The present invention relates to a process for preparing a phenolic polymer using a phenothiazine-based mediator, in particular, to a process for preparing a phenolic polymer via polymerization of phenolic monomers by using a phenothiazine-based mediator in the presence of peroxidase biocatalyst and an oxidant, thereby drastically improving the enzyme reactivity of peroxidase. The phenolic polymers prepared according to the polymerization of this invention maintain unsaturated hydrocarbon groups linked to their side chains, so that they are very useful as a curing resin because they can easily form coatings through radical curing. In addition, the coating formed using the curing resin has an antioxidation effect and a low surface energy, so that they can prevent physical attachment of marine livings. Because the antifouling-causing functional groups are not consumed, the coatings continuously exhibit durability.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for preparing a phenolic polymer using a phenothiazine-based mediator, in particular, to a process for preparing a phenolic polymer by polymerizing phenolic monomers by use of a phenothiazine-based mediator in the presence of a peroxidase biocatalyst and an oxidant, thereby dramatically improving the enzyme reactivity of the peroxidase.
The phenolic polymers prepared according to the polymerization of this invention maintain unsaturated hydrocarbon groups linked to their side chains, so that they are very useful as a curing resin because they can easily form coatings through radical curing. In addition, the coatings formed using the curing resin have antioxidative effect and lower surface energy, so that they can prevent physical attachment of marine living beings. Because the antifouling-causing functional groups are not consumed, the coatings exhibit continuous durability.
2. Description of the Related Art
Phenolic polymers are known to be useful as paints and various coating materials, due to their excellent anti-corrosiveness and capability of forming a firm coating.
For synthesizing phenolic polymers chemically, formalin or hexamethylene tetraamine generated by the condensation of formaldehyde and ammonia is employed in high-temperature polymerization. However, this method some shortcomings in that formalin and formaldehyde are toxic and unreacted reactants toxic to environment and human body remain after the reaction. In addition, when phenolic polymers are synthesized using chemicals such as formalin, the double bonds of a lipid group side chain linked to the phenolic polymers are consumed, so that the resulting phenolic polymers is unlikely to form a coating due to the difficulty in setting by radical reaction.
Therefore, a biochemical preparation using a biocatalyst is recognized as a preferred environment-friendly approach instead of chemical synthesis using toxic materials.
Where phenolic polymers are synthesized using a biocatalyst such as an enzyme, it is essential to establish optimal polymerization conditions in consideration of substrate specificity of the enzyme. For example, a polymer derived from 4-methoxybenzyl alcohol and 2-hydroxy-4-methoxyphenyl acetic acid may not be synthesized using unassisted lignin peroxidase. In contrast, the presence of a mediator such as veratryl alcohol allows the polymerization to be promoted (Harvey et al., FEBS Lett. 195:242-246 (1986)). Furthermore, it has been known that phenolic compounds having significantly long alkyl chains at their meta-position cannot be polymerized by use of horseradish peroxidase. As discussed above, the polymerization of phenol compounds using a biocatalyst demands the establishment of optimal polymerization conditions because of substrate specificity of the enzyme.
The present inventors have conducted extensive research to develop a novel polymerization system which is applicable to all peroxidase biocatalysts generally known to be involved in the polymerization of phenolic monomers, and as a result, it has been found that phenothiazine derivatives could serve as mediators to activate enzymatic reaction of general peroxidases.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a process for preparing a phenolic polymer by using a phenothiazine derivative as a mediator in a polymerization system of phenolic monomers using a general peroxidase biocatalyst.
Further, it is another object of this invention to provide use of the obtained phenolic polymers for preparing radical-curing resin.
Still further, it is another object of this invention to provide a coating material comprising the curing resin.

Process for preparing phenolic polymer by using phenothiazines mediator

Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology


A multi-phase active filter includes a group of power cells electrically connected in a three-phase configuration, a precharging circuit, and a controller that controls the voltage delivered to the plurality of power cells. Each power cell includes an inverter having a pair of direct current (DC) terminals, at least one capacitor electrically connected in parallel with the inverter, and an energy dissipating circuit that is electrically connected in parallel with the inverter. The energy dissipating circuit of each power cell self-regulates DC voltage within the cell.

An active filter is a device that modifies the amplitude and/or phase characteristics of a signal with respect to frequency, and which includes an amplification device to amplify the signal at relatively low frequencies. An active filter may be electrically positioned between a power source and a load, and can help to alleviate power quality issues introduced by harmonic currents and low power factor.
Currently, active filter solutions for industrial applications are available at low rated voltages (i.e., less than or equal to 690 volts). However, existing solutions for active filters at voltage levels above 1000 volts have distinct disadvantages. For example, attempts to provide a hybrid active filter that includes an inverter that is rated for a small fraction of the utility voltage have required large capacitors and expensive magnetic components, and such systems absorb a fixed level of leading reactive power (VARs), which results in poor power factor at medium and light loads.
The use of cascaded or series-connected inverters for compensation of fundamental reactive power (or VARs) is known. However, the circuits proposed to date have limited utility. Other attempts at using series-connected inverters have suggested square-wave mode of operation to reduce the losses in the inverters. However, in such systems, the number of harmonics that can be compensated is limited by the number of series connected inverters, as the higher harmonics require a larger number of inverters.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an improved filter for medium-voltage applications.


A filter device is disclosed that includes a switched capacitor circuit.

Current analog filter designs, for example, analog PLL (phase lock loop) designs, are mostly based on continuous time loop filters comprising resistor and/or capacitor (R-C) elements. For example, a third order PLL, which is widely chosen as forming an optimal compromise between jitter performance and stability, i.e. peaking and ringing, loop filter structure, such as generally depicted in FIG. 2, may be employed.
Since the PLLs are used for fully or partly integrated applications such as high speed clock and data recovery (CDR), frequency synthesizers, clock generators etc., if it is advantageous to obtain a highly process and temperature independent loop filter structure for phase-locked loop architectures or other architectures that allow almost constant loop characteristics which may be a loop bandwidth, stability, jitter performance etc.

Capactive filter device incorporating a switching arrangement


An infant glider device is disclosed. The glider includes a base, a carriage that moves in an oscillatory motion along a predetermined path with respect to the base, and seat connected to the carriage. The seat is rotationally repositionable about an axis generally perpendicular to the carriage, and is adapted to be reoriented from a first seat facing position to a second seat facing position, and vice versa.

Child receiving seats are often used to soothe a restless child. For example, bouncers and swings provide a gentle rocking motion to the seat, comforting the infant positioned therein. Similarly, infant gliders include a seat that moves back and forth along a base to provide a continuous, oscillating motion that comforts a child positioned in the seat. Current gliders, however, are unidirectional—the seat is capable of being positioned in only one direction with respect to the direction of seat oscillation. Consequently, as the glider moves, the child faces only one direction (e.g., the child faces forward as the seat glides in a back to front motion). It would be desirable to provide a glider with a seat that is capable of multiple orientations, wherein a child can face multiple directions during the motion of the toy to heighten the soothing experience.


