The method of the invention enables a computer to examine a software application, which includes operands and operators, and to identify operand fields which include a year value. A scan knowledge base includes scan rules that enable characteristics of operands to recognized, identified and initially classified. An operand association table is provided for each operator and indicates, based upon inter-relationships of operands associated with the operator, whether an associated operand that has been initially classified as a year field or a probable year field, should be assigned a revised classification and what that revised classification should be. The method reviews the application, using the scan knowledge base, to identify each operand which can be initially classified as a year field or a probable year field and lists each such operand in an operand table. The method also reviews the application to identify every operator listed therein and lists every operator and any associated operands in an operator table. Thereafter, the method determines, for operator entries located in the operator table, and from operands associated therewith and an operand association table, whether the classification for each respective operand in the operand table should or should not be altered.

Software applications use dates in many operations, from complex financial transactions to the calculation of expiration dates of drivers' licenses and credit cards. Many such applications base their calculations on dates and subtract two-digit year values to arrive at a calculation result. For example, calculations of interest on a 5-year certificate of deposit involve the subtraction of the certificate's issue date from the current date and a determination of interest based upon the difference value. This calculation is not a problem if the certificate matures in 1999, but if it matures in 2001, the same computation can result in an error message or worse. In the year 2000, the two-digit year indication starts over at "00" and unless something distinguishes such date, the year will appear to be the year 1900--or so it will seem to many programs that use only the year's last two digits for dates.
In the early days of data processing, storage space was at a premium and it was decided to use two digits for the year indication. Most programs today carry forward that format and employ two bytes of 8-bit binary data to indicate the last two-decimal values of the year. Many of these programs/applications were written years ago and the authors/programmers who understood their organization and details are no longer available for consultation. Further, calculations employing year fields are often deeply embedded in very large program routines and are thus difficult to find and identify.
The key to identifying year fields in a program, at a reasonable cost, is to do so automatically and avoid the use of programmers to scan the code.
Year fields are normally composites of sub-fields. That is, the fields used to represent "year", "month" and "day" are sub-fields of a larger field of "date". To identify such fields, two primary matching techniques are currently being used. The first examines the labels assigned to various data fields used by the program. In COBOL, these labels are found in the DataDivision which is the area of the program which defines each of the data elements used in the program. Using various techniques, key phrases like "year", "yr", etc. are located in the labels. These data fields are then considered to be year-oriented fields. As a further check, the format of each such "year-oriented" field is determined and is scanned to see if it meets one of the commonly used formats for year information. The most common format in use involves three two-digit numbers that are defined consecutively.
The application of this dual test allows a search of a program to be carried out and often leads to the discovery of approximately 80% of the year fields. Because such a search procedure does not consider the interrelationship of a discovered year field with other year fields, both in the same program and in allied programs in the same application, data that would allow a more accurate year field determination is ignored.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved method for identifying year-related fields in a program.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved method for identifying year-related fields in a program, which employs data available in associated fields to assure a higher level of accuracy in the year field identification process.
It is another object of this invention to utilize classifications other than purely year oriented fields; for example classifications such as day, month, currency, durations and (when separated from years) centuries may also be used to evaluate applications. Weighted classifications may be assigned to improve the year finding process.

Method for classification of year-related data fields in a program


A tube bending machine in which a tube detecting sensor detects an amount of bending a tube during the bending process and a controlling unit performs control so that the amount of bending detected by the sensor becomes a value corresponding to the program stored in a memory beforehand; thus, the second and subsequent tubes are bent accurately and efficiently by a drive command from the memory.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a tube bending machine, and more particularly, to a tube bending machine performing a bending work by applying pushing or tensile force to a tube to be bent.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The bending of a metallic tube holds an important position in the industry such as the vehicle or automobile manufacturing industry. Namely, tubes installed in a vehicle are required to be bent lengthwise accurately at their predetermined positions in order to route them while avoiding other parts or to connect them to other parts.
In the prior art, wherein a tube is bent for these purposes, the tube is bent as established beforehand with a gripping means which grips, moves, and sets the tube at a predetermined position and with die means which bend the tube at the predetermined position by a prescribed amount, and after the bending work is completed, the dimensions of the bent tube are measured with a three-dimensional measuring apparatus, wherein if correction is required, adjustments are made in the subsequent bending process with regard to the amount of movement and setting df the gripping means as well as the bending amount of the die means.
In the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 63-290624, a tube bending method and a tube bending machine have been proposed wherein a position sensing means detects a prescribed position between one end of the tube and the bending position after the tube is bent as established beforehand with a gripping means which grips, moves, and sets the tube at the prescribed position and with die means which perform the bending work at the bending position by a prescribed amount of bending.
In the method proposed by the said Application, the position sensing means detects a position after the tube is bent, and a control means modifies the bending amount of the die means so that the detected position comes to be the preset value and the predetermined bending work can be realized.
In the aforesaid conventional method, since the bending amount is adjusted by measuring the bent tube dimensions with the three-dimensional measuring apparatus after a first tube is bent, this tube cannot be used as a product in many cases. In the case of comparatively short tubes, it is possible to use them as a product, but in the case of long tubes, the bending amount is required to be readjusted each time the bending work is performed since the work is affected by differences in hardness, elastic limit, and yield force due to variance in the material, wall thickness, and heat treatment conditions of the tubes. Furthermore, in the case of small-diameter tubes, correct dimensional measurements may not be possible since deflection occurs with such a tube when measured with the three-dimensional measuring apparatus. On the other hand, in the method proposed by the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 63-290624, it becomes practically difficult to apply the method to long tubes because the position sensing means must be made very large in size, while with small-diameter tubes, deflection increases at areas closer to the tube end after the bending work is performed, so that high-accuracy position sensing is no longer possible.


A method, wireless controller, and information processing system that define communication channel allocation. Communication channel allocation commands associated with a first network are monitored (102). The first network (102) comprises a plurality of communication frequencies assigned by the communication channel allocation commands. A set of communication frequencies are determined that have been assigned to wireless devices (108) associated with the first network (102) in response to the monitoring. A specification of unused communication frequencies within the plurality of communication frequencies are transmitted to a second network (104) in response to the determining.

Wireless communication technology has evolved greatly over the recent years. Wireless communication networks can include a variety of different network technologies. Furthermore, one wireless communication network may comprise underused spectrum that another wireless communication network can utilize on a secondary basis. Traditionally, wireless communication technology allows for systems to co-exist independently while sharing a common resource, such as spectrum. However, traditional wireless communication systems do not coordinate the use of the spectrum. Interoperability of systems using the same spectrum can be resolved, for example, through cooperative operation among network devices, e.g., synchronization and spatial scheduling can be employed to mitigate interference associated with network operation.
In situations in which two dissimilar network solutions/technologies are co-located such as a network installed some time ago at a fixed geographic location that can serve as a host for a newly installed second network, the systems do not coordinate the use of critical system resources such as spectrum. Furthermore, the first system may be the primary licensed system that was allocated the spectrum and the second system may be licensed to use the spectrum on a secondary basis; namely, allowed to use the spectrum provided that harmful interference does not degrade the performance of the primary licensed system. However, current technology generally does not provide an efficient and advantageous way for maintaining proper synchronization and critical time-aligned operations between the secondary the host/primary networks for mitigating harmful interference to the host/primary network. For example, current technologies generally do not provide a system in which the operation of a secondary network, i.e., a network that co-exists with an existing system, includes yielding spectrum right-of-way when spectrum scavenged by the secondary network is "recalled" by the host/primary network.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.


