The process according to the invention consists, in order to reduce the number of coefficients of the filters of the spatial part and the temporal part connected to the output of the spatial part, in jointly adapting the coefficients of the filters of each part using an adaptive algorithm according to the paths selected on the basis of a determined criterion. The coefficients are periodically recalculated at the rate of the known symbols in the learning sequences in order to minimize the estimation error apparent between a response signal (d(t)) and the receiver output signal (z(t)).

This invention concerns a process for multisensor equalization in a radioelectric receiver consisting of demodulating a digital message in the presence of multi-propagation paths and interfering sources, reducing the number of factors to be adapted necessary for the multisensor equalizer calculation, for modulations formed of frames comprising learning sequences and information symbol sequences. The invention also concerns a radioelectric receiver embodying such a process. The invention is based on antenna processing techniques, and therefore requires the use of a network comprising several sensors.
There are many fields of application of this invention, all concerning communications that need an equalizer to perform the single sensor demodulation, such as for example:
high throughput modulation (2400 bit/s, etc.) in the high frequency (HF) range, PA1 modulations of systems in the V/UHF range such as GSM, DECT, etc. PA1 in the HF range, multi-propagation paths output from reflections on the various ionospheric layers may be spaced by 5 ms, or several times the symbol duration in the case of modulations with a typical band width of 3 kHz. PA1 in the V/UHF range, for very high GSM type throughputs (270 kbit/s, giving a symbol duration of 3.7 .mu.s) in urban or mountainous environments, the various paths originating from reflections on various obstacles (buildings, mountains, etc.) may be separated by 10 or even 20 .mu.s. PA1 the sensors are identical and disposed at different points in space, discrimination between the useful signal and interference being effected according to the direction of arrival; PA1 the sensors are all disposed at the same point in space (colocalised antenna) and have different radiation diagrams. This means that discrimination can be carried out on the basis of polarisation and direction of arrival; PA1 the two configurations described above can be combined: several colocalised antennas can be disposed at different points in space. PA1 according to direction of arrival, PA1 according to modulation, PA1 according to time, for example, with frequency evasion links, PA1 according to power, PA1 blindly (for example, higher order source separation methods). PA1 it "aligns" on the direction of one of the paths, i.e. it phase realigns the contributions of this path on the various sensors (for omnidirectional sensors, a signal to noise ratio gain of 10 log N is obtained, where N is the number of sensors used), PA1 it also attempts to eliminate non-correlated paths from the signal, thus losing the energy associated with these paths. PA1 at least two sensors connected to a unit carrying out the preliminary processing and synchronisation of the receiver input signal, the outputs of this unit being connected respectively to a first series of inputs and a second series of inputs of the spatial part of the equaliser, the first series of inputs corresponding respectively to the inputs of the spatial filters relating to each of the paths selected from a determined number of paths detected, and the second series of inputs corresponding respectively to the inputs of a unit for the calculation of the input signals of the transverse part of the temporal part of the equaliser, and wherein the transverse part of the temporal part features a transverse filter of determined coefficients, the temporal part also featuring a recursive part consisting of a decision module whose output is connected to the input of a recursive filter of determined coefficients, the recursive filter being located in a loop and receiving on its input the sum of the output signals of the spatial part and of the transverse part, from which is subtracted the signal output by the recursive part.
For many applications in digital radio communication, transmission between the transmitter and the receiver takes place along several propagation paths:
Since the delay time for these various applications may exceed the symbol duration, equalization becomes necessary to compensate for the inter-symbol interference (IIS) thus generated. In many systems currently in service, adaptation to these propagation conditions is made possible by insertion of the known receiver learning sequence in the wave shape. Different solutions are then possible for adaptive equalization of the received useful signal.
The first two solutions described below concern single sensor equalization. Antenna filtering techniques described below use multisensors.
A first solution consists in using a Viterbi algorithm which requires a prior estimation of the propagation channel using the learning sequence. This equalisation method has the advantage of minimising the probability of error across the whole sequence of information symbols, but becomes very costly when the duration of the pulse response of the channel is much greater than the symbol duration. In fact, the number of states that the Viterbi algorithm must process is equal to M.sup.L, where M is the size of the modulation alphabet and L is the length of the pulse response of the channel expressed as a number of symbol periods. This solution is used for GSM type applications where the Viterbi algorithm typically consists of 32 states (L=5 and M=2).
In the HF band, the particular field of application of the invention, the number of states becomes too great for the Viterbi algorithm to be practically realisable (typically, M is 4 or 8, while L is equal to 12, which corresponds to a pulse response spread over 5 ms), and a second solution using a DFE equaliser is often used.
This second solution consists in using learning sequences as the response of an adaptive algorithm used to minimise a MQE (Mean Quadratic Error) criterion. This solution uses a "Decision Feedback Equaliser" (DFE).
Such an equaliser is intended to supply to a decision module adapted to the modulation in question a signal in which ISI has been eliminated or at least reduced to a great extent. To this end, the DFE equaliser uses transverse and recursive self-adapting filters which are adapted by a least squares type algorithm, preferred to a gradient algorithm for reasons of speed of convergence. The known symbols in the learning sequences are used for the adaptation of the different coefficients. The tracking of channel variations beyond the known sequences is effected using symbols which are selected (detemined) as responses as necessary during the execution of the process.
The single-sensor DFE equaliser can compensate for ISI caused by multiple propagation paths, but is not capable of phase realigning these different paths. Thus, in the presence of two stationary paths of the same amplitude, the DFE equaliser produces losses of approximately 3 dB with respect to a white Gaussian noise channel: it endeavours to retain the contribution of one of the paths and to eliminate the second using the recursive part.
Moreover, in the HF band the different propagation paths are very often affected by flat fading. Fading is a phenomenon linked to the variation of the multiple paths which in turn produces a variation of the received power, or even in extreme cases fading or dying out of the signal paths. When fading is strong, a DFE equaliser's performance is seriously reduced.
In addition, these techniques rapidly become inefficient in the presence of jamming, which means that it is necessary to use known specific anti-jamming techniques such as error correction encoding, elimination of jamming by notched filtering, use of frequency evasion links, etc. These techniques are used in many operational systems, but are nonetheless of limited effect when interference is strong and occupies the whole of the useful signal band. In such conditions, it is necessary to use more effective anti-jamming means based on the use of antenna filtering techniques.
Antenna filtering techniques appeared in the early 1960's. One in particular is described in an article of P. W. HOWELLS "Explorations in fixed and adaptive resolution at GE and SURC", IEEE Trans-Ant-Prop, vol. AP-24, no. 5, pp 575-584, Sept. 1976, while an exhaustive synthesis is presented in a doctorate thesis presented by P. CHEVALIER at the University of Paris sud in June 1991 entitled "Antenne adaptative: d'une structure lineaire a une structure non lineaire de Volterra" ("The adaptive antenna: from a linear structure to a non-linear Volterra structure"). These techniques are designed to combine the signals received by the various sensors making up the antenna so as to optimise its response to the useful signal and jamming scenario in question.
The selection of sensors and their disposition is an important parameter which has a central influence on the performance of the system. Three basic configurations are possible:
In addition, since propagation and jamming conditions can change over time, it is essential that the system be capable of adapting the antenna to these variations in real time through the use of a particular antenna filtering technique: the adaptive antenna. An adaptive antenna is one which detects and reacts to sources of interference automatically by constructing holes in its radiating diagram in their direction, while at the same time improving reception of the useful source, without any prior knowledge of the interference and on the basis of a minimal amount of information on the useful signal. Moreover, the tracking capabilities of the algorithms used make an adaptive antenna able to respond automatically to a changing environment.
Adaptive antennas are characterised by the way in which they discriminate between the useful signal and interference, i.e. by the nature of the information relating to the useful signal which they use. This discrimination process can be carried out in one of five different ways:
Up until very recently, transmission systems have always been based upon the independent operation of single-sensor adaptive equalisation and adaptive antenna techniques, which results in less than optimised performance.
Thus, the system described in an article by R. Dobson entitled "Adaptive antenna array", patent no. PCT/AU85/00157 of February 1986, which uses discrimination according to time, is efficient in terms of interference rejection, but makes no attempt to improve the useful signal to noise ratio.
In a transmission context, and when learning sequences are introduced into the wave form, it is preferable to use antenna processing techniques based on discrimination according to modulation, as these techniques enable optimisation of the useful signal to noise ratio. Most techniques used nowadays attribute complex weightings to each of the sensors of the adaptive antenna. Such an antenna is capable of rejecting interference, but in the presence of multiple propagation paths:
In order to improve the performance of this type of antenna processing in the presence of multiple propagation paths, it is possible to combine it with a single-sensor equalisation technique to obtain a multi-sensor equaliser consisting of a spatial part, composed of different filters disposed on each of the reception channels, and a temporal part located at the output of the spatial part. All the filters making up the spatial part and the temporal part are jointly adapted to the same error signal.
Several multi-sensor equalisers have already been proposed and studied, principally in the field of mobile radio transmissions, and these are particularly described in an article by K. E. Scott and S. T. Nichols entitled: "Antenna diversity with Multichannel Adaptive Equalization in Digital Radio" and in an article by P. Balaban and J. Salz entitled "Optimum Diversity Combining and Equalisation in Digital Data Transmission with Applications to Cellular Mobile Radio--Part 1: Theoretical Considerations", IEEE Trans. on Com., vol. 40, no. 5, pp 885-894, May 1992.
Up to now, such equalisers have been intended to combat the selective fading engendered by multiple paths in a non-jammed environment. They consist of Finite Pulse Response filters, one on each channel, followed by an adder then a monodimensional equaliser equalising at the symbol rate. The criterion used for the optimisation of these multi-sensor equalisers is the minimisation of MQE between their output and a response determined by the learning sequences.
In the equaliser proposed by Scott et al, coefficient adaptation is carried out by a least squares algorithm, and its use for a HF channel cannot be envisaged given the wave forms used. Taking into account the temporal spread of the multiple paths, the number of coefficients to be adapted is too great for the algorithm to be able to converge with the learning sequence.