A medicine administering apparatus, suitable for administering granular medicine to a patient, comprises a main body which has a medicine passage and a medicine accommodating chamber. The apparatus further includes a location changing member formed with a medicine loading chamber. The location of the medicine loading chamber is changed between a first position, where the medicine loading chamber is separate from the medicine passage, and a second position, where the medicine loading chamber is in the medicine passage. Movement of the location changing member changes the position of the medicine loading chamber. A medicine loading member compresses a predetermined amount of the medicine into the medicine loading chamber at the first position, the predetermined amount corresponding to one dose. Medicine within the medicine loading chamber may be inhaled through the medicine passage by a patient when the patient breathes in.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in a medicine administering apparatus suitable for administering, for example, powder-like and granular medicine to a patient.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, administering medicine into the lungs of an asthma patient or the like is carried out, for example, by a method to inject the medicine into the patient, where the patient inhales the medicine by using a liquid aerosol sprayer, or where the patient inhales fine and granular medicine (having a grain size, for example, ranging from 5 to 10 .mu.m) filled in a capsule upon breaking the capsule. Of these medicine administration methods, the method where the patient inhales fine and granular medicine involves inhaling medicine filled in a capsule upon breaking the capsule. Medicine in an amount corresponding to a plurality of doses is accommodated in a medicine administering apparatus, from which medicine in an amount corresponding to one dose is measured and taken out to be administered to the patient.
Another manner of administering the medicine to the patient is, for example, employed in a medicine administering apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication (Tokuhyohei) 3-504457. This medicine administering apparatus includes a disc-shaped administering unit formed with a plurality of administering holes. The administering unit is located at the bottom section of a material accommodating container in which powder material such as medicine or the like is accommodated, so that each administering hole of the administering unit is loaded with the material. A scraper is disposed in contact with the upper surface of the administering unit. The scraper scrapes an excessive portion of the material projected above each administering hole by rotating the administering unit.
In order to carry out medicine administration using this medicine administering apparatus, first the medicine as the powder material is accommodated within the material accommodating container, and then the medicine is dropped into each administering hole of the administering unit. Thereafter, an excess amount of the medicine projected above each administering hole is scraped by the scraper, thereby measuring and distributing the medicine in an amount corresponding to one dose. In this state, a patient holds the mouth piece of the medicine administering apparatus in his or her mouth and inhales the distributed medicine through the mouth piece. A medicine administering apparatus as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-47190 is constructed and arranged similarly to that discussed above and disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-504457.
Additionally, the above method of medicine administration, where medicine in an amount corresponding to one dose is measured and taken out from in an amount of medicine corresponding to the plural doses, is used in a medicine administering apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 59-88158. This medicine administering apparatus includes a blister case having a plurality of blisters which are circularly arranged. Each blister contains medicine corresponding to one dose and is adapted to be opened when each dose is to be made, so that the medicine in the blister is inhaled by a patient.
The above-discussed conventional medicine administering apparatuses are arranged such that medicine is dropped into an administering hole or the like under gravity, thereby distributing the medicine in the amount corresponding to one dose. Accordingly, the medicine administering apparatus uses a predetermined vertical locational relationship, so that the medicine cannot be accurately distributed when the medicine administering apparatus is in an inclined state. This requires the patient to raise up during medicine administration, thereby rendering medicine administration troublesome.
Of the above conventional medicine administering apparatuses, ones disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-504457 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-47190 are arranged such that the medicine is dropped into each medicine administering hole and followed by scraping the excess medicine. However, there is the possibility that granular medicine partly cakes owing to humidity or the like, so that a difference in density occurs between a caked part and a granular part in the medicine. As a result, even though the medicine is distributed for each dose in the same way, a difference in actual amount of the medicine unavoidably occurs among respective portions distributed to be dosed. This makes it impossible to administer a predetermined amount of the medicine to the patient.
Difficulties have also been encountered in the above-discussed conventional medicine administering apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 59-88158, in which the blister case has a plurality of the blisters for a plurality of doses. That is, the number of the blisters formed in the blister case is limited, and therefore a spare blister case is required to be carried by a patient.


A hygiene assurance system utilizing a plurality of individual sensors having a correlating fixture or entrance, a keypad for identifying the user and a plurality of audible signals to ensure a user of a bathroom facility washes ones hands before leaving the area. Additionally the present invention provides sensors having individual controls for what predetermined parameters must be met to activate said sensor.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an employee hygienic assurance system and, more specifically, to a restroom facility incorporating ticket means that records and prints employee, date, time and whether sink water and soap where used during the bathroom session. The ticket is deposited in a ticket collection box for review by management.
The restroom facility incorporates a locked entry that requires an employee to key in their assigned key code to gain entrance into the restroom facility. A ticket dispenser within the facility is in communication with a door sensor so that when the door is unlatched a bathroom session ticket is initiated. Other facility sensors attached to the sink and soap dispenser denote on the bathroom session ticket whether sink water was used and whether soap was used.
Both sink sensor and soap sensor serving as indicators that the employee washed their hands during the bathroom session. When the door is again unlatched the ticket dispenser will produce a bathroom session ticket for the employee that will be deposited in a collection box upon leaving the restroom.
The bathroom facility further provides an exterior facility visual occupancy indicator and an interior message board that may display messages encouraging users to wash their hands or other reinforcing messages related to the need for personal hygiene.
Description of the Prior Art
There are other systems which provide for encouraging hygiene. While these systems may be suitable for the purposes for which they where designed, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.
It is thus desirable to provide a bathroom facility with means for dispensing a bathroom session ticket to an employee denoting whether soap and water where used during their bathroom session, with the ticket then deposited into a collection box for review by management.
It is further desirable to provide the bathroom facility with a key pad lock and each employee with a unique ID that will be keyed into the key pad to gain entrance to the bathroom facility. Also provided is a ticket dispenser in communication with the door lock that initiates a bathroom session when the door is unlocked. Further provided are sensors in communication with the ticket dispenser that are attached to the sink supply line or drain indicating and denoting on the ticket water use and soap dispenser indicating the use of soap.


The disclosed techniques for event notification enable applications that rely on event notifications to be ported transparently to clustered computing systems. The disclosed techniques for event notification exploit the characteristics of a clustered computing system and the characteristics of event notification in order to provide efficient event notification in clustered computing environments.

Unless otherwise indicated, the approaches described in this section are not necessarily prior art to the claims in this application, and are not admitted to be prior art merely by inclusion in this section.
A cluster is a type of distributed computing system that consists of a collection of interconnected whole computers (nodes) used as a single, unified computing resource. A node is a computer system running a single Operating System (OS) instance. When significant or interesting events occur that change the state of a cluster, this can directly or indirectly affect the applications and services provided by the cluster.
An event, within the context of the present invention, denotes a change in system state, configuration or any other parameter of interest. Users and/or programs that access the computer system often have an interest in these events or in the data, resident in a database system, affected by these events. System users are typically interested in knowing about any system changes that could affect them so that they can take action, if necessary. For example, users and/or programs accessing a database may need notification upon the occurrence of specific system events, such as database startups or shutdowns, when the system is running out of disk space or roll back segments, or on the occurrence of logons and logoffs. Likewise, users could need notification on the occurrence of specific data events, such as when inventory for an item falls below a critical threshold so that items can be ordered in a timely manner. In each case, action can be taken based on such system or data related information extracted or otherwise obtained from the database or computer system.
To improve scalability, databases and file systems may permit more than one database or file server (which may each be running separately) to concurrently access shared storage such as disk media. Each database or file server has a cache for caching shared data. In many software applications, such as databases, processes frequently need to notify other processes that certain events have occurred. Events serve as wake-up mechanisms, and typically, one or more processes may be blocked waiting for an event to occur. Applications that handle a significant number of events are dependent on delivery information and the efficiency of event notification.
Conventionally, most event notification systems are used as part of specific applications or in localized settings, such as a single machine. However, in clustered computing environments, there are many different messages exchanged between nodes for various reasons. For example, in a distributed database system, processes in different nodes will send query parameters and return query results. Part of a query may be executing in one node, and another part of the query may be executing in a different node. In busy clustered computing environments, there are potentially thousands of messages sent between nodes per second. In addition, event notifications are also sent across nodes.
Current event notification techniques present other problems in clustered computing environments as well. For example, whenever an event occurs, a broadcast message is sent to all of the nodes. When a node receives the broadcast message it can notify any process that may be blocked by the event by signaling semaphores using the state saved in the shared-memory within the node. This approach works only if message traffic is low, which is not usual in clustered computing environments. A drawback to sending separate broadcast messages for event notification for all nodes in a distributed system is that the cost of communication for event notification between nodes is high compared to the cost of event notification within one node.
Based on the foregoing, it is desirable to provide improved techniques for efficient event notification in a clustered computer system. These techniques should exploit the characteristics of a clustered system and of event notification in order to provide an efficient event notification in clustered computing environments. It is also desirable to provide techniques that enable applications that rely on event notifications to be ported transparently to clustered computing systems.

Efficient event notification in clustered computing environments


A technique for enhancing the efficiency and speed of data transmission within and across multiple, separate computer systems includes the use of an MPI library/engine. The MPI library/engine is configured to facilitate the transfer of data directly from one location to another location within the same computer system and/or on separate computer systems via a network connection. Data stored in one GPU buffer may be transferred directly to another GPU buffer without having to move the data into and out of system memory or other intermediate send and receive buffers.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to communication systems and software for enhancing the efficiency and speed of data transmission within and across one or more computer systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional communications software allows a user to run programs across multiple, separate computer systems and/or across multiple processors within the same computer system. One feature of this software is the ability to send and receive data between processes running on separate computer systems and/or processors. Send and receive buffers located in host memory are required for transmitting the data between the processes. The communications software causes data to be transmitted from the send buffer to the receive buffer.
In operation, when sending data that resides in a location other than the host memory, such as in a graphics processing unit memory, the data has to be moved explicitly into a send buffer located in host memory (or located at some other intermediate location) before that data can be sent to another computer system or processor. In the receiving computer system or processor, the data has to be received into a receive buffer located in host memory (or located at some other intermediate location) and then moved explicitly into a destination location outside of the host memory, such as another graphics processing unit memory.
One drawback to this approach is the requirement to move data back and forth between send/receive buffers. In particular, it is a burden for programmers, to transmit data, to explicitly move the data from a source location outside of host memory to the send buffer; and to receive data, to explicitly move the data from the receive buffer to a destination location outside of host memory.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a more effective technique for transmitting data within and across multiple, separate computer systems.


