (ii) the service provided by the microservice is fine-grained; and (iii) the protocols of the microservice are lightweight.
Some other possible characteristics of microservices may include one, or more, of the following (herein collectively referred to as the "Twenty Possible Microservices Characteristics"): (i) services in a microservice architecture (MSA) are often processes that communicate over a network to fulfill a goal using technology-agnostic protocols (herein referred to as "network-communicative microservices"); (ii) microservices respectively provide services that are independently deployable (herein referred to as "independently deployable microservices"); (iii) the services are easy to replace (herein referred to as "easily replaceable microservices"); (iv) services are organized around capabilities (for example, user interface front-end, recommendation, logistics, billing, etc.) (herein referred to as "capability-centric microservices"); (v) services can be implemented using different programming languages, databases, hardware and software environments, depending on what fits best (herein referred to as "generically-implementable microservices"); (vi) messaging enabled; (vii) bounded by contexts; (viii) autonomously developed; (ix) decentralized; (x) built and released with automated processes (herein referred to as "automated microservices"); (xi) naturally enforces a modular structure; (xii) lends itself to a continuous delivery software development process; (xiii) a change to a small part of the application only requires rebuilding and redeploying only one or a small number of services; (xiv) adheres to principles of business-driven development (for example, domain-driven design); (xv) uses IDEAL cloud application architectures; (xvi) uses polyglot programming and persistence; (xvii) uses lightweight container deployment; (xviii) exhibits decentralized continuous delivery; (xix) uses DevOps with holistic service monitoring; and/or (xx) provides characteristics that are beneficial to scalability.
It is known that there may be dependencies among and/or between microservices. Dependencies are any type of coupling among and/or between software modules. Dependencies include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following types (herein collectively referred to as "Eleven Possible Dependency Types"): (i) "low" (also "loose" and "weak"); (ii) "high" (also "tight" and "strong"); (iii) procedural programming type; (iv) content coupling; (v) common coupling; (vi) external coupling; (vii) control coupling; (viii) stamp coupling (also referred to as data-structured coupling); (ix) data coupling; (x) subclass coupling; and/or (xi) temporal coupling.
Cloud computing has evolved to allow previously-developed services that are available within the cloud to be reused and integrated to create new services. Certain patterns of development have emerged in cloud computing, and integration of microservices is one such pattern.

Microservices request flow control synchronization

International Business Machines Corporation


In a semiconductor memory device and an internal data transmission method thereof, the device includes a memory controller, a pair of data lines, and a plurality of memory banks. During an internal data transmission operation, the memory controller externally receives and stores a source address and a target address in response to an externally applied command and outputs an internal control signal and an internal address signal using the source address and the target address. The internal control signal includes an internal write signal and an internal read signal. Transmission data is transmitted on the pair of data lines during the internal data transmission operation. The plurality of memory banks read the transmission data stored in a region corresponding to the source address in response to the internal read signal, transmit the transmission data on the pair of data lines, and write the transmission data transmitted on the pair of data lines in response to the internal write signal. During the internal data transmission operation, the transmission data is transmitted from the region corresponding to the source address to a region corresponding to the target address, and is not output external to the semiconductor memory device.

1. Field
Example embodiments relate to a semiconductor memory device, and more particularly, to a semiconductor memory device capable of efficiently transmitting data during a memory copy operation in which data stored in a predetermined internal region of the semiconductor memory device is copied to another internal region, and further to an internal data transmission method of the semiconductor memory device.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, the need for a memory copy operation, in which data stored in a predetermined internal region of a semiconductor memory device is copied to another internal region, is increasing, and data traffic transmitted during the memory copy operation is also increasing. For example, when a plurality of operating systems are employed on a computer system, data stored in a predetermined internal region of a semiconductor memory device needs to be copied to another internal region thereof. There is a growing tendency to apply a plurality of operating systems on a computer system, and an improvement in the functionality of the operating systems may lead to a rise in data traffic transmitted during a memory copy operation.

Semiconductor memory device and internal data transmission method thereof


Improved spinal instruments are provided. In particular, the present application relates to an improved rongeur that allows for multiple bites of bone to be performed in a patient before removing the rongeur from the patient. The rongeur includes a lower shaft and an upper shaft slidable relative to the lower shaft. The lower shaft and upper shaft form a jaw mechanism that can take multiple bites of bone, which can be deposited in a storage cavity formed in the upper shaft. To assist in removing the bone from within the storage cavity, an internal plunger mechanism can be provided that is actuated by a finger hold. In addition, at least portions of the upper shaft are detachable from the lower shaft such that the upper shaft can be thoroughly cleaned and re-used if desired.

During spinal surgeries, a rongeur can be used to remove bone. Typically, rongeurs may be designed to take a single bite of bone at a time. After each bite, the rongeur is taken out of a surgical site to retrieve the bone material. Removing the rongeur out of the body after each bite is inefficient and increases the risk of contamination to the patient. Furthermore, rongeurs are often difficult to clean.
Thus, there remains a need for an improved rongeur that has increased efficiency, cleanliness and provides greater safety to a patient.


Footgear is provided with an inner sole having a grid of removable resilient elements to permit removal of selected elements to provide relief to ulcerated or otherwise injured areas of the foot. An air bladder may underlie the inner sole, preferably with additional cushioning material within the air bladder. A walker with a soft goods type support may be provided with the foregoing type of inner sole within the support.

