An architecture, system and method are provided for efficiently transferring data across multiple processor buses. Cache coherency is maintained among cache storage locations within one or more of those processors, even in instances where a hit-to-modified condition occurs to those cache storage locations. A guaranteed access is maintained to bus agents operating on a first processor bus so that out-of-order or split transactions are prevented on that bus even under conditions of a hit-to-modified condition. One or more of the other processor buses undergo a defer transaction, yielding an out-of-order condition which is resolved after the initial transaction and a snoop request cycle has been placed upon the first processor bus. The present architecture, system and method thereby prevents live-lock conditions, and does so without automatically deferring each transaction yielding a hit-to-modified signal. Moreover, snoop stall operations can also be minimized or avoided on processor buses by not having to employ tag filters and local memory if the costs and latency involved with using such filters is not desired.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an architecture, system and method for maintaining cache coherency and processor consistency within a multi-processor computer system. More particularly, this invention relates to maximizing throughput within multiple processor buses by minimizing snoop stall cycles or out-of-order transactions on at least one of the processor buses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multi-processor systems are generally well known, whereby a set of processors are interconnected across a local or distributed network. The local network can be confined to a single computer and the distributed network can be one involving, for example, a LAN or WAN. Each processor may either be interconnected with other processors on a single processor bus or connected on its own respective processor bus separate from other processor buses. In the former instance, the processors are said to have been grouped as xe2x80x9cclusters.xe2x80x9d For example, a Pentium(copyright) Pro processor bus can support up to four Pentium(copyright) Pro processors. Each cluster can thereby be connected to a processor bus and routed to a system memory bus via a system memory controller or bus bridge.
Most modern day processor buses use a pipeline architecture. More specifically, dissimilar stages (or phases) of each transaction can occur with other phases of another transaction so as to service multiple phases of multiple transactions on a singular processor bus. In the Pentium(copyright) Pro example, each transaction can employ several phases that can include some or all of the following phases: arbitration phase, request phase, error phase, snoop phase, response phase, and data phase.
During an arbitration phase, the processor bus requesting agent seeks mastership of its respective bus, as granted by an arbiter. A processor is deemed a bus agent and, if multiple processors are arranged in a cluster, arbitration among those processors is granted using, for example, a prioritized or symmetric bus arbitration mechanism. Once a requesting agent is granted ownership or mastership of the bus, a requesting agent will drive an address within a request phase. Provided no errors are discovered for that transaction, as recorded in the error phase, a snoop phase is initiated. In the snoop phase, cache coherency is enforced. Mainly, all bus agents which receive a snoop cycle route a hit or a hit-to-modified signal to the bus agent which requested the snoop cycle. The resulting response of the transaction is then driven during the response phase by the responding bus agent. Thereafter, a data phase will occur for that transaction, provided it had not been deferred.
The snoop results are driven by the processor bus agents during the snoop phase. Those results indicate whether the corresponding snoop request address references a valid or dirty cache line in the internal cache of a bus agent coupled to the processor bus. The dirty cache line is often referred to as a xe2x80x9cmodifiedxe2x80x9d cache line. The values of HIT# and HITM# are used to indicate whether the line is valid or invalid in the addressed agent being snooped, whether the line is dirty (modified) in the caching agent, or whether the snoop phase needs to be extended. The bus agent being snooped (i.e., xe2x80x9ccachingxe2x80x9d agent) will assert HIT# and de-assert HITM# in the snoop phase if the agent plans to retain the cache line in its cache after the snoop is completed. The caching agent will assert HITM# if its cache line is in a modified state (i.e., indicative of the caching agent containing the most recent cache line date for that address). After asserting HITM#, the caching agent will assume responsibility for writing back the modified cacheline, often referred to as xe2x80x9cimplicit write back.xe2x80x9d If the caching agent asserts HITM# and HIT# together in the snoop phase, then a snoop stall will occur so as to stretch the completion of the snoop phase for as long as needed to ensure the caching agent will eventually be ready to indicate snoop status.
If a DEFER# signal is forwarded during the snoop phase from the caching agent, hat agent will effectuate removal of that particular transaction from the in-order queue, often referred to as a xe2x80x9cIOQxe2x80x9d. During the response phase, responses to a DEFER# signal forwarded during the snoop phase will be indicated by one of three valid responses: deferred response, retry response, or hard error response. If a DEFER# is initiated during a snoop cycle and a response indicates either a deferred response or a retry response, it will be noted that the deferred transaction will be requested out-of-order from its original request. According to one example, the deferred request may occur subsequent to a snooping request cycle to indicate an out-of-order sequence or, alternatively, split transaction.
Most modem day processor buses rely on procedures or operations that appear somewhat atomic, in that processor buses generally retire data in the order that transactions begin. Moreover, data transfers of one transaction are often dependent upon data transfers of another transaction. For example, completion of a request from memory may require implicit write back of data from a caching agent if the request is to a modified line in that caching agent.
FIG. 1 illustrates the atomic nature of transactions and the dependency of those transactions within a pair of processor buses of a multi-processor system. For example, a first processor on a first processor bus xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d requests a transaction A on the first bus. Following transaction A, a snoop request As will be forwarded to the second processor on the second processor bus and specifically to the cache within the second processor. Meanwhile, the second processor dispatches transaction B on the second processor bus, eventually yielding a snoop transaction Bs on the first processor bus and specifically to the cache within the first processor. If both snoop requests yield a hit-to-modified signal (HITM#) being asserted, a live-lock condition may result whereby both buses are locked and unable to forward the data requested since that data is contingent upon receiving the modified cache line from the opposing bus"" caching agent. More specifically, relative to the first bus, the modified data for transaction B cannot be driven on the first bus until transaction A receives its data. On the second bus, the modified data for transaction A cannot be driven on the second bus until transaction B receives its data. The pipeline transfer of responses and data is thereby maintained in a locked condition, thus preventing further transfers of data across Bus 1 and Bus 2.
It may be that in order to prevent a live-lock condition, a DEFER# signal will need to be forwarded during the snoop phase. The DEFER# signal will be forwarded across the first and second buses as DEFER1# and DEFER2# as shown by reference numerals 10 and 12, respectively. Asserting the defer signals whenever a hit-to-modified HITMx# occurs on that bus (where X is either 1 or 2) will ensure that all transactions on the respective buses will be deferred. Even if a hit-to-modified signal is present on only one bus, transactions on both buses may be deferred. Even though a hit-to-modified signal occurring on both buses is relatively small, the technique of deferring transactions on both buses not only may be unnecessary, but also consumes substantial bus bandwidth since the deferred transaction must later be completed with a deferred reply.
Alternatively, the multi-processor system may utilize a central tag controller which links up all coherent transaction addresses in a tag filter to see if the remotely located processor bus agent may own the snooped address. If there is a hit to the tag filter, the snooping agent maintains ownership of its respective processor bus. This allows the local transaction to complete on the local processor bus. If the transaction on the remote bus hits a modified address noted in the tag filter, the remote processor will be required to defer its transaction. An unfortunate aspect of using tag filters, look-up tables, and various other temporary memory devices adjacent the snooping agent is the time required to access the tags and note whether or not a hit-to-modified result occurred. This implies that the HITM# signal be delayed as a result of stalling the snoop cycle until access of the tag filter has completed. As shown in FIG. 1, deferring the snoop cycle 14 and 16 one or more cycles before asserting HITM# will unfortunately delay the overall pipeline throughput on those buses.
Referring to FIG. 2, a two-transaction example is shown. Deferring the first transaction 8 may occur at the snoop phase by tagging transaction 8 and allowing the second transaction 9 to proceed as cycles 9e and 9f within respective response and data transfer phases. In this manner, priority is given to, e.g., a snoop initiated transaction on a particular bus over that of the normal request transaction which initially preceded the snoop request. The first transaction is therefore said to be deferred, whereby deferral removes transaction 8 from the IOQ by generating an appropriate response. If a tag filter is used, instead of deferring each transaction, snoop stalling may be required during the snoop phase. A snoop stall would extend the pipeline by, for example, stalling transaction 8d from its normal pipeline position at clock 10 to, for example, clock 12. This would force the second transaction at the snoop phase (cycle 9d) to also be deferred, as well as any other snoop cycles which occur later in time.
The penalty of deferring a transaction or snoop stalling cycles in the snoop phase are but two examples used to avoid live-lock conditions. Unfortunately, however, use of defer cycles and snoop stall cycles should be avoided so as to enhance the overall throughput and bandwidth of two or more processor buses within a multi-processor system. An architecture, system and method must be employed which can overcome these throughput issues while preventing the occurrence of a live-lock situation.
The problems outlined above are in large part solved by an improved architecture, system and method for reducing the need to defer or retry bus transactions in a system involving multi-processor buses. The improvement also minimizes the need to snoop stall transactions within those buses. The overall benefit is an improvement in bus throughput and overall system speed enhancement.
A guaranteed access controller is provided between the multi-processor buses. The controller includes an arbiter which maintains mastership of a first bus while guaranteeing initiation of a snoop cycle upon a second bus, both buses defined as those which couple to separate processors or processor clusters within a multi-processor computer system. The access is maintained so that only one transaction within the pair of buses is deferred. The other transaction is assured to continue in-order, thereby preventing a split transaction on that bus. For example, if the first bus employs transactions which occur in order (i.e., not taken out of the IOQ) and are not split, throughput on that bus is enhanced. Of benefit is the avoidance of deferring transactions on both buses whenever a hit-to-modified signal occurs. Even under conditions of a hit-to-modified signal, a transaction within one bus is assured of completing in-order (i.e., without implementing a deferral of that transaction).
According to one embodiment, the control logic and/or arbiter is maintained within a bus interface unit. The bus interface unit is linked between two or more processor buses. Each bus may have a single processor or a cluster of processors linked thereto. The arbiter may be coupled to allow completion of a first transaction within the first bus and also to initiate a snoop request cycle to a modified cache line within a first bus agent coupled to the first bus before granting mastership to the second bus. The snoop request cycle may originate from the bus interface unit or from a second bus agent coupled to the second bus. Preferably, the processor bus agent (i.e., the first and second bus agents in the example provided) each comprise memory. The memory can be cache memory configured to store cachelines of data. The bus interface unit and, more particularly, the processor or cluster control logic of the bus interface unit, may be granted mastership of the second bus after completion of the first transaction and initiation of the snoop request cycle in order for the bus interface unit to initiate another snoop request cycle to a modified cacheline within the second bus agent.
According to another embodiment, the bus interface unit may comprise a first bus controller and a second bus controller. The first bus controller is coupled to receive a first request across a first bus from a first bus agent, whereas the second bus controller may be coupled to receive a second request across a second bus from a second bus agent. The first request is preferably to a modified cache line within the second bus agent, while the second request is preferably to a modified cache line within the first bus agent. The arbiter may be coupled to the first bus controller and the second bus controller to allow completion of a transaction originating from the first request, and to allow completion of a snoop request cycle originating from the second bus agent before granting mastership to the second bus.
The arbiter may include a state machine which gives priority of mastership to the first bus over that of the second bus. The priority can be either fixed or can change. If the priority changes, the algorithm used to change that priority can include, for example, a round-robin scheme.
According to yet another embodiment, a computer may be provided. The computer includes an arbiter coupled to maintain mastership of the first bus such that the first bus can complete a response to the first request and can complete a snoop request issued from a second bus agent to the cache memory of the first bus agent for allowing the second request to be issued across the second bus. A peripheral device may be included with the computer. The peripheral device is adapted for communication with the first and second buses, and is coupled upon a printed circuit board separate from another printed circuit board upon which the arbiter and/or processor is coupled. The arbiter may issue the snoop request across the first bus to the cache memory of the first bus agent before a snoop request is issued across the second bus to the cache memory of the second bus agent. The arbiter may issue a defer signal to the second bus agent to defer the second request across the second bus such that the second request is serviced after a snoop request is issued across the second bus. The peripheral device can include any device connected to a peripheral bus separate and distinct from the processor bus. Examples of such peripheral devices include a hard drive controller, a keyboard controller, a display controller, or a printer controller. The hard drive controller, keyboard controller, display controller, and printer controller operably links the peripheral bus and signals therein to respective mass storage devices, a keyboard, a display, and a printer.
According to another embodiment, a computer is provided having a peripheral controller means arranged upon a first printed circuit board. A first and second bus agent means are coupled to a second printed circuit board separate from the first printed circuit board and further coupled to respective first and second buses. Means are provided for granting mastership of the first bus to allow a transaction from the first bus agent and the snooping cycle to occur across the first bus before granting mastership to the second bus.
According to yet another embodiment, a method is provided for orchestrating transactions across a bus within a multi-processor system. The method includes dispatching a request cycle from a first bus agent across the first bus to a modified address within a second bus agent. Thereafter, a request cycle from the second bus agent across a second bus is deferred. The deferred request cycle is preferably one which addresses a modified address within the first bus agent. A first snoop cycle dispatched across the first bus to the first bus agent is serviced before retrying the deferred request cycle.