Process for multi-sensor equalisation in a radio receiver in the presence of interference and multiple propagation paths


A method includes etching a dielectric layer to form an opening, with an underlying region underlying the dielectric layer exposed to the opening, and performing a bombardment to bombard a surface region of the underlying region through the opening. After the bombardment, the surface region is reacted with a process gas to form a reaction layer. An anneal is then performed to remove the reaction layer.

Transistors typically include semiconductor regions used to form the source regions and drain regions. The contact resistance between metal contact plugs and the semiconductor regions is high. Accordingly, metal silicides are formed on the surfaces of the semiconductor regions such as silicon regions, germanium regions, silicon germanium regions in order to reduce the contact resistance. The contact plugs are formed to contact the silicide regions, and the contact resistance between the contact plugs and the silicide regions are low.
A typical silicidation process includes performing a pre-clean, forming a metal layer on the surfaces of the semiconductor regions, and then performing an annealing, so that the metal layer reacts with the semiconductor regions to form the silicide regions. After the reaction, the upper portions of the metal layer may be left un-reacted. An etching step is then performed to remove the un-reacted portions of the metal layer, and the silicide regions are left.
With the increasing down-sizing of integrated circuits, the silicide regions also become increasingly smaller. Accordingly, the contact resistance of the electrical contacts becomes increasingly higher.

Directional pre-clean in silicide and contact formation

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


A method of volume rebuilding in a RAID for a networked storage system in which portions of a hard disk drive under rebuild are progressively made available to the system during the rebuild process as the portions are rebuilt. The impact of rebuild activity on system performance is controllable by allowing non-rebuild requests to throttle rebuild requests.

As electronically stored data becomes increasingly central to the effective operation of business, government, and academia, systems that ensure that data is safe and instantly available are in demand. The primary method for storing user-accessible data is the hard disk drive. Because hard disk drives are not one hundred percent reliable, systems and methods have been developed to protect against failure. One such approach, redundant arrays of inexpensive (or independent) disks (RAID) configurations, has been used for years to provide protection and high availability of data. RAID configurations include a number of independent hard disk drives and a specialized RAID controller. RAID systems can be configured to provide both data redundancy and performance enhancement, which are accomplished in RAID systems using a number of techniques such as striping and mirroring. Striping interleaves data across multiple storage elements for better performance. Mirroring duplicates data across two or more storage elements for redundancy.
When a hard disk drive in a RAID system fails, the hard disk drive is no longer available for data transfers. Specific RAID architectures, including those that use mirroring, mirroring with striping, and striping with parity, provide data redundancy so that no data is lost. However, the performance and the level of data redundancy of the RAID system are decreased until the failed hard disk drive can be replaced and rebuilt with all of the data. It is desirable that the RAID system remains on-line during this rebuild process. If a hard disk drive fails, RAID arrays currently have the capability of rebuilding a replacement hard disk drive without taking the RAID system offline. During the rebuild process, all read commands directed to the logical block address (LBA) of the hard disk drive being rebuilt must be handled by using the redundant data striped or mirrored on the other hard disk drives in the RAID array.
Hard disk drive rebuilds are executed in different ways with different performance impacts and levels of transparency. The most efficient and reliable methods of hard disk drive rebuilding are designed to be transparent to the user and to have minimal effect on system performance. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,492, entitled, "Data Redundancy and Recovery Protection," the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. However, this and other conventional methods of hard disk drive rebuild take several hours to complete and, even though transparency is achieved, system performance is degraded. Time is a major consideration when rebuilding a hard disk drive in a RAID system due to the inherent reduced level of data protection that exists until the drive rebuild is complete. Should another hard disk drive in the RAID system fail during the rebuild, permanent loss of data may occur.
Another major consideration for rebuild activity is the availability of data to system requests. In essence, drive rebuild activity must compete for system resources with system access activity. For high-use systems, one solution is to perform hard disk drive rebuilds during non-peak times. Such a solution is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,584, entitled, "User Selectable Priority for Disk Array Background Operations," the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Until the disk is rebuilt, the underlying data in the host system is vulnerable during the high-traffic times that rely most on data reliability and consistency.

Method of controlling the system performance and reliability impact of hard disk drive rebuild


According to one embodiment, systems, apparatus and methods are disclosed for installing a program onto a target machine, executing the program, and responsive to a change in profile data collected while the program executes which exceeds a predetermined threshold, recompiling the program while the target machine is idle.

Most often, software does not make the best use of the hardware on which it runs. This is due to many reasons. For one, most compiler optimizations are machine dependent. When generating an executable for general distribution software vendors must make decisions about what kind of machine the user is likely to be using. A vendor may choose to optimize his code for the newest processor available while another may opt for another approach. Beside the processor type, other elements of the users system such as the cache size and bus speed affect how the machine performs and therefore relate to how code should be optimized to best perform on that system. Additionally, a user's hardware configuration may change over time due to hardware upgrades. This further complicates the choices to be made in generating optimized code.
Another factor effecting how software should best be optimized is the manner in which the software will be used. That is, the functions utilized and the data set upon which the program operates effects how the code should be optimized. Again, software vendors are left with the task of determining the most likely uses and type of data set that will be used. As with optimizations directed to specific hardware, these choices to not optimum for all possible users of the software.
To generate an optimized executable, software vendors can utilize profile guided optimization. Historically, profile guided optimization in the compiler has been done by inserting instrumentation into the code to be optimized, compiling the code and then executing the instrumented code on a representative machine with a representative data set. The instrumentation provides feedback that allows the software vendor to make adjustments to the code to reach optimum performance on the test machine. Current systems to enable profile collection and usage in the compiler are tedious and consequently usage of profile feedback among software vendors is very low. A software vendor may not have access to representative program inputs. As explained above, the software vendor usually has to choose a single target machine configuration when optimizing the binary that is shipped. This choice is often non-optimal. Hence, to generate a high performance executable, knowledge of accurate usage profiles and the target machine is imperative. Ideally code should be optimized for an individual user and allow for changes over time due to hardware upgrades and changes in usage.


A standard induction motor includes an outer bearing including first and second end brackets joined to the opposite end of a tubular main frame by through bolts. Each of the end brackets is a cup-shaped member with a circular outer wall and a flat outer radial wall. The first end bracket has four spaced air inlet openings in the circular wall with axial cross bars forming elongated air passageways. A separate rodent guard unit is secured to each ventilation opening and includes an outer plate abutting the exterior of the circular wall and having integral clip members engaging edges of the ventilation opening. Each plate has circumferentially elongated openings extending across the cross bars to form small rodent excluding passageways. The second end bracket has a L-shaped ventilation opening in the circular wall and the radial wall. An L-shaped rodent guard has axially spaced wires overlying the air outlet opening in the circular wall and radially spaced wires overlying the ventilation opening in the radial wall. The wires are connected to each other by circumferentially spaced L-shaped support wires. Two of the radial wires abut the radial wall to opposite ends of through bolt openings and are secured in place by the through bolts and spanning a washer.

This invention relates to a dynamoelectric machine having ventilating openings with foreign matter restrictive construction to selectively control the entrance of foreign matter and particularly animals.
Dynamoelectric machines including alternators and motors are conventionally constructed with a tubular main frame and end bells or brackets releasably secured to the opposite ends of the main frame. An annular stator unit is secured within the tubular main frame. A rotor is mounted within the stator unit, with shaft means projecting from the opposite ends and rotatably mounted in suitable bearings in the end brackets.
A fan unit is often incorporated into the rotor structure within one end bracket for generating of air flow through the motor. The end brackets are provided with appropriate openings to permit the air flow through the motor. The openings in the end bracket are advantageously formed with an integral grill work to maintain the strength of the end bracket while allowing appropriate volumes of air flow through the dynamoelectric machine.
In many applications, relatively significant openings are formed within the end brackets. In certain applications, special end bracket constructions are required to further restrict the size of the openings to minimize entry of small animals, including mice, snakes and like sized animals Motors for such applications may include a standard motor within which a special screen member is welded to the interior surface of the end bracket in overlying relationship to the air flow openings. Generally, a screen member is shaped to conform to the interior surface at the air openings and welded within the end bracket to overly the air openings. The motor end brackets can of course be specially constructed with appropriately sized openings. U.S. Pat. No. 5,081,384, which issued on Jan. 14, 1992, particularly discloses a ventilated motor having an end bracket within which a baffle and air deflector unit is integrally cast into the end bracket. The deflector openings are said to be of a sufficient size to prevent entrance of small animals, snakes and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,500,971 which issued Mar. 21, 1950, illustrates a motor having large ventilating openings which are covered by screen units bolts over the openings by special bolts and bolt openings formed in the side wall of the frame which is extended downwardly to form a supporting base. This patent thus teaches and suggests a special motor structure providing special external mounting components for covering of the ventilating opening with a special separate screen through the use of totally separate mounting components.
In certain motors, the air flow openings are formed in the end face and the adjacent sidewalls as a plurality of closely spaced edge openings. In other motors, a single relatively large grilled opening is formed in the sidewall of one end frame. Generally, each manufacturer makes a line of standard motors with standardized ventilating openings.
Such prior art devices are well known in the art and have provided a satisfactory enclosure for the effective exclusion of small animals and the like. There is a need for a relatively simple and inexpensive system for modifying of a standard motor to the requirements of special applications which require animal-proof type enclosure and particularly such a motor system which is conveniently adapted to field application. Under such a system, distributors, sellers and users of motors may stock standard air-cooled motors and provide for special animal exclusion construction by modification of such motors.
There is a need for a simple, reliable and effective method for converting of a standard motor to a rodent guarded motor without requiring shop service and reworking.