The present invention relates to compounds of formula (X)

Phosphoinositide 3-kinases ("PI3Ks") comprise a family of lipid kinases that catalyze the synthesis of the phosphatidylinositol ("PI") second messagers PI(3)P ("PIP"), PI(3,4)P2 ("PIP2"), and PI(3,4,5)P3 ("PIP3"). (Fruman et al., "Phosphoinositide kinases", Annu. Rev. Biochem. 67 (1998), pp. 481-507; Knight et al., "A Pharmacological Map of the PI3-K Family Defines a Role for p110α in Insulin Signaling", Cell 125 (2006), pp. 733-747.) In the appropriate cellular context, these lipids mediate diverse physiological processes including cell growth, survival, differentiation, and chemotaxis. (Katso et al., "Cellular function of phosphoinositide 3-kinases: implications for development, homeostasis, and cancer", Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 17 (2001), pp. 615-675.) The PI3K family comprises at least 15 different lipid and serine/threonine kinases, sub-classified by structural homology, with distinct substrate specificities, expression patterns, and mode of regulation. Class I PI3Kα is the main PI3-kinase isoform in cancer, and consists of catalytic (p110α) and adapter (p85) subunits. (Stirdivant et al., "Cloning and mutagenesis of the p110α subunit of human phosphoinositide 3′-hydroxykinase", Bioorg. Med. Chem. 5 (1997), pp. 65-74.)
The 3-phosphorylated phospholipid, PIP3, acts as a second messenger recruiting kinases with lipid binding domains (including plekstrin homology ("PH") regions), such as Akt, the product of the human homologue of the viral oncogene v-Akt, and phosphoinositide-dependent kinase-1 ("PDK1"). (Vivanco & Sawyers, "The Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase-Akt Pathway In Human Cancer", Nature Reviews Cancer 2 (2002), pp. 489-501.) Binding of Akt to PIP3 induces Akt to translocate to the plasma membrane, bringing Akt into contact with PDK1, which activates Akt. The tumor-suppressor phosphatase, PTEN, dephosphorylates PIP3, and therefore acts as a negative regulator of Akt activation. The PI3Ks, Akt and PDK1 are important in the regulation of many cellular processes including cell cycle regulation, proliferation, survival, apoptosis and motility and are significant components of the molecular mechanisms of diseases such as cancer, diabetes and immune inflammation. Functional loss of PTEN (the most commonly mutated tumor-suppressor gene in cancer after p53), oncogenic mutations in the PIK3CA gene encoding PI3Kα, amplification of the PIK3CA gene and overexpression of Akt have been established in many malignancies. (see, for example, Samuels, et al., "High frequency of mutations of the PIK3CA gene in human cancers", Science 304 (2004), p. 554; Broderick et al., "Mutations in PIK3CA in anaplastic oligodendrogliomas, high-grade astrocytomas, and medulloblastomas", Cancer Research 64 (2004), pp. 5048-5050.) Therefore, the deregulation of PI3k and the upstream and downstream components of this signaling pathway is one of the most common deregulations associated with human cancers and proliferative diseases. (Parsons et al., Nature, 436 (2005), p. 792; Hennessey et al., Nature Rev. Drug Disc. 4 (2005) 988-1004.)
PI3Kα is thus an attractive target for cancer drug development because PI3Kα inhibitors would be expected to inhibit proliferation and summon resistance to cytotoxic agents in cancer cells.

Abstract: or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof, wherein R1-R50, a, b, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, y, and z are defined herein. The novel dihydropyrrolopyrimidine derivatives are useful in the treatment of abnormal cell growth, such as cancer, in mammals. Additional embodiments relate to pharmaceutical compositions containing the compounds and to methods of using the compounds and compositions in the treatment of abnormal cell growth in mammals.


An LED and a surface mounting LED substrate for use in production of multi-faced surface mounting LEDs can include a resist layer on a conductor pattern that runs from an LED chip-mounted upper surface along a side portion and to a lower surface of the LED substrate. The resist layer is formed at least at a portion that is folded and runs along the lower surface and across a cutting line for separating/dividing at least the multi-faced surface mounting LEDs into discrete surface mounting LEDs. The resist layer is configured to suppress a burr that sometimes develops at a section of the conductor pattern during cutting/dicing of the multi-faced surface mounting LED substrate.