The problems solved by the present invention were discussed at length in the prior patent application cited above,and the background section of that application will therefore be repeated here.
Support pads are used in a wide variety of applications to provide cushioned support to an injured or otherwise sensitive bodily appendage. Such pads have the dual purpose of (1) providing orthopaedic support to the appendage and (2) protecting the appendage from further injury or damage resulting from contact with a foreign object or hard surface.
One common use of a support pad is as a cushioned foot sole in specialized footwear such as soft boots or patient walkers. These devices generally employ some type of soft, resilient material, such as foam, to provide cushioned support of a sensitive or damaged foot.
A particular problem arises when it becomes necessary to provide uneven support across the outer surface of an appendage. For example, an ulcerated appendage, often found in diabetic patients, requires pressure relief to the ulcerated area to allow healing. In this instance, it is desirable to have a pad which will apply cushioned support to the appendage, while refraining from supporting the afflicted area. For diabetic patients, the feet are commonly beset with such ulcerations, and it is therefore desirable to provide a cushioned support sole for a shoe or walker which is capable of providing specific zones of pressure relief.
Other approaches have addressed the problem of providing cushioned foot support. U.S. Pat. No. 2,598,217 (Bronson), issued May 27, 1952, discloses an invalid's boot with a thick insole. However, these approaches require replacement of the sole for each new patient, or for each new area of the original patient's foot which must be relieved.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,056 (Rudy), teaches a method for conforming a ski boot to the foot of the wearer by heating an inflatable bladder, distending it to the desired shape, and then cooling and deflating the bladder. The bladder can be subsequently be re-inflated to fit the wearer's foot. This method requires a mechanism for heating, which may be inconvenient or impractical when applied to a conformable sole. In the method disclosed, the inflatable bladder was placed over the foot to contact opposing sides, rather than underneath it as a support. Moreover, the elastomeric materials described in the Rudy patent typically may not provide the requisite comfort and cushioning generally required in a healing device.
A further method of providing support to an injured foot is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,128 (Grim, et al.) in which a removable leg walker includes a plurality of inflatable and adjustable bladder members in order to provide variable amounts of pressure to an affected limb as leg swelling increases or decreases. However, the bladder members of the Grim device do not retain their shape except as restrained by the surface of the appendage itself and thus do not provide the desired semi-permanent areas of relief to an injured appendage.
Incidentally, the above-cited U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/965,750 discloses arrangements which provide relief using a pad of particulate material which is vacuum formed to the desired configuration.
From an overall standpoint, a principal object of the present invention is to provide a comfortable cushioned sole which may be conveniently modified to provide pressure relief to specific areas of the wearer's foot.
Another important object of the invention is to furnish a device which may be reused to provide relief to different areas of the patient's foot, or which may be used by other patients.
A further object is to provide a method for conforming a cushioned sole to the foot of a particular wearer, and of later reforming or returning the sole to its original shape.


A metallic seal design that reduces manufacturing costs by minimizing production steps and also lowers the sealing force by incorporating a thin-wall, high height/width ratio annular column. The seal has two horizontal ribs which constrain the thin-wall column from unstable buckling to thereby reduce or eliminate the tendency of the sealing dams to become inclined to sealing flange surfaces.

Elastomeric seals generally are not suitable for ultra high vacuum (UHV) sealing applications because of the inherent open structure of polymeric chains through which molecular gaseous species can diffuse. The lowest achievable He leak rate through elastomeric seals is typically 10−8 cc/sec. Using metallic seals, He leak rates in the range of 10−9-10−11 cc/sec can be easily obtained. Metallic seals, however, generally require high sealing force (Fs) also referred to as mechanical contact pressure Pmc where Pmc=Fs/As and As is the area of the sealing dam. If Pmc exceeds the yield strength of the sealing flange material, flange surfaces can be brinelled when they compress the metallic seal between them to achieve UHV. If brinelled, the flange surfaces will typically require reconditioning before installing new seals. Therefore, metallic seals have been designed to reduce the force required to compress the seal by optimizing seal cross section.
Metallic seals can also offer a longer seal life compared to elastomeric seals in applications where process chemicals would otherwise degrade an elastomeric material, for example in semiconductor processing applications. Elastomeric seals are attacked by highly reactive radicals such as NF3 and O2 which severely damage the polymeric chain structure thereby limiting the seal life. Metallic seals made from nickel, aluminum, tin, and/or stainless steel, for example, can be used in appropriate environments in which specific alloys are found inert. Because of extremely low leakage characteristics, metallic seals are often used to seal poisonous gases, such as PH3 commonly used in semiconductor processing. Metallic seals of appropriate design can achieve leak rates even lower than welded joints. For example, He can have a higher molecular diffusion rate through weld defects than through a metallic seal due to micro cracks, grain boundaries and/or porosity of the welds.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,409,180 to Spence et al. ("Spence") discloses a UHV metallic seal design similar to the one shown in FIG. 1. The Spence seal consists of four sections: two beams 1 and 2, a column 3, two diagonal braces 4 and 5, and two sealing dams 6 and 7. The diagonal brace angle is 35 to 55 degrees. An recessed surface ABC between beams 1 and 2 forms variable width column 3 having a minimum width at the center.
When the flanges 9 and 10 compress the seal, the seal height is reduced as the column 3 undergoes stable buckling maintaining the sealing dam surfaces 6 and 7 parallel to the sealing surfaces of flange 9 and 10, as illustrated in FIG. 2.
A number of steps are typically necessary for machining the Spence seals from a hollow tube. For example, and with reference to FIG. 3, one method of making the Spence seal may include:                (i) machining an annular recessed surface ABC with a tool T1 having the desired profile;        (ii) sectioning the individual seals,        (iii) machining the first sealing dam with a second tool T2; and        (iv) machining the second sealing dam.
An alternative method might include:                (i) machining the annular recessed surface ABC with a first tool T1;        (ii) machining another annular recess with a second tool T2 to form the sealing dams; and        (iii) sectioning individual seals.
There are several disadvantages of the Spence seal design. For example, the large number of machining steps can increase production cost, and the variable thickness column including the braced section requires a high sealing force (Fs) and Pmc which can cause brinelling of the sealing surfaces of the flanges.


A method and apparatus of installing an operating system are provided. According to an example of the method, a server reads an image file of an operating system from a system providing device, wherein the image file comprises address information corresponding to an automatic response script file, and the automatic response script file is not stored at a position corresponding to the address information. The server receives the automatic response script file provided by the system providing device in response to that the reading by the server advances to the position corresponding to the address information. The server installs the operating system by using the automatic response script file.

A large number of servers may be deployed in a data center, for example, there are usually thousands of servers deployed. Therefore, the workload to install an Operating System (OS) on each of servers is heavy. In order to reduce the workload, a server may automatically install the OS to reduce the cost of human resources. For example, a Kickstart (KS) file as an automatic response script file may be configured for a server, and then how to install the OS may be determined based on the KS file, so as to achieve the purpose of automatically installing the OS.
In order to achieve the above automatic installing process, a KS file may be packaged into an image file of an operating system. In this way, the server may acquire the KS file from the image file after acquiring the image file of the operating system, and then how to install the OS may be determined based on the KS file.
However, since KS files corresponding to different servers may be different, it is required that different image files are generated for servers with different KS files. In this way, a plurality of image files will be generated. One image file may have a size of several G bytes, and therefore a plurality of image files will inevitably take up much storage space.