An apparatus for driving a motor includes motor circuitry and neural network circuitry. The motor circuitry is configured to generate, based on an error compensated rotor angle and current at a plurality of phases of the motor, a d-axis instant current value and generate a d-axis instant voltage value based on the d-axis instant current value. The motor circuitry is further configured to generate voltage at the plurality of phases based on the d-axis instant voltage value. The neural network circuitry is configured to generate a rotor angle offset based on an instant rotor speed at the motor. The neural network circuitry has been trained to generate the rotor angle offset to minimize the d-axis instant voltage value for each of a plurality of rotor speeds at the motor. The error compensated rotor angle is based on the rotor angle offset.

Operation of electric motors may be performed by a motor circuitry. The motor circuitry controls a rotor rotation of the motor based on a position of the rotor relative to a stator winding of the motor. For example, the motor circuitry may drive current at each at phase of the motor based on the position of the rotor to maximize torque output by the motor.

Rotor angle error compensation for motors


A belt unit includes a plurality of rollers including a driving roller and a driven roller; a belt being supported by the plurality of rollers; a specified roller; and a shift restraint member restraining the belt from shifting toward one end side of the specified roller. The specified roller is at least one roller of the plurality of rollers. The specified roller has such a shape that an outer diameter thereof on each of both end sides thereof is continuously enlarged toward a central part thereof in an axial direction thereof, and has such a shape that a region where the outer diameter thereof is the largest is shifted onto one end side thereof with respect to the central part thereof in the axial direction thereof within a belt suspension range.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a belt unit in which a belt is supported by a plurality of rollers including a driving roller and a driven roller, a roller which can configure the belt unit, and an image forming apparatus which forms an image on a record medium while conveying the record medium by the belt unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, in a belt unit in which a belt is extended between a driving roller and a driven roller, various configurations have been proposed as measures for preventing a situation where the belt shifts in the widthwise direction thereof, that is, where the position of the belt shifts toward either end side of each roller (for preventing the occurrence of what is called the "deviation of the belt").
There has been, for example, a configuration which includes a guide portion that protrudes from each of both the end parts of the belt in the widthwise direction thereof, toward the inner peripheral side of the belt, and a shift prevention portion that is arranged in a positional relationship where it comes into touch with the corresponding guide portion having shifted together with the belt toward the end side of the roller, and in which the shift of the belt is restrained by the shift prevention portion in cooperation with the guide portion.
There has also been a configuration in which, for the purpose of more stabilizing the state of the belt, tensions that the belt undergoes in a state where this belt is extended over the rollers are made different on both the end sides of each roller, whereby the belt is allowed to shift to only one end side of the roller, and a touch member is disposed in a positional relationship where it can restrain only such a shift.
Considered as a practicable example of the latter is a configuration in which spring members are respectively mounted on both the ends of one roller, the spring members pull the belt by forces different from each other, in the direction of coming away from the other roller, and the magnitudes of the tensions to be exerted on the belt by one roller are made different at both the ends of this roller, whereby the forces of shifting the belt are always exerted in directions in which the shifts of the belt are prevented by the touch members.
However, the spring members for use in such a configuration are structurally difficult to be manufactured so as to have precise pulling forces, and consequently, large errors of or above ten odd % develop in the pulling forces. Therefore, the pulling forces need to be endowed with a large difference in order that the pulling forces at both the ends of one roller may not be reversed under the influence of the errors. Thus, large forces are exerted on, not only the rollers, but also the belt, to give rise to a state where a large load acts on the whole belt unit. Therefore, the configuration cannot be the desirable from the point of the durability of the unit.
In recent years, accordingly, various configurations which do not employ such spring members have also been proposed.
By way of example, there has been proposed a technique (refer to JP-A-08-190319) wherein, on one end side of one of a plurality of rollers (support rollers) constituting a belt (a paper pressing belt 402) (on the side of one end 403b of the roller in the axial direction thereof), a shift prevention portion (a flange portion 403c) which restrains the roller from shifting (deviating) toward the belt is disposed, while a tapered portion (403d) which has an outer diameter larger than on one end side (that is, whose section has a length d2 greater than the length d1 of the section of one end 403b) is disposed on the other end side of the roller. Thus, the magnitude of a tension to act on the belt (to urge the belt) is made smaller on the other end side than on one end side so as to exert the force of shifting the belt, in a direction in which the shift of the belt is prevented by the shift prevention portion.
Also, there has been proposed a technique (JP-A-2002-268455) wherein a belt (an endless belt-shaped photosensitive member) is extended between two rollers which are inclinedly arranged so that the peripheral length of the belt may become greater on either of both the end sides of the belt in the widthwise direction thereof, and a guide portion (a deviation stopper guide) is disposed at that end part of the belt at which the peripheral length is greater. Thus, the magnitude of a tension to act on the belt is made larger at one end on the side of the greater peripheral length, than at the other end, so as to always exert the force of shifting the belt, in a direction in which the guide portion comes into touch with the end part of each roller and prevents the shift.


A battery charge controller and fuel gauge which accurately monitors the voltage, temperature, and charge and discharge current of a rechargeable battery, and calculates the battery's charge capacity and charge level. Each time the battery is fully discharged, any calculated charge level remaining is divided by two and subtracted from the previously calculated charge capacity. When the battery is fully charged, the charge level is set equal to the charge capacity. During subsequent charge and discharge, the current is converted to a coulomb count and added or subtracted from the charge level to maintain an accurate charge level. Fast charge inefficiency due to temperature is considered by subtracting a temperature proportional factor before the charge level of the battery is updated. The charge level, voltage and temperature are used to determine the optimal fast charge termination point to achieve full charge and prevent temperature abuse and overcharge. A fast charge is applied only if the battery is within proper voltage and temperature ranges. The charge controller includes a microcontroller circuit within the same battery pack as the battery, which is powered by the battery when AC power is unavailable. The microcontroller circuit consumes very little power, measures circuit errors to assure data accuracy, times periods of self-discharge and updates the charge level accordingly. The microcontroller circuit also includes memory to store the battery charge information and a communication port to provide the charge information to a computer system connected to the battery pack.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed towards a battery charge controller for accurately monitoring the battery's charge capacity and charge level.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computers are many times needed in locations where AC power is unavailable. Rechargeable batteries are typically used as an alternative source of power, such as nickel cadmium (NiCad), and more recently nickel metal hydride (NiMH), batteries which are capable of providing power to a portable computer for several hours. Since rechargeable batteries have a limited lifespan, it is desirable to maximize the life of each battery and to obtain the maximum power from each battery during every discharge cycle. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to fully and efficiently charge the battery without causing temperature abuse and overcharging.
Many battery chargers presently in use do not efficiently charge rechargeable batteries, thereby limiting the useful life of the battery. Although some battery chargers monitor the temperature and voltage to avoid fast charging when the battery voltage is too low or the battery temperature is not within the acceptable fast charging temperature range, such as the battery chargers disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 596,223, filed Oct. 12, 1990 and 701,657, filed May 16, 1991 most known battery chargers do not have the capability to accurately determine the charge level and the total charge capacity and thus may overcharge the battery, thereby reducing its useful life. For example, many NiCad battery chargers continue fast charging until the battery voltage peaks and begins to decrease. It has been determined, however, that this negative voltage change method some times overcharges the battery, causing damage and a depression in the voltage. Typical NIMH battery chargers also tend to overcharge the battery, causing oxidizing of the hydride in the cells.
One reason for temperature abuse and overcharging of NiCad and NIMH batteries was the difficulty of determining the charge level since the voltage is substantially the same regardless of the charge level over a very broad range. Further, if the battery was removed and replaced, the system had no way of determining the charge history and the remaining charge level of the battery. Some methods estimated the charge level by monitoring the charge and discharge current through the battery over a period of time, but these methods still assumed an initial level of charge. These methods proved inaccurate when a partially discharged battery was used. Although the level of discharge may be measured for a given battery in a given system, the batteries are typically interchangeable so that if the battery was replaced, the system could not determine the charge level of the new battery. Also, rechargeable batteries tend to discharge during periods of non-use, referred to as self-discharge, so that a system which was shut down for a period of time and then powered up had no way of determining the amount of self-discharge that had occurred.
Furthermore, the total charge capacity of a battery, typically referred to as the amp-hour (AH) rating, tends to change over time and usage. For example, the charge capacity of the battery typically increases and then decreases over time and usage until the battery eventually will not hold a charge and must be replaced. For example, NiCad batteries have a memory effect causing lower capacity after multiple partial charge and discharge cycles.
One particular technique used in personal computers known as Battery Watch estimates the amount of charge remaining based on elapsed time of charge and discharge, and converts this to the useful time remaining. This technique has proven unreliable since it assumes that the total charge capacity of the battery does not change over time. Further, this technique fails to keep track of the charge-in and charge-out and does not account for the self-discharge.
It is desirable therefore, to charge a battery as fast and efficiently as possible without decreasing its maximum useful life. To achieve this goal, fast charge must be terminated at the proper time without overcharging the battery. It is also desirable to accurately monitor and calculate the total charge capacity as well as the charge level at any given time, taking into account factors such as self-discharge and reduced capacity, and to provide this information to the user.