1. Technical Field
The disclosed subject matter relates to a surface mounting LED substrate and LED. More particularly, it relates to a surface mounting LED plate provided with means for preventing a burr from developing at a section of a conductor pattern contained in a substrate. A burr will sometimes develop when the LED substrate is cut with a dicing blade in a dicing step, which is one of the process steps for manufacturing a surface mounting LED.
2. Description of the Related Art
A surface mounting LED can be fabricated through the process outlined below. On a multi-faced substrate having conductor patterns formed on a surface thereof, multiple LED chips are die-bonded at a certain interval with an electrically conductive adhesive interposed therebetween. Further, wire bonding is applied to the die-bonded LED chips through the use of bonding wires. Thereafter, the LED chips and the bonding wires are covered and sealed in a sealing resin.
As a result, multiple surface mounting LEDs integrated with the substrate and the sealing resin and which are multi-faced are formed on the multi-faced substrate. A dicing blade is then used to simultaneously dice the substrate and the sealing resin at a certain interval to complete the discrete surface mounting LEDs.
The surface mounting LEDs that are completed through the above process steps have some problems and some areas for improvement. One such problem is made apparent when dicing the multi-faced substrate, due to the structure of the substrate.
The general structure of a substrate used in a typical surface mounting LED will now be described. An available base material serving as a base of the substrate may include an insulator, such as paper phenol, paper epoxy, glass epoxy and ceramic, and a metal, such as aluminum and iron. A copper foil is attached onto one or both surfaces of the base material and then undesired portions are removed from the copper foil by etching to leave desired portions to form conductor patterns that are composed of the copper foil.
In typical cases, copper, nickel and gold plating may be applied in turn onto the conductor pattern, as necessary. In particular, when wire bonding is applied to connect electrodes on the LED chips with the conductor patterns via bonding wires, plating is an effective means to reliably connect the bonding wires with both electrodes.
The multiple surface mounting LEDs formed on the multi-faced substrate as described above are diced with a dicing blade of a dicer. In this case, when the conductor pattern formed on the substrate is cut with the dicing blade, a burr may develop at a section of the conductor pattern.
When the surface mounting LEDs are mounted on a motherboard, the burr may protrude downward from the surface mounting LED and prevent the LED from keeping flat relative to the motherboard. As a result, the surface mounting LEDs are mounted in random directions and/or orientations, which can result in a lack of ability to be reliably reproduced and uniformly mounted.
As a result, the surface mounting LEDs mounted on the motherboard can not satisfy various optical properties required for the surface mounting LEDs and may not be reliably mounted. This is sometimes a factor in causing a reduction in yield due to a performance failure of the motherboard.
In order to suppress development of burrs or to eliminate development of burrs at the section of the conductor pattern when dicing the substrate, the following methods have been previously undertaken or proposed.
In the former case, a generally available method comprises die bonding and wire bonding a plurality of LED chips 50 with bonding wires 51 as shown in FIG. 9A. The LED chips 50 and the bonding wires 51 are then sealed in a sealing resin 52 that is composed of a light transmissive resin to form a multi-faced substrate 53, which is set on a soft organic dicing sheet 54. A multi-faced surface mounting LED 60 that is movable with the organic dicing sheet 54 is directed to a dicing procedure in which the sealing resin 52 and the substrate 53 are simultaneously diced with a rotating dicing blade 55 from the sealing resin 52 toward the substrate 53.
This dicing method may not prevent a burr 58 from developing at a section of a conductor pattern 57 and extending downward from the substrate 53 because the dicing sheet 54 is soft. Accordingly, this method may not effectively suppress development of burrs.
As shown in FIG. 9B, the upper surface of the sealing resin 52 is set on the soft organic dicing sheet 54 in another conventional operation. Then, the multi-faced surface mounting LED 60 that is attached/movable with the organic dicing sheet 54 is directed to a dicing operation in which the substrate 53 and the sealing resin 52 are simultaneously diced with the rotating dicing blade 55 from the substrate 53 toward the sealing resin 52.
This dicing method is possible to reduce the volume of a burr 58 that may develop at the section of the conductor pattern 57 and which extends downward from the substrate 53. In this orientation, however, the appearance of products can not be inspected and the sealing resin 52 set may possibly be peeled off on dicing under pressure and vibrations from the dicing blade 55.
Further, in another conventional operation shown in FIG. 9C, the multi-faced substrate 53 is adhered on an almost flat surface of a plate of ice 56. Then, the multi-faced surface mounting LED 60 is moved with the almost flat ice 56 and directed to a dicing operation in which the sealing resin 52 and the substrate 53 are simultaneously diced with the dicing blade 55 rotating in a direction from the sealing resin 52 toward the substrate 53.
This dicing method makes it possible to prevent a burr 58 from developing at the section of the conductor pattern 57 and extending downward from the substrate 53 because the lower surface of the substrate 53 makes contact with a hard member (ice 56). This method, however, requires time for adhering (fixing) the substrate on the almost flat surface of the ice 56 and is difficult for use in mass production.
On the other hand, a method that allows no development of burrs during a dicing operation is shown in FIG. 10. This method involves the specific formation of the conductor pattern 57 on the lower surface of the substrate 53, which are the most troublesome portion of the conductor pattern associated with development of burrs. Portions of the conductor pattern located at least on a dicing line 59 are removed to allow dicing without cutting the conductor pattern. Japanese Patent publication JP-A 2002-222997 is a conventional art example of such a dicing method.
The method shown in FIG. 10 requires that a portion of the conductor pattern be removed, the removed portion having a width larger than the dicing width (the thickness of the dicing blade). As a result, the area of the conductor pattern formed on the lower surface of the substrate for the surface mounting LED is reduced and lowers the strength of the product against stress. In addition, when the product is mounted on a motherboard with an electrically conductive member interposed therebetween, the small area of the conductor pattern serving as a bonding electrode on the product results in a reduction in fixing force against a lateral weight.


Soil separation apparatus includes a container, such as a bucket, from which cleaning liquid is taken and to which that liquid is returned after is has been used for dirt removal. The container is provided with a soil separator. The separator has at least one associated projection and depression, and preferably, a plurality of associated projections and depressions. The separator is positioned in the container to receive dirt settling under gravity from the contained liquid and, in particular, onto the depressions. The form and structure of the separator is such that disturbance of the liquid in the container does not wash the collected dirt back out into the main body of liquid to a significant extent.

The present invention relates to cleaning equipment in which cleaning liquid is taken from a container and returned to the container after the liquid has been used for cleaning. The present invention is particularly useful for a cleaning bucket for use with a cleaning element or device such as a floor mop, cleaning sponge, scrubbing pad, and the like, that is repeatedly wrung out into the bucket. In particular, the present invention relates to a separator effective for separating particulate soil from the main body of liquid in a container and maintaining the separated soil from the main body of liquid even while the main body of liquid is being disturbed.
A problem with known cleaning equipment is that dirt deposited out from the cleaning liquid collects at the bottom of the container but is redistributed into the main body of liquid when the liquid is disturbed by, for example, rinsing out a mop or sponge. Consequently, the cleaning element, such as the mop or sponge, picks up the redistributed dirt allowing it to be redeposited onto the clean surface, and potentially scratching many types of scrubbed surfaces. Moreover, the container is often emptied and cleaned out before the cleaning constituents of the liquid are actually exhausted.
Several solutions have been proposed for these problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,799 proposes a partition that is particularly useful for a mop cleaning device. The partition divides the container into side-by-side compartments with the expectation that the dirt or soil remain in one compartment while the other compartment is substantially dirt or soil-free. This proposed solution, however, is bulky, complicated, and not suitable for home consumer use.
Another proposed solution can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,264 where the bottom of a bucket is provided with a dirt trap. The trap includes a mat or pad-like form that receives dirt settling under gravity and traps the dirt below the element. The trap is described as a porous, cellular, or mesh-like structure, or as a molded rubber or plastic having passages such as corkscrew passages. This structure allows dirt to pass through and/or be trapped within the mesh or passages. In addition, the top of the mat is provided with an array of spaced fronds or strands that will float and stand up when there is no disturbance of the liquid but will lie flat when disturbance is considerable to seal of the top of the mat to protect the dirt from disturbance. While this solution may be effective, it would appear to be prohibitively expensive to manufacture for all but industrial use.
Thus, there still exists a need for an inexpensive yet effective apparatus capable of separating dirt or soil from the main body of liquid in a container and maintaining the separated dirt or soil from the main body of liquid even when the main body of liquid is being disturbed.


Method and apparatus for measuring the voltage and state of charge of a secondary battery. The voltage and state of charge values are taken by a circuit every four (4) seconds by reading voltage, waiting two (2) seconds, reading current, waiting two (2) seconds, and repeating the voltage readings and the current readings. The circuit includes a 4-bit microprocessor, CMOS analog switches, and two operational amplifiers. The voltage and current readings are taken from dual-sloped converters, and the values determined by software algorithms in the microprocessor.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a system for reading the voltage and state of charge of a battery. This system can be built into the battery including an LCD display, can be connected to the battery, or connected between a battery and a charging system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art systems have read battery voltage, but have not accurately measured current consumed or current added to a battery, and displayed this particular measurement.
Present day secondary batteries, such as Video Tape Recorder (VTR) batteries, need an accurate display of voltage, as well as current consumed, so that a battery is not run down to below recommended voltage or current during a video operation.
There is a need in secondary batteries to have a concise display indicating voltage of the battery, as well as current consumed or current added. There is a further need to indicate when a secondary battery is fully charged, is discharged, is being recharged, or is going through an automatic recharge cycle.
The prior art has been lacking in systems to indicate the state of a battery, and especially any systems which are built into the battery itself.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a system to read the voltage of a battery and the degree of discharge of the battery.

Method and apparatus for measuring the voltage and charge of a battery


A ski binding with a binding element mounted displaceably on a slide rail arranged on a ski and which can be fixed in different positions by a latching device, wherein the latching device has latch elements which engage in each other in a blocking position on the binding and ski sides, and the binding-side latch element has a pivotable lever element that in a displacement position the latch elements are not in engagement with each other, wherein the binding element has an operating element with an oblique run-on surface which is transferred between open and closed positions, wherein the operating element, upon transfer of the operating element to the open position, cooperates with an oblique contact surface of the lever element such that the lever element is moved out of the blocking position.