Architecture, system and method for ensuring an ordered transaction on at least one of a plurality of multi-processor buses that experience a hit-to-modified snoop cycle

Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P.


To prolong the life of a vehicle light bulb by securing the legs of the dipped beam filament by forming a hole in cupped shield, fixing one leg directly to common lead by passing this leg through the hole, and fixing the other leg directly to lead. If the shield vibrates as shown by circled arrows 2 and 2, this vibration is not transmitted to the dipped beam filament. Accordingly, the life of dipped beam filament can be further prolonged.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vibration resistant vehicle light bulb applied to automobiles and other types of vehicles.
2. Description of Background Art
FIG. 18 illustrates a side view of a conventional automobile light bulb referred to as "H4," wherein the automobile light bulb 100 comprises a glass bulb 101, a cap 102 that seals off the opening of the glass bulb 101, a common lead 103, a cupped shield 104 secured by welding to the top of this common lead 103, a dipped beam filament 105 disposed along this shield 104, a lead 106 for the use thereof, a main beam filament 107 disposed below shield 104, a lead 108 for the use thereof, and a reinforcing bridge 109, a halogen gas is sealed inside glass bulb 101. One leg 105a of the dipped beam filament 105 is affixed to the shield 104, and the other leg 105b is affixed to lead 106.
The three leads 103, 106 and 108 project from cap 102 in the form of cantilever beams, so that these leads 103, 106 and 108 vibrate more toward the tip (the top end) when they are subjected to vibration. Shield 104, which is even further away from cap 102, has a large vibration amplitude, and unless shield 104 is securely welded to common lead 103, the vibration of shield 104 will be delayed with respect to that of the common lead 103 so that when the vibration amplitude increases, the stress in the dipped beam filament 105 disposed along it will increase and its life will become shortened as a result. Unexamined Published Japanese Utility Model Application (JP-A-U) No. S64-2356 (1989) was therefore proposed to combat this problem. The proposed light bulb is described as follows.
FIG. 19 shows a side view of a conventional vibration resistant automobile light bulb, wherein the automobile light bulb 110 comprises a glass bulb 111, a cap 112 that seals off the opening of the glass bulb 111, a common lead 113 whose tip reaches the neck part 111a of the glass bulb 111, a cupped shield 114 that is secured by welding to the mid-part of this common lead 113, a dipped beam filament 115 disposed along this shield 114, a lead 116 for the use thereof, a main beam filament 117 disposed below the shield 114, a lead 118 for the use thereof, and a reinforcing bridge 119, a halogen gas being sealed inside glass bulb 111. One leg 115a of dipped beam filament 115 is affixed to shield 114, and the other leg 115b is affixed to lead 116.
Since the common lead 113 is a beam supported at both ends when its tip is fixed to neck part 111a, its flexion is markedly less than that of a cantilever beam, and its vibration amplitude is also small. The life of dipped beam filament 115 is thus greatly prolonged.
Thus, light bulb 110, which comprises lead 113 linked to glass bulb 111, is called a vibration-resistant automobile light bulb.
FIG. 20 illustrates a cross section taken along line 20--20 in FIG. 19, wherein a cupped shield 114 is affixed by projection welding to common lead 113. More specifically, a small projection is formed from the metal shield 114 to the right of the figure, this projection is brought into contact with common lead 113, and an electrical current is made to flow, causing the electrical current to concentrate at the projection which is welded by the resulting Joule heat. FIG. 21 is a view along arrow 21 in FIG. 19, showing how one leg 115a of dipped beam filament 115 is fixed to cupped shield 114 and the other leg 115b is fixed to lead 116. As this figure illustrates, dipped beam filament 115 is formed from a coil spring of heating wire, pulled out by a distance L in a tangential direction at the end part 115c of the coil, and is then bent up to make a conventional leg structure.
In FIG. 20, there is a danger that the shield 114 will vibrate as shown by the circled arrows 1 centered on the welding point 121. If this happens, it would be inconvenient because dipped beam filament 115, which is attached at one end to lead 116 and at the other end to shield 114 will also vibrate.
Also, in FIG. 21, because leg 115a is separated by a distance L from the center of the glass bulb 111, it is also inconvenient in that leg 115a vibrates along with the vibration of shield 114.


A circuit and a scheme for register renaming responsive to a thread ID register, comprises: a plurality of physical registers; a plurality of architectual registers; a rename logic circuit where every write to an architectual register of the plurality of architectural registers is assigned a new physical register of the plurality of physical registers; a register map circuit containing a corresponding entry for each of the plurality of architectual registers. The register map circuit is responsive to the thread ID register such that a different physical map is selected for architectual registers of each thread, whereby the plurality of architectual registers can be greater than the plurality of physical registers.