A method for executing a mobile speech recognition software application based on a multi-layer neural network model includes providing to a hardware accelerator in the mobile device to classify one or more frames of an audio signal. The hardware accelerator includes a multiplier-accumulator (MAC) unit to perform matrix multiplication operations involved in computing the neural network output.

Mobile and connected devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets, etc.), which provide Internet connectivity to device users on the move, are transforming patterns of social and business behavior. Consumers are increasingly integrating mobile behaviors into their lifestyles. There is a growing use of mobile applications, not merely mobile search browsers, for diverse purposes including receiving varied information and communications.
Mobile speech recognition applications are of interest not only for purposes such as dictation or interactive learning for which traditional desktop speech recognition applications are available, but also for the potential use of speech as commands to access or interact with mobile device features, applications, services and content. However, developing reliable speech-activated applications and services for mobile devices is a greater challenge than developing desktop-based or server-based speech recognition applications. Mobile speech recognition applications with client-side processing of computational-intensive speech recognition algorithms may be impractical because of the limited-capability CPUs used in traditional mobile devices. Mobile speech recognition solutions with server-side processing implementations may suffer from long latency periods due to the inherent limitations of mobile device use, such as inconsistent connection quality and background noise.
Consideration is now being given to the speech recognition accuracy and the complexity of speech recognition applications that can be delivered on a mobile device.

Mobile speech recognition hardware accelerator


A pipeline processing assembly for a pipeline adapted to convey a fluid from an upstream end of the pipeline to a downstream end of the pipeline. The assembly includes a pipeline pig for removing earthen matter and other debris from inside the pipeline. The pig is inserted into the pipeline at the upstream end, and has a dimension substantially equal to an inside diameter of the pipeline to form a seal between the pig and the pipeline. A vacuum source communicates with the pipeline downstream of the pig, and generates a reduced air pressure sufficient for moving the pig downstream through the pipeline. The pig gathers and moves the earthen matter and debris downstream through the pipeline and outwardly through an exit opening formed at the downstream end.

This invention relates to a pipeline processing assembly and method for cleaning, dewatering, and drying a pipeline to ready the pipeline for conveying fluids, such as liquids and gases. During pipeline construction, unwanted dirt and debris often enters the pipeline as the pipeline is laid in sections. In the past, pipeline pigs have been used in combination with an air compressor connected to the upstream end of the pipeline, and generating increased air pressure on the upstream side of the pigs to move the pigs through the pipeline. The pigs collect the dirt and debris, and move it downstream to an exit opening in the pipeline for discharge to the atmosphere. Movement of the pigs through the pipeline is often slowed, and in many cases stopped, as a result of obstructions such as earthen matter and air blocks forming in the pipeline.
The present invention provides an assembly which generates increased pressure for urging the pigs downstream through the pipeline. In addition, the invention provides an assembly for drying the pipeline in an effective and efficient manner using a vacuum source communicating with the downstream end of the pipeline, and a heater located adjacent an open upstream end of the pipeline. Once the pipeline is laid and buried, the invention cleans the pipeline, dewaters the pipeline after testing, and then drys the pipeline in final preparation for conveying fluid.


A method of image processing within an image acquisition device comprises: acquiring an image including one or more face regions and identifying one or more eye-iris regions within the one or more face regions. The one or more eye-iris regions are analyzed to identify any eye-iris region comprising an eye-iris pattern of sufficient quality to pose a risk of biometrically identifying a person within the image. Responsive to identifying any such eye-iris region, a respective substitute eye-iris region comprising an eye-iris pattern sufficiently distinct from the identified eye-iris pattern to avoid identifying the person within the image is determined, and the identified eye-iris region is replaced with the substitute eye-iris region in the original image.

The eye-iris surrounds the dark, inner pupil region of an eye and extends concentrically to the white sclera of the eye.
A. K. Jain, A. Ross, and S. Prabhakar, "An introduction to biometric recognition," IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 14, 2004 discloses that the eye-iris of the eye is a near-ideal biometric.
For the purposes of recognition, typically an image of an iris region is acquired in a dedicated imaging system that uses infra-red (IR) illumination with the eye aligned with the acquisition camera to bring out the main features of the underlying iris pattern.
An iris pattern is a gray-scale/luminance pattern evident within an iris region that can be processed to yield an iris code. The iris pattern can be defined in terms of polar co-ordinates and these are typically converted into rectangular coordinates prior to analysis to extract the underlying iris code.
An iris code is a binary sequence obtained after analysis of the iris pattern. A typical iris code contains 2048 bits. Note that some bits are effectively redundant, or 'fragile', as they are nearly always set to a '1' or a '0' as disclosed in K. Hollingsworth, K. W. Bowyer, and P. J. Flynn, "All Iris Code Bits are Not Created Equal," 2007 First IEEE Int. Conf. Biometrics Theory, Appl. Syst., 2007. Some of these fragile bits can be predicted in advance and as they offer less differentiation, and are often ignored when determining a match.
Nonetheless, systems supporting the acquisition of iris data from mobile persons are known, for example, as disclosed in J. R. Matey, O. Naroditsky, K. Hanna, R. Kolczynski, D. J. LoIacono, S. Mangru, M. Tinker, T. M. Zappia, and W. Y. Zhao, "Iris on the Move: Acquisition of Images for Iris Recognition in Less Constrained Environments," Proc. IEEE, vol. 94, 2006. This employs specialized lighting and requires people to walk along a specified path where multiple successive iris images are acquired under controlled lighting conditions. The system is proposed for airports where iris information is being used increasingly to verify passenger identity.
Separately, each of: C. Boyce, A. Ross, M. Monaco, L. Hornak, and X. L. X. Li, "Multispectral Iris Analysis: A Preliminary Study51," 2006 Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recognit. Work., 2006; M. Vilaseca, R. Mercadal, J. Pujol, M. Arjona, M. de Lasarte, R. Huertas, M. Melgosa, and F. H. Imai, "Characterization of the human iris spectral reflectance with a multispectral imaging system.," Appl. Opt., vol. 47, pp. 5622-5630, 2008; and Y. Gong, D. Zhang, P. Shi, and J. Yan, "Optimal wavelength band clustering for multispectral iris recognition," Applied Optics, vol. 51. p. 4275, 2012 suggest that iris patterns from lighter color eyes can be adequately acquired, but that eyes of darker color are difficult to analyze using visible light, H. Proenca and L. A. Alexandre, "Iris segmentation methodology for non-cooperative recognition," IEE Proceedings—Vision, Image, and Signal Processing, vol. 153. p. 199, 2006; and A. E. Yahya and M. J. Nordin, "Non-cooperative iris recognition system: A review," Inf. Technol. (ITSim), 2010 Int. Symp., vol. 1, 2010 disclose non-cooperative iris acquisition, typically obtained at a distance of 3-10 meters using directed IR sources.
As imaging subsystems on smartphones continue to improve in quality of acquisition and as image analysis and post-processing technique also continue to improve, a point at which the quality of images from conventional digital cameras and smart-phones becomes of sufficient quality to analyze to a sufficient degree to determine some of the underlying features of an iris pattern will be reached.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,697,735 discloses identifying a person from face and iris data from a single 5 megapixel image. U.S. Pat. No. 7,697,735 provides recommended minimum sizes for face and eye features to enable a sufficiently accurate degree of recognition. However, it does not specify any details of lighting or acquisition conditions, and most iris acquisitions would not be of sufficient accuracy in an unconstrained use case. Nevertheless, we note that the latest handheld devices can feature imaging subsystems with up to 40 megapixel resolutions, and high power IR LEDs can be used to improve acquisition lighting conditions.
Other techniques such as high dynamic range (HDR) imaging combine more than one digital image to provide a combined image with improved image quality. This is a standard feature on most smartphone imaging systems and typically two images are acquired in sequence and combined, post-acquisition, to provide a sharper and higher quality final image. Techniques are well known in the literature to combine more than one image and, as acquisition systems achieve higher frame rates (currently 60-120 frames per second for preview but likely to double with next-generation technology), it will be practical to capture as many as 8-10 images within the same time window used today to acquire two images. Taking advantage of sub-pixel registration or super-resolution techniques will therefore provide images with significantly higher local image contrast and sharpness than today's devices provide.
Thus it highly likely that images acquired with the next generation of imaging devices will be of sufficient quality to enable the determination of iris patterns from faces in standard images. This makes normal personal portraits and small-group photos a potential source for personal iris patterns with a high risk of such biometric information being used for a range of criminal activities ranging from identity theft, forging of personal identity documents up to gaining access to facilities protected by biometric security measures.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.