The most diverse slide rails and binding plates are already known in the prior art, on which in particular a binding element of a cross-country binding is mounted displaceably. In order to adjust the arrangement of the binding element individually on the ski or with respect to the slide rail or to adapt it to the given snow conditions, it is known to provide a latching device, with which the binding element can be fixed in different positions on the slide rail.
Such a locking device for cross-country bindings is already known for example from WO 2015/140258 A1, with which the latching lever mounted pivotably cooperates with a binding-side latching projection. Latching elements projecting from the latching lever are provided here to be received in latching openings provided in the slide rail, in order to position the binding element with respect to the binding plate. In a preferred example of embodiment, the lever element is arranged in a pretensioned release position and can be transferred by means of a slide into the blocking position. A drawback here is in particular that the elastic pretensioning of the plastic material is dependent, amongst other things, on the temperature and the age of the binding element, so that a transfer into the release position is not ensured.
Furthermore, a cross-country binding with a binding plate is known for example from EP 2 090 338 A1, on which binding plate a binding element is mounted displaceably. In order to fix the position of the binding element with respect to the binding plate, the binding plate comprises a plurality of openings, in which an end-side latching hook of the binding element can be received. For the purpose of opening, however, a tool is required, such as for example a screwdriver or suchlike.
Furthermore, AT 385 204 B shows a latching device for ski binding parts, wherein a spring-loaded piston is provided, which can be latched against the force of a spring in a hole of a series of holes in the guide rail. For the transfer of the piston into a non-engagement position out of the engagement position, a pin can be provided, which is accommodated in an oblique link guide, or a slide can be provided which comprises different ramp-shaped run-on surfaces for displacing the piston out of a latching position into a release position.
DE 34 28 566 A1 also discloses a similar device, wherein here a base plate comprises lateral guide rails, which are accommodated in grooves of the carriage for the displaceable bearing of the carriage. By means of a pressure load of a pressure piece, a bolt can be released from a cutout and the carriage can be displaced with respect to the base plate.
Furthermore, CH 177 960 A shows a carriage mounted displaceably on a base plate. In order to release the carriage for a displacement or however to fix it in its position with respect to the base plate, a cam lever is provided, by means of which the carriage and the base plate are held frictionally engaged in a locking position.
A similar cross-country binding, with which a tool is also required in order to bring a latching element of the binding element out of a latching connection with a binding plate, is also known from US 2013/0241179 A1.
The aim of the invention, therefore, is to provide a ski binding of the type mentioned at the outset, with which the latching elements can be reliably transferred into a release position in a simple and efficient manner reliably and without a tool, in which release position the binding element can be changed in its position with respect to the slide rail.
According to the invention, this is achieved by the fact that the binding element comprises an operating element with an oblique run-on surface, which operating element can be transferred between an open position and a closed position, wherein the oblique run-on surface of the operating element, when the operating element is transferred into the open position, cooperates with an oblique contact surface of the lever element in such a way that the lever element is moved out of the blocking position.
With the aid of the operating element according to the invention, the lever element can thus be reliably moved, in particular lifted, out of a latched position with the ski-side latching element with the aid of the cooperating run-on/contact surfaces, and it can thus be ensured in a straightforward and reliable manner that, by means of a simple displacement of the operating element from a closed position into an open position, the lever element of the latching device is released from the blocking position and is transferred into the displacement position, so that the binding element is released for displacement on the slide rail. Ski-side latching element is understood to mean a latching element which is connected either directly to the ski or to the slide rail or is also constituted integrally and thus cooperates with a latching element of the binding element in the blocking position for fixing the position of the binding element with respect to the slide rail or the ski on which the slide rail is fixedly arranged in the state when in use.
The oblique run-on surfaces and contact surfaces of the operating element and of the lever element can be constituted either flat or curved. It should merely be ensured that, when the operating element is transferred from the closed position into the open position, the cooperating run-on surfaces and contact surfaces do not block one another when the lever element is released from the blocking position.
In order to ensure that the lever element is arranged reliably in a blocking position and thus to prevent as far as possible an inadvertent release of the latching connection during use—irrespective of the ambient temperatures or the creep behaviour of the plastic material of the lever element—it is advantageous if the lever element is constituted such that it is arranged in a relaxed initial position in the blocking position. No special blocking element or suchlike is therefore required for the transfer of the lever element into a blocking position, but rather the lever element is advantageously located—insofar as no external forces are acting thereon—in its blocking position, so that a reliable latching connection is achieved.
In order to increase the ease of use for the user, it is advantageous if the lever element does not have to be continuously held during the displacement process of the binding element on the slide rail, but rather can be fixed in a straightforward manner in its open position. In this connection, it is advantageous if the operating element and the lever element comprise cooperating displacement-latching elements, which snap into one another when the operating element is transferred into the open position. With the aid of these displacement-latching elements, the operating element, when being transferred into its open position, can thus be held in the open position in a straightforward manner—without a tool—by snapping-in the cooperating displacement-latching elements in a manner that is preferably also tactile and audible for the user, so that the binding element can easily be displaced with respect to the slide rail. Accordingly, it is advantageously not necessary on the one hand to hold the lever element in its open position and at the same time to displace the binding element with respect to the slide rail, this sometimes requiring a certain amount of dexterity on the part of the user with known ski bindings.
With regard to a structurally simple embodiment of the displacement-latching elements for the purpose of the latching connection between the operating element and the lever element in the open position of the operating element, it is advantageous if a preferably web-shaped latching tab and a preferably linear latching groove for receiving the latching tab are provided as displacement-latching elements. Accordingly, only a projecting web, in particular on the operating element, and a corresponding groove-shaped depression, preferably on the lever element, are advantageously provided, so that the two elements, when the operating element is transferred, are brought into a latching connection which can also be released again in a straightforward manner.
It is also advantageous for ease of use on the part of the user if he experiences tactile or audible feedback not only when the operating element is transferred into the open position, to the effect that the operating element has now been successfully transferred into the open position, but that the same also applies for the transfer into the closed position.
Accordingly, it is advantageous if the operating element and an essentially plate-shaped base element of the binding element comprise cooperating blocking-latching elements, which snap into one another when the operating element is transferred into the closed position. When the operating element is transferred, a latched position of the operating element is thus achieved when the closed position is reached, so that the user is confident that the binding element is now arranged in the blocking position.
With regard to a structurally simple embodiment of the blocking-latching elements, it is advantageous if the operating element comprises an elastically deformable groove as a blocking-latching element, in which groove a preferably pin-shaped blocking-latching element connected to the plate-shaped base element snaps in in the closed position.
With regard to a compact structure of the binding element, it is also advantageous if the operating element is accommodated movably in a recess of the plate-shaped base element of the binding element. By providing a recess in the plate-shaped base element, the operating element can be integrated in a practical and elegant manner into the plate-shaped base element of the binding element and can be mounted inside this recess, in particular displaceably or pivotably, for the transfer between the open position and the closed position.
With regard to a structurally simple embodiment for the displaceable bearing of the operating element in the recess of the base element, it is advantageous if the operating element comprises edge-side webs, which cooperate with guide webs of the plate-shaped base element which guide webs project at the edge side into the recess.
To further increase the certainty that the lever element remains in the blocking position when the operating element is arranged in the closed position, it is also advantageous if the operating element comprises a securing section which, in the blocking position, is arranged at least in sections overlapping with at least one securing surface of the lever element.
With regard to a structurally simple embodiment with a small overall height, it is advantageous here if, as a securing section, securing surfaces projecting laterally from an essentially rectangular lever arm are provided at the free end of the lever element, the upper side of which securing surfaces is arranged below the upper side of the lever arm.
Accordingly, the operating element advantageously encompasses the lever arm in sections in the manner of a bracket, wherein, in the blocking position of the operating element, an end-side securing section of the lever element is then covered by a section of the operating element, so that pivoting of the lever element—against its relaxed initial position—is additionally prevented; the lever arm is thus secured in its blocking position.
In order to fix the vertical position of the operating element, i.e. normal to the displacement direction of the operating element, in the closed position and thus to reliably prevent the lever element in the blocking position together with the operating element from being released from the blocking position, it is advantageous if the operating element and the recess comprise a groove/spring connection securing the operating element in its blocking position in a direction normal to the displacement direction of the operating element.
In order to separate the latching connection with the ski from the displaceable guide between the binding element and the slide rail and thus—on account of the difference stresses—to create for example the possibility of providing a different material for the latching element than for the slide rail, it is advantageous if the at least one latching element provided on the ski side is constituted in an engagement rail separate from the slide rail, which engagement rail is connected, in particular glued, preferably directly to the upper side of the ski.
With regard to a reliable latching connection in the blocking position, which reliably prevents an inadvertent release in both possible displacement directions, it is advantageous if the ski-side latching element comprises at least one, in particular cylindrical, receiving opening, preferably a plurality of receiving openings arranged spaced apart from one another at equal distances.
In order to achieve an intimate latching connection, it is correspondingly advantageous if the binding-side latching element comprises at least one pin-shaped latching element, wherein it has proved to be advantageous if at least two pin-shaped latching elements are provided.
However, it is of course also possible to provide other different types of receiving openings or projecting latching elements, which prevent an inadvertent release under the effect of force in one of the two possible displacement directions on the binding element.
In order to enable particularly easy handling when transferring the operating element between the open position and closed position, it is furthermore advantageous if the operating element comprises at least one depression and/or recess at an upper side facing away from the slide rail.
The invention is explained in greater detail below with the aid of preferred examples of embodiment, to which however it is on no account intended to be limited.