Ventilating apparatus for dynamoelectric machine with animal restricted ventilating openings


The present invention provides an imprint apparatus which performs an imprint process in which an imprint material on a substrate is molded with a mold to form a pattern on the substrate, the apparatus including a controller configured to control the imprint process to form a predetermined layer on the substrate with a target layer, which is formed on the substrate, used as an alignment reference, wherein the controller is configured to select a mold from a plurality of molds prepared for the predetermined layer, such that an overlay error between the target layer and the predetermined layer falls within a tolerance.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imprint apparatus, and a method of manufacturing an article.
2. Description of the Related Art
An exposure apparatus which projects (transfers) the pattern of a reticle onto a resist (photosensitive material) on a substrate is employed as a lithography apparatus for manufacturing a device such as a semiconductor device. By developing the resist, a resist pattern is formed on the substrate, and used as a mask to etch an underlying layer and implant ions into the substrate.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-165400 proposes an imprint apparatus as another lithography apparatus for manufacturing a device such as a semiconductor device. The imprint apparatus shapes and cures an imprint material on a substrate using a mold to form a pattern corresponding to a resist pattern on the substrate.
However, although an imprint apparatus typically applies a force or heat to a mold in accordance with the shape of each shot region on the substrate to correct the shape of the mold, it can correct only simple components such as magnification, trapezoidal, and skew components in that case. This means that the imprint apparatus cannot correct other components, and may be disadvantageous in minimizing an overlay error. The overlay error means herein a shift between a pattern already formed on the substrate, and a pattern newly formed on the former pattern by the imprint apparatus.

Imprint apparatus, and method of manufacturing article


The disclosed technology includes a health engine that monitors and modifies customer-premises equipment (CPE) devices. The health engine can detect patterns in CPE device behavior, identify problems with CPE devices, and adjust CPE device configurations proactively or reactively to address problems or prevent problems. In some implementations, the health engine can instruct a CPE device or gateway to restart, update its software or firmware, notify a user of the CPE device of an unhealthy behavior pattern in a CPE device. The health engine can modify a CPE device prior to a user using the device or when the CPE device is inactive.

Customer-premises equipment (CPE) is an electronic device located at a customer's premises that itself connects to a network or enables other devices to connect to a network. CPE devices include mobile phones, telephones, routers, switches, residential gateways (RGs), set-top boxes (STBs), fixed mobile convergence devices, home networking adapters, Internet access gateways, and home Internet of Things (IoT) solutions that include centralized hub and connected smart peripherals (e.g. doorbell, security camera, sensor, home appliance, etc.). CPE devices couple to networks (e.g wide area networks (WANs), the Internet, etc. to thereby enable consumers to access services; CPE devices can distribute those services in a home via a local area network (LAN) or Wireless LAN (WLAN). Customers use CPE devices for various operations, including connecting to the Internet, communicating with a network or a device, placing or receiving phone calls, email, hosting Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, and other telecommunications services.
Network providers have elected to use Technical Report 069 ("TR-069") as a protocol to monitor and manage CPE devices. As a bidirectional Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)/Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)-based protocol, TR-069 provides communication between CPE devices and servers for management and modification of CPE devices. Network providers implement TR-069 in a wide range of telecommunications technology, including digital subscriber line (DSL), cable and Ethernet RGs, optical network terminals (ONTs), IP television STBs, network attached storage (NAS), powerline adapters, femtocells, microcells, picocells, and IP phones. The Broadband Forum manages the TR-069 standard and reports that the number of devices implementing TR-069 exceeds 350 million. More information regarding TR-069 is found at https://www.broadband-forum.org/standards-and-software/technica-specifications/tr-069-files-tools, which is incorporated by reference for its entirety.
Although TR-069 is widely implemented to manage CPE devices, the TR-069 standard and implementing equipment have several shortcomings that affect consumers, network providers, and service providers. For example, service or network providers that use the TR-069 standard require a call center to handle customer calls where TR-069 has identified a failing or problematic device. The network provider hosting the call center takes considerable time and value away from the provider and customer when CPE devices fail. Also, most subscribers find fixing a device that operates under TR-069 challenging, as a CPE device interface (e.g., an RG's interface) is complex. For example, a user generally cannot access a CPE device's configuration settings necessary to fix a TR-069 issue from the user interface.
Moreover, if subscriber access to a CPE device interface is permitted, there is a likelihood that the subscriber will improperly change configuration settings, resulting in CPE device failure, poor performance, or subscriber frustration. The eventual outcome is a call to customer support, which takes away valuable time and resources for all parties involved. Additionally, service providers and network providers waste millions of dollars per year on call centers and operations to fix devices operating on the TR-069 standard. Accordingly, the industry needs technology to address the above-mentioned problems and potentially provide additional benefits.
The drawings are not drawn to scale. Also, some components or operations can be separated into different blocks or combined into a single block for the purposes of discussion of some of the implementations of the disclosed technology. The disclosed technology is intended to cover modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the disclosed technology. For example, memory storing instructions can be located on a device or located in a remote location relative to the device. Also, a processor can execute instructions stored in a memory locally or read instructions from a remote memory.

Proactive and reactive management for devices in a network


The present invention relates to series of compounds with aqueous metal decontamination activity and their uses in removing metals from aqueous media. The compounds are esters of organic acids or alcohols with polyols that contain a sulfhydral group (—SH). The compounds release sulfhydral slowly into the water providing activity over extended periods of time and exhibit biodegradable characteristics. The compounds may be used to remediate aqueous media.

The following description of the background of the invention is provided to aid in understanding the invention, but is not admitted to be, or to describe, prior art to the invention. All publications are incorporated by reference in their entirety.
The presence of arsenic and other toxic metals in ground water and other sources of water is an environmental concern. These toxic metals occur in groundwater, water sources and soil both naturally and as contaminants from various sources including but not limited to sources such as industrial wastes, byproducts of manufacturing, agricultural wastes and byproducts. A method of stabilizing mercury and other heavy metals in particulate material, such as sludge, is described by Broderick et. al. in US 200/0106317A1. The described method uses a metal reagent in addition to sulfur-containing compound and proposes agitating these materials plus others in an oxygen atmosphere. In this process the excess sulfides that were added to remove the metals have to be removed also as they become contaminates.
There are known methods for removing arsenic and other toxic metals from ground water and contaminated water which differ slightly for each metal contaminant. As an example, one method for arsenic involves the reduction of arsenic to the arsenite form and then complexation by resins, clays, carbon or zeolites. When the arsenic is trapped in such filtration systems, the complexing system must be removed along with the entrapped arsenic. These systems have not proven very useful for use in aquifers due to the mechanical complexities. Sulfhydrated cellulose (Lindahl et. al., WO8802738) was used in a bed as an ion exchange treatment to adsorb mercury, cadmium, and lead from solutions. The filter material was then stripped with aqueous 1M or greater HCl for conventional precipitation as sulfides. There have been similar other applications of the ion exchange technique (Furuta et. al, EP352420; Yan, U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,818) to remove metals from liquid hydrocarbons. However these methods are not useful to remediate water in situ.
Zero valent iron has been proposed to treat groundwater and surface streams for decontamination (Ponder et. al, US 20020006867A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,242,663). Another presently used common technique for decontaminating aquifers is the pump-and-treat method. This method utilizes a series of extraction wells drilled into a contaminated aquifer. The contaminated water is drawn through an extraction well, treated to remove or degrade the contaminant, and then returned to the aquifer through one or more injection wells or discharged to sewers or other non-origin points. This method can be both time consuming and cost-prohibitive
A treatment method for arsenic in water with proteins derived from microbes that routinely process arsenic via metabolic process has been suggested by some. This presently appears to be a process that is too expensive to have practical application for bioremediation. Although a large number of genetic studies have been done on microbes that can process As or other metals (e.g. Hg), the basic problem for the use of any of the microbes with metals is to devise a relatively inexpensive means of reducing the contaminating metals with the microbes and then binding the reduced metals to a substrate.
The approach of growing organisms to extract the polypeptides or synthesizing complex polypeptides is costly. Growing organisms for extraction of products from the organisms is viable when the value of the extracted products, such as pharmaceuticals, is expected to be high. However, in the case of treating soil and water contamination, large volumes must be treated over extended periods and cost has proven to be a limiting factor.
All of the previously mentioned methods have shown serious shortcomings. Addition of complexing materials has the problem that essentially all of the materials is released at once. Thus, frequent addition of the chosen material is needed to keep a sufficient concentration in the contaminated area over time. The constant injection of high volumes of solutions will increase the volume of the system or aquifer and thereby potentially cause further spread of the contamination. Special measures are required to deoxygenate the water and solutions which are injected, to ensure maintaining the anaerobic atmosphere which fosters the reduction. Thus a need exists for a safe, cost-effective method for removing these contaminating materials from ground water and soils.