An image forming apparatus includes: an image forming unit which forms a toner image on an image carrier; a conveying unit which conveys a recording medium; a transfer unit which transfers the toner image formed on the image carrier to the recording medium conveyed by the conveying unit in a transfer nip; a pre-transfer charging unit which imparts an electrical charge, having a polarity opposite to a normal charge polarity of a toner, to the recording medium conveyed by the conveying unit on an upstream side of the transfer nip in a conveyance direction; and a destaticizing unit which removes a part of the electrical charge that is imparted to a surface of the recording medium by the pre-transfer charging unit and corresponds to unevenness on the surface of the recording medium on an upstream side of the transfer nip in the conveyance direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, particularly to an image forming apparatus which forms a toner image on a sheet of paper such as embossed paper having an uneven surface.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic printer or copier forms a toner image on an image carrier such as a photoreceptor, transfers the formed toner image onto a sheet of paper, and then performs heating/pressure fixing to obtain the sheet of paper on which the toner image is formed.
As the range of uses of the copier and printer has been increasing in recent years, paper with various paper qualities including embossed paper, the surface of which is embossed, has come into use in addition to plain paper having a smooth surface.
A problem with the paper having a highly uneven surface such as the embossed paper is that a toner is not sufficiently transferred to a concave portion of the paper, resulting in decreased uniformity of an image.
An image forming apparatus disclosed in JP 2006-267486 A and JP 2008-185890 A realizes improved uniformity in a post-transfer image by imparting an electrical charge that has an opposite polarity to that of the toner to a transfer surface of the embossed paper with use of a pre-transfer charge roll.
JP 2008-262085 A discloses an image forming apparatus which imparts in advance an electrical charge having the same polarity as that of the toner to a convex portion of the embossed paper with use of a pre-transfer electrical charge imparting unit such as an electrode. As a result, a transfer electric field relatively stronger in the concave portion than in the convex portion can be created in a secondary transfer nip, so that the uniformity in the post-transfer image is improved across the paper surface by setting an optimized secondary transfer bias to the concave portion.
With the technology disclosed in JP 2006-267486 A and JP 2008-185890 A, however, the toner is not well transferred to the concave portion of the embossed paper when the amount of electrical charge imparted to the embossed paper by the charge roll is insufficient, in which case the image has imperfect uniformity. When the excessive amount of electrical charge is imparted to the embossed paper, on the other hand, one can expect the toner to be better transferred to the concave portion whereas in the convex portion, the excessive amount of electrical charge causes local electrical discharge to the toner and thus causes new defective transfer such as so-called transfer cissing and scattering.
Moreover, the technology disclosed in JP 2008-262085 A imparts an electrical charge that cancels the transfer electric field to the convex portion of the paper, thereby making it less prone to result in the defective transfer accompanying the electrical discharge to the toner in the convex portion. This technology improves transfer performance to the concave portion by increasing the secondary transfer bias. However, there is a limitation to how much the transfer performance is improved by increasing the secondary transfer bias in the case of the paper having the highly uneven surface such as the embossed paper because the defective transfer caused by the electrical discharge to the toner occurs before the transfer performance to the concave portion is sufficiently improved, where the transfer performance to the concave portion and the defective transfer caused by the electrical discharge cannot be improved at the same time.

Image forming apparatus that imparts an electrical charge to a recording medium


A method implemented in a network apparatus used in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical network is disclosed. The method includes (a) finding K-shortest routes between each node pair (s, d), where s, dεV and |V|≦K, where V is a set of reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) nodes, (b) selecting unconsidered node pair (s, d), (c) selecting unconsidered route k between nodes s and d out of the K-shortest routes, (d) finding a bit map of route k by performing bit-wise logical AND operation on bit vectors of fibers along route k, (e) selecting unconsidered line rate l out of offered set L of line rates, and (f) finding a probability αls,d,k of provisioning a connection with line rate l. Other apparatuses, systems, and methods also are disclosed.

The present invention relates to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks and, more particularly, to measurement of spectral fragmentation in the WDM networks.
In wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, upon an arrival of a demand requesting a line rate between end nodes, an optical channel is established by allocating finite amount of spectrum on all fibers along the route. If an intermediate node along the route does not support wavelength conversion capability, then the channel must follow the wavelength continuity constraint, which is defined as an allocation of the same center wavelength to the channel, and the spectral continuity constraint, which is defined as an allocation of the same amount of spectrum to the channel in the ingress and egress fibers of a node. To support multiple such channels over a fiber, the spectral conflict constraint must be satisfied, which is defined as an allocation of non-overlapping spectrum to the channels routes over the same fiber.
Conventionally to address interoperability issues, the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) has standardized fixed channel spacing [1]. The network that follows the ITU-T standard is referred to as fixed grid network as shown in FIG. 1(a). Fixed grid networks may not optimize spectral efficiency while supporting line rates with heterogeneous granularity for ever increasing bandwidth demands. Recently, flexible grid network architecture (as shown in FIG. 1(b)) is introduced in which flexible amount of spectrum is assigned to channels based on the requirements of requested bandwidth, transmission reach, and offered modulation formats. Flexible grid networks highly optimize network spectral efficiency. However, dynamic arrival and departure of channels with heterogeneous spectrum requirements causes fragmentations in spectrum (as shown in FIG. 2), and the network can no longer be in its optimal state. The state of fragmented spectrum in a network is referred to as network fragmentation. Network fragmentation is a serious issue in fixed and flexible grid networks. Spectral fragmentation can block a connection in spite of the availability of sufficient amount of spectrum for the connection and deteriorate the network performance.
To restore a network in its optimal state and enhance the blocking performance, several network defragmentation schemes are investigated [2][3][4]. However, in order to make timely judgments on when to defragment the network and to verify the effectiveness of network defragmentation or resource provisioning solutions, there is a need to accurately measure the network state. Thus, the problem is how to quantify the fragmentation in a network. The problem is formally defined as follows.
We are given an optical network topology G(V, E), where V is a set of reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) nodes and E is a set of fibers connecting ROADM nodes. The network supports a set of line rates L. The required spectral width for each line rate is H1 GHz for a line rate l. The network offers total Z GHz of spectrum to support the network traffic. A connection demand requesting a line rate l between a set of nodes arrive with probability Ql. The problem is how to measure spectral fragmentation in the network.
In [5], a Spectrum Compactness parameter is introduced to quantify fragmentation over a fiber based on the occupied and available spectrum slots. In [6], Utilization Entropy parameter is introduced to evaluate fragmentation over a fiber based on the number of changes in the states of spectrum. Both of these parameters do not consider fiber correlations while measuring network fragmentation.

Network fragmentation measurement in an optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network


There is provided a display device including pixel circuits which are arranged and each of which includes a driving transistor to drive an electro-optical element and a capacitor connected between a gate electrode and one source/drain electrode of the driving transistor. The driving transistor is configured by stacking the gate electrode and the source/drain electrode and a peripheral portion of the gate electrode is covered by the source/drain electrode.

The present disclosure relates to a display device and an electronic apparatus and more particularly, to a flat panel display device configured by arranging pixels each including an electro-optical element in a matrix and an electronic apparatus including the display device.
As an example of the flat panel display device, a display device that uses a so-called current driving type electro-optical element of which light emission bright changes according to a value of a current flowing to a device as a light emitting unit (light emitting element) of a pixel has been known. As an example of the current driving type electro-optical element, an organic EL (electro luminescence) element that uses electro luminescence of an organic material and uses light emission when an electric field is applied to an organic thin film has been known.
The flat panel display device that is represented by an organic EL display device has a configuration in which pixels (pixel circuits) each of which has at least a write transistor, a capacitor, and a driving transistor in addition to the electro-optical element are two-dimensionally arranged in a matrix (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2007-310311).
The write transistor samples a signal voltage of a video signal supplied through a signal line and writes the signal voltage to the pixel. The capacitor is connected between a gate electrode and one source/drain electrode of the driving transistor and retains the signal voltage written by the write transistor. The driving transistor drives the electro-optical element according to the signal voltage retained by the capacity element.
In the pixel circuit, the capacitor is connected between the gate electrode and one source/drain electrode of the driving transistor, so that a bootstrap operation in which a potential of the gate electrode changes according to a potential of one source/drain electrode is performed. In the bootstrap operation, a ratio of a change amount of the potential of the gate electrode with respect to a change amount of the potential of one source/drain electrode of the driving transistor becomes bootstrap gain.