A register is a high speed temporary memory device used to receive, hold, and transfer data (usually a computer word) to be operated upon by a processing unit. Registers provide multiple operands and accept multiple results during each machine cycle. The number of registers defined by a particular architecture is limited by the access time and the amount of hardware that is required to support its high speed multi-port access. The number of registers is further constrained by the number of bits in each instruction that is dedicated for use as register specifiers. Current architectures with 32-bit instructions typically contain three to four 5-bit register specifiers and provide access to 32 registers.
The dynamic flow of instructions in a computer can be thought of as a thread of control. The thread "lives" within an address space that contains instructions and data. Historically, a process has only a single thread of control in each address space. However, to support parallelism, computers are beginning to support multithreading and allow simultaneous sharing of both instructions and data amongst different threads.
In multithreading, the cost of communication between threads as well as the overhead of creating, scheduling, and terminating threads are critical issues. One system, the Tera Multithreaded Architecture system (Tera MTA), a scalable, shared memory, general purpose parallel computer, developed by the Tera Computer Company of Seattle Washington, provides 128 thread contexts in each processor that share the same computation engine. Each thread context contains it's own set of 32 registers. The processor physically contains 4096 registers that are indexed by a combination of the register specifier and the identifier of the requesting thread. Creating a new thread involves allocating one of these register sets and starting a parallel (in time) execution at the beginning of the new thread.
Register renaming is a technique to allow multiple outstanding stores to the same register. This is useful in pipelined machines where different instructions have different execution latencies and can be completed out of order. With register renaming, data dependencies can be maintained by hardware and instructions can be issued more aggressively. There are typically 20-25% more physical registers than the architecture exposes to the user. The IBM Power1 has 38 physical registers and 32 architectural registers.
In an article entitled "Register Relocation: Flexible Contexts For Multithreading" by Carl Waldspurger at al., published in 1993 in International Symposium On Computer Architecture, a simple method of providing register renaming utilizing a Register Relocation Mask (RRM) is disclosed. Instruction operands specify context-relative register numbers. The context-relative register numbers are dynamically combined with the RRM to yield an absolute register number which is used in instruction execution. However, an RRM must be considered by the users as it is not transparent. Typically an RRM restricts the address base and limits the number of registers available to the user. The available number of registers further has a power of 2 size limitation and must be initialized when required.
Therefore, there is a need to transparently optimize register set access.

Method and apparatus for renaming registers corresponding to multiple thread identifications


A push-push type latch device includes a cam member and a pin member provided respectively on a movable body and a main body for coupling and decoupling with the cam member. The latch device locks the movable body in a first position on the main body via a coupling of the pin member and the cam member, and releases the coupling by pushing from the first position and releasing a pushing force to switch to a second position. The cam member includes a divided body including a locking part for coupling with the pin member. When the divided body receives a load above a predetermined value through the pin member in a state when coupled with the pin member, the divided body rotates to release the coupling with the pin member with accompanying movement toward a direction to absorb the load.

The present invention relates to a latch device which is used when coupling and decoupling (engaging and disengaging) a movable body on a main body, particularly a push-push type (this also may be called a push lock-push open type or alternating type) latch device, and an opening and closing apparatus using the same.
A push-push type latch device has a cam member and a pin member which couples and decouples with that cam member, respectively, provided in correspondence on the movable body and the main body, locks the movable body in a first position of the main body via the coupling of the pin member on the cam member, and releases said coupling by pushing from that first position and then releasing that pushing force to enable switching to a second position, and it is excellent in the point that locking and release can be accomplished by push operation of the movable body. Device structures are largely divided into swing type exemplified in FIGS. 12(a), 12(b), and heart cam type exemplified in FIGS. 13(a), 13(b).
The latch device (lock device) in FIGS. 12(a), 12(b) is one which is given in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-303070, and FIG. 12(a) shows the locked state, and FIG. 12(b) shows the unlocking process. In this example, the movable body 51 is a drawer, or the like, and it is pushed in toward the C direction being the stored side with respect to the case 50 in opposition to the impelling force of an impelling means not illustrated, and conversely is impelled to move toward the O direction being the side for use. The latch device 52 comprises a cam member 53 which is provided on the case 50, an impelling spring 55 which impels that cam member 53, and a pin member 54 which is provided on the movable body 51, and it locks the movable body 51 in the stored position by push operation, and releases that locking by the next push operation.
Here, the cam member 53 comprises a front piece 56 and a rear piece 58 which is spaced by a vertical slit 57. The front piece 56 has a sloping cam face 56a which forms a front end edge, a locking cam groove 56b which is provided on a part of the rear end edge, and a straight sloping cam groove 56c for releasing which extends in the front-back direction. The rear piece 58 has a shaft attachment hole, a projection 58a which projects out from the front end edge toward the cam groove 56b, and a contact projection 58b which is placed projecting on the rear edge part. Also, the cam member 53 is pivotally supported on the side of the case 50 to be capable of rotating via a shaft S. The impelling spring 55 has one end fixed to the cam member 53 and the other end fixed to a stopper 59 which is placed to project on the side of the case 50, and in that state it is impelled to rotate in the clockwise direction by the impelling means 55 until the contact projection 58b strikes the corresponding end of the stopper 59.
The operating characteristic is that when pushing the movable body 51 into the case 50 by push operation, the pin member 54 strikes the sloping cam face 56a, and then enters as far as the cam groove 56b while making the cam member 53 rotate counterclockwise in opposition to the impelling spring 55 with the shaft S as fulcrum. When the pushing force is released, the cam member 53 rotates clockwise by the impelling force, and the pin member 54 is coupled in the inside angle part of the cam groove 56b. The movable body 51 is locked in the stored position by that coupling. When drawing the movable body 51 from the case 50, in case the movable body 51 is pushed, the pin member 54 moves from the cam groove 56b to the straight sloping cam groove 56c as in FIG. 12(b) with accompanying clockwise rotation of the cam member 53. When the push operation is released, the pin member 54 moves following the straight sloping cam groove 56c, and at the same time, the movable body 51 is moved toward the projecting direction by the impelling force. The symbol 60 is an inertial stopper which is guided by a guide 61 and is pushed forward by a spring 62. When the movable body 51 receives inertial force the same as push operation in the stored position, the inertial stopper 60 progresses backward in opposition to the spring 62, and as in FIG. 12(a) it approaches the corresponding side part of the cam member 53 whereby it disables rotation of the cam member 53 toward the unlocking direction.
The latch device (latch means) in FIGS. 13(a), 13(b) is one which is disclosed in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent No. 3671824), and FIG. 13(a) shows the entirety of the latch device in the cover closed state, and FIG. 13(b) shows the essential parts of the cam member. In this example, the cover 2 is rotated toward the closed direction on the box 1 in opposition to the impelling force of an impelling means and is locked in the closed direction via the latch device 4. The latch device 4 has a heart-shaped cam 6c which is provided on the side of the box 1, and a pin member (movable pin) 54 which is provided on the side of the cover 2, and it is similar to the spring type in the point that the cover 2 is locked in the closed position by push operation, and that locking is released by the next push operation.
In the latch device as above, when an excessive load in an improper direction (for example, excessive load due to forcefully pushing the hinge side of the cover or forcefully prying open the open end side of the cover) is received with the cam member and the pin member coupled, that is, in the cover closed state, the tip of the pin member 54 which is in the coupled position is pushed up from the cam groove and comes off from the cam, and the cover easily becomes left open or left closed. Also, the cam part may become abraded and the coupling position with the pin member may shift and the feeling of operation may become worse, moreover when it is unlocked forcefully, it may cause deformation, breakage or falling off of the pin member, as well as an uncomfortable noise.
Therefore, in the latch device in Patent Document 1, a countermeasure as follows is adopted. That is, in this structure, it is constituted by a heart-shaped cam 6c having a first cam groove 6a, a second cam groove 6b, and a locking recessed part 6d, and a pin member 7 of which the tip part is coupled in the locking recessed part 6d while sliding in said first and second cam grooves. In the vicinity of the locking recessed part 6d of the heart-shaped cam 6c, there is formed a beveled part 6i, or the like, where the tip of the pin member 7 springs out to the side of the first cam groove 6a or the second cam groove 6b when forceful pushing-up force acts on the tip part of the pin member 7 locked in the locking recessed part 6d.
With the above countermeasure of the past, although the beveled part or a sloping face is formed in the vicinity of the locking recessed part on the cam side and it is made as a structure in which the pin member easily comes out from the locking recessed part to the side of the first cam groove or the second cam groove via the beveled part or sloping face, it is still not satisfactory in terms of aspects as followings. That is, in the countermeasure of the past, the coupling force between the pin member and the locking recessed part, that is, the locking force on the cover, becomes weak and tends to become irregular, and the locking ability becomes worse due to that. Moreover, through continued use, the position of the locking part for locking with the pin member shifts and the locking position of the cover also tends to shift, and the quality cannot be maintained.
Therefore, the purpose of the present invention is to improve the quality and reliability in a swing type or heart cam type latch device, by making it such that the locking part for locking with the pin member is moved to be capable of returning inside the cam member when excessive load in the improper direction is received, so that it does not become abraded or cause a breakage as noted above, and moreover the locking force on the movable body can be kept constant whereby the occurrence of malfunction is suppressed.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.

Latch device and opening and closing apparatus using same


The present invention provides a recombinant sequence information of a key host factor ANP32A/B which is necessary for the replication of influenza virus in a host. More specifically, the present invention relates to a 129-130 motif and a 149 site of the host factor ANP32A/B protein, which are key active sites for exerting its ability to promote the replication of influenza virus, and are also potential targeting sites of anti-influenza drugs.