Sulfhydral containing compounds and methods of using the same


A system may include an overlay network linking a plurality of publishers, a plurality of subscribers, and a plurality of brokers. The overlay network may include a first computer network having a first network protocol carried by a second computer network having a second network protocol. The system may also include an agent carried by each of the publishers, the subscribers, and the brokers that adjust the network's topology based upon collected runtime data of condition of each link within the network and/or broker availability to any publisher and subscriber.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of computer systems, and, more particularly, to control systems of publisher/subscriber overlay networks to optimize selectable performance goals.
2. Description of Background
An overlay-based messaging system is a messaging paradigm for connecting applications belonging to different local domains distributed over wide area networks. In such systems, a number of end hosts form an overlay network by establishing long lived application-level connections among themselves. They use such overlay links to exchange control messages with each other and relay data messages for each other.
Usually each overlay node is associated with a local domain, where applications cannot communicate with applications in other domains directly due to virtual private network ("VPN") or firewall constraints. By using the overlay as an intermediate, and exchanging messages with the overlay, applications belonging to isolated domains distributed across wide area can communicate with each other.

Publish/subscribe overlay network control system

International Business Machines Corporation


A compressed air energy storage module including an integrated thermal energy storage and recovery apparatus is provided. The compressed air energy storage module contains no moving parts and is constructed onsite, underground and out-of-sight. The compressed air energy storage module comprises a first regenerative heat exchanger including a first tank filled with a first particulate material that stores thermal energy and adsorbs air, and a second regenerative heat exchanger including a second tank filled with a second particulate material that stores thermal energy. A first end of the first tank is connected to a first end of the second tank via a first piping system. A second end of the first tank is connected to a second end of the second tank via a second piping system. The first piping system and the second piping system form a circular path for the air to circulate through the first and second regenerative heat exchangers.

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is a proven means of storing mechanical or, via an electric generator, electrical energy for subsequent use on a very large scale. Existing commercial CAES facilities store the compressed air in naturally occurring underground geological formations, and obtain the heat needed to fully recover the stored energy by burning natural gas. The former feature avoids the considerable cost of the pressure vessels that would otherwise be needed to confine the compressed air, but forces these CAES facilities to be located near to suitable geological formations. The latter feature allows the stored energy to be recovered efficiently and at an acceptably high power level, but adds to the cost of operating the facility and results in the emission of carbon dioxide, a persistent pollutant and greenhouse gas.
A number of approaches to making CAES economical without any net carbon emissions and/or less limiting site restrictions are under development. There are two ways to avoid the carbon emissions. The first is to take the heat needed to recover the stored energy upon expansion from a carbon-neutral source, for example the surrounding atmosphere or ground, solar thermal hot water, biomass or a waste stream. The second is to store the heat produced by compressing the air for reuse upon expanding it. These two forms of carbon-neutral CAES are not separated by a sharp line; for example the heat of compression may be stored in a water reservoir, and the heat lost during storage made up for using one of the aforementioned heat sources.
There are likewise two, not-necessarily exclusive, ways to avoid site restrictions of existing CAES facilities. The first is to reduce the cost of the pressure vessels by various means. The most widely applicable means is to use high pressures (typically of order 200 atmospheres). This reduces the amount of steel or other material required to store a given amount of energy as compressed air (logarithmically with pressure in the isothermal model), and hence the cost per unit of stored energy as well. The cost can also be lowered by using buried pipes in a remote or restricted area, in which case the overpressure safety factors required by ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) regulations are much smaller than those for unburied tanks (1.4 instead of 3.5). Still another means of cutting the cost is to confine the air using a less expensive material than steel.
Unfortunately, inexpensive building materials such as concrete lack sufficient strength in tension, while modern high-tensile strength materials such as carbon-fiber resins still cost considerably more per unit strength. Viable alternatives include artificial underground chambers, which may be excavated in certain kinds of rock for a reasonable cost, or confining the air in fabric containers underwater at a depth where the hydrostatic pressure equals the desired operating pressure. These latter possibilities have their own site restrictions, although much less severe than those of suitable naturally occurring geological formations.
The second class of methods for confining the air without severe site restrictions is chemical rather than mechanical. One such approach is to store the air at ambient pressure but as a liquid at cryogenic temperatures (ca. −160° C.). Another is to adsorb the air in a nano-porous solid material such as a zeolite. The amount of air adsorbed may be controlled by adjusting the temperature of the material rather than the pressure over it, specifically by cooling it to make it adsorb air and heating it to desorb the air. With common zeolite materials such as 13X (NaX), the temperatures and pressures required for this Adsorption-Enhanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (AE-CAES) are quite mild, making this a particularly promising albeit still relatively undeveloped form of CAES.
The main challenge in designing a cost-effective AE-CAES system is that several times more heat must be moved around over the course of the storage cycle than in most other approaches to CAES. This includes the sensible heat in the adsorbent and the latent heat of adsorption, in addition to the heat of compression.

Modular adsorption-enhanced compressed air energy storage system with regenerative thermal energy recycling


A panel for supporting abradable material in a turbojet, the panel comprising a rigid support for fastening to an inside wall of a fan casing and having one face covered in a laminated structure carrying a layer of abradable material, the laminated structure comprising sheets of fibers embedded in a polymer, and comprising an upstream portion covered by the abradable material and a downstream portion that extends beyond the abradable material, the thickness of the downstream portion being greater than the thickness of the upstream portion and being capable of withstanding ice impacts.

At its upstream end, a bypass turbomachine has a fan wheel carrying a plurality of blades that rotate inside a fan casing. A cone arranged upstream from the fan wheel serves to direct the incoming air stream through the blades of the fan. In order to prevent air from flowing past the tips of the blades, which would reduce the efficiency of the turbomachine, a coating of abradable material is placed in register with the fan blades and is carried by the radially inner face of the fan casing.
While the turbomachine is operating in flight, ice forms on the surface of the cone and at the radially inner ends of the blade airfoils. Under the effect of centrifugal force, pieces of ice are ejected and then collide with the portion of the fan casing that is situated downstream from the abradable material.
To avoid damaging the inside wall of the fan casing downstream from the abradable material, glass fiber panels supported by damper pins are fastened to the fan casing. Each of these protective panels is made up of a stack of several layers of glass fibers, and the protective panels are connected downstream to soundproofing panels.
Unfortunately, the use of protective panels reduces the axial extent of the soundproofing panels, thereby contributing to increasing the sound level emitted from the turbomachine, even though it is desirable to reduce it. Furthermore, the protective panels need to made as a unit with the soundproofing panels, thereby complicating fabrication thereof and increasing their costs. Finally, during maintenance, replacing a protective panel requires the soundproofing panel that is secured thereto to be replaced as well, thereby significantly increasing costs since soundproofing panels are elements that are difficult to fabricate and therefore expensive.
At present, wide-chord blades, i.e. blades of curved section, are preferred to straight blades since their more highly-developed aerodynamic shape serves to improve the efficiency of the fan, and above all to make it better at withstanding impacts in flight against foreign bodies, such as birds, for example.
Nevertheless, the particular shape of these blades serves to lengthen the ice impact zone upstream into the abradable material that is situated in register with the fan blades. For this type of blade, the impact zone begins about two-thirds of the way along the axial extent of the abradable material and terminates downstream from the blades. Thus, the protective panels commonly used for straight blades are found to be unsuitable for a fan having wide-chord blades when it comes to protecting all of the portion of the casing that is subjected to ice impacts.

Panel for supporting abradable material in a turbomachine


The invention relates to a metering device for dosing pressurized fluids, comprising a housing with a metering opening, controlled an axially moveable valve needle, an axially extendable piezoelectric actuator, a thermal compensator unit, and an electrical connector for supplying electrical power to the piezoelectric actuator.