A braking system for a vehicle, which can prevent an alteration in brake pedal toe force when a brake hydraulic pressure is increased or decreased based on a regenerative braking force obtained by a drive motor in an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle, and a braking method thereof. To prevent an alteration in brake pedal toe force, the vehicle braking system includes a brake reservoir to receive brake oil therein, a normal close type valve to connect the brake reservoir to an inlet of a pump generating a hydraulic pressure in a brake line, a drive motor serving as a generator, the drive motor being adapted to convert a kinetic energy of the vehicle into electric energy to brake the vehicle by regenerative braking, and a control unit to recognize the amount of regenerative braking obtained by the drive motor and the amount of braking desired by a vehicle operator and to control the normal close type valve, so as to compensate for a brake hydraulic pressure corresponding to a difference between the regenerative braking amount and the desired braking amount by use of the brake oil in the reservoir.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a braking system for a vehicle, and, more particularly, to a braking system for a vehicle, which can prevent an alteration in brake pedal toe force when a brake hydraulic pressure is increased or decreased based on a regenerative braking force obtained by a drive motor in an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle, and a braking method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in operation of a braking system, if a vehicle operator presses a brake pedal, a pressure corresponding to a boost ratio of a booster is generated in a master cylinder based on a pedal toe force applied by the vehicle operator. As the pressure is transmitted to each wheel brake device through a valve, a wheel braking operation is realized. Differently from the above described conventional braking system, an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle employs a drive motor as a electric generator, and uses a regenerative braking force as well as a frictional braking force to brake a vehicle.
Recently, restrictions related to exhaust gas have been tightened to prevent air pollution by exhaust gas of vehicles. Accordingly, to reduce the discharge amount of exhaust gas in response to the restrictions, electric vehicles using electricity as drive power or hybrid vehicles using electricity and gasoline together are becoming increasingly more widely used.
Electric vehicles include a high-capacity drive motor and a battery for storing electric energy, and are driven as the battery is charged and the drive motor is operated using the electric energy charged in the battery. The electric vehicles are clean vehicles completely free from the discharge of exhaust gas and are increasingly used to prevent air pollution. Hybrid vehicles are a cross between oil-powered vehicles and electric vehicles, and can be referred to as transient vehicles being spread at low costs prior to high-cost electric vehicles becoming more common.
In the case of the electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles, if the vehicle operator presses a brake pedal, a resulting pedal operating speed and pedal toe force are detected by a pedal travel sensor, and thus, a brake hydraulic pressure corresponding thereto can be calculated and generated by a hydraulic pump, etc. The electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles have a drive motor for the traveling of vehicles. During a speed-reduction or braking operation, the drive motor functions as a generator using a reverse torque of vehicle wheels, thereby serving to charge the battery. Also, the drive motor generates a regenerative braking force during the speed-reduction or braking operation. The regenerative braking force depends on various factors, such as the charge state of the battery, the speed of a vehicle, etc. Under the presence of the regenerative braking force, a brake hydraulic pressure has to be increased or decreased to fulfill the amount of braking desired by the vehicle operator.
FIG. 2 is a graph showing variations of frictional braking force and regenerative braking force depending on time. In an initial state of braking, a vehicle can be braked sufficiently only by the amount of regenerative braking. In this case, a brake hydraulic pressure is decreased by directing a hydraulic pressure generated by a vehicle operator's pedal toe force to other sites, thereby allowing the vehicle to be braked sufficiently only by the regenerative braking. However, in the case where such a decrease in brake hydraulic pressure is realized by brake oil in a master cylinder, there is a problem in that a brake pedal is depressed unintentionally due to a decreased pressure, thereby providing the vehicle operator with unusual pedal feeling. Although an electro-hydraulic brake (EHB) may be used to keep a braking pressure and pedal pressure constant, the EHB has problems of complicated structure and high costs thereof, and suffers from deterioration in braking reliability/durability.

Braking system for vehicle and braking method thereof


A circuit chip having a loop-shaped antenna coil on a main surface and a tag sheet having an antenna pattern on a main surface are prepared, and the circuit chip is mounted on the main surface of the tag sheet so as not to place over the antenna pattern. The circuit chip is placed closely to the antenna pattern, and at least the half of the main surface is desirably faced against the antenna pattern. Thus, signals and/or power can be securely exchanged between the circuit chip (or antenna coil) and the antenna pattern. Therefore, a high-performance and rigid RFID tag can be obtained by roughly aligning the circuit chip and the tag sheet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of an RFID tag and a manufacturing process for an RFID tag.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional semiconductor apparatus has a structure in which multiple connection terminals on a surface of an IC chip are contact-fixed to and electrically connected to a connection part of an antenna sheet of an RFID tag, as disclosed in JP-A-8-88586, which requires precise alignment and fixing of the connection terminals of the IC chip and the connection part of the antenna sheet. For that reason, if the IC chip is finer, the connection terminals are necessarily finer and must be placed closely to each other, requiring high precision is required for the alignment. In order to implement the electrical connection securely, the IC chip must be placed with the surface having the connection terminals faced against the connection part of the antenna sheet, and not only the position of the IC chip but also the front and back and/or orientation must be adjusted securely about the antenna sheet. As a result, a flip chip bonder, which is expensive and has a slow takt time, must be used to mount the IC chip to the antenna sheet, which disadvantageously increases the manufacturing costs.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-8-88586


A hardware profiling mechanism implemented by performance monitoring hardware enables page level automatic binary translation. The hardware during runtime identifies a code page in memory containing potentially optimizable instructions. The hardware requests allocation of a new page in memory associated with the code page, where the new page contains a collection of counters and each of the counters corresponds to one of the instructions in the code page. When the hardware detects a branch instruction having a branch target within the code page, it increments one of the counters that has the same position in the new page as the branch target in the code page. The execution of the code page is repeated and the counters are incremented when branch targets fall within the code page. The hardware then provides the counter values in the new page to a binary translator for binary translation.