Influenza is one of the most serious human infectious diseases caused by influenza virus. A global influenza epidemic will infect about 20%-40% of the population (Basler C F, et al. Sequence of the 1918 pandemic influenza virus nonstructural gene (NS) segment and characterization of recombinant viruses bearing the 1918 NS genes[J]. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2001, 98(5):2746-2751.), and will pose a huge threat to human life, health and social life. Influenza virus is an enveloped RNA virus belonging to the family of orthomyxoviridae, and is a spherical or polymorphic particle with a diameter of 80-120 nm. Influenza viruses can be classified into type A, B, C, and D, wherein influenza A virus is the main virus responsible for seasonal influenza and historical influenza pandemics due to its rapid mutation and evolution, variable antigens, strong infectivity and pathogenicity, and rapid spread (Hardelid P, al. Excess mortality monitoring in England and Wales during the influenza A(H1N1) 2009 pandemic[J]. Epidemiol Infect, 2011,139(9):1431-1439; Yang L, et al. Excess mortality associated with the 2009 pandemic of influenza A(H1N1) in Hong Kong[J]. Epidemiol Infect, 2012,140(9):1542-1550). The influenza A virus caused four global influenza pandemics in 1918, 1957, 1968, and 2009. The rapid and widespread spread of the virus in the population may be related to its increased adaptability and replication capacity in the host, while the specific and efficient replication in the host and its adaptability to the host are mainly determined by RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (Eisfeld A J, et al. At the centre: influenza A virus ribonucleoproteins. [J]. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2015 January; 13(1):28-41.).
The genome of influenza virus contains eight fragments of negative-strand RNA, encoding a total of 11 proteins, wherein the RNA polymerase is a heteromultimer consisting of PB1, PB2 and PA encoded by the first three sequences (Area E, et al. 3D structure of the influenza virus polymerase complex: localization of subunit domains[J]. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2004,101(1):308-313; Eisfeld A J, et al. At the centre: influenza A virus ribonucleoproteins. [J]. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2015 January; 13(1):28-41). RNA polymerase is the material basis for the transcription and replication of influenza virus in host cells, and has an important influence on the pathogenicity and host range of the virus (Neumann G, et al. Host range restriction and pathogenicity in the context of influenza pandemic[J]. Emerg Infect Dis, 2006, 12(6):881-886.). Various factors that interact with influenza virus polymerase and subunits thereof in the host cell, such as RNA helicase DDX, importin a, etc., have influence on the assembly and activity of influenza virus polymerase trimers (Bortz E, et al. Host- and strain-specific regulation of influenza virus polymerase activity by interacting cellular proteins[J]. MBio, 2011, 2(4); Gabriel G, et al. Differential use of importin-alpha isoforms governs cell tropism and host adaptation of influenza virus[J]. Nat Commun, 2011, 2:156.). Therefore, the interaction of influenza virus polymerase with host proteins is an important factor in determining the virulence and host range of the virus.
The cross-species spread of influenza virus and its host restriction mechanism have always been the focus of research in the field. The host protein ANP32 (acidic nuclear phosphoprotein) is thought to be involved in the synthesis of viral RNA in infected cells. Previous studies have focused on the role of the protein in cellular physiological activities such as intracellular transport, cell death pathways, and regulation of transcription, etc., as well as the correlation of ANP32 protein with tumors and nervous system diseases. The members of ANP32 protein family are numerous and structurally similar, consisting of a spherical amino-terminus rich in leucine repeats (LRRs) and an extended carboxyl terminus rich in acidic amino acids (LCAR) (Reilly P T, et al. Cracking the ANP32 whips: important functions, unequal requirement, and hints at disease implications[J]. Bioessays, 2014, 36(11):1062-1071.). The protein family is found in animals, plants and protista, but not found in yeast and other fungi, which indicates that the protein family originates from eukaryotes and is lost in fungi due to certain reasons. It has been reported that this family has 8 members in humans, 3 of which are more conservative in vertebrates, including ANP32A, ANP32B and ANP32E, and the most widely studied are ANP32A and ANP32B. The amino acid sequence homology of ANP32A and ANP32B protein is 70%. The existence of the LRRs region at the amino terminal of the ANP32 protein makes the protein hydrophobic, which helps ANP32 protein to bind to other proteins and play different biological roles; the carboxyl terminal is rich in acidic amino acids and contains a nuclear localization signal, KRKR(SEQ ID NO:427), which makes the protein capable of interacting with the basic proteins in the nucleus and shuttling in the karyoplasm (Matsubae, Masami, et al. "Characterization of the nuclear transport of a novel leucine-rich acidic nuclear protein-like protein." Febs Letters 468.2-3(2000):171-175, Matsuoka, K., et al. "A Nuclear Factor Containing the Leucine-Rich Repeats Expressed in Murine Cerebellar Neurons." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 91.21(1994):9670.). The protein can also be expressed on the cell surface and even secreted outside of the cell. These characteristics allow the ANP32 protein to participate in a variety of biological processes in cytoplasm and nucleus. It was reported in the papers that ANP32A and ANP32B function as transcriptional regulators in the nucleus: {circle around (1)} as a component of the inhibitor of the histone acetyltransferase (INHAT) complex, involved in regulating transcription (Kadota, S, et al. "pp32, an INHAT component, is a transcription machinery recruiter for maximal induction of IFN-stimulated genes." Journal of Cell Science 124.Pt 6(2011):892.); {circle around (2)} as the ligand of mRNA binding protein HuR and nuclear export factor CRM1, may accelerate the nuclear export of mRNA chain rich in adenosine (Brennan C M, et al. Protein Ligands to Hur Modulate Its Interaction with Target Mrnas in Vivo[J]. Journal of Cell Biology, 2000, 151(1):1.), and this function can control both the mRNA of the cell host (Fries, Barbara, et al. "Analysis of Nucleocytoplasmic Trafficking of the HuR Ligand APRIL and Its Influence on CD83 Expression." Journal of Biological Chemistry 282.7(2007):4504-15.), and the mRNA of the virus (Bodem, J, et al. "Foamy virus nuclear RNA export is distinct from that of other retroviruses." Journal of Virology 85.5(2011):2333-2341.). In addition, ANP32 protein can also play an important role in the cytoplasm, for example, ANP32A can bind to microtubule-associated proteins (Ulitzur, N, M, et al. "Mapmodulin: a possible modulator of the interaction of microtubule-associated proteins with microtubules." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 94.10(1997):5084.), which affects the transport and signal transmission of intracellular materials, maintains the cell morphology and the spatial distribution of organelles, etc.; ANP32 protein can activate apoptotic bodies, and regulate the cell death pathways (Pan, Wei, et al. "PHAPI/pp32 Suppresses Tumorigenesis by Stimulating Apoptosis." Journal of Biological Chemistry 284.11(2009): 6946.).
After Shapira screened the host protein ANP32A through the yeast two-hybrid method in 2009 and initially discovered that it was associated with influenza virus infection, scientists have successively conducted researches on the interaction between this protein family and influenza virus. In 2011, Bradel-Tretheway et al. discovered that ANP32A and ANP32B bond to influenza virus polymerase through proteomics; in 2014, Watanabe et al. demonstrated that ANP32A and ANP32B can affect vRNA synthesis after the influenza virus infected cells through RANi library screening; in 2015, Sugiyama et al. found that ANP32A and ANP32B can promote the synthesis of cRNA-vRNA in influenza virus replication, and demonstrated that ANP32 protein interacted with influenza virus polymerase trisubunit (PB2/PB1/PA) polymer through biological techniques such as CO-IP, and had nothing to do with NP protein (Sugiyama K, et al. pp32 and APRIL are host cell-derived regulators of influenza virus RNA synthesis from cRNA[J]. Elife, 2015, 4; Watanabe T, et al. Influenza virus-host interactome screen as a platform for antiviral drug development[J]. Cell Host Microbe, 2014, 16(6):795-805.). Subsequently, the British scholar Wendy S. Barclay's research team revealed for the first time that the activity of avian influenza virus RNA polymerase in mammalian cells is related to the species-specificity of ANP32A (Long J S, et al. Species difference in ANP32A underlies influenza A virus polymerase host restriction[J]. Nature, 2016,529(7584):101-104.). Study found that compared to mammals, avian-derived ANP32A contains a sequence of 33 amino acid inserted between the LRRs and LCAR region. This characteristic of sequence determines the characteristic that avian-derived ANP32A specifically activates the polymerase activity of avian-derived influenza virus. Avian-derived influenza virus (H5N1/H7N9) can make the polymerase more adaptive to mammalian ANP32A only after obtaining mutations in PB2 E627K. Therefore, it is inferred that ANP32A is an important host protein that supports influenza virus replication, but the specific molecular mechanism of its interaction with polymerase remains to be further explored.
The harm of seasonal influenza and global pandemic influenza has attracted widespread attention from the society. At present, preliminary success has been made on anti-influenza virus drugs. However, due to the clinical widespread use of existing drugs, influenza viruses are constantly mutating, and have developed different degrees of resistance to these drugs, which makes development and screening of new anti-influenza virus drugs increasingly important. The present invention demonstrates that ANP32A and ANP32B are common host proteins used by influenza viruses in cells of different species of animals, and that both or either of the two proteins are necessary for the replication of influenza viruses in the host. Furthermore, the present invention also finds the key amino acid positions in the two proteins, and the mutation of the key amino acids makes the influenza virus almost impossible to replicate. This discovery can provide a direct basis for the further design of anti-influenza drugs or anti-influenza animals.