A colored coating composition comprising (a) 5 to 60% by weight of a polymer having a carboxyl group and a carboxylate group; (b) 5 to 60% by weight of a polymer having a hydroxyl group and an epoxy group; (c) 0.05 to 20% by weight of a pigment-dispersing agent; and (d) 0.1 to 50% by weight of a pigment; (wherein, each amount formulated of the components (a) to (d) is based on the weight of total solid in the colored coating composition), wherein, an acid total amount AR and a base total amount BR which are derived from said pigment-dispersing agent, and an acid total amount AP and a base total amount BP which are derived from said pigment, suffice the following relations: AR>0.5 BP or BR>0.5 AP, and AR+AP >BR. Thus provided is a solid color coating composition that can meet the requirements of mar resistance, acid resistance, storage stability, and excellent appearance.

A solid color coating composition containing an aminoplast as a curing agent has been conventionally widely known. However, in the case of a coating composition containing as a curing agent only an aminoplast, a crosslinked portion of a coated film has poor acid resistance, and the coated film is damaged by acid rain which has recently become a serious problem.
The present inventors have already suggested a curable resin composition comprising a polymer having a specific halfester group and a polymer having a hydroxyl group and an epoxy group, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 3-287650. This composition is excellent in acid resistance and is not damaged by acid rain, since it uses an acid anhydride curing system. However, the coating system suggested by these inventors is basically designed to obtain a clear coating. Therefore, a solid color coating composition containing a pigment has not been investigated.
In the case of solid color, excellent appearance, high mar resistance and the like are required as well as the above-described acid resistance. Further, it is important that the coating composition is high solid. On the other hand, to obtain high mar resistance together with the acid resistance, it is indispensable to make a crosslinked coated film having high density. As a result, a problem occurs that stress strain is concentrated in the interface of a coated film in curing with thermosetting, and consequently adhesion to an undercoat becomes poor.
The present invention has been made to solve the above-described conventional problems, and the object thereof is to provide a solid color coating composition which suffices scratch resistance, acid resistance, storage stability and excellent appearance.


In a cylindrical coordinate system, the dominant direction of a line changes in a predictable manner. A rasterizer uses this fact to efficiently render a desired line on a volumetric display. It does do by determining whether first and second points on the desired line are on first and second constituent line-segments of the desired line, the first and second constituent line-segments having different dominant directions. On the basis of the determination, the rasterizer renders a second voxel representative of the second point on the desired line by incrementally proceeding from a first voxel representative of the first point. The location of the second voxel is selected to minimize a distance between that second voxel and the desired line.