The metering device is of the type which comprises a housing having a metering opening, whose opening and closing is controlled by the movement of an axially moveable valve needle, an axially extendable piezoelectric actuator cooperating with the valve needle to control its axial movement, a thermal compensator unit cooperating with the piezoelectric actuator and the housing to compensate for different thermal expansion of the housing and the piezoelectric actuator to ensure elastic contact between an end stop of the housing, the piezoelectric actuator and the valve needle, and an electrical connector for supplying electrical power to the piezoelectric actuator.
In such metering devices the housing and the piezoelectric actuator are generally fabricated from different materials and have different thermal coefficients of expansion. Therefore, special measures must be taken to ensure that the injector valve meets the requirements on the fuel flow rate and the geometry of the jet. Particularly important is the influence of the temperature on the principal functional parameters of the injector. The flow rate and other characteristic parameters must remain within predetermined limits of tolerance throughout the full range of the operating temperatures ranging from −40° C. to +150° C.
Specifically, as the piezoelectric actuator generally has a lower coefficient of thermal expansion than the outer housing, it would not maintain Hertzian contact between its fixed end stop surface and the top end of the valve needle. To deal with this problem, the injector valve is typically equipped with a hydraulic thermal compensation unit. As the operation temperature increases, the thermal compensation unit recovers the clearance that would otherwise be created between the valve needle and the piezoelectric actuator.
Due to this fact, the electrical wiring, which connects the upper side of the piezoelectric actuator with the outer side of the injector body, must likewise permit the axial movements, i.e. the extensions and the contractions of the thermal compensator subgroup with high frequency while still providing a reliable electrical connection to the piezoelectric actuator. In current designs, a bipolar and flexible wire coming out of the injector body provides the electrical connection to the piezoelectric actuator. Such a solution, however, can only be employed for test specimens and is not feasible for the standard production of injectors.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a metering device of the above mentioned type with an improved electrical connector which allows for rapid axial movements of the thermal compensator.

Metering device with an electrical connector


A process is provided for preparing (R)-5-[2-(4-fluorophenyl)-5-(1-methylethyl)-3-phenyl-4-[(phenylamino)carbonyl]-1H-pyrrol-1-yl]-5-hydroxy-3-oxo-1-heptanoic acid, R-substituted ester 9 comprising:                (a) reacting the aldehyde 1 with the enolate form of (S)-2-hydroxy-1,2,2-triphenylethyl acetate substituent in a chelating co-solvent;

Atorvastatin is a reductase inhibitor of the enzyme 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutarate-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) and therefore is a useful anti-hyperlipoproteinemic agent. It has proven to be a highly effective medication for the treatment of disorders such as hyperlipidemia and hypercholesterolemia which are conditions that are known risk factors for arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Atorvastatin is chemically [R-(R*,R*)]-2-(4-fluorophenyl)-β,δ-dihydroxy-5-(1-methylethyl)-3-phenyl-4-(phenylcarbamoyl)-1H-pyrrole-1-heptanoic acid and is marketed as its calcium salt under the brand name Lipitor™.
A route to make Atorvastatin 6 is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,995. Depicted in Scheme 1 herein is a sequence of reactions from the process taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,995 which involves the alkylation of aldehyde 1 to form ester 2 followed by transesterification to methylester 3 using sodium methoxide. Methylester 3 is then reacted with the lithium enolate of tert-butylacetate to form the β-ketoester 5, which is then further reacted over a series of steps to form Atorvastatin Calcium 6. If scale-up of the transformation 1 to 5 were contemplated, it would suffer from serious deficiencies. These include:                (a) The aldol reaction has low stereoselectivity (R,S:S,S 84:16) for this case and further recrystallisation steps would be necessary to obtain diastereopure material with a low overall yield (less than 40%).        (b) Silica gel column purification would be necessary to purify the β-hydroxy methylester 3.        (c) The disclosure is silent regarding the recovery of the expensive chiral auxiliary [(S)-1,1,2-triphenyl-1,2-ethanediol, 4].        (d) The initial transesterification step employs the expensive, flammable and corrosive base sodium methoxide and anhydrous conditions.        (e) Sodium methoxide is also a strong base which is expected to lead to detrimental side reactions.        (f) Further, example 3 of the patent requires the addition of the β-hydroxy methylester 3 in absolute THF to the lithium enolate solution "as quickly as possible without allowing the temperature to rise above −40° C.".

Recently disclosed in Canadian Patent application 2,460,935 is an improved preparation of hydroxy acid 7 from the aldol product 2 as depicted in Scheme 2. This process requires the establishment of the correct stereochemistry prior to hydrolysis step.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide processes which overcome deficiencies of the prior art. It is a further object of this invention to provide a facile and commercially viable process to produce atorvastatin calcium 6 in enantiomerically enriched form.
Further and other object of this invention will be realized by those skilled in the art from the following Summary of the Invention and the Examples thereof.

Process for the preparation of Atorvastatin and intermediates

Abstract: (b) hydrolysis of (R,S)-5-[2-(4-fluorophenyl)-5-(1-methylethyl)-3-phenyl-4-[(phenylamino)carbonyl]-1H-pyrrol-1-yl]-3-hydroxy-1-pentanoic acid, (S)-2-hydroxy-1,2,2-triphenylethyl ester (2a and 2b) using a base, preferably an alkali metal base, preferably in a solvent to form the carboxylic acid 7;

Abstract: (c) treating the acid 7 with a chiral base to form a salt and purifying the salt to obtain enantiomerically enriched (R)-7 chiral base salt;

Abstract: (d) alkylation of the (R)-7 chiral base salt or the free base derived from (R)-7, forming (R)-5-[2-(4-fluorophenyl)-5-(1-methylethyl)-3-phenyl-4-[(phenylamino)carbonyl]-1H-pyrrol-1-yl]-5-hydroxy-3-oxo-1-heptanoic acid, R-substituted ester 9 and atorvastatin calcium 6,

Abstract: wherein R is a C1 to C6 alkyl, C6 to C9 aryl or C7 to C10 aralkyl.


A preshaping method for massive forming processes is proposed in which a fixed blank is deformed by at least one roll moving continuously forward along a predetermined contour.

In the process chain of die forging, an intermediate shape in relation to the final shape of the forged part is required. The result of the subsequent die forging is thus to be improved by an accumulation or reduction in mass at certain points of the workpiece. In order to obtain the intermediate shape, methods such as transverse rolling or stretch rolling, for example, are known.
Further methods are described in "Lehrbuch der Umformtechnik" [textbook of forming technology], Kurt Lange, Springer-Verlag 1974, page 46.
Both transverse rolling and stretch rolling permit optimum geometric adaptation of the mass distribution on the intermediately shaped part to the requirements for the die forging of elongated parts. The excess material in the final shape is thereby minimized and uniformly distributed and permits low-flash die forging. Due to the adaptation of the rolled intermediate shape to the final shape of the finish-forged part, constant forming forces and thus minimum tolerances of the finished parts in the press direction are ensured. In addition, relative movements in the pressure contact zone between workpiece and impression are reduced and thus the wear of the dies is reduced. By the use of preshaping methods preceding the die forging, the use of material can be reduced by up to a third.
In massive forming, a trend toward a higher and higher number of strokes has recently been detected. This is achieved in particular through the use of modern crank presses having fully automatic workpiece transfer for the die forging. The known preshaping methods, in particular transverse rolling and stretch rolling, have the disadvantage that they can only be integrated with difficulty in a fully automatic forging process with automatic workpiece transport. The reasons for this are the relatively high cycle times during the transverse or stretch rolling, and the partly unsuitable position of the workpiece at the end of the rolling operation for an automated production process.
A further disadvantage is the complicated design of the preshaping device and the associated high costs.


An immunomodulator for use in the treatment, reduction, inhibition or control of a neoplastic disease in a patient intended to undergo checkpoint inhibition therapy, simultaneously, separately or sequentially with administration of the immunomodulator. The immunomodulator preferably comprises a whole cell Mycobacterium, for example, M. vaccae or M. obuense.