Use of ANP32 protein in maintaining the polymerase activity of influenza virus in hosts

Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (China Animal Health and Epidemiology Center, Harbin)


Disclosed are a method of preparing an elastic pressure-sensitive adhesive tape and an elastic pressure-sensitive adhesive tape. Main components of the adhesive include a polyacrylate resin with a carbon-carbon double bond and a diluent monomer with a carbon-carbon double bond. A quasi-microcapsule powder component is adopted, wherein the shell material of the quasi-microcapsule powder selects a cellulose-based water soluble polymer, and the core material selects low boiling point alkane, wherein the preparation method combines UV curing, heating, and shell burst, to obtain an elastic adhesive layer, whereby to prepare a pressure-sensitive adhesive tape product. Compared with conventional elastic pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes, the preparing method as disclosed has a simple manufacturing process. The pressure-sensitive adhesive tape obtained from the disclosed preparing method overcomes the restrictions of conventional foam strips and provide good cushioning and compression properties without using foam as the carrier.

Smart electronics are becoming increasingly demanding on drop performance, anti-deformation, water-resistance, and dust-proof properties. To satisfy such performance and properties, an excellent cushioning, energy-absorbing material is needed. The currently available pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes with a cushioning property are mostly foam tapes.
Foam tapes take foam as their carrier. Thanks to their higher thickness over typical adhesive tapes and their good properties in sealing and shock absorption, foam tapes have applications in an array of fields. Foam typically refers to a foamable material such as polyolefin or polyurethane. Fabrication of foam strips includes: heating and shearing the polyolefin or polyurethane to a high-temperature molten state using a screw extruder, co-mixing the molten polyolefin or polyurethane with the electron beam-excited foaming agent, followed by extrusion molding, irradiation foaming, cutting and fixing processes. Fabrication of a foam tape typically goes through the following processes: coating a pressure-sensitive adhesive to a release film, followed by curing, and then laminating the cured film to foam. Such fabricated foam tapes always have some inherent downsides in their fabrication and application due to the characteristics of foam strips: (1) the polyolefin or polyurethane used by the foam material has a poor heat resistant property, and without enough support from external tension, the foam material will be shrunk, bulged or otherwise deformed to some extents at 80° C., such that the foam strip cannot be subjected to a high-temperature process, which means the foam tape cannot be manufactured by directly coating a liquid adhesive to the foam surface: a solvent adhesive requires high-temperature for solvent removal and curing, while a UV adhesive will produce high temperature in the long-time UV curing process, both of which will cause foam deformation; therefore, the foam tape can only be fabricated by first coating the pressure-sensitive adhesive to a release film and then laminating the release film to the foam. Moreover, the surface energy of the foam is usually less than 32 dynes, such that to enhance surface energy of the foam, processes including corona and pre-coating adhesion promoter are required to ensure an enough bonding strength after the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer is laminated to the foam surface; the complex fabrication process incurs a high manufacturing cost. (2) The foam tape needs to be die cut into various shapes to adapt to the to-be-cushioned devices prior to being assembled to the inside of a smart electronic product; however, due to its inherent fragility, the polyolefin or polyurethane easily produces powder scraps during the die-cutting process; however, the electronic products are highly demanding on cleanness, which requires constantly checking whether scrap powders are present in the device to which the foam tape is adhered, which increases quality overheads. (3) Once a bubble construction formed in the foaming process is damaged during the die-cutting process, a permanent open construction arises, resulting in that dusts and water vapor easily penetrate into the foam via such open constructions and pass through the foam along the porous structure inside the foam, such that to avoid containment, a sealing construction is required for precision devices that have strict restrictions on water vapor and dusts, which increases structure overheads.
In view of the above, many domestic and foreign enterprises have attempted to develop better foam tapes, e.g., by adjusting the foam fabrication process to produce foam of a closed-cell construction, whereby a foam tape prepared with such foam as the carrier may reduce and avoid invasion of water vapor and dusts; or, introducing some oligomer which may enhance the surface energy in the process of fabricating the polyurethane foam, thereby reducing pre-treatment overheads in transferring the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer to the foam. Although the two approaches may improve the performance of foam tapes, the closed-cell construction of the former method is only suitable for applications in large-sized devices, because in small-sized devices, once the closed-cell construction is damaged in the die-cutting process, a full-pass occasion still likely occur; while the latter method only has a limited enhancement regarding the surface energy of the foam, such that pre-treatment is still needed in manufacturing of highly viscous foam tapes. 3M Corporation develops a scheme of adopting a very low cross-link density viscoelastic core material and a high cross-link density viscoelastic skin layer, wherein the core material may convert the external impact to mechanical relaxation owing to its high loss-frequency characteristic under high-frequency shearing, thereby achieving a cushioning performance like a foam tape. However, the cushioning performance of this scheme is inferior to the foam-based tape, which still needs a foam construction to enhance the cushioning performance.
Another scheme has been reported, comprising: applying expandable polymeric microspheres to an adhesive, obtaining a pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet through die head extrusion, and then laminating with a liner layer to form the adhesive tape. This scheme has the following drawbacks: (1) infeasibility in preparing thinner PSA tapes (less than 200 μm), thus hardly applied to an ultrathin space; (2) the expandable polymeric microsphere is only partially expanded prior to discharging the adhesive composition out of the die head. The extruded expandable polymeric microsphere may be further expanded after being heated; when such expandable polymeric microspheres are applied to bonding in electronic devices, there exists a risk of continued expansion to damage the devices; (3) the expanded polymeric microsphere has a fixed shell is fixed, such that the elasticity/compressibility of the finally formed pressure-sensitive adhesive sheet is restricted by the mechanical strength of the microsphere shell; therefore, to change the elasticity of the microsphere, it is needed to adjust the material and thickness of the shell; (4) the process of fabricating the expandable polymeric microsphere is relatively complex, and the shell has a high mechanical strength, which needs a temperature above 100° C. to realize expansion; (5) this scheme leverages a melt extrusion process, which requires a bulky and complex feeding device; and expansion of the polymeric microsphere requires a temperature above 100° C.; therefore, this scheme has a high energy consumption and a complex process. The reported pressure-sensitive sheet is not suitable for current light and thin smart electronics.

Method of preparing elastic pressure-sensitive adhesive tape and elastic pressure-sensitive adhesive tape

SUZHOU SHIHUA NEW MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


The present invention comprises a method and apparatus for installing a stator core into a power generator 1 that comprises assembling the stator core inside of a container 60, and then moving the container to the power generator. The container is horizontally aligned with the power generator, and the stator core is transferred from the container to the power generator.

The generator stator core is the largest single component in the train of a turbine generator set. The stator cores are generally manufactured from thousands of laminations of relatively thin steel plates which are stacked, pressed and clamped together into the large cylindrical form of the stator core. The clamping is necessary to accommodate variations in thickness of the stock steel plate laminations, commonly referred to as crowns. Improperly clamped laminations can result in plate vibration during generator operation, which results from magnetic impulses or core elliptical dilation.
Typically, the stator core is assembled from the steel plates directly at the final installation site. However, the large size of the stator core and the need for proper clamping results in stator core manufacturing difficulties, including generous floor space and high crane requirements. The manufacture of stator cores via the traditional methods result in manufacturing lead time and other associated manufacturing difficulties. For example, if the core is stacked directly in the stator frame, the frame must be delivered to the site before any manufacturing steps can occur. Additionally, intermediate core pressing equipment is needed to press and clamp the steel plates together at incremental lengths. If, on the other hand, the stator core is manufactured in an external fixture, the external fixture itself adds to the manufacturing costs and requires additional floor space on site and still requires the use of heavy cranes.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,540 by Sargeant, which is incorporated herein by reference, overcame some of the problems with the prior art by first assembling a number of laminations into a distinct set, referred to as a donut, and then stacking these donuts to form a stator core. This saved great amounts of time over assembling the laminations individually, and produced a stator core with less flaws.
When the individual laminations, or the set of laminations in a donut, are installed into a core, they engage what are referred to as keybars. Keybars are essentially rods that run the internal length of the stator core and provide a hook-in spot for the laminations. FIG. 1 illustrates a stator frame that is empty of any laminations. The keybars 6 run the internal length of the stator frame 2, and are generally attached to the frame through stator support rings 4.
The size of laminations and resulting stator core can vary, but a typical stator core lamination has a weight of 3.6 lbs (1.6 kg). The results in a weight per inch of core of 1530 lbs/in (1740 kg/cm). For a core length of 225 inches (563 cm), the total weight will be approximately 344,250 lbs (156,477 kg).
In the prior art, when generators need their cores replaced, the only way to accomplish this has been to strip out the old core and then re-stack the new core lamination by lamination. Since the generators are large, immobile objects, each lamination needs to be horizontally inserted into position by hand. This is a very time consuming effort, which requires that the generator be off-line for long periods of time. What is needed is a better way of adding a new core to an existing generator frame.