This application contains a computer program listing submitted on CD-ROM created Aug. 30, 2002.
This invention relates to computer graphics, and in particular, to the rendering of a straight line on a display in which the voxels are arranged on a cylindrical coordinate grid.
Many computer-implemented displays consist of two-dimensional arrays of individual picture elements, or pixels. To form an image, a rasterizer selectively colors the pixels. Because the individual pixels are so small, the display appears to a human viewer to be a continuous rendering of an image. This illusion is particularly effective for complex images of continuous tones such as photographs.
For simple geometric shapes, however, the pixelated nature of the display can become apparent to the human viewer. For example, if the rasterizer is instructed to draw a straight line, there is no guarantee that the points on that desired line will coincide with the pixels that are available for rendering the line. As a result, the desired line is often rendered by a rasterized line of pixels that are close to but not necessarily coincident with the desired line. This results in rasterized lines that have a jagged or echeloned appearance.
In the course of rendering an image, a large number of straight lines and line segments are often drawn. As a result, given a desired line, the rasterizer must frequently select those pixels that will minimize the jagged appearance of the resulting rasterized line. A straightforward mathematical approach is to use the equation of the desired line and the coordinates of the available pixels to minimize a least square error across all points on the line. While such an approach has the advantage of globally optimizing the selection of pixels on the rasterized line, the large number of floating point operations required causes this approach to be prohibitively time-consuming.
To meet constraints on speed, rasterizers typically implement rasterization methods that avoid time-consuming floating point operations. Among the methods that meet the foregoing constraints is that taught in Bresenham, J. E., xe2x80x9cAlgorithm for Computer Control of a Digital Plotter,xe2x80x9d IBM System Journal, Vol. 4, pp. 25-30, 1965, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. Using only integer operations, the Bresenham algorithm reduces the choice of what pixel to select to an examination of the sign of a discriminant.
Even faster rasterization methods exist that select multiple points on the rasterized line based on the outcome of a single decision. There also exist a variety of rasterization methods aimed at rendering conic sections and quadric sections on a pixelated display.
However, the foregoing rasterization methods all rely on the assumption that the array of pixels is arranged in a uniform rectangular grid that can readily be modeled by a Cartesian coordinate system. This is a reasonable assumption given the prevalence of two-dimensional displays such as computer monitors and printers at the time these algorithms were developed.
Since then, however, volumetric, or three-dimensional displays have been developed. Such displays permit the generation, absorption, or scattering of visible radiation from a set of localized and specified regions within a volume. Examples of such systems are taught in Hirsch U.S. Pat. No. 2,967,905, Ketchpel U.S. Pat. No. 3,140,415, Tsao U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,147 and on pages 66-67 of Aviation Week, Oct. 31, 1960.
In a typical volumetric display 1, shown in FIG. 1, a motor 2 spins an imaging plate 3 rapidly about an axis 4. A light source 5 under the control of a rasterizer 6 illuminates selected spots 7 on the imaging plate 3 at successive instants. If the imaging plate 3 spins rapidly enough, and if the successive instants are separated by short enough time intervals, a continuous curve will appear to hang in mid-air.
FIG. 2 illustrates the projection 8 onto a plane perpendicular to the axis 4 of an exemplary line rendered by the rasterizer 6. In FIG. 2, the imaging plate 3 is shown in six successive instants as it rotates around the axis 4, now perpendicular to the page. At each of the six instants, the light source 5, under the control of the rasterizer 6, illuminates a spot 7 on the imaging plate 3. As shown in FIG. 2, by aiming the light source 5 at the correct spot and firing the light source 5 at the right time, it is possible to trace out the line. It is the function of the rasterizer 6 to correctly aim and fire the light source 5 so as to trace out the line.
To aim the light source 5, the rasterizer 6 needs a way to identify points in space. In other words, the rasterizer 6 needs a coordinate system. One possible coordinate system is a Cartesian coordinate system.
Using a Cartesian coordinate system, the rasterizer 6 would draw the line 8 in FIG. 2 by specifying, for example, that at time t1, the light-source 5 should aim 30 units north, at time t2, the light-source 5 should aim 29 units north, 1 unit east and 1 unit in elevation, at time t3, the light-source 5 should aim 28 units north, 2 units east and 2 units in elevation, and so on. To ensure that the imaging plate 3 is at the appropriate location, the rasterizer 6 also has to specify the values of the times t1, t2 and t3 based on how fast the imaging plate 3 is spinning. Although the spinning of the imaging plate 3 can be resolved into a north-south component and an east-west component, this is a computationally taxing exercise that can easily be avoided by using a polar coordinate system.
As an alternative, the rasterizer 6 could draw the line in FIG. 2 in cylindrical coordinates by specifying, for example, that at time t1, the light source 5 should aim 30 units away from the axis 4 at a 90 degree angle, at time t2, the light source 5 should aim 29.02 units from the axis 4 at an angle of 88.03 degrees and point up by 1 unit of elevation, and at time t3, the light source 5 should aim at 28.07 units from the axis 4 at an angle of 85.91 degrees and point up by 2 units of elevation. This would, of course, draw the same line that was drawn using Cartesian coordinates. The advantage of using cylindrical coordinates becomes apparent when it comes time to specify when to fire the light source 5. Because the imaging plate 3 is spinning, it is far more natural to represent its motion in terms of degrees per second than it is to resolve its motion into a north-south component and an east-west component. For this reason, calculations involving motion of the imaging plate 3 in a volumetric display are best performed in terms of a cylindrical coordinate system.
The process of rendering a line in a cylindrical coordinate system is fundamentally different from that of rendering a line in a Cartesian coordinate system. In a Cartesian coordinate system, a line has a constant slope. A unit change in one direction always results in the same change in the remaining two directions, regardless of where that change occurs. This is not the case in a cylindrical coordinate system.
In a cylindrical coordinate system, the slope of a line can vary dramatically with position along the line. In contrast to a Cartesian coordinate system in which the slope of a line is constant at all points on the line, the slope of a line in a cylindrical coordinate system can vary significantly along the line. This is because the coordinate grid in a cylindrical coordinate system is not a spatially uniform grid, as is the coordinate grid in a Cartesian coordinate system.
For those portions of the line that are closest to the axis of the cylindrical coordinate system, the change in distance of the line from the origin changes very slowly with angle. For those portions of the line that are far from the axis of the cylindrical coordinate system, even a small change in angle results in a huge change in radial distance from the axis.
A rasterizer according to the invention recognizes that the dominant direction of a desired line in a cylindrical coordinate system changes in a predictable manner. The rasterizer uses this predictable sequence of dominant directions, referred to as a xe2x80x9cdominance progression,xe2x80x9d to avoid having to determine the dominant direction at each point on the desired line before rendering a voxel representative of that point. Instead, the rasterizer detects boundaries between constituent line-segments of the desired line and uses the dominance progression to determine the dominant direction of the line at any point. Because the process of detecting a transition between boundaries is much faster than that of evaluating a dominant direction, a rasterizer practicing the method of the invention can rapidly and efficiently draw a rasterized line in a cylindrical coordinate system.
The rasterizer renders, on a volumetric display, a rasterized line that approximates a desired line. It does so by rendering, on the volumetric display, a first voxel representative of a first point from the desired line. The first point is selected from a first constituent line-segment having a first dominant direction. Then, the rasterizer selects a second point from the desired line and determines whether that second point is on a second constituent line-segment, with a second dominant direction, or whether that second point is on the same constituent line segment.
On the basis of this determination, the rasterizer renders a second voxel representative of the second point on the desired line. This second voxel is located so as to minimize a distance between the second voxel and the second point on the desired line. The second voxel can be selected, for example, by application of a midpoint method to select the second voxel from a plurality of candidate voxels.
In one practice of the invention, the rasterizer evaluates a difference between a threshold and a transition-indicating expression evaluated at the second point. This difference is indicative of a transition from the first constituent line-segment to the second constituent line-segment. The transition indicating-expression is typically an expression whose value depends on a slope of the desired line at the second point. The slope can be defined as a ratio of how much the desired line changes in the first dominant direction with respect to a change in one of two non-dominant directions.
In some cases, the orientation of the line to be rasterized is such that the transition cannot be reliably detected. This occurs, in part, because of computation on a digital computer cannot be carried out with infinite precision. In one practice of the invention, erroneous transitions are avoided by selecting the transition-indicating expression to be one that identifies a line having a point at which the slope is equal to the threshold.
Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. Although methods and materials similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice or testing of the present invention, suitable methods and materials are described below. All publications, patent applications, patents, and other references mentioned herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. In case of conflict, the present specification, including definitions, will control. In addition, the materials, methods, and examples are illustrative only and not intended to be limiting.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description, and from the claims.

Rasterization of lines in a cylindrical voxel grid


A system and method for blind-mateably electrically connecting a 1 U industrial personal computer with an industrial PC receiving bay in a rack, where the 1 U industrial personal computer has a first dedicated blind-mateable connector for standard equipment disposed on a bracket at the back end of an industrial PC and a second dedicated blind mateable connector for use with a later added expansion card, where the connectors are coupled to circuitry in the 1U industrial personal computer via jumper cables.