In humans with advance cancer, anti-tumour immunity is often ineffective due to the tightly regulated interplay of pro- and anti-inflammatory, immune-stimulatory and immunosuppressive signals. For example, loss of the anti-inflammatory signals leads to chronic inflammation and prolonged proliferative signalling. Interestingly, cytokines that both promote and suppress proliferation of the tumour cells are produced at the tumour site. It is the imbalance between the effects of these various processes that results in tumour promotion.
To date, a major barrier to attempts to develop effective immunotherapy for cancer has been an inability to break immunosuppression at the cancer site and restore normal networks of immune reactivity. The physiological approach of immunotherapy is to normalize the immune reactivity so that, for example, the endogenous tumour antigens would be recognized and effective cytolytic responses would be developed against tumour cells. Although it was once unclear if tumour immunosurveillance existed, it is now believed that the immune system constantly monitors and eliminates newly transformed cells. Accordingly, cancer cells may alter their phenotype in response to immune pressure in order to escape attack (immunoediting) and upregulate expression of inhibitory signals. Through immunoediting and other subversive processes, primary tumour and metastasis maintain their own survival.
One of the major mechanisms of anti-tumour immunity subversion is known as 'T-cell exhaustion', which results from chronic exposure to antigens and is characterized by the up-regulation of inhibitory receptors. These inhibitory receptors serve as immune checkpoints in order to prevent uncontrolled immune reactions.
PD-1 and co-inhibitory receptors such as cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4, B and T Lymphocyte Attenuator (BTLA; CD272), T cell Immunoglobulin and Mucin domain-3 (Tim-3), Lymphocyte Activation Gene-3 (Lag-3; CD223), and others are often referred to as a checkpoint regulators. They act as molecular "tollbooths," which allow extracellular information to dictate whether cell cycle progression and other intracellular signaling processes should proceed.
In addition to specific antigen recognition through the TCR, T-cell activation is regulated through a balance of positive and negative signals provided by co-stimulatory receptors. These surface proteins are typically members of either the TNF receptor or B7 superfamilies. Agonistic antibodies directed against activating co-stimulatory molecules and blocking antibodies against negative co-stimulatory molecules may enhance T-cell stimulation to promote tumour destruction.
Programmed Cell Death Protein 1, (PD-1 or CD279), a 55-kD type 1 transmembrane protein, is a member of the CD28 family of T cell co-stimulatory receptors that include immunoglobulin superfamily member CD28, CTLA-4, inducible co-stimulator (ICOS), and BTLA. PD-1 is highly expressed on activated T cells and B cells. PD-1 expression can also be detected on memory T-cell subsets with variable levels of expression. Two ligands specific for PD-1 have been identified: programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1, also known as B7-H1 or CD274) and PD-L2 (also known as B7-DC or CD273). PD-L1 and PD-L2 have been shown to down-regulate T cell activation upon binding to PD-1 in both mouse and human systems (Okazaki et al., Int Immunol., 2007; 19: 813-824). The interaction of PD-1 with its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, which are expressed on antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and dendritic cells (DCs), transmits negative regulatory stimuli to down-modulate the activated T cell immune response. Blockade of PD-1 suppresses this negative signal and amplifies T cell responses.
Numerous studies indicate that the cancer microenvironment manipulates the PD-L1-/PD-1 signalling pathway and that induction of PD-L1 expression is associated with inhibition of immune responses against cancer, thus permitting cancer progression and metastasis. The PD-L1/PD-1 signalling pathway is a primary mechanism of cancer immune evasion for several reasons. First, and most importantly, this pathway is involved in negative regulation of immune responses of activated T effector cells, found in the periphery. Second, PD-L1 is up-regulated in cancer microenvironments, while PD-1 is also up-regulated on activated tumour infiltrating T cells, thus possibly potentiating a vicious cycle of inhibition. Third, this pathway is intricately involved in both innate and adaptive immune regulation through bi-directional signalling. These factors make the PD-1/PD-L1 complex a central point through which cancer can manipulate immune responses and promote its own progression.
The first immune-checkpoint inhibitor to be tested in a clinical trial was ipilimumab (Yervoy, Bristol-Myers Squibb), an CTLA-4 mAb. CTLA-4 belongs to the immunoglobulin superfamily of receptors, which also includes PD-1, BTLA, TIM-3, and V-domain immunoglobulin suppressor of T cell activation (VISTA).
Anti-CTLA-4 mAb is a powerful checkpoint inhibitor which removes "the break" from both naïve and antigen-experienced cells. Therapy enhances the antitumor function of CD8+ T cells, increases the ratio of CD8+ T cells to Foxp3+T regulatory cells, and inhibits the suppressive function of T regulatory cells. The major drawback to anti-CTLA-4 mAb therapy is the generation of autoimmune toxicities due to on-target effects of an over-exuberant immune system which has lost the ability to turn itself down. It has been reported that up to 25% of patients treated with ipilimumab developed serious grade 3-4 adverse events/autoimmune-type side effects including dermatitis, enterocolitis, hepatitis, endocrinopathies (including hypophysitis, thyroiditis, and adrenalitis), arthritis, uveitis, nephritis, and aseptic meningitis. In contrast to the anti-CTLA-4 experience, anti-PD-1 therapy appears to be better-tolerated and induces a relatively lower rate of autoimmune-type side effects.
TIM-3 has been identified as another important inhibitory receptor expressed by exhausted CD8+ T cells. In mouse models of cancer, it has been shown that the most dysfunctional tumour-infiltrating CD8+ T cells actually co-express PD-1 and TIM-3.
LAG-3 is another recently identified inhibitory receptor that acts to limit effector T-cell function and augment the suppressive activity of T regulatory cells. It has recently been revealed that PD-1 and LAG-3 are extensively co-expressed by tumour-infiltrating T cells in mice, and that combined blockade of PD-1 and LAG-3 provokes potent synergistic antitumor immune responses in mouse models of cancer.
PD-1 pathway blockade can be combined with vaccines or other immunomodulatory antibodies for improved therapeutic efficacy (Hirano, F. et al, Cancer Res., 65(3): 1089-1096 (2005); Li, B. et al, Clin. Cancer Res., 15: 1507-1509 (2009); and Curran, M. A. et al, Proc. Natl. Acad. Set, 107(9):4275-4280 (2010)).
Currently, antagonist mAbs against both PD-1 and their ligand PD-L1 are in various stages of development for the treatment of cancer, and recent human trials have shown promising results in cancer patients with advanced, treatment-refractory disease.
The first of the agents blocking the B7-H1/PD-1 pathway to enter phase I clinical trials was Nivolumab (MDX-1106/BMS-936558/ONO-4538), a fully human IgG4 anti-PD-1 mAb developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Another PD-1 mAb undergoing clinical evaluation is CT-011, a humanized IgG1 mAb specific for PD-1 developed by CureTech Ltd. Other agents include Lambrolizumab (MK-3475—Merck), a humanized monoclonal IgG4 PD-1 antibody; BMS-936559, a fully human IgG4 PD-L1 antibody and Roche's MPDL3280A, a human monoclonal antibody that targets the PD-L1 pathway.
Accordingly, an aim of the present invention is a combination therapy for treating cancer comprising an immunomodulator and blockade of checkpoint inhibitors with the potential to elicit potent and durable immune responses.


A relay valve arrangement useful in an ABS system comprises a relay valve, a source of control pressure, a control pressure circuit, a control chamber which receives the control pressure from the control pressure circuit and thereby determines the configuration of the relay valve, a control valve through which the control pressure is delivered to the control chamber, and a return valve connecting the control chamber to the control pressure circuit so as to by-pass the control valve to deaerate the control chamber when the control pressure in the control chamber is greater than the control pressure in the control pressure circuit. The control valve includes a solenoid-actuated inlet valve having an armature, and a solenoid-actuated outlet valve. The return valve is designed so that at least part of it constitutes an armature support for the armature of the solenoid-actuated inlet valve and is coaxial with this armature.

The invention relates to a relay valve arrangement which can be used in the ABS system of a vehicle.
A relay valve arrangement of this type is marketed by WABCO Westinghouse Fahrzeugbremsen GmbH under Device No. 72 195 020 0. This relay valve arrangement is designed to carry out three modes of operation during ABS-controlled braking: pressure increase, pressure hold, and pressure decrease. The relay valve arrangement includes an inlet chamber for a working pressure fluid (hydraulic or pneumatic), a work chamber, an outlet through which the working pressure fluid is delivered to a brake cylinder, an outlet to exhaust, and a combined inlet-and-outlet valve which includes a relay piston. The position of the relay piston determines which mode of operation is carried out. The relay valve arrangement further includes a control chamber which controls the position of the relay piston. The control chamber is aerated with a control pressure fluid through a solenoid-actuated inlet valve and deaerated through a solenoid-actuated outlet valve.
In a relay valve arrangement of this type, it may occur that the solenoid-actuated outlet valve does not reach its open position to deaerate the control chamber rapidly enough in the pressure holding mode (working pressure inlet and outlet valves of the relay valve closed) when the pressure drops rapidly in a control pressure circuit which delivers the control pressure fluid to the control chamber.
The delayed response of the solenoid-actuated outlet valve is due to the fact that an electronic regulating circuit interacting with the relay valve arrangement of a vehicle equipped with an ABS regulating system is unable to recognize immediately when the driver of the vehicle lifts his foot from the brake pedal and thereby deaerates the control pressure circuit leading to the solenoid-actuated inlet valve of the relay valve arrangement in order to terminate the braking process. Only when the braking pressure supplied by the relay valve arrangement to the brake cylinders on the basis of the control pressure still present in the control chamber causes further deceleration of the vehicle wheels and when locking tendencies of the vehicle wheels are recognized by the electronic regulating circuit does said electronic regulating circuit transmit a signal to the solenoid-actuated outlet valve. The latter then assumes its open position and the control chamber is deaerated. The relay piston then brings the outlet valve of the combined inlet-and-outlet valve of the relay valve arrangement into open position and the brake cylinders of the vehicle are deaerated.
The consequences of the delayed response of the solenoid-actuated outlet valve are a delayed start of pressure drop in the control chamber and thereby also a delayed reaction of the relay piston, resulting in a delayed braking pressure drop in the brake cylinders, and this in turn delays a desired end of the braking process.
In order to deal with this circumstance, a return valve is installed between the control pressure circuit and the control chamber, said return valve being held in closed position when control pressure is present in the control pressure circuit and which is brought by the pressure in the control chamber into its open position when the pressure drops in the control pressure circuit. As the delivery of control pressure to the control pressure circuit via a control pressure coupling drops, the pressure also begins to drop in the control chamber as a result of this measure even before the solenoid-actuated outlet valve opens. Thus, dead time no longer occurs between pressure drop in the control pressure circuit and the pressure drop in the control chamber.
In the known relay valve arrangement, the return valve is installed in a housing wall between the control chamber and the control pressure circuit (which actually constitutes a channel in this wall) connected to the control pressure coupling.
Such an arrangement of the return valve however requires various costly measures and means. A stepped bore must be provided in the housing wall to receive the return valve. Special retaining means must be provided to hold the return valve in the bore. Special sealing means must also be provided.
In a known relay valve arrangement of this type, it is furthermore required that an armature support be provided for the armature of the solenoid-actuated inlet valve and that the support be designed so that the pressurized fluid (i.e., hydraulic fluid or pneumatic air) be able to reach below the armature in order to accelerate the movement of the armature during the closing process of the solenoid-actuated inlet valve.
It is the object of the instant invention to provide an improved relay valve arrangement of the type discussed in such manner that the arrangement and the design of the return valve are simplified.