Apparatus and method for the installation of a stator core into a power generator


An adjustable housing frame with industrial rails includes a fixed plate, two movable plates and at least two positioning pieces. A front side of the fixed plate is provided with a rail. Both ends of the fixed plate are provided with two opposite rails respectively. Each set if the two opposite rails is provided with at least one positioning hole. One of the two movable plates is provided in the two rails at one end of the fixed plate, and the other movable plate is provided in the two rails at the other end of the fixed plate. Edges of the two movable plates are provided with a plurality of positioning troughs. The two positioning pieces pass through the two positioning holes and extend into the positioning troughs respectively. The two positioning pieces are stopped on inner walls of the positioning trough.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adjustable housing frame with industrial rails, and in particular to an adjustable housing frame with industrial rails for hanging a communication apparatus thereon.
2. Description of Related Art
Nowadays, network servers have been used more and more widely. For an internal network system of an industry or an ISP manufacturer, it is an important issue to manage and arrange a plurality of computer hosts or communication apparatuses. To this end, the manufacturers in this field have provided various housing frames for different instruments. It should be noted that the width of the computer host or communication apparatus is of a certain international standard. No matter how the housing frame is designed, the international standard has to be conformed to. However, there is no requirement about the depth of the computer host or communication apparatus. As a result, the computer hosts or communication apparatuses made by various manufacturers are different from each other in depth.
Please refer to FIG. 1. A conventional housing frame 1a with industrial rails is provided in a housing cabinet 2a. The housing frame 1a with industrial rails includes a body 10a, a rail 11a and two fixing portions 12a. The body 10a is bent into an inverted "U" shape. The rail 11a is elongate and protrudes from the body 1a for hanging a communication apparatus 3a thereon. The communication apparatus 3a is provided with a connecting port (not shown). The connecting port is inserted by a plug 4a for signal transmission. The two fixing portions 12a are bent and extend toward two ends of the body 1a. The two fixing portions 12a are fixed to the housing cabinet 2a.
However, the communication apparatuses 3a made by various manufacturers are different from each other in depth. For example, a larger communication apparatus 3a has a smaller depth H, so that the plug 4a and a line 41a connected to the plug 4a are exposed beyond the housing cabinet 2a. Thus, the plug 4a may be hit easily or the line 41a may be pulled to deteriorate its electrical contact. The smaller communication apparatus 3a has a larger depth h, so that the user has to stretch out his/her hand into the housing cabinet 2a in order to insert the plug 4a to the communication apparatus 3a which makes the insertion difficult.
In order to overcome the above problems, the present Inventor proposes a novel and reasonable structure based on his delicate researches and expert experiences.

Adjustable housing frame with industrial rails for adjusting the depth of communication apparatus within a housing cabinet


A plurality of “local” interleavers replaces a single global interleaver for processing encoded data. If the encoded data may be represented as a matrix of data blocks, or “circulants,” each local interleaver can be the size of one or a small number of circulants. Thus, for example, if the matrix has a certain number of rows and columns, the number of local interleavers may be equal to the number of columns. Each local interleaver is small so latency is low.

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for efficient iterative decoding of a turbo-encoded data channel.
In many applications, data—e.g., on a communication channel or in the read channel of a data storage device—is encoded using an outer code. Examples of such codes include turbo codes, Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, and convolutional codes. Encoded data from an outer code are often interleaved before being transmitted over a data channel. In that data channel, the signal might become corrupted with noise or defects. On the receiver side, the received signal can be decoded using an iterative decoding principle often referred to as turbo decoding. A feature of turbo decoding is that decoding includes multiple stages, each of which includes a detection/equalization block and an outer decoder block. For example, the signal from a detector front end, which may be a finite impulse response (FIR) filter, may be processed by a soft detector such as a Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA).
The soft detector provides two outputs—(i) hard decisions for the detected signal and (ii) extrinsic log-likelihood ratios (LLRs), which indicate new reliability information generated by the detector for each of the hard decisions. These LLRs are then de-interleaved and passed to the outer decoder for further processing. The outer soft decoder then provides its own hard decisions as well as new extrinsic LLRs. These LLRs from the outer decoder are then passed to the soft detector as a priori LLRs after interleaving. In the next round of iterative decoding, the soft detector generates new extrinsic LLRs, taking both the a priori LLRs and the FIR signal as inputs. For the first iteration, the a priori LLR inputs to the soft detector are all set to zero. This iterative decoding between soft detector and the outer decoder is carried out until a maximum number of iterations are reached, or a valid code word is found.
In a known arrangement, each sector of a disk drive may be decoded using three SOVAs, each of which generates two LLRs during each clock cycle. This results in six LLRs per clock cycle. These are interleaved using a global interleaver. However, a global interleaver has high complexity, with high memory and computation requirements. The entire sector must be interleaved before any data can be returned. This requires buffering the entire sector, increasing latency. Moreover, a separate global de-interleaver, with similar memory requirements, also is needed.


Process attributes such as, for example, the identification of process elements, the characteristics of process elements, and the states of the variables produced by the process elements, are displayed substantially simultaneous with a graphical representation of a process under control. After displaying a graphical representation of a process being controlled (the graphical representation including icon representations of process elements), a user selects a portion of the graphical representation for which the underlying process attributes are to be displayed. This selection may be accomplished by selecting an icon image of a process element for which the attributes are to be displayed. After selection, the underlying attributes are displayed substantially simultaneously with the display of the graphical representation, for example, by overlaying a dialogue box on top of the graphical representation containing indicia of the underlying attributes. The attributes that are included in the dialogue box may be entered manually, or may be generated automatically by use of a historical data base, or may be created through any combination of manual entry or automatic generation.

The present invention relates to a computer-based process controller, and more particularly to a computer-based process controller including graphical display of selected process attributes.
Processing plants typically include a series of operations in which liquid, gas and solid materials are transported, heated, mixed, chemically treated, cooled, pressurized or otherwise processed. Each of the operations in a processing plant are monitored and controlled to ensure that each is performed according to some predetermined specification or criteria. The monitoring and control typically requires instrumentation including sensors for various process conditions, transmitters for transmitting the sensed data to a computer-based controller, a computer-based controller that receives the transmitted sensed data and that takes appropriate control action based on the sensed data, and controlled elements within the process such as valves, pumps, conveyors, heating or cooling elements, alarms, and the like, which are connected to and controlled by the process controller in order to maintain the sensed process conditions within predetermined desired limits to thereby control the operation of interest.
Typical processing plants, such as oil refineries, petrochemical plants, food processing plants, or drug processing plants, may include operations that have tens or hundreds of such so-called "loops", each of which may contain any type of sensor and transmitter, the computer-based controller, and any type of controlled element. Such loop-based operations are typically represented by loop drawings or loop sheets which graphically illustrate the loop or loops of the operation of interest.
With the advent of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) programs, loop drawings are created and stored in a computer memory, and are displayed on a display screen, thus simplifying the creation and maintenance of loop sheets. With such CAD programs, creation of the loop sheets was accomplished by an operator instructing the computer, using a digitizer or mouse, to place and connect graphical representations of the components of the operation on the display screen of the computer-based controller.
Such CAD programs and computer-based process controllers also facilitated the maintenance of historical data related to the operation under control. Such data historians operate much like flight recorders on aircraft, and serve to record a history of the states and other attributes of all control elements in an operation. The maintenance of such historical data has proven particularly critical when the operation being controlled relates to the manufacture of foods and/or drugs.
Typical data historians simply keep track of all attributes of all components of the operation under control, and maintain the data history in a large history data base. Then, when review of the history data base is desired, for example, after the detection of a process upset or other error, the history data base is output in the form of a spread sheet, thus permitting a system operator to analyze the historical data to determine the cause of the upset or error. During such an analysis, an operator reviews the spread sheet of historical data, in combination with a loop sheet drawing, to render conclusions, for example, as to the cause of the upset or other error. Such analyses have proven difficult because large portions of the history data base may not be relevant to the particular loop or process upset under consideration. In addition, correlating the data history with a loop sheet of interest to determine the history of a particular component of the operation of interest, often proves time consuming and occasionally results in errors.
There is therefore a need to provide an easier method to correlate data history with individual components in a computer-based process controller.

Process control with graphical attribute interface


A circuit for reducing input offset error and improving gain switching speed in a programmable gain amplifier includes a level shifting buffer that senses a signal on a common mode conductor in a differential input stage of an operational amplifier, and shifts the level of that signal up to the level corresponding to a level of an input signal applied to a non-inverting input of the operational amplifier. If a gain select signal is at a first logic level, the voltage produced by the buffer is applied to a gate electrode of one of a plurality of gain switching JFETs coupling a gain network to the inverting input of the operational amplifier, turning that JFET on. If the gain select signal is at a second logic level, the output of the buffer is isolated from the gain switching JFET and a turn off voltage is applied to the gate of the gain switching JFET.