Computer programs are normally compiled into binary code for a particular computer processor architecture. This causes a problem when the computer processor evolves to implement more advanced instruction sets, more powerful functional units, or different data formats. Each time a new generation of processors is introduced, computer hardware and software venders have to spend significant engineering resources as well as monetary resources to help the old computer programs to run on the new computer processors.
In modern computers, compiled binary code is typically decoded into microcode by a decoder at the front end of a processor. One existing approach to enable old software to run on new processors is dynamic binary translation that translates the binary code from one instruction set to another instruction set. If the compiled binary code contains a hot spot, which is a frequently executed portion of the program, binary translation can be performed on a code region containing the hot spot instead of on the entire code. The result of such partial binary translation is processor-specific and optimized code.
To perform partial binary translation on hot spots, an effective hot spot detection mechanism needs to be in place first. Conventional hot spot detection mechanisms collect and analyze the runtime statistics of binary code to thereby determine the existence of a hot spot. However, conventional hot spot detection mechanisms can use a large amount of memory for storing the collected statistics and can incur significant hardware cost for tracking the runtime behavior of the binary code.
After a hot spot is detected, translator software is invoked to produce an optimized version of the hot spot code. The optimized code is then installed in memory and the optimized version is executed instead of the original native code. The process of finding and optimizing hot spots takes a considerable amount of processing time and hardware resources, which could otherwise be spent executing native code. However, due to the hardware and software limitations, current systems identify and translate the same hot spots, as well as store and install the same optimized code for each virtual address and context in which the hot spots were detected. Thus, the hot spots contained in the same code are redetected and reinstalled every time a new context is created, even if the whole process had been performed previously for the same code. Therefore, system resources are utilized inefficiently and system performance is degraded.

Hardware profiling mechanism to enable page level automatic binary translation


A development roller according to the present invention includes a magnet roller in which a magnet portion generating a magnetic force and a shaft portion projecting from the magnet portion are formed integrally, wherein a recess is provided on an end surface of the magnet portion on a side of the shaft portion.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a development roller and an image forming apparatus including the development roller.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, toner is supplied to an electrostatic latent image formed on an image carrier to prepare a toner image, and the toner image is transferred to a paper to obtain a recorded image.
As a unit that supplies the toner to the electrostatic latent image, a development roller is used. The development roller includes a development sleeve formed in a cylindrical shape and made of a non-magnetic material, and a magnet roller housed in the development sleeve and forming a magnetic field to cause toner napping to be generated on a surface of the development sleeve.
The magnet roller normally includes a magnet portion forming a magnetic field and a shaft portion adapted to support the magnet portion in the development sleeve.
In such an image forming apparatus, it is important to arrange the magnet roller at an accurate position with respect to the image carrier for achievement of a good recorded image.
To this end is developed the magnet roller in which the magnet portion and the shaft portion are formed integrally with use of an equal material to prevent relative positions of the magnet portion and the shaft portion from being misaligned.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2000-114031 describes such a magnet roller in which the magnet portion and the shaft portion are formed integrally, in which the magnet portion is formed so that end portions thereof may be gradually thinned. The reason for thinning the end portions of the magnet portion in this manner is to weaken magnetic forces generated at the end portions to cause a magnetic force distribution in an axial direction to be uniform (even).
On the other hand, as for a magnetic force distribution in a circumferential direction of the magnet roller, toner napping cannot be generated on the surface of the development sleeve without an intensity variation in the magnetic force.
In a case where the end portions of the magnet portion are thinned even under such circumstances, the magnetic force distribution in the circumferential direction will be broad (a state in which the intensity variation in the magnetic force is not apparent). This causes a problem in which the magnetic force cannot be maximum at a position contacting the image carrier, and in which a good recorded image cannot be obtained.

Development roller having magnetic roller and image forming apparatus including the development roller


An input device includes: a touch device configured to receive a user operation; an actuator configured to apply a vibration corresponding to a drive voltage to the touch device; and a processor. The processor is configured to: apply a first voltage to the actuator to vibrate the touch device with a first vibration in response to a touch-down during a touch operation, the touch-down in which a pressing force of a predetermined value or more is detected from start of touch to the touch device; and apply a second voltage lower than the first voltage to the actuator to vibrate the touch device with a second vibration in response to a touch release during the touch operation, the touch release in which a pressing force of a value lower than the predetermined value after the touch-down is detected.

An electronic device such as a smartphone and a tablet terminal has been able to display various applications on a screen of a relatively small display device and improved in operability, by arranging a touch panel on the display device to enable a touch operation.
In an input device that receives a touch operation of a touch panel, a touch switch, or the like, a haptics technology has also been adopted in which tactile feedback due to a vibration is given to a human fingertip to prevent operation mistakes and improve operability (see, for example, Japanese Patent No. 5597452).
In the field of an in-vehicle device, in addition to car navigation of related art, an in-vehicle system including cooperation with smartphones or the like, an Internet connection function, or the like has been adopted, and also in a display device, adoption of a touch panel as a user interface is expanding. Even in such an in-vehicle system, it is conceivable to improve the operability using the touch panel employing the tactile feedback.

PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.


Apparatus and methods for forming and using internally divisible physical vapor deposition (PVD) process chambers using shutter disks are provided herein. In some embodiments, an internally divisible process chamber may include an upper chamber portion having a conical shield, a conical adaptor, a cover ring, and a target, a lower chamber portion having a substrate support having inner and outer deposition rings, and wherein the substrate support is vertically movable, and a shutter disk assembly configured to internally divide the process chamber and create a separate sealed deposition cavity and a separate sealed oxidation cavity, wherein the shutter disk assembly includes one or more seals disposed along its outer edges and configured to contact at least one of the conical shield, the conical adaptor, or the deposition rings to form the separate sealed deposition and oxidation cavities.

There is a need to repeatably deposit high uniformity films, for example, Magnesium Oxide (MgO) films among others, in a single process chamber. Depositing Mg and then oxidizing it in a single PVD chamber, for example, has poor substrate-to-substrate repeatability because most of the oxygen for oxidizing the substrate is used up oxidizing the targets and shields in the chamber. The amount of oxygen used on the target and shields depends on chamber conditions, therefore the amount of oxygen available for each substrate can vary greatly.
Typically, in order to produce very repeatable layers of oxidized Mg, Mg is deposited in one chamber and the substrate is then moved to another chamber to oxidize the Mg film. This sequence may require multiple layers, for example, as many as 12 layers of MgO, and has extremely low throughput.
Thus, the inventors have provided embodiments of internally divisible process chambers to allow film deposition and oxidation/gas reactions on substrates to occur within a single process chamber without reacting with other deposited surfaces in chamber.