In recent years, industrial personal computers have become increasingly prevalent in many industries. It is not uncommon today to see rows of industrial PCs arranged in racks. While many of these industrial PCs are often designed and manufactured to higher standards than consumer PCs, they still are occasionally in need of repair. Typically, when a repair is needed, the PC is removed from the rack and taken to a computer repair facility. To remove the PC from the rack requires disconnecting the numerous connections between the PC and the wiring in the rack. Full-size industrial computers have enjoyed much success with blind-mateable connectors between the PC and the rack.
While these blind-mateable connectors have been used extensively in the past with full-size industrial PCs, they do have some drawbacks when used with smaller 1 U industrial PCs. For example, the typical blind-mateable connectors may be too large to easily fit in the usable space in the back of a 1 U industrial PC. It has been generally accepted in the art of manufacturing 1 U industrial personal computers that the only way to connect the computer to a rack is to manually connect a wiring harness to a connector on the terminal end of the 1 U industrial personal computer 110.
Additionally, it is common practice to make configuration changes to these 1 U personal computers, such as adding expansion cards. Such changes would often require a new interconnection scheme between the 1 U computer and the rack.
Consequently, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for connecting 1 U industrial personal computers in an efficient manner.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for connecting a 1 U industrial personal computer in an efficient manner.
It is a feature of the present invention to utilize pin and socket connector on a bracket at the end of the rear of the case of the 1 U PC.
It is another feature of the present invention to include a first standard connector, dedicated to standard features of the PC, and a second custom connector, dedicated for use with any expansion cards.
It is an advantage of the present invention to achieve improved flexibility and efficiency in installation of 1 U industrial personal computers.
The present invention is an apparatus and method for installing 1 U industrial personal computers designed to satisfy the aforementioned needs, provide the previously stated objects, include the above-listed features, and achieve the already articulated advantages. The present invention is carried out in a xe2x80x9cwasted time-lessxe2x80x9d manner in a sense that the time consumed with reconfiguring interconnections necessitated by addition or replacement of circuit cards within the PC, has been greatly reduced.
Accordingly, the present invention is a system and method including a 1 U industrial PC having a first PC blind mateable connector disposed thereon for cooperation with an associated first rack blind-mateable connector in the rack, and a second PC blind-mateable connector disposed thereon for cooperation with an associated second rack blind-mateable connector in the rack, where the first PC blind-mateable connector is dedicated for use with expansion cards disposed in said 1 U industrial computer.

Upgradeable system and method for connecting a 1U personal computer


An interactive, tree structured, graphical visualization aid enables a user to better understand and interpret underlying structures in collections of digitally stored data elements, such as documents, programs and other data files. The visualization aid responds to user input, which directs the aid to operate in one of at least two modes. In a first mode, the visualization aid displays a graphical tree structure that includes a selected node and all branches of the selected node, including all subordinate nodes and data elements. In this first mode of operation, all data elements or documents branching either directly from the selected node or directly from subordinate nodes are displayed in the tree structure as branching directly from their respective nodes. In a second mode of operation, the visualization aid displays a graphical tree structure that includes a single group of all data elements or documents that branch either directly from the selected node or directly from subordinate nodes, but the selected node and its subordinate nodes are not displayed.

Applicants claim the foreign priority benefits under 35 U.S.C. 119 of U.K. Patent Application No. 9517988.3 filed Sep. 4, 1995, which is incorporated by reference into this application.
This invention relates to an interactive, tree structured, graphical visualization aid for use with digitally stored collections of data elements, such as documents, programs and other data files.
Due the increased availability and use of CD-ROM storage media, the use of digitally stored textual matter or other information such as sound, image and video files has become more prevalent among computer users. Using modern CD-ROM technology a small number of CD-ROMs can be used to store a large collection of information. Typically, the information is organized by topic for ease of access. Thus, when producing a collection of this type, information elements must be manually gathered within clusters that deal with the same or related topics. In the case of documents or books, such clusters are sometimes referred to as bookshelves. This tedious organization task can be automated using cluster analysis techniques. Unfortunately, as described below standard numerical clustering techniques generate clustering hierarchies that are difficult to interpret for non-expert users.
A wide range of cluster analysis techniques have been developed for identifying underlying structures in large sets of objects and revealing links between objects or classes of objects. In the following, the objects to which the clustering process is applied will be referred to as information elements or data elements. There is no strict definition of a cluster, but in general terms a cluster is a group of objects whose members are more similar to each other than to the members of any other group. Typically, the goal of cluster analysis is to determine a set of clusters, such that inter-cluster similarity is low and intra-cluster similarity is high.
One well known clustering technique is the Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering (HAC). This method takes as input a collection of objects and organizes them into a binary cluster hierarchy, or dendrogram. The key characteristic of a dendrogram is that each node represents a cluster formed by merging of the clusters which are its direct descendants in the tree. A leaf is a singleton cluster containing a single information element. Each level of the dendrogram, from the leaves to the root, forms a partition of the original set of elements.
However, making use of dendrograms to enable a user to understand the underlying structure of a collection of information elements has certain drawbacks.
First, dendrograms are difficult for users to visualize since they are laid out as trees and it is often difficult for novice users to understand that each node represents a cluster of information elements.
Secondly, dendrograms are difficult to interpret. One major weakness of numerical clustering algorithms is that clusters are defined extensively, i.e., by enumeration of their members, rather than intensively, i.e., by membership rules. In other words, the mere fact that a number of information elements have been grouped together in a cluster tells the user nothing in itself about the characteristics of the elements that have led to them being grouped in such a manner.
The problem of displaying clusters of information elements to the user has already been addressed in the past. It has been often proposed to represent the cluster information defined by the dendrogram not as a tree diagram, but in a completely different manner. One typical example is the layout proposed by R. A. Botafogo in `Cluster Analysis for Hypertext Systems ` Proceedings of ACM SIGIR'93 (1993) (see in particular FIG. 7, p 122) that represents the pairwise similarity between documents as well as clusters as levels on a 2-dimensional space.

Interactive, tree structured, graphical visualization aid

International Business Machines Corporation


An object displaying method and a terminal device are disclosed. The method includes displaying at least a first portion and second portion of a graphic map layer in the first display region and second display region of a display screen of the terminal device, respectively; identifying a target object in the graphic map layer; determining a target display mode according to a current state of the target object among a plurality of states for the target object; and displaying the target object in the second display region according to the target display mode.

With the advancement of functionality of a terminal device, an application (APP) running on the terminal device can display a layer on a display screen of the terminal device to implement a specific function. For example, a navigation APP can display a map on the display screen of the terminal device to provide a positioning and navigation service. To improve service efficiency of the APP and to make it convenient for a user to view content displayed on the layer, a "small map" may be further displayed on the display screen. In this way, the content in the layer may be simultaneously displayed on the display screen layer and an additional overlaid "small map".
Using FIG. 1 as an example, an application interface 100 is displayed on the display screen of the terminal device. A small map 101 is displayed on an upper-left corner of the application interface 100. The small map 101 can display a location, channel information and the like of a simulated object. The simulated object, for example, may be a character of a game and the application interface 100 may display a game scene. The game may be a source contention game or APP. In such a resource contention APP, a plurality of task-oriented resource points 103 may be contended for, and may be displayed on the small map 101.
In the existing technology, due to a limited size of the display screen of the terminal device, display modes of different task-oriented resource points 103 on the small map 101 may be displayed with similar style. Accordingly, the user (or gamer) of the APP cannot visually distinguish the different task-oriented resource points 103 displayed on the small map 101. This reduces operation efficiency of the user in a task-oriented resource point contention operation process.

Object displaying method, terminal device, and computer storage medium

Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Company Limited


A blood treatment apparatus includes a controller and a supervisor, which together monitor various sensors. The controller is equipped with a first alarm system and the supervisor is equipped with a second alarm system. To avoid competition between both alarm systems, the alarm system of the supervisor normally remains mute. A function monitoring device monitors the function of the first alarm system and signals a missing alarm to the supervisor. Only in this case will the second alarm system of the supervisor be activated.