A process for the preparation of a frame-supported pellicle membrane used for dust-proof protection of a photomask in the photolithographic patterning work of, for example, semiconductor devices. An improvement is proposed for trimming of a pellicle membrane formed on a base plate and adhesively bonded to a pellicle frame to remove the extraneous portion of the membrane protruded out of the pellicle frame. Instead of the mechanical punching method for trimming, the trimming work according to the invention is performed by using a cutting device having a cutter element heated at a temperature higher than the melting point of the thermoplastic resin forming the membrane so that the membrane is trimmed by melting of the resin. Different from the conventional mechanical punching method, the trimming process of the invention is free from the problem of occurrence of dust particles deposited on the membrane to adversely affect the quality of the pattern reproduction.

The present invention relates to a method for the preparation of a frame-supported pellicle for photolithography or, more particularly, a frame-supported pellicle used in photolithography for dust-proof protection of a photomask in the manufacture of semiconductor devices such as LSIs, VLSIs and the like and liquid-crystal display units in a procedure of pattern-wise exposure to light having a wavelength of 500 nm or shorter.
As is well known, a process of photolithographic patterning is involved in the manufacture of various kinds of electronic devices including semiconductor devices such as LSIs, VLSIs and the like as well as liquid crystal display units, in which a semiconductor silicon wafer or a base plate for liquid crystal display units is exposed pattern-wise to light through a transparency of a photomask bearing the desired fine pattern. One of the serious problems in this photolithographic process is that sometimes dust particles are deposited on the photomask to greatly affect the quality of the pattern which should be a high-fidelity reproduction of the pattern on the photomask.
Needless to say, the photolithographic patterning works are usually conducted in a clean room but the above mentioned problem due to deposition of dust particles on the photomask cannot be completely solved even by working in a clean room of highest cleanness. Accordingly, a method proposed in this regard is that a frame-supported pellicle, which is a highly transparent membrane of a plastic resin, is mounted on the photomask and the photolithographic pattern-wise light-exposure is conducted through the pellicle membrane which serves as a dust-proof protector for the photomask.
Since the frame-supported pellicle is used for the dust-proof protection of the photomask, it is a matter of course that the pellicle is absolutely free from dust particles or foreign materials deposited thereon although it is an extremely difficult matter to ensure perfect cleanness of a pellicle without deposition of foreign materials by a variety of reasons leading to the occurrence of particles including the particles floating in the atmosphere of the manufacturing line and clean room, particles contained in the pure water used for rinse and the like and particles contained in the starting materials of the pellicle membrane per se and in the adhesive used for adhesive bonding of the pellicle membrane and the frame supporting the membrane.
It is understood that the process of mechanical working for the preparation of the pellicle membrane is the most responsible for the occurrence of dust particles. For example, a frame-supported membrane is prepared usually by adhesively bonding a separately prepared pellicle membrane to a rigid frame followed by trimming of the membrane to cut off the extraneous portion of the membrane protruded out of the frame. When this trimming work of the membrane is conducted by using a bladed cutter or a punch, tiny fragments of the plastic resin film are unavoidably formed and eventually deposited on the pellicle membrane and pellicle frame. Once such foreign particles are deposited on the membrane, it is almost impossible to subsequently remove them. Another problem in the above mentioned mechanical trimming work is that, since the trimming work is conducted on a pellicle membrane which is formed on a substrate plate by the method of casting of a solution of the plastic resin thereon and the like, the substrate plate is eventually damaged by the trimming punch or other cutting tools for the mechanical trimming work.
In view of the above described disadvantages in the mechanical trimming method of pellicle membranes, a proposal is made for the use of a laser beam which in principle cuts off the pellicle membrane by melting the thermoplastic resin film forming the pellicle membrane so that the problem of occurrence of cutting debris or dust particles can be solved, which may otherwise be unavoidably deposited on the pellicle membrane. The trimming method by using a laser beam, however, is not free from a serious problem. Namely, pellicle membranes are required to be suitable for use in the photolithography in which the light for pattern-wise exposure is the i-line or an excimer laser beam of very short wavelengths. This means that the pellicle membrane is necessarily formed from a thermoplastic resin having high transmissivity to a short wavelength light down to the so-called vacuum ultraviolet such as the KrF and ArF excimer laser beams having a wavelength of 248 nm and 193 nm, respectively. Accordingly, the pellicle membrane formed from such a resin having high transmissivity to the laser beam hardly absorbs the energy of the laser beam used for the trimming work of the pellicle membrane such as the beams from YAG lasers or above mentioned excimer lasers so that laser beams are not suitable for the trimming work. Even if a pellicle membrane could be trimmed by using a laser beam, another problem in the use of a laser beam is that the substrate plate, on which the pellicle membrane is formed and supports the membrane during the trimming work, made from fused quartz glass or silicon would also be damaged by the laser beam. Therefore, the only practical method used for the trimming work of pellicle membrane is the mechanical method despite the problems that the method is accompanied by a decrease in the quality of the pellicle membrane as well as in the yield of acceptable products.

Method for the preparation of a frame-supported pellicle for photolithography


The present invention provides an adjustable furnishing such as a lift chair including a support member with a surface for supporting a user. A mechanism is connected to the support member for adjusting a position of the support member. One or more infrared radiation sensors are positioned beneath the surface of the support member to generate a signal when a heated body is detected in proximity to the mechanism. A controller is provided for receiving the signal from the infrared radiation sensors and inhibiting travel of the mechanism and the support member in a direction of the detected heated body.

Power operated lift chairs are useful for raising persons, especially those having impaired mobility, from a seated to a standing position. These chairs include a powered lift mechanism which raises and tilts the chair allowing a seated occupant to stand with a limited amount of exertion. Further, in a reverse mode, the seat may lower a user from a standing to a seated position. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,007,960, 4,083,599, and 4,993,777 describe various known lift chairs.
Lift chairs of the type known in the art typically include a base frame which rests on the floor, a mechanism attached to the base frame, an electric motor-driven actuator for motivating the mechanism, and a seating portion for receiving a user. When the lift chair is raised, a gap is formed between the seating portion and the base frame. This gap poses a risk to a pet, a small child, or an unwary adult that may wander between the seating portion and the base frame. Injury may be caused when the lift chair is adjusted from a raised to a lowered position causing the person or pet to be compressed between chair components.
It is known to use ribbon sensing switches under a seating portion or on a base frame of a lift chair, whereby a foreign object under the seating portion may contact one of the sensing switches cutting power off to a mechanism actuator. This configuration may not provide an adequate solution to the problem of protecting humans or animals that move into a position beneath a lift chair. It is possible for a human or animal to avoid contact with the sensing switches and become injured by the moving mechanism, because it is impractical to provide such a ribbon sensing switch on every potentially dangerous portion of the lift chair. Further, since many types of sensing switches require contact with an object before motion of the mechanism can be stopped, a living being may become injured trying to escape the moving lift chair or become trapped after the motion of the mechanism is stopped.
It has also been suggested that light sensors be used to sense a foreign object under a lift chair. However, this solution fails to address some of the problems in a practical and effective manner. Light sensors require a light transmitter and a light receiver which detects changes in the transmitted light. Since the size and shape of an area under a seating portion of a lift chair changes significantly during a raising or lowering operation, a sophisticated and expensive controller may be required to prevent false detection of a foreign object. Moreover, the quantity of receivers and/or transmitters that are potentially required to cover an entire area under the seating portion of a lift chair is impractical and cost prohibitive.
It would be desirable to provide an effective, practical and cost effective system which prevents injury of a living being which enters beneath a seating portion of a lift chair.


Various embodiments of the invention are directed towards an exercise device for use with Pilates method exercise and other exercise methods. The exercise device is used either the arms or legs of the user for various exercises. The exercise device improves upon related-art system by allowing users to performing exercises while actively engaging the hands or legs of the device with the device in a manner that remains comfortable during exercises.