Internally divisible process chamber using a shutter disk assembly


Provided is a kneaded dough dividing apparatus including a divider having a single dough inlet receiving kneaded dough and two dough outlets for discharging the received kneaded dough as two streams of kneaded dough. The apparatus includes a dough supply pipe continuously supplying kneaded dough to the dough inlet of the divider, and a pressure distribution changing plate provided in the dough supply pipe. The pressure distribution changing plate having a width in a direction traversing a cross-section of the dough supply pipe as seen in the cross-section and a length extending from an upstream end to downstream end of the pressure distribution changing plate. The pressure distribution changing plate is twisted so that a direction of the width at the downstream end is generally at a right angle to a direction of the width at the upstream end.

In the production of bread, a mass of kneaded dough is prepared in a mixer, and the mass of kneaded dough is extruded as a continuous stream of kneaded dough by a pump and divided into a plurality of streams of kneaded dough through a kneaded dough dividing apparatus. Thereafter, each stream of kneaded dough is divided into small pieces necessary for bread baking.
A kneaded dough dividing apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,387,521. The kneaded dough dividing apparatus includes a divider having a dough inlet receiving one continuous stream of kneaded dough discharged from a horizontally extending screw extruder (pump) communicated with an opening at the lower end of a hopper receiving the above-described mass of kneaded dough. The divider discharges the received kneaded dough as two continuous streams of kneaded dough from two dough outlets positioned in bilateral symmetry at the downstream side of the dough inlet. A similar divider is connected at a dough inlet thereof to each of the two dough outlets of the first-mentioned divider. In this way, dividers are connected successively from the upstream side toward the downstream side to produce a required number of streams of kneaded dough. Each divider has an outlet control member adjusting the respective opening areas of the two dough outlets. The outlet control member reduces the opening area of one of the two dough outlets when enlarging the opening area of the other of the two dough outlets and reduces the opening area of the other dough outlet when enlarging the opening area of the one dough outlet, thereby allowing the total amount of kneaded dough discharged from the divider to be kept substantially constant, and hence enabling the pressure in the divider to be kept substantially constant, and thus allowing the quality of kneaded dough discharged from the divider to be kept constant.
However, it has been found that the kneaded dough dividing apparatus having the above-described divider is not necessarily satisfactory in terms of the quality of dough discharged therefrom from the viewpoint of obtaining dough of even more ideally uniform quality. That is, it has been found that the quality of kneaded dough is somewhat different for each dough outlet of the dough dividing apparatus discharging the dough. The quality of kneaded dough is considered to depend on various factors acting on the kneaded dough in the kneaded dough passage from the discharge from the screw extruder to the discharge from the dough outlets of the kneaded dough dividing apparatus. Therefore, it has been difficult to determine the cause of nonuniformity in quality of kneaded dough. In this regard, the present inventors have conducted various studies and, as a result, found that the cause of the quality nonuniformity of kneaded dough is the internal pressure conditions in the kneaded dough when extruded from the screw extruder. That is, kneaded dough is supplied from the hopper to the screw extruder, transferred rectilinearly through the screw extruder and extruded from an outlet directed at right angles to the transfer direction. Immediately before being extruded from the outlet, the kneaded dough, which has been transferred rectilinearly so far, is pressed against the terminating end surface of the screw extruder, and then turned at a right angle before being discharged from the outlet. Accordingly, the kneaded dough pressed against the terminating end surface is subjected to a high pressure, and the pressure applied to the kneaded dough decreases as the distance from the terminating end surface increases toward the hopper. Consequently, kneaded dough extruded from the outlet in the form of a laminar flow has a pressure gradient in a horizontal direction as seen in a cross-section thereof When such kneaded dough is received into the divider and discharged from the two dough outlets, being divided into right and left streams of kneaded dough, a difference is made between the internal pressures of the two streams of kneaded dough discharged from the dough outlets. The present inventors have found that the above-described pressure difference has an effect on the quality of each stream of kneaded dough discharged from the kneaded dough dividing apparatus.


A sickle cutting system is mounted on a header for forward travel over ground having a standing crop thereon and includes a cutter bar with a plurality of knife guards and two sickle bars driven at a phase angle difference where the drive system has a phase difference control component operable to drive the first and second sickle bars at a first phase angle difference typically at or around 180 degrees difference to minimize vibration when no cutting action is occurring and at a second phase angle difference which can be at or around 90 degrees to minimize variations in loading applied to the drive system when the cutting action is taking place.

Where the cutter bar and sickle are long, in some arrangements, two sickle bar sections are provided end to end which are reciprocated independently. In some cases the two sickle bars are driven by independent drive systems where there is no control over the phase difference, so this varies over time with the sickle bars being in phase at some times and at some other changing phase difference at other times. Thus the movement of the sickle bars can generate undesirable vibration of the cutting system during the times where the two sickle bars are at or close to being in phase where the vibration is added.
In some arrangements a connection between the two drives is provided to keep the sickle bar movements as much as reasonably possible consistently at 180 degrees angle difference which acts to drive the two bars in opposite directions to subtract the vibration.
In the US Published Application 2017/0127611 published May 11, 2017 by the present applicants is disclosed a drive arrangement for split sickle bar sections which utilizes separate drives for each sickle bar and provides an arrangement for controlling the relative reciprocating movement of the sickle bars to maintain them at the set 180 degree angle difference. This is carried out by providing a plurality of markers on the movement so that, by continually counting the markers, the speed of drive of the sickle bars can be relatively increased or decreased to try to maintain the alignment of the markers.

Dual sickle knife drive with variable phase angle


A method and apparatus for accurately determining and setting the optimal nozzle drive voltage for an ink jet printer. The current carried by charged test drops is monitored by a sensing electrode and ammeter while the nozzle drive voltage is slowly varied between minimum and maximum points. A plot of drop current versus nozzle drive voltage provides an accurate determination of the good printing window for the particular nozzle under the operating conditions presented. This arrangement can be used for calibrating a new nozzle in an existing printer or for calibrating a new ink or font to ensure that operation will occur within the desired print window.