In a blood treatment apparatus with an extracorporeal blood circuit, such as a dialysis apparatus, numerous monitoring operations have to be performed to protect the patient or the operator from possible hazards. To this end, the blood treatment apparatus is equipped with a plurality of sensors that monitor various parameters such as pressures, temperatures, conductivity or flow and perform a control or a switching operation in dependence on the result. It is common that certain single parameters or limit values are entered into the apparatus by the operating personnel and that the apparatus monitors the adherence to the parameters and limit values during operation. Upon occurrence of an unacceptable deviation, the apparatus is transferred into a safety state and an issuing of an alarm calls the personnel to the apparatus to take the necessary measures for the treatment to be continued. Usually, a nurse takes care of a number of patients so that he or she cannot immediately give his or her attention to the patient or the apparatus every time an alarm occurs. It is common to differentiate the sounds of acoustic alarms so that in the event of a plurality of simultaneous alarms from different apparatus, a nurse can immediately determine which alarm or which apparatus has the higher priority.
In a blood treatment apparatus it is known to provide a controller for controlling and monitoring which receives and processes the signals from the sensors and is connected with a first alarm system. The high safety requirements for such an apparatus make it imperative to monitor the controller for the fulfillment of its function. This is effected by a supervisor, which also receives sensor signals and, using function redundancy, checks whether the controller responds appropriately in each individual case. The controller and the supervisor are processors that function independent from each other and mutually control each other. The supervisor is also equipped with an alarm system.
Generally, dialysis treatments are performed in dialysis centers. Typically, they have 20 to 50 treatment places distributed over a plurality of rooms. The attendant personnel performs the treatment according to a doctor's treatment schedule or on direct instructions. The part of the treatment schedule that is related to the apparatus is entered into the apparatus as setting parameters. The inputted parameters are monitored by the apparatus during the treatment. Upon an unacceptable deviation, a safe mode for the patient is assumed and the attendant personnel is called to the apparatus to take measures that allow the treatment to be continued. Usually, one nurse attends to several patients and cannot immediately give her or his attention to the patient or the apparatus on every alarm. To prevent this from resulting in hazards to the patient, the sound or the optical appearance of the alarm signals are varied according to the urgency of the treatment abnormality.
In a dialysis apparatus, concentrates and water are mixed to supply the dialyser with hemodialysis solution. Separated by a membrane, the blood flows in the dialyser in a direction opposite to the hemodialysis solution. In the process, contaminants are removed from the blood through the hemodialysis solution. Usually, one dialysis treatment session takes four to six hours. During this period of time, conditions may arise that cannot be controlled by the dialysis apparatus. Such conditions include, for example:                arterial pressure is too negative due to an obstruction in the arterial line of the extracorporeal circuit upstream of the blood pump;        venous pressure is too low due to a venous needle having slipped out of the patient access;        no water in the supply line;        concentrate container is empty;        and        no voltage supply.
To detect such conditions that are hazardous to patients, dialysis apparatuses are equipped with two independent alarm systems so that they can still operate safely should one component be defective. The following functions are given in each alarm system:                storing the limit values for the parameters to be controlled;        transducers for the parameters to be monitored;        processing of measured values for the parameters to be monitored;        comparison of the measured values to the associated limit values;        control of the actors to assume a safe treatment mode (blood pump stop;        bypass of        the hemodialysis solution at the dialyser);        optical indication of the alarm condition; and        acoustic indication of the alarm condition.
Usually, the acoustic alarm alerts the attendant personnel to the irregular state of the apparatus. It is irritating when an alarm condition has already been signaled by the first alarm system and the second alarm system also signals the same condition, since this suggests greater urgency to the attendant personnel although this is not necessary.
DE 199 01 288 A1 describes a device for monitoring loudspeakers with which the functionality of individual loudspeakers can be monitored by recording an acoustic signal emitted by the loudspeaker. Thus, the failure of a loudspeaker can be detected.

Blood treatment apparatus with alarm device


Systems, methods, and probe devices for electronic monitoring and characterization using single-ended coupling of a load-pulled oscillator to a system under test.

The present invention relates to load-pulled electronic measurement and characterization systems.
Extensive work by the present inventors has shown that load-pulled oscillators have important new capabilities for measurement and characterization. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,862,060, 4,996,490, and 5,025,222, and PCT applications WO 91/00997 (published Jan. 24, 1991) and WO 91/08469 (published 13 Jun. 1991); all of which are hereby incorporated by reference. This "load-pull" technology provides an economical measurement technique which has improved sensitivities by 100.times. to 1000.times. over any prior instrumentation for measurement of microwave phase. This capability makes possible microwave measurements which were proposed in the 1950s but until now have not been available due to the lack of accurate technology. The ground work which was extensively formulated during the early years of microwave spectroscopy may now be utilized to bring about generations of products using this simple but powerful technique.

Devices, methods and systems using load-pulled electronic monitoring


A semiconductor device 1 includes an interconnect 12, a conductive layer 14 (first conductive layer), an insulating layer 20 (first insulating layer), another conductive layer 30 (second conductive layer), another insulating layer 40 (second insulating layer), a via plug 52 (first via plug), and another via plug 54 (second via plug). In the semiconductor device 1, the conductive layer 14, the insulating layer 20 and the conductive layer 30 constitute a MIM capacitor (capacitor element). To be more detailed, the conductive layer 14, the insulating layer 20 and the conductive layer 30 serve as a lower electrode, an insulating capacitor film and an upper electrode, respectively. The insulating layer 40 covers both the conductive layer 30 and the interconnect 12. The insulating layer 40 works as the etching stopper for the via plugs 52, 54.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Related Art
Semiconductor devices so far developed include those disclosed in Patent Document 1 and Non-patent Documents 1 to 3 cited below. All the semiconductor devices described therein include a MIM (Metal Insulator Metal) capacitor as a capacitor element. In those semiconductor devices, an etching stopper layer serves as an insulating capacitor film.
(Patent Document 1) Japanese Laid-open patent publication No. 2003-324153
(Non-patent Document 1) Peter Zurcher et al., "Integration of Thin Film MIM Capacitors and Resistors into Copper Metallization based RF-CMOS and Bi-CMOS Technologies", Electron Device Meeting 2000, IEDM Technical Digest, International 10-13, December 2000, p. 153-156
(Non-patent Document 2) M. Armacost et al., "A High Reliability Metal Insulator Metal Capacitor for 0.18 μm Copper Technology", Electron Device Meeting 2000, IEDM Technical Digest, International 10-13, December 2000, p. 157-160
(Non-patent Document 3) C. H. Ng et al., "Characterization and comparison of Two Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitor Schemes in 0.13 μm Copper Dual Damascene Metallization Process for Mixed-Mode and RF Applications", Electron Device Meeting 2002, IEDM '02 Digest, International 8-11, December 2002, p. 241-244
FIG. 11 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the semiconductor device according to the Patent Document 1. The semiconductor device includes an insulating interlayer 103 formed on a semiconductor substrate 101 via an etching stopper layer 102. The insulating interlayer 103 includes copper interconnects 106A, 106B buried therein, and the copper interconnect 106B serves as a lower electrode for a capacitor element. Accordingly, the insulating interlayer 103 commonly includes a conductive layer (copper interconnect 