The invention relates to circuitry biasing a field effect transistor having a source or drain coupled to an input of an amplifier so as to ensure that the field effect transistor is maintained in its triode region despite large changes in an input signal on an input of the amplifier, and more particularly to circuitry that greatly reduces input offset voltage due to parasitic leakage currents in JFET gain switches in a resistive gain network of a programmable gain amplifier and maintains selected JFETs in their triode regions irrespective of changes in the amplifier input signal.
Various programmable gain amplifiers (also referred to as switchable gain amplifiers are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,685 discloses a typical programmable gain amplifier. Leakage currents from JFET switches commonly used in programmable gain amplifiers cause errors that degrade the gain accuracy. FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of a programmable gain amplifier including a high gain operational amplifier 50. Its non-inverting input receives the input voltage V.sub.IN. The inverting input of amplifier 50 is connected by conductor 22 to an input of each of P-channel JFET switch circuits 30-1, 30-2 . . . 30-N. Each such JFET switch circuit connects a different feedback resistor junction of feedback resistors 24-1, 24-2 . . . 24-N to the inverting input 22, to thereby allow accurate setting the gain of the programmable gain amplifier if JFETs of the JFET switch circuits are maintained in their triode regions. A decoder circuit 58 responds to gain setting inputs 59 to determine which of the various JFET switch circuits 30-1 . . . 30-N are open and which are closed.
The JFET switch circuits 30-1 . . . 30-N must be biased so that when each is turned off its gate-to-channel PN junction is reverse biased beyond its pinch-off voltage. The JFET switch circuits also must be capable of operating at suitably high speed. The parasitic junction leakage currents of the JFET switch circuits influence the voltage on conductor 22 and thereby cause an input offset error in amplifier 50. An example of a switching circuit that might be used to implement the JFET switching circuits 30-1 . . . 30-N is shown in FIG. 5, but that switching circuit has very high parasitic gate-to-substrate leakage current, and would cause a high input offset voltage error in amplifier 50.

Programmable gain amplifier circuitry and method for biasing JFET gain switches thereof


Methods and systems for controlling a hydraulic motor are described. By way of illustration, a motor control system has a first input configured to receive a step/direction command signal. A second input is configured to receive a position signal from a motor position sensor, such as a continuous turn motion sensor coupled to a hydraulic motor. A processing system is configured to control a hydraulic servo valve based at least in part on the step/direction command signal and the position signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to motor control, and in particular, to methods and systems for controlling a hydraulic actuator, such as a hydraulic motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional techniques do not adequately provide for the accurate control of a hydraulic motor. Further, conventional systems for hydraulic motor are typically limited to direct velocity only control, or analog based rotational transducers. Disadvantageously, direct velocity controls often require the operator to eyeball the position, which is neither very accurate nor repeatable. The analog based rotational feedback controls have limited resolution, and require "unwinding" back to a start position to zero the system. Further, analog based hydraulic motor control systems often seek to a startup position (e.g., upon turn-on), which can be very hazardous, in the event someone is in proximity of the motor while the seek operation is performed.

Systems and methods for controlling hydraulic actuators


An electrode (4) is disposed spaced away from and in facing relation with an electrically conductive grinding wheel (2). There is applied a voltage across the grinding wheel and the electrode with making electrically conductive fluid (7) flow between the grinding wheel and the electrode. A position of the grinding wheel is numerically controlled with the grinding wheel being dressed by electrolysis to thereby grind a work with the grinding wheel. The work is ground in accordance with command data Zx.sup.(i), and then a shape of a ground surface is measured by means of a measuring device (12). The measurement data is filtered to thereby record shape error data e.sub.x.sup.(i). There is established new command data Zx.sup.(i+1) by adding compensation, and then the work is ground again with the thus established new command data. The compensation refers to past command data, and determines new command data to be equal to an expected value of the past command data. In accordance with the present invention, it is possible to obtain higher shape accuracy with the less number of processing steps, extract real shape indicating signals out of measurement data, and avoid misregistration of a work which would be caused by fixing/removing.

With recent development of scientific technology, a technique for processing a work with ultra-high precision has been increasingly demanded. As electrolytic grinding technique for satisfying such demand, the applicant has developed and suggested electrolytic inprocess dressing (hereinafter, "ELID") grinding ("Latest technology trend on mirror surface grinding", Riken Symposium, Mar. 5, 1991).
In the above mentioned ELID grinding, there is used an electrically conductive grinding wheel instead of an electrode as in conventional electrolytic grinding. In the ELID grinding, an electrode is disposed spaced away from and facing the grinding wheel, and a voltage is applied across the grinding wheel and the electrode while making electrically conductive fluid flow between the grinding wheel and the electrode. A work is ground with the grinding wheel with the grinding wheel being dressed by electrolysis. In ELID grinding, even if a finer abrasive grain is used, blinding does not occur in a grinding wheel due to setting of abrasive grains caused by electrolytic dressing. Hence, the use of finer abrasive grain makes it possible to obtain a superior ground surface like a mirror surface by grinding. Thus, ELID grinding can maintain the sharpness of a grinding wheel in a range from high efficiency grinding to mirror surface grinding, and is expected to be applied to various grinding techniques as a means capable of forming a surface with high accuracy in a short period of time, which was impossible by conventional methods.
Optical elements (such as a lens and a mirror) having aspheric surfaces which are typical of highly precise parts and are required to have not only small surface roughness but also high precision shapes. In order to grind such optical elements with the above mentioned ELID grinding, an electrically conductive grinding wheel formed with a surface having a desired shape (for instance, an aspheric surface) is indispensable. However, a problem has been that such a grinding wheel is difficult to make, takes too much time and is costly. In addition, even if a grinding wheel is formed with a desired surface, the surface shape may be changed due to abrasion and dressing occurring in use, and hence it has been impossible to maintain high accuracy while grinding a work.
Thus, there has been suggested an NC processing apparatus for ELID-grinding a work to thereby have a desired surface shape by numerically controlling a position of a grinding wheel. Such an NC processing apparatus has already been used by some people.
However, there arose a problem that it was impossible to have a desired, high shape accuracy by single grinding due to elastic deformation of a work (material to be ground) and a grinding wheel, even if the above mentioned NC processing apparatus was used. Thus, in order to accomplish high shape accuracy, a dimension of a shape of a ground work was measured, and then NC input data was compensated based on the measurement data. Then, a work was ground repeatedly. Thus, there were problems that it was necessary to repeat grinding a work for obtaining a desired shape accuracy, which took much time, and that compensation failed in many cases since compensation data was established by the intuition of those skilled in the art or by trial and error.
The data obtained by measuring a ground work shape contains various signal elements as well as true signals transmitted from a target. For instance, various signal elements include false signals transmitted from material other than a target, fluctuation in sensitivity of a sensor due to variation of measurement environment, and thermal drift of an electric system. If rough grinding is carried out in an initial stage for obtaining higher efficiency in grinding, the measurement data contains fine signal waves indicating roughness to be obtained when a rough, ground surface is measured. Thus, it is difficult to grasp a true surface shape. For these reasons, there were problems that establishment of compensation data from measurement data was difficult even for those skilled in the art, took much time, and was likely to contain a lot of compensation errors.
In addition, it was necessary in a conventional method for measuring a shape of a ground work to remove the work out of an NC processing apparatus and attach the work to an appropriate measurement device to thereby measure a shape of the work. Then, the work had to be mounted again onto an NC processing apparatus. Since a work may be disposed significantly out of position each time it is mounted/removed, there arose the problem that it was difficult to adjust the position of a work and that such position adjustment took a lot of time.
The present invention is made in order to solve the above mentioned problems. Namely, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of controlling a shape of a work in ELID-grinding which method is capable of accomplishing higher shape accuracy with a smaller number of processing steps by using an NC processing apparatus, and an NC processing apparatus utilizing the method. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of controlling a shape of a work which method is capable of extracting true shape signals out of measurement data. A further object of the present invention is to provide an NC processing apparatus for ELID-grinding which is capable of avoiding the mispositioning of a work caused by attaching/removing a work.

Method of controlling shape and NC processing apparatus utilizing the method

The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research


The present disclosure provides compounds of Formula (I). The compounds described herein may be useful in treating a disease associated with IDO, for example, cancer or an infectious disease (e.g., viral or bacterial infectious diseases). Also, provided in the present disclosure are pharmaceutical compositions, kits, methods, and uses including or using a compound described herein.

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), for example, Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1), is a family of heme-containing enzymes that catalyzes the degradation of the essential amino acid L-tryptophan to N-formylkynurenine. It plays an important role in the initial and rate limiting step in the breakdown of tryptophan.
It has been reported that IDO (e.g., IDO1), an enzyme induced by IFNγ, is one of the central regulators of immune responses in various physiological and pathological settings. IDO causes immunosuppression through breakdown of tryptophan in the tumor microenvironment. (Selvan et al., Curr. Cancer Drug Targets, 2015; Baren and Eynde Cancer Immunology Research, 2015). Overexpression of IDO was observed in various tumors (e.g., colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer), which is thought to enable tumor cells escape from immunosurveillance. [Godin-Ethier et al., Clinical Cancer Research, 2011 Nov. 15; 17 (22): 6985-91]. It was also found that Treg cells regulates IDO mediated tryptophan catabolism in dendritic cells. (Fallarino, et. al. Nature Immunology 2003). In addition, IDO has been associated with other diseases such as viral infections and Alzheimer's. Accordingly, IDO is a promising target in cancer, e.g., cancer immune-therapy, as well as in other diseases such as infectious diseases and Alzheimer's.