This invention relates to commercial and industrial ink jet printers of the type commonly used for marking of products. Such devices require high speed and high reliability and must operate in somewhat hostile environments in terms of temperature, service intervals and the like. When an ink jet printer is being readied for use, it has been necessary to calibrate the printer for the particular characteristics of the ink and nozzle it is to use. In the prior art, it is known to use certain characteristics of the printing operation to approximate the nozzle drive voltage at which good printing operations can be obtained. For example, it is known to determine the infinite satellite condition and the foldback point of an ink drop stream. The former is a condition in which the small satellites which form between drops, neither forwardly nor rearwardly merge with the main drops. The foldback condition is an upper bound in which the breakoff point of the drops, relative to the nozzle, first reverses. The foldback condition is described more thoroughly in U.S. Pat. No. 5,196,860.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,196,860 to Pickell et al., assigned to the present assignee, detects one or both of these points and then selects a predetermined nozzle drive voltage somewhere between the two bounds. It does not, however, directly determine the true bounds of the print window. It relies on factory data concerning the ink and the nozzle to calculate a voltage that is expected to lie within the print window.
Another prior art method of estimating the drive voltage point within a print window is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,064 to Katerberg et al. In this patent, a D.C. voltage is applied to a drop charging electrode. The stream current is monitored as a function of charging voltage, and when a dip in the detected current appears this indicates that the satellites have been deflected by the deflection electrode. Further operation yields the foldback point from which a nozzle drive voltage is calculated as a fraction of the voltage at the foldback point. Again, this is an estimating technique dependant on factory data and detecting the foldback point.
The present invention, by contrast, is a method of automatically determining the actual nozzle drive "print window", that is, the range of nozzle drive voltages that provide substantially constant deflection of drops (i.e., desirable print quality) for a particular nozzle, ink type, font and stimulation voltage waveform combination. Thus, rather than estimating the print window, the nozzle operation is sampled and used to accurately determine the print window. It is possible therefore, for the first time, to test a printer whenever necessary, for example, upon installing a new nozzle or a different ink, thereby to positively determine the print window or range of nozzle drive values at which the printer can be operated to obtain good printing results.

Method and apparatus for automatic setting of nozzle drive voltage in an ink jet printer


Methods and apparatus for RFID communications in a process control system are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a non-volatile memory to be operatively coupled to a field device of a process control system; and a radio-frequency identification tag to be operatively coupled to the non-volatile memory. The non-volatile memory is to store data received from at least one of the field device or a radio-frequency identification writer via the radio-frequency identification tag. The radio-frequency identification tag is to wirelessly transmit the data to a radio-frequency identification reader. The data includes at least one of maintenance information, diagnostic information, or configuration information associated with the field device. The non-volatile memory and the radio-frequency identification tag to be physically coupled to the field device.

Process control systems, like those used in chemical, petroleum or other processes, typically include one or more process controllers communicatively coupled to one or more field devices via analog, digital or combined analog/digital buses. The field devices, which may be, for example, instruments, valve positioners, switches and transmitters (e.g., temperature, pressure and flow rate sensors), perform process control functions within the process such as opening or closing valves and measuring process control parameters. The process controllers receive signals indicative of process measurements made by the field devices and then process this information to generate control signals to implement control routines, to make other process control decisions, and to initiate process control system alarms.
Information from the field devices and/or the controller is usually made available over a data highway or communication network to one or more other devices or systems, such as operator work stations, personal computers, data historians, report generators, centralized databases, etc. Such devices or systems are typically located in control rooms and/or other locations remotely situated relative to the harsher plant environment. These devices or systems, for example, run applications that enable an operator to perform any of a variety of functions with respect to the process implemented by a process control system, such as viewing the current state of a process, changing an operating state, changing settings of a process control routine, modifying the operation of the process controllers and/or the field devices, viewing alarms generated by field devices and/or process controllers, simulating the operation of the process for the purpose of training personnel and/or evaluating the process, etc.


The present invention provides a personal-use search engine and a web crawler equipped with a login function. The present invention can construct and provide a search system and a database searchable and manageable by a user including a researcher or the like, by the user using a personal-use web crawler. After login with one-click SNS login function or login with e-mail, the user adds, to a database, sites crawled by a web crawler on a server accessible from a web browser. Accordingly, the user can obtain a satisfying search result from among data that is widely collected regarding a specific topic and can discover new valuable information in the data.

Conventionally, in a case where searching for information on the web, general users have searched only the websites registered on the search site operated by the search engine operating company.
The general users could not decide which site to be indexed by themselves, and searched for the site registered by the algorithm or the standard of the search engine operating company. The users such as researchers who wanted more information found the lack of the search results.

Search device, search application, and search method


A point of care diagnostic test, device and disposables for determining a patient risk for oral cancer in the same visit that a sample is collected.

All squamous cell carcinoma lesions are thought to begin via the repeated, uncontrolled division of cancer stem cells of epithelial lineage or characteristics. Accumulation of these cancer cells cause a microscopic focus of abnormal cells that are, at least initially, locally confined within the specific tissue in which the progenitor cell resided. This condition is called squamous cell carcinoma in situ, and it is diagnosed when the tumor has not yet penetrated the basement membrane or other delimiting structure to invade adjacent tissues. Once the lesion has grown and progressed to the point where it has breached, penetrated, and infiltrated adjacent structures, it is referred to as "invasive" squamous cell carcinoma. Once a carcinoma becomes invasive, it is able to spread to other organs and cause a metastasis or secondary tumor to form.
Oral cancer is a subtype of head and neck cancer and is any cancerous tissue growth located in the oral cavity. It may arise as a primary lesion originating in any of the oral tissues, by metastasis from a distant site of origin, or by extension from a neighboring anatomic structure, such as the nasal cavity. Oral cancers may originate in any of the tissues of the mouth, and may be of varied histologic types: teratoma, adenocarcinoma derived from a major or minor salivary gland, lymphoma from tonsillar or other lymphoid tissue, or melanoma from the pigment-producing cells of the oral mucosa. There are several types of oral cancers, but around 90% are squamous cell carcinomas, originating in the tissues that line the mouth and lips.
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a global health problem afflicting close to 300,000 people each year. Despite significant advances in surgical procedures and treatment, the long-term prognosis for patients with OSCC remains poor, with a 5-year survival rate at approximately 50%, which is among the lowest for all major cancers. High mortality associated with OSCC is often attributed to advanced disease stage at diagnosis, underscoring the need for new diagnostic methods targeting early tumor progression and malignant transformations.