Exercise and physical fitness are an important means of maintaining health, strength, and longevity. To this end, innumerable devices and techniques have been developed for strengthening and stretching the body and muscles. One such popular technique is the Pilates Method, which was developed by Joseph Pilates in the early twentieth century. A number of accompanying devices have been developed for the practice of the Pilates Method. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,876,743 and 2,132,862 to J. H. Pilates).
In performing many of the stretching and strengthening exercises in the Pilates Method and other exercise methods, other exercise devices are commonly employed. U.S. Pat. No. 7,101,325 to Rigouby, for example, discloses an exercise device that is configured to allow the user to stretch a plurality of extensible strands. In this manner, the device allows users to perform stretching and strengthening exercises. The device, however, fails to disclose a system for actively engaging the device to the hands or feet of the user.
Another such device is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 7,175,574 to Carmel et al. Carmel's device discloses an exercise device, which comprises a resistance tube and a body engaging member that engages a portion of the user's body, such as the user's feet. The device further features handles at the opposite ends of the resistance tube, which may be engaged and pulled by the user. In this manner, Carmel's device allows users to exercise and stretch the body by engaging device and applying force against the resistance supplied by the resistance tube. Carmel's device, however, fails to teach a system for actively engaging the exercise device with the user's hands or feet.
Another device, which is commonly used in Pilates and other exercise methods, is commonly known as a Pilates-bar or exercise-bar. The Pilates-bar or exercise-bar generally comprises a dowel-shaped bar, which engages the hands or feet of the user during exercise. The bar is, also, attached to a resistance device, in order that the user may apply force to body movements, which are engaged to the bar.
These typical bars, however, suffer from certain shortcomings in the manner in which they engage with the user's body parts. The typical manner used in the art is illustrated by Carmel's device, which consists of a hand/foot grip that passively engages with the hand or foot of the user. This system is undesirable because, during exercise activities when resistance is placed on the bar, the grip can become loose and, possibly, released from the user's hand or foot.
Other, non-Pilates exercise equipment, such as a bicycle or a stationary bicycle, have mechanisms to actively engage the users feet. U.S. Pat. No. 7,175,574 to Nutile et al., for example, discloses a retractable foot retaining clip for the pedal of a bicycle. This spring driven device allows the bicycle rider to have his feet actively engaged with the pedals of the bicycle. Nutile's device, although appropriate for a large and cumbersome bicycle, would be inappropriate for incorporation into a typical Pilates bar. Nutile's device acts like a clamp and puts firm pressure on foot of the bicycle rider. The users of a Pilates bar are generally not wearing thick protective bicycle riding shoes to shield their feet against the vice-like clamp of Nutile's device. Thus, Nutile's device would be very uncomfortable on the feet of a Pilate's bar user. Similarly, Nutile's device would be completely inappropriate for actively engaging the hands of a Pilate's bar user. Additionally, Nutile's device is a clamp designed to work with the wide and flat surface of a pedal. The Pilate's bar is not flat and is not as wide as a pedal. Thus, Nutile's device does not help the user of a Pilate's bar to actively engage a user's hands or feet.
Therefore, there remains a long felt need in the art for an exercise device, which allows users to engage with the device and is configured such that the device actively engages with the hand or the foot of the user, such that it cannot become dislodged during exercise activities.


A library apparatus having a motor driving control circuit including a processor, a motor driver circuit, a relay, a motor abnormal condition detection circuit, a current control circuit, an excess current detection circuit, and an abnormal current monitor circuit. The motor abnormal condition detection circuit is connected to the motor driver circuit, and detects an abnormal condition of at least one of the motor and the motor driver circuit. Upon detecting an abnormal condition, the motor abnormal condition detection circuit outputs a motor abnormal condition detection signal which prompts the current control circuit to regulate the current flowing through the motor driver circuit. If the current control circuit is unsuccessful, the excess current detection circuit outputs an excess current detection signal which triggers the relay to close the power source circuit of the motor driver circuit.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for controlling a non-volatile memory and applications of the apparatus to electronic computer peripheral equipments.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as continuous non-stopping operation of an electronic computer system proceeds, it is required for any of peripheral equipments of the electronic computer to be recovered rapidly after the it goes down. Further, as unmanning proceeds, it is required that any of the apparatus be recovered without intervention of a person. For example, in a magnetic tape apparatus or a magnetic disk apparatus, in order to achieve recovery rapidly after an accident of interruption of the power or service interruption occurs, while the apparatus is in an operating condition, data of the status of the apparatus are stored into a non-volatile memory. A NOVRAM (non-volatile S-RAM) is known as a non-volatile memory. When a NOVRAM is used, it is required to execute control of recalling, storage and so forth of data regularly in any condition of turning on of the power, turning off of the power, service interruption or instantaneous interruption of power.

Library apparatus having a motor driving control including abnormal motor and excess current detecting circuits


A method and system for analyzing a signal waveform that comprises digitally sampling a signal at a periodic sampling interval, and accumulating a count of samples of the signal at a given logic level relative to a threshold value over a given period. The threshold value is stepped through a series of values while the accumulating of samples is repeated at a series of different clock offsets. The accumulated counts permit a statistical distribution of the signal waveform to be determined. A signal density can also be calculated by determining the difference between the count of adjacent samples at successive threshold values.

Current communication circuits have a high level of integration and achieve high performance by minimizing parasitic effects. During both product characterization and normal product usage, it is often desired to observe signal waveforms on critical high-speed internal nodes. However, current integrated circuits cannot be directly probed internally without significantly altering the signal to be observed.
Internal characterization is a very important, time-consuming and expensive part of the complete design cycle. At the current design speeds, sampling the signal internally is very difficult and requires dedicated output pads with linear buffers. These elements require significant area and their design is difficult. Even if turned off in normal operation, their presence can cause detrimental effects that limit the bandwidth and require improved performance from the circuits ahead. The cost of high-speed test equipment is also substantial.
Most existing methods for indirectly probing internal nodes use dedicated circuits to apply time and voltage offsets to probe different parts of the waveform. FIG. 1 shows a typical prior art signal waveform analysis system. A transmitter 20 sends digital information to a receiver 22 through a transmission channel 24. The intent is to evaluate the waveform of the recovered signal 26. The signal 26 is sampled by a sampler 28 with a timing reference 30, derived from the incoming signal 26 through a clock recovery circuit 32, and further adjusted by a clock skew circuit 34. The voltage threshold 36 of the sampler 24 is controlled by a threshold control circuit 38. The output 40 of the sampler 28 is a digital signal that is compared with the expected pattern at a comparator 42. The number of discrepancies, or bit errors, is recorded in an error counter 44 for the duration of the test. The measurement is repeated with different combinations of clock skews, generated by clock skew circuit 34, and threshold values, generated by threshold control circuit 38. The representation of the number of errors as a function of both the clock skew and the threshold maps a 2-D representation of the signal during a clock cycle. This map represents the probability of bit errors as a function of clock skew and sampler threshold during the bit period.
A common way to represent a communication signal waveform is to plot its amplitude vs. the time elapsed from a fixed instant relative to the current bit period start. The graph resulting from showing many such waveforms collected over different bit periods is called an eye diagram. The bit error map described above has a shape similar to that of the eye diagram, as its probability distribution matches that of the signal traces around the "center opening" of the eye diagram.
Such previously known signal waveform analysis systems typically require a known pattern to be transmitted, in order to be able to compare the recovered signal with the expected value. This limits the application to systems where the transmitter is fully controllable, and can send one of the patterns that can be detected at the output. In a practical application, the data transmitted can be difficult to control and programming this configuration can require lengthy setup procedures. The analysis of critical internal node signal waveforms is also helpful to identify problems that arise when a specific pattern is transmitted. However, if the specific pattern is not one of the pre-defined test patterns, previously known analysis systems are not useful for this purpose.