The invention relates to a method of producing decorative paper which is coated with at least one ink-fixing layer, which is printable and which can be impregnated with a thermosetting resin, in order to produce a high- or low-pressure decorative laminate. The inventive method comprises the following steps consisting in: (a) producing a base sheet of decorative paper using paper-making means; and (b) coating at least one of the faces of the base paper sheet with said at least one ink-fixing layer, by means of curtain coating. The invention also relates to high- or low-pressure decorative laminates comprising such decorative paper.

The invention relates to a process for producing a decorative paper that can be impregnated with a thermosetting resin, having at the same time good printability, in particular for ink jet printing, and good resin-absorption properties. The invention also relates to such a decorative paper impregnated with a thermosetting resin. The invention finally relates to laminated decorative panels or profiles comprising the decorative paper impregnated with thermosetting resin.
Laminated decorative panels or profiles (also called "laminates") have been employed for many years in dwellings and commercial and industrial premises. Typical applications for such laminates are floor coverings, in particular coverings imitating parquet flooring, furniture coverings, tabletops, chairs and the like.
Two main types of decorative "laminates" exist: "laminates" called high-pressure laminates and "laminates" called low-pressure laminates.
Decorative laminates called high-pressure laminates are produced from a core consisting of sheets impregnated with resin. These sheets are generally made of kraft paper and have been impregnated with a thermosetting resin, most often a phenolic resin. After having impregnated the sheets with resin, they are dried, cut up and then stacked one on top of another. The number of sheets in the stack depends on the applications and varies between 3 and 9, but may be higher. A decorative paper, also called a decor paper or decorative sheet is then placed on the stack of sheets forming the core. Such a decorative sheet is generally a sheet of paper bearing a printed or colour pattern or containing decorative particles, and it is impregnated with a thermosetting resin, for example melamine-formaldehyde resins, urea-formaldehyde resins, benzoguanamine-formaldehyde resins or unsaturated polyester resins.
In general, a protective covering sheet, called an "overlay" that has no pattern and is transparent in the final laminate, is placed on top of said decorative sheet, in order to improve the abrasion resistance of the laminate.
The stack of impregnated sheets is then placed in a laminating press, the platens of which are provided with a metal sheet giving the laminate the surface finish. The stack is then densified by heating, at a temperature of about 110° C. to 170° C., and by pressing, with a pressure of about 5.5 MPa to 11 Mpa, for approximately 25 to 60 minutes in order to obtain a unitary structure. Next, this structure is fixed to a base support, for example it is adhesively bonded to a panel of agglomerated particles, in particular agglomerated wood particles.
Decorative laminates known as low-pressure laminates are produced using only one decorative sheet impregnated with thermosetting resin, and optionally an overlay sheet, which is laminated directly onto the base support during a short cycle, the temperature being of about 160° C. to 175° C. and the pressure 1.25 MPa to 3 MPa.
The decorative paper or decorative sheet used for producing laminates is generally a paper sheet made on a paper machine. Currently marketed decorative papers are generally free from surface treatment so as in particular not to harm their impregnation speed.
These decorative papers or decorative sheets are generally used to give a special esthetic appearance to the laminated supports on which they are fixed, it being possible for this esthetic appearance to result from printing the paper with a decorative pattern.
But, this decorative pattern, which traditionally consisted in imitating the aspect of a natural material such as wood or marble, has taken many more diverse forms taking account of the demand, so as to be adapted to the customer's requirements and wishes. This increase in the variety of patterns has been on the other hand accompanied by a reduction in the quantities to be produced.
This phenomenon of the personalization of decorations and of short production runs has not been without consequences for decorative paper producers. Indeed, for the mass production of simple patterns, printing techniques such as photogravure have the advantage of printing wide web at high production rates. However, this printing method does not prove to be profitable for small production runs and moreover the printing reproduction obtained is not satisfactory for complex patterns which require high resolution.
Among the printing techniques that are sufficiently flexible for the production of small quantities on demand, ink jet printing has proved to be the technique most suited to the requirements for decor papers. Apart from the simplicity of its operating principle and relatively low production costs, ink jet printing also makes it possible to obtain better quality printing. However, use of the principle of ink jet printing in the production of decor papers remains confronted with a major difficulty associated with the method for obtaining the laminates themselves.
In the conventional process for producing laminates, the decor paper is first of all printed and then impregnated with resin and finally hot-pressed with its support at a high or low pressure. The impregnation step requires the availability of a decorative paper having a high wet strength, so as to preserve a sufficient strength after its total immersion in an aqueous resin, as well as the greatest possible capacity to absorb resin in the shortest possible time. These properties are generally obtained by using decorative papers possessing very high porosity.
But, the technique of ink jet printing rests on the principle of fixing ink to the surface of the substrate to be printed, the substrate to be printed must therefore have limited absorption so as to obtain a clear and high quality printing.
Decorative papers improved by previously coating the decor paper with a layer comprising particles for fixing the ink, have already been described. These layers are often composed of a mixture of inorganic pigments, such as calcium carbonate, kaolin, silica, and a binder of the starch, casein, latex, polyvinyl alcohol or aminoplast resin type.
Patent application EP-A-054405 relates to the improvement of the printability of decorative papers, however ink jet printing is not specifically mentioned. This document describes papers coated with a pigmented layer conventionally known in printing-writing, but in order to maintain some capacity of the paper to absorb resin, the coating weight should not exceed 10 g/m2 and the recommended weight lies between 2.5 and 3 g/m2.
Patent application EP-A-1044822 describes a decorative sheet called a finished sheet, that can be ink jet printed, formed of a paper coated with an ink-fixing layer. Said paper must be previously smoothed on one face before being coated with said ink-fixing layer. This finished sheet is then bonded with adhesive onto a panel in order to make a decorative panel. This type of pre-impregnated paper is not intended for laminates called high- or low-pressure laminates. Moreover, the paper is pre-impregnated before being coated with the ink-fixing layer, there is therefore no problem with impregnation.
Although the printing reproduction of decorative papers is appreciably improved, many disadvantages remain associated with their production method, and in particular with coating techniques.
A first disadvantage associated with the blade coating technique is that the excess of coating to be applied before scraping and the mechanical stresses of pressure and tension during contact are difficult to apply to porous fragile papers such as decor papers. This coating technique brings about many breakages during production. A second disadvantage is that the actual coating technique by contact leads to partial penetration of the coating into the paper substrate and consequently a high degradation of the capacity of the paper to absorb resin.
As the prior art reveals, production of decorative paper having a relatively high coating weight and/or preserving a high absorption capacity for producing high- or low-pressure laminates, presents many difficulties.

Method of producing decorative paper and decorative laminate comprising such decorative paper


A system and methodology for the detection of threat substances is described. The detector system consists of a method to evaporate the sample into a primary separator and thermal release of trapped target materials into a secondary separator like conventional GC. The GC column is thermally ramped to elute all substances and the end of the column terminates into an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization source of an axial ion mobility spectrometer (AIMS). Both polarity ions are pulsed into a single construction separator tube at different timing. Their arrival time is detected on a collector plate, which allows registering their ion mobility spectra of both polarities for a single GC peak.