Inhibitor of indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO)


A network appliance configured to optimize advertising content displayed on an internal network. The appliance includes a network appliance input connected at least indirectly to an internal network and configured to receive a plurality of data packets including a request for advertising content, a data packet analyzer configured to monitor the plurality of data packets and to detect the request for advertising content, an advertisement profile generator configured to generate a user profile and to modify the request for advertising content based on the user profile, and a network appliance output connected at least indirectly to an external network and configured to transmit the plurality of data packets including the modified request for advertising content.

Internet browsing and other online activities have become increasingly important in users' lives as they obtain information, access entertainment, play games, listen to downloaded audio, etc. The individual personal computer users downloading of information accounts for 93.5% of Internet use.
Advertisers are keenly aware of the amount of time users spend on the Internet and are including their advertising materials alongside the information that is downloaded to user's computers, tablets, cell phones, game consoles, or other devices. Providing these advertising materials is an increasingly popular business model. Advertising revenue is an increasingly important revenue stream for content providers. For example, one online search engine provider estimated that 83% of its web revenue is earned by displaying advertising alongside content.
As advertisers are recognizing the value of providing advertising with downloaded content, they are also continuously striving to improve the effectiveness of such advertising. Effective advertising is generally providing by customizing the subject matter being advertised to the viewer. Increasing the effectiveness of the advertising can be valuable both to the advertiser and to the content provider that is providing the advertisement. For example, advertisers are known to pay a small amount based upon each display of the advertisement and to pay a significantly higher amount to content providers when users actually click on the displayed advertisements.
Accordingly, both advertisers and content providers have taken steps to match downloaded advertisements to the users that will be viewing those advertisements, increasing the likelihood that the user will click on the advertisement. Advertisers gather as much information as possible about users including, for example, the types of websites they typically visit, search terms entered by the user, types of applications installed on the user's computer system, etc. Advertisers use this information to target specific content alongside which their advertising materials are to be downloaded. For example, users viewing downloaded content related to the stock market will be presented with advertisements from brokerage companies.
However, user activity and content subject matter will not always provide the best indication of the type of advertising materials that are of interest to the user. For example, although some users may typically visit financial services sites to obtain information, they may prefer to spend their money pursuing a hobby unrelated to their online activities. Content providers that provide advertisements that are uninteresting to the user will not only decrease their own revenue, but also risk alienating the user.
What is needed is a system and method for filtering advertisements that is customized to an individual network. What is further needed is such a system and method that may be customized by users on the network to optimize the types of advertisements that are displayed.

System and method for filtering advertising in a networking device


A positive-feed drill motor assembly includes a positive-feed motor, a gearbox, and a drill-bit. The positive-feed motor includes the spindle which rotates around a spindle axis and simultaneously translates in a direction parallel to the spindle axis. The gearbox includes a plurality of gears rotated by the spindle. The plurality of gears is configured to engage and rotate a drill-bit around a drill-bit axis which is offset from the spindle axis. The gearbox and a drill-bit attached thereto are configured to simultaneously translate with the spindle in the direction parallel to the spindle axis as the spindle rotates around the spindle axis.

Positive-feed drilling machines simultaneously feed (or translate) the drill-bit as it rotates to drill a hole in a part. Typically, positive-feed drilling machines require two times the length of the drill-bit in vertical clearance. This is due to the fact that the spindle of the positive-feed drilling machine is in-line with the drill-bit. This can be problematic when a hole needs to be drilled in a part having limited vertical access.
A positive-feed drilling machine is needed which will overcome one or more issues of one or more of the current positive-feed drilling machines.

Limited vertical access drilling machine


A composite friction unit of a three dimensional composite body is formed in a system for continuous process manufacturing of composite friction units. The system uses a plurality of rolls of reinforcing fiber fabrics, a resin dispensing system that receives a panel of reinforcing fiber fabric from each one of the rolls and separately dispenses resin through a plurality of dispensing tubes, each associated with a different panel, onto a surface of each panel. A forming die is positioned to receive the plurality of panels of reinforcing fiber fabric after resin is dispensed onto the panels and is configured to form a composite panel from the plurality of panels of reinforcing fiber fabrics. A cutting mechanism cuts a desired shape part from the composite panel.

The present invention relates to composite friction elements for brakes and clutches and pertains particularly to improved friction elements, composition and method for making same.
A friction brake is basically a pair of friction members, one rotating and one stationary, brought into engagement to produce a friction force measured as brake torque for either slowing or stopping the rotating element. Brakes are preferably designed so that the brake torque is somewhat proportional to the input force used to engage the elements and the energy of the rotating member is dissipated in the form of heat. Unfortunately, pressure is not the only factor that influences the frictional response of the brake elements. Friction effects between friction elements cause friction force and brake torque to vary with engaging pressure, speed, and temperature, and to depend upon deposited interfacial film for stability. Nevertheless, brakes are preferably designed so that the brake torque is reasonably proportional to the input force used to engage the elements. The energy of braking is dissipated in the form of heat through the brake elements. For this reason they must be able to withstand a great deal of heat for most applications.
The rotating element of a brake system is usually a disc or drum made of metal such as a steel, and the stationary element is usually a composition pad or shoe lining moveable into and out of engagement with the rotating element. The composition element is designed to wear without undue wear of the metal disc or drum. The materials forming the composition element are the principal unpredictable variables that have the greatest affect on the performance characteristics of the brake system. Desirable materials for the composition element must be safe to use, relatively inexpensive, have good friction, wear and heat performance characteristics. This includes good fade resistance, or the ability to maintain good (preferably substantially uniform) braking with heat buildup.
A friction clutch is similar in some respects to a brake and is basically a pair of friction elements designed to selectively couple a rotating driving element to a driven element to bring the driven element up to speed to rotate with the driving element. The clutch elements, both rotating with one driving and one driven, are brought into engagement to produce a friction force driving torque for bringing either a slow moving or a stationary element up to speed with a rotating driving element. The clutch usually consists of a circular friction plate or disc having friction pads or elements of composition material on both faces squeezed between a pair of metal pressure plates.
Until recent years, the predominant reinforcing material used in the manufacture of friction pads and discs for brakes, clutches and the like was asbestos. These pads were manufactured by a molding process where each unit was formed of a composition of randomly oriented asbestos fibers in a bonding matrix placed under pressure in a mold cavity. However, it was discovered that asbestos is a carcinogenic substance, and that such use released potentially harmful amounts of it into the environment. For this reason, some industrialized countries prohibit the use of asbestos friction materials, and others including the United States require the use of asbestos to be phased out over the next few years. Therefore, there exists an urgent need for safe and effective friction materials and economical methods of manufacturing the materials into suitable friction units.
Extensive efforts have been put forth in recent years in an effort to find suitable environmentally safe materials and compositions having the desirable wear, heat and other characteristics to serve as a substitute for asbestos as friction elements in brakes and clutches. These efforts have been frustrated by the many and varied parameters involved, including the range of needs to be met between brakes and clutches as well as different types of brakes and different types of clutches. For example, different size vehicles require different size friction pads for both brakes and clutches and often have other variables including higher operating forces and temperatures. Brake pads used with rotating discs have different conditions than shoes used with brake drums. Also clutches used with automatic transmissions have different conditions from clutches used with manual or stick shift transmissions.
Attempts to satisfy the need for long life, high friction heat resistant friction materials have included proposals to utilize various chopped fibers molded in a bonding matrix, such as a resin. The friction unit is formed in the traditional fashion by a molding process, with the fibers and other components randomly oriented and placed in a binder, such as either a dry powder resin cured under heat and pressure, or placed in a liquid resin in a mold and cured. Examples of these compositions and manufacturing methods are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,591, granted Oct. 10, 1978 to Aldrich, U.S. Pat. No. 4,259,397, granted Mar. 31, 1981 to Saito et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,432,922, granted Feb. 21, 1984 to Kaufman et al.
However, friction units made by this method are expensive to manufacture and have not been satisfactory, because of their lack of uniformity in performance and durability. For example, units from the same batch may vary as much as 35% in performance characteristics. The non-uniformity of results has been found to be caused largely by a non-uniformity of distribution and orientation of the fiber and other components in the matrix. This not only creates expensive inspection and quality control problems, it can also create maintenance problems, and sometimes even hazardous conditions. For example, pads that have been matched for performance at initial installation may vary over their useful life.
Throughout the past several years, the applicant has developed extensive improvements in compositions and structures as well as in pultrusion methods of manufacture of composite friction elements for brakes and clutches. Many of these improvements are embodied in the applicants U.S. Pat. No. 5,156,787, entitled "PULTRUSION METHOD OF MAKING BRAKE LININGS"; U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,620, entitled "CONTINUOUS PULTRUSION METHOD OF MAKING FRICTION UNITS"; U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,922, entitled "UNIFORM COMPOSITE FRICTION UNITS; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,770 entitled "PUL TRUSION METHOD OF MAKING COMPOSITE FRICTION UNITS. However, the applicant's continuous work on perfecting these compositions, structures and methods indicate that further improvements in both compositions and methods of manufacture are desirable and consequently have been developed by the applicant. For example, improved mechanical properties, compositions and structures were developed as well as improvements in pultrusion manufacturing methods.
Now then, further improvements are desirable in compositions, structures and methods of manufacture. Accordingly, it is desirable that improved compositions, structures and methods of manufacture be available to overcome the above and other problems of the prior art.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Composite friction elements and pultrusion method of making same