Method and system for analyzing signal waveforms


A surgical stapler including an anvil, a staple cartridge, and a buttress material removably retained to the anvil and/or staple cartridge. In various embodiments, the staple cartridge can include at least one staple removably stored therein which can, when deployed, or fired, therefrom, contact the buttress material and remove the buttress material from the anvil and/or staple cartridge. In at least one embodiment, the anvil can include at least one lip and/or groove configured to removably retain the buttress material to the anvil until deformable members extending from the surgical staple are bent by the anvil and are directed toward and contact the buttress material.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to surgical instruments and, more particularly, to surgical stapling instruments and staples for use therewith.
2. Description of Related Art
In addition, in various embodiments, ring 972 may be laced with or otherwise comprise a healing agent that, when in contact with tissue would enhance the healing of the tissue within the anastomotic site. Additionally, ring 972 may include or otherwise comprise a remotely detectable material that allows the position and orientation of ring 972 to be sensed in the patient at some later point in time. For example, ring 972 could be made from a material that is opaque to certain frequencies of radio waves or otherwise detectable by electromagnetic radiation. That way, the position and orientation of ring 972 at the anastomotic site may be identifiable using an x-ray machine, for example. In other embodiments, ring 972 may be made from a material having or otherwise comprise fluorescent nanoparticles that can be detected using a fluoroscopy device. The nanoparticles may be, for example, inorganic nanoparticles, like a semiconductor nanocrystals, silica-based nanoparticles such as those described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/536,569, entitled FLUORESCENT SILICA-BASED NANOPARTICLES, filed on Nov. 26, 2003, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/119,969, entitled PHOTOLUMINESCENT SILICA-BASED SENSORS AND METHODS OF USE, filed on May 2, 2005, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/306,614, entitled FLUORESCENT SILICA-BASED NANOPARTICLES, filed on Nov. 26, 2002, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein, or any other inorganic particle capable of attaching to or containing a fluorescence material. The nanoparticles may be also be organic nanoparticles, like liposomal spheres, dimer structures, or other organic structures capable of attaching to or containing a fluorescence material.
Some surgical staplers, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,895, entitled SURGICAL STAPLER INSTRUMENT, issued on Nov. 14, 1995, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein, can include an end effector having a cutting member and staple driver, for example, where the cutting member and staple driver can be moved along a linear, curved, and/or curvilinear path within the end effector. Such surgical staplers are often referred to as endocutters and can be utilized during gastric bypass surgical techniques in which the size of a patient's stomach can be reduced, for example. One of the most common gastric bypass surgical techniques is a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. In such a technique, the stomach can be transected into at least two portions where one of the portions can be formed into a small pouch which can be connected directly to a middle portion of the patient's small intestine, i.e., the jejunum. In various circumstances, the endocutter can be used to cut the stomach along a desired path and deploy staples into the stomach tissue in order to hold the stomach tissue together. As a result of the above-described technique, food passing through the digestive tract can bypass the other transected portion of the stomach and an upper portion of the small intestine, i.e., the duodenum.
Other surgical staplers, such as intra-luminal, or circular, staplers, for example, have been developed to assist a surgeon during a surgical technique known as an anastomosis. An anastomosis is a surgical technique in which a small and/or large intestine is transected, a portion thereof is excised, and the remaining portions are joined together. This technique often requires a surgeon to transect the small intestine, for example, at two locations creating a first end, a second end, and an intermediate portion. Thereafter, the intermediate portion can be removed and the first and second ends can be positioned adjacent to each other. In order to join the first and second ends, the first and second ends can be positioned within an intra-luminal, or circular, stapler such that staples can be deployed into the first and second ends around the perimeter thereof to hold the first and second ends together. Such staplers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,025, entitled INTRALUMINAL ANASTOMOTIC SURGICAL STAPLER WITH DETACHED ANVIL, issued on Apr. 14, 1992, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,927, entitled CIRCULAR STAPLER TISSUE RETENTION SPRING METHOD, issued on May 10, 1994, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein.

Surgical stapling instrument having a releasable buttress material


In one embodiment, a system for managing a skiplist includes processors arranged for parallel execution of threads, a shared memory storing a skiplist arranged as an ordered set of nodes, and at least one transaction execution thread executed by at least one of the plurality of processors. The at least one transaction execution thread is to execute a range-query operation to identify at least one node of the ordered set of nodes between a first lower key value and a second upper key value, the key-range operation executed by an execution phase and a commit phase, wherein during the execution phase the at least one transaction execution thread traverses nodes of the skiplist in a lock-free state, wherein during the commit phase the at least one transaction execution thread executes a commit protocol that guarantees transaction consistency of the skiplist structure and validates consistency of the range-query operation.

Embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods for managing a Skiplist and, more specifically, to systems and methods or performing a range query on a Skiplist data structure.
A Skiplist is an ordered data structure providing expected O (Log(n)) lookup, insertion and deletion complexity. The Skiplist provides a level of efficiency without the need for complex tree balancing or page splitting that are implemented when other ordered data structures are used (e.g., B-trees, Red-Black trees or AVL trees). The Skiplist is a much simpler and more concise data structure to implement.
The Skiplist is made up of elements (also referred to herein as nodes) attached to towers. Each tower in the Skiplist is linked at each level to the next tower at the same height forming a group of linked lists, one for each level of the Skiplist. The towers support binary searching by starting at the highest level and working towards the bottom, using the tower links to check when to move forward in the list or down the tower to a lower level. When a new node is inserted into the Skiplist, the tower height of the new node (also referred to herein as highest level) may be determined randomly (e.g. a tower with height n occurs once in 2{circumflex over ( )}n times). The new node is linked at each level of the Skiplist.
Skiplists may be used in association with databases stored in fast access memory (e.g., main-memory). Skiplists may be used, for example as simple, scalable, and computational efficient index structures mapping to the database. For example, Skiplists may be used to quickly search the database.
A key-range query is a common read operation in database system which retrieves all records with a key value between a given lower and upper boundary. Skiplist nodes (e.g., unlike Masstree nodes (B-Tree Variant)) do not possess a key range. Each Skiplist node only represents a single key. Therefore, performing consistent range queries on the Skiplist is problematic, especially in a multicore environment.

Systems and methods for performing a range query on a skiplist data structure


A wear leveling method under limited system resources is provided, the wear levelling method is suitable for a non-volatile memory, the non-volatile memory is substantially divided into a plurality of blocks, and the blocks are at least grouped into a data area, a spare area and a substitution-transient area. The blocks within the data area may be divided into a plurality of lately-used blocks and a plurality of lately-unused blocks. The method includes only recording erase times of the lately-used blocks and blocks within the spare area and selecting a block used for the substitution-transient area is selected from the spare area according to a judgment condition of erase times of another block within the spare area plus a first threshold value. The method also includes performing a wear leveling procedure. Wherein, the selected block and the other block are selected in a random mode or a sequential mode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wear leveling method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a wear leveling method for a non-volatile memory and a controller using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
With a quick developing of digital camera, cell phone camera and MP3, demand of storage media by customers is increased greatly. Since a flash memory has the advantages of non-volatile, energy saving, small size and none mechanical structure etc., it is suitable for portable applications, and especially for portable battery-powered products. Besides a demand of built-in memories of the portable products, demand of the flash memories used for external products such as small memory cards and flash drives is increased greatly in the market, since a user may simultaneously own a plurality of the memory cards and the flash drives. Therefore, the flash drive industry becomes a hot industry within the electronics industry recently.
Though the flash drive has the advantages of programmable, erasable, data saving after power-off, erase times of memory blocks within the flash memory are limited. For example, the memory blocks may be worn after ten thousand times of erase. When wearing of the memory blocks causes a loss of storage volume or an obvious decreasing of performance, the adverse effects such as loss of the stored data or unable of storing data may be occurred.
Wearing of the flash memory blocks is determined by program and erase times of each block. Namely, if a block is only programmed (or written) for once, and none programming is performed afterwards, wearing of the block is relatively low. Conversely, if the block is repeatedly programmed and erased, wearing of the block is relatively high. For example, if a host for accessing the memory blocks repeatedly performs programming by using a same logical block address, the block with the same physical address within the flash memory may be programmed and erased repeatedly.
When some blocks are worn, and meanwhile some other blocks are relatively not, the worn blocks may generally decrease the performance of the flash drive. Besides a performance decreasing of the worn blocks itself, if the unworn blocks are not sufficient for storing data, the whole performance of the flash drive decreases accordingly. Namely, when a number of the worn blocks of the flash drive is greater than a threshold value, even if there are still other unworn blocks, the flash drive is judged to be useless. When the unworn blocks are regarded useless, it is actually a waste of resources.
To prolong a lifespan of the flash drive, utilization of the blocks in the flash drive should be leveled. Generally, the blocks of the flash drive are grouped into a data area and a spare area. According to a conventional wear leveling method, when the flash drive is operated for a period of time, the blocks within the data area and the blocks within the spare area are logically exchanged sequentially, hopefully the blocks with lesser erase times may be exchanged to the data area for being programmed (or written). However, such method for logically exchanging the blocks within the data area sequentially to the blocks within the spare area cannot ensure the exchanged blocks are those with lesser erase times, and if the exchanged blocks are those with greater erase times, wearing of the blocks may be accelerated, and therefore an effect of the conventional wear leveling method is limited.
Accordingly, a novel wear leveling method is required to effectively prolong the lifespan of the flash drive.

Wear leveling method and controller using the same