The increasing terrorist threat internationally has made it crucial to detect all kinds of explosives and other threat substances in order to provide security for important locations such as airports, border crossings, embassies, seaports, governmental buildings, power stations or transportation systems. A number of techniques for detecting threat substances are known, such as X-ray screening, fluorescence quenching, neutron and gamma-ray spectroscopy, LC-MS, UV gated Raman spectroscopy, laser induced breakdown spectroscopy, electrochemical and immunosensors, chemiluminescence, SPME-HPLC, GC-ECD, GC-SAW devices, GC-differential mobility spectrometer. More recently, metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) nanoparticle sensors have been used for the detection and discrimination of low concentrations of explosives.
Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has been shown over the past 20 years to be a reliable method for trace detection of explosives, drugs, chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals and various organic environmental pollutants, due to its low detection limit, relatively fast response, hardware simplicity, and portability. IMS-based equipment is presently used in vulnerable places, such as airports, for screening of both people and carry-on luggage.
Although IMS technology has been successful in many areas, it is undesirably limited in cases where the sample material is presented in complex matrices. Under these conditions, when other materials are liberated with the analytes of interest, those other materials can selectively compete in the ionization process. Their ionization levels may be less than those for the analytes of interest, so they competitively react in the ionization process and greatly reduce the sensitivity and selectivity of the IMS.
IMS is a gas-phase ion separation technique that operates under atmospheric pressure. A drift tube consisting of a reaction region and drift region is the main element of the IMS instrument. In conventional IMS instruments, the electric field is created by a series of conducting guard rings, and in more simplified drift tube designs the ion drift tube is formed of single-piece, conductive glass tube. This more recent drift tube design is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,081,618, which describes a reaction-ionization/drift tube chamber constructed with one or more single-piece conductive ceramic or glass tubes having specified conductivity. The glass tube or ceramic is used in place of the stack assemblies of metal and ceramic annular components that were typically used in previous drift tubes. This approach provides a simpler design, fewer parts and improved performance for fast switching of ion polarity during a scanning mode.
Ion mobility spectrometers for detection of explosives, narcotics and other contraband are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,699,333, 5,027,643, and 5,200,614. U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,337 shows still further improvements to ion trap mobility spectrometers and U.S. Pat. No. 6,690,005 describes a pulsing mechanism for ions entering the rings-stack drift tube with front trapping capability and switching of ion polarity entering the drift chamber. U.S Patent application 2002/0134933 provides a method for detecting both positive and negative mobility spectra wherein the first and second selected switching times are less than 20 msec and 15 msec, respectively, with a transition time of less than 5 msec.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,528,367 describes an ion mobility spectrometer with an inlet that communicates to an ionization chamber and a drift chamber. Stacked grid electrodes with applied potential hold ions between them until they are pulsed into the drift chamber. This patent claims sharper peak shape and improved resolution. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,124,592 and 6,407,382 describe methods to separate and store ions by exploiting mobility characteristics of the ions by applying an electric field to trap the volume of ions prior to pulsing them into the ring stacked drift chamber. US application 2009/0113982 discloses a multi-dimensional detection system based on the ultraviolet detection of molecules produced in the thermal decomposition of explosive compounds separated by gas chromatography.
Meanwhile, the combination of GC and IMS has been established for the use of the IMS as a detector to the effluent from a GC, wherein the IMS has been interfaced to the GC effluent column and operates continuously and is used no differently than other conventional GC detectors such as flame photometric, flame ionization and electron capture detectors.


The invention directed to an efficient frame aggregation transmission scheme with network coding to improve transmission efficiency in 802.11n/ac networks. According to network conditions, the proposed scheme can dynamically utilizes either modified systematic network coding or mixed generation coding to efficiently transmit the aggregated frame.

Next Generation Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), 802.11n and 802.11 ac, are expected to provide efficient, ubiquitous, and high-speed Internet access for multimedia applications such as HDTV (20 Mbps) and DVD (9.8 Mbps). To ensure user satisfaction, the Quality of Service (QoS) provided by WLANs should be comparable to that of wired networks. As a result, several recent 802.11n/ac amendments have proposed frame aggregation and Block Acknowledgement (BA) techniques for improving the transmission efficiency by reducing the MAC/PHY overhead.
However, the inherent error-prone nature of wireless communications results in a high packet error rate and the corrupted aggregated frame causes significant retransmission overhead. Consequently, an urgent requirement exists for efficient retransmission schemes to enhance the performance of high-speed WLANs.
Referring the FIG. 1 is a flowchart of stop and wait scheme when error happened in the traditional 802.11n/ac. If one of the MPDUs within A-MPDU has not been positively acknowledged or reach the retry limitation, the whole frame should be retransmitted.
Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) error-control methods have been widely used to mitigate packet losses in wireless systems. Although the Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) error-control method recovers from packet loss, it has low transmission efficiency and is unsuitable for frame aggregation transmission of 802.11n/ac. However, most HARQ schemes do not account for frame aggregation effects.
In an attempt to address this problem, the inventor has presented several Aggregated Selective Repeat (ASR) ARQ schemes in "Novel Design and Analysis of Aggregated ARQ Protocols for IEEE 802.11n Networks" IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing. FIG. 2 shows the flow diagram of MPDUs de-aggregation procedure for ASR-ARQ scheme. Using compressed Block ACK (BA) for acknowledging the entire A-MPDU; checking if each MPDU with A-MPDU is correct via frame check sequence (FCS); and retransmitting unsuccessfully transmitted MPDUs until all the MPDUs within A-MPDU have either been positively acknowledged or reached the retry limitation. However, the retransmitted packets do not fully utilize the potential benefits of frame aggregation since they only be retransmitted alone without aggregating with new packets. That is, the protocols follow the conventional ASR scheme in only sending the retransmitted packets in the next frame.
ASR-ARQ does not make efficient use of the available bandwidth since only the packet(s) corresponding to corrupted packet(s) are retransmitted in the following A-MPDU. As a result, the potential benefits of frame aggregation are significantly reduced.
Network Coding (NC) has emerged as one of the most promising information theoretic techniques for improving the performance of computing networks. Several recent studies have applied Random Linear Coding (RLC) techniques to mitigate the HARQ unicast retransmission overhead in wireless broadband networks. In general, RLC has shown significant benefits in wired/wireless networks and is expected to yield similar benefits in 802.11n/ac networks with frame aggregation features.
In order to solve the problem(s), the present invention introduces a method for frame aggregation transmission of wireless network system with network coding to improve transmission efficiency.

Method and device for frame aggregation transmission of wireless network system


A direct current to direct current (DC-to-DC) converter having an active transient voltage compensator (ATVC) coupled with the DC-to-DC converter output terminal to improve a fast transient response of the DC-to-DC converter. The active transient voltage compensator compensates the DC output only during transient operation The ATVC includes a transformer for reducing the ATVC current stresses to improve the compensator efficiency and injecting, absorbing high slew rate current, and a controller circuit for controlling ATVC operation in steady state and normal operation in transients. During step-up load the ATVC operates as a buck converter and during step-down load, the ATVC operates as a boost converter while the main converter operates at low switching frequency for good efficiency.

Widely applied to various electronic products, a DC-to-DC converter provides the functions of regulating the voltage level from a DC input voltage, such as boost or buck voltage conversion, and of maintaining the regulated voltage at the desired level. Under the transient high slew rate load, the unbalanced current between the DC-to-DC converter and output load current is provided by filter capacitors. There are two voltage spikes under the transient load. The first output voltage spike relates to equivalent series resistance (ESR), equivalent series inductance (ESL) of filter capacitors and slew rate of the load; the second output voltage spike is determined by to the energy stored in filter inductance and filter capacitance. Commonly, a large number of bulk and ceramic capacitor mounted close to load is used to reduce the output impedance for voltage spikes suppression. But it is not a suitable solution for higher slew rate load; low output voltage high output current applications because of the cost and size limitation. Output voltage spikes are the products of the output impedance, or called load line, and the output current. High bandwidth of a converter and small output impedance helps to reduce its voltage spikes under high slew rate load and high bandwidth also helps to reduce its output impedance.
The bandwidth of a converter is mainly limited by three delay times: the filter inductor capacitance (LC) delay time, controller delay time, and propagation delay time. Examples of propagation delays in DC-to-DC converters include signal sensing delay, driver delay, control IC delay, and extra optocoupler delay in isolated DC-to-DC converter. The key limitation of the current slew rate of the converter is the equivalent filter inductance. A known solution for improving the output slew rate involves increasing the switching frequency to reduce the equivalent inductance. However, the increase in switching frequency results in deterioration of converter efficiency. An attractive solution is extra dynamic channel with high switching frequency operation because it only operates during transient periods.
Current injection topology, such as linear mode current injection topology and switching mode current injection topology, handles the transient current and the main converter handles the static current. It is an attractive extra dynamic channel for transient response improvement technique because this technique allows high slew rate current injection in step-up load and energy absorption in step-down load while the main converter maintaining an optimal converter design for improved efficiency.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram a DC-to-DC converter including a main converter 12 and incorporating a linear mode current injection topology 14 according to the prior art. The linear mode current injection topology 14 solution injects high slew rate current ILin to the DC-to-DC converter 10 during step-up operation and clamps the output voltage VO using resistive dissipation. However, the efficiency of the DC-to-DC converter 10 is reduced due to the large conduction loss in linear mode current injection topology related with the high voltage drop (Vin−VO) and the high current stress (IO−Ip).
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of switching mode current injection topology 16 of the prior art. Switching mode current injection topology 16 operates at high frequency to reduce the filter inductance Lsw to achieve a high slew rate current Isw injection during step-up load as a buck converter. During step-down operation recycles energy to the input voltage V1 as a boost converter. However, switching mode current injection topology results in a large power loss due to high current stress (IO−Ip) combined with the high switching frequency operation.
The high power loss resulting from use of current injection topology is the impediment to wide scale application because the imbalance between the output current and the current provided by the main converter all conduct through the current injection topology. For current injection topology, a large conduction loss in linear mode 14 or switching loss in switching mode 16 results due to the high current stress and the high switching frequency. For these reasons, current injection topology is not a good solution for high slew rate current, high efficiency power conversion application, especially for converters having low voltage, high current output.
The present invention advances the art by providing a method, system, apparatus and device for reducing the output impedance for voltage spikes suppression by providing an active transient voltage compensator for use with isolated or non-isolated DC-to-DC converters. The active transient voltage compensator injects the voltage source instead of the current source in prior arts current injection topology. During transient periods, the active transient voltage compensator provides high slew rate current due to small leakage inductance of the transformer.

Active transient voltage compensator for improving converter fast transient response

Research Foundation of The University of Central Florida