A constant temperature chamber to be disposed in a handler for use with an IC tester is provided which is capable of preheating semiconductor devices to be measured to a preset temperature uniformly and in a short time. A rotary stage adapted to rotate with semiconductor devices to be measured loaded thereon is disposed in the bottom of the constant temperature chamber enclosed by thermal insulation walls. A heater is disposed in the upper portion of the constant temperature chamber. An axial-flow fan is positioned between the heater and the rotary stage. Further, a tubular flow-rectifying member is disposed surrounding and in proximity to the outer periphery of the axial-flow fan. A gas flow produced by rotatively driving the axial-flow fan is rectified by the flow-rectifying member with no turbulences occurring, and a circulating rectified gas flow is thereby formed from the axial-flow fan to pass through the rotary stage, and then advancing radially outwardly through between the undersurface of the rotary stage and the bottom thermal insulation wall of the constant temperature chamber, followed by rising in swirling streams along the interior of the thermal insulation walls of the chamber and flowing back to the axial-flow fan.

Many of semiconductor device testing apparatus (commonly called as IC tester) for measuring the electrical characteristics of semiconductor devices to be tested (i.e. devices under test) by applying signals of a predetermined test pattern to the devices have a semiconductor device transporting and handling or processing apparatus (as will be referred to as handler) integrally mounted thereto. One of the measurement items for the electric characteristics of a semiconductor device, for instance, a semiconductor integrated circuit (hereinafter referred to as IC) which is a typical of semiconductor devices is the temperature characteristic. In order to measure the temperature characteristic of a device, it is required to heat the device under test by applying temperature to it in a preheating stage disposed within a constant temperature or thermostatic chamber of the handler maintained at a predetermined temperature. In this case, to shorten the test time, it is needed to heat a number of devices under test introduced and loaded onto the preheating stage in such a manner that they will reach, uniformly and in a short time, a predetermined temperature at which they are to be measured for their temperature characteristics. For the benefit of simplifying the description, the following description will be discussed with reference to ICs which are typical of semiconductor devices.
FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate the construction of a prior art constant temperature chamber in the handler in which a preheating stage is provided for applying a temperature or hear to an IC to be measured until it reaches a predetermined set temperature in order to measure the temperature characteristic of it. As shown, the constant temperature chamber 11 is enclosed by thermal insulation walls 4 each having dimensions of about 600 mm.times.600 mm within which a rotary stage 5 (commonly called turntable) for preheating ICs is mounted. Attached to the top of the rotary stage 5 is a change kit 12 (which may be interchanged depending on the type, configuration, etc. of semiconductor devices to be tested) in the form of an annular disk onto which ICs 10 to be tested are introduced and loaded to be heated to a predetermined set temperature.
Shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is the construction of the prior art constant temperature chamber 11 including the rotary stage 5 for preheating. The rotary stage 5 is rotated at a predetermined speed by means of a rotary shaft 9 secured thereto at the center thereof which is rotatively driven from a drive source (not shown) located above the chamber 11. Mounted exteriorly below the bottom wall of the chamber is a fan motor 1 for rotatively driving an axial-flow fan or axial blower 2 positioned inside of the chamber 11 at the bottom thereof. The arrangement is such that rotation of the axial-flow fan 2 directs the heat from a spiral heater 3 located above the fan 2 toward the overlying rotary stage 5. The rotary stage 5 includes a central perforated plate 6 having a number of through-apertures extending axially of the rotary shaft 9 (in upward-downward direction as viewed in FIG. 1). ICs 10 to be tested (commonly called DUT) are loaded on the change kit 12 outside of the perforated plate 6. It is thus to be understood that circulating gas (air) flows 7 as indicated by arrows occur in which the heated gas from the heater 3 is forced by rotation of the axial-flow fan 2 to pass through the perforated plate 6 and be directed towards the ICs 10 under test resting on the rotary stage 5 at its outer section, followed by passing around the outer periphery of the rotary stage 5 back to the axial-flow fan 2. The ICs 10 under test loaded on the rotary stage 5 are thereby heated up to a preset temperature.
Upon reaching the preset temperature, the ICs under test are removed from the rotary stage 5 and conveyed to a testing section not shown for effecting tests (measurements) within the constant temperature chamber 11 to be subjected to the necessary testing.
With the constant temperature chamber 11 having the built-in rotary stage 5 constructed according to the prior art as described above, there also occur gas streams flowing laterally outwardly from the axial-flow fan 2 as indicated by arrows in FIG. 1, resulting in non-uniform temperature rise among the ICs 10 under test resting on the outer section of the rotary stage 5. That is, increases in temperature are uneven depending upon the location on the rotary stage 5, resulting in being undesirably unable to uniformly raise the temperature of all of the ICs under test. This has led to the disadvantage that a considerably long time is required before all of the ICs under test are heated up to and stabilized at the preset temperature.
When ICs under test are to be measured for their temperature characteristics, it is required that ICs to be tested be introduced and loaded onto the outer section of the rotary stage 5 for preheating just before the measurement and be subjected to uniform heat so that all of the ICs are uniformly heated up. In addition, to reduce the test time, it is necessary, as indicated above, to heat all of the ICs to be tested loaded on the rotary stage up to a predetermined temperature in a uniform and reliable manner and yet in a short time. There is thus a need for a constant temperature chamber of such a construction as to enable the axial-flow fan 2 to provide its characteristic as much as possible in applying the heat from the heater to the ICs to be tested.

Constant temperature chamber in a handler for semiconductor device testing apparatus


Stabilized lanthanum carbonate compositions containing a monosaccharide or disaccharide stabilizing agent are disclosed. Subjects having hyperphosphatemia can be treated by administering a pharmaceutical composition containing a therapeutically effective amount of the stabilized lanthanum carbonate formulation.

Hyperphosphatemia is a particular problem of patients with chronic renal insufficiency or chronic kidney disease (CKD). Approximately 70% of patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) on renal dialysis therapy require treatment for hyperphosphatemia. This condition can lead to severe bone problems and metastatic calcification of skin and major organs and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Conventional dialysis fails to reduce the levels of phosphate in the blood, so that levels rise in time. Elevated phosphate levels are treated using a combination of dietary restrictions and phosphate-binding agents.
Another problem of patients with chronic renal insufficiency is secondary hyperparathyroidism. It is also important in patients with chronic renal insufficiency to avoid and treat secondary hyperparathyroidism.
Certain forms of lanthanum carbonate have been used to treat hyperphosphatemia in patients with renal failure (see, e.g., JP 1876384).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,968,976, owned by the assignee of the present invention, describes the preparation and use in a pharmaceutical composition of certain hydrates of lanthanum carbonate for the treatment of hyperphosphatemia.
However, lanthanum carbonate has a tendency to degrade to lanthanum hydroxycarbonate. This process is accelerated by moisture and heat. There is a need in the art to prevent this degradation because current regulatory requirements preclude detectable decarboxylation for administration to patients. The present invention is based on the surprising finding that monosaccharides or disaccharides significantly retard the degradation of lanthanum carbonate, whereas more complex saccharides (e.g., corn starch and β-cyclodextrins) do not. Stabilized compositions of lanthanum carbonate can be used in pharmaceutical preparations and for treating subjects having hyperphosphatemia.


A guide device for rotatably supporting and for guiding a bar to a spindle of a machine tool; the device comprises: a first and a second set of opposed jaws to receive and rotatably support a bar to be fed to the spindle of the machine; one set of jaws is rotatably journalled by support members to rotate between a closed and an open condition of the guide. Axially spaced apart support members are provided for removable journalling the first and the second set of jaws, and a square rod system longitudinally extending between adjacent support members to slidably engage each set of jaws, preventing rotation of the same jaws in respect to the support square rods. Removable shaft members are provided in the square rod system for rotatably journalling the supporting rods for movable jaws, and elastically biasing elements to rotate the square rods and the set of movable jaws towards the fixed set of jaws of the guide device.

The present invention relates to improvements to the automatic bar feeders for multi-spindle machine tools, and more particularly it relates to a guide device for rotatably supporting bars or elongated material to be fed to a spindle of such machines. The invention also concerns an automatic bar feeder of the rotatable drum type, normally used for selectively feeding bars to be machined by a multi-spindle machine tool.
Guide devices for bar feeders of the aforementioned kind, are described for example in the patents U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,924 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,593 or U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,864.
These guide devices generally comprise a first set of fixed jaws and a second set of movable jaws, co-operating to receive and rotatably support a bar to be fed to a spindle of a machine tool; the movable set of jaws of each guide are rotatably mounted to rotate between a closed condition and an open condition of the guide, during each working cycle of the machine tool. A bar-pushing member travels inside the guide jaws to move the bar forwards in correlation with the working cycle of the machine tool.
These guide devices have been previously proposed in substitution of the traditional tubular guides, in particular owing to the possibility of side loading the bars, as shown for example in FIG. 3 of the patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,864. However, these known guide devices in practice are subject to several problems resulting from the intrinsic difficulty of using them for supporting and guiding both bars of small diameter and bars of large diameter or having different cross-sectioral dimensions; the specific structure of the guides itself, owing to the presence of a considerable number of hinges and connecting rods, does not allow easy assembly and rapid removal of the guides, sometime necessary for replacing the jaws and worn parts.
In fact, in the currently known guide devices, both the fixed jaws and the movable ones of each guide are fixedly connected to cylindrical rods which are fixed or hinged to support members arranged circumferentially and axially spaced on a rotatable central drum, to provide each guide device with the necessary structural continuity. The presence of several connecting rods and the considerable number of hinges results in considerable assembly and maintenance difficulties which, in the case of feeders of rotating-drum type, associated with machine tools operating at high-speed, or supplied with bars of large diameter, give rise to high noise levels as a result of the vibrations produced by the rapidly rotating bars. Finally, in bar feeders of the known type, the arrangement, in the space between adjacent guides, of the hinges and control levers which negatively effect the opening and closing movements of the guide, resulting in an extremely complicated structure and larger dimensions which considerably reduce the opening angle of the movable jaws of the guides, thus making it difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to load bars having large thickness.

Device for guiding bars to a spindle of a machine tool


An electrical discharge machine is configured to (i) machine at least a portion of a workpiece through electrical discharge between the workpiece and a first machining electrode aligned by the electrode guide; (ii) generate a dressed machining electrode by engaging a machining electrode aligned by the electrode guide with the electrode dresser; and (iii) machine at least a portion of a workpiece through electrical discharge between the workpiece and the dressed machining electrode. Additional electrical discharge machines and methods of machining are provided.

The present invention relates to the design and operation of electrical discharge machines. For the sake of brevity, the detailed description of the present invention does not present a comprehensive description of the basic operating principles or components of electrical discharge machines. Rather, reference is made herein to the wealth of teachings on the subject as presented in the patent literature. Particular reference is made herein to the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 6,717,094 (Beaumont), issued on Apr. 6, 2004, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

Process of forming conical holes with an electrical discharge machining system


A new Battery Operated Heating System for a Vest or a Jacket for warming the user in cold weather or for therapeutic reasons. The inventive device includes a garment vest having a right side and a left side and longitudinal heating elements. In use, after the garment vest 11 is made to include all of the elements comprising the present invention, the garment vest 11 is worn and the batteries are installed and electrically connected to the right power outlet and return 13 and the left power outlet and return 15. The garment vest 11 is equipped with a plurality of separate control settings where the right side 12 is controlled separate from the left side 14 and the right side 12 can be set at one setting while the left side 14 is at another setting.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cold weather clothing and more particularly pertains to a new Battery Operated Heating System for a Vest or a Jacket for warming the user in cold weather or for therapeutic reasons.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of cold weather clothing is known in the prior art. More specifically, cold weather clothing heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art cold weather clothing include U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,616; U.S. Pat. No. 5,302,806; U.S. Pat. No. Des. 332,514; U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,897; U.S. Pat. No. 5,160,828, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,561.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new Battery Operated Heating System for a Vest or a Jacket. The inventive device includes a garment vest having a right side and a left side and longitudinal heating elements.
In these respects, the Battery Operated Heating System for a Vest or a Jacket according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of warming the user in cold weather or for therapeutic reasons.

Battery operated heating system for a vest or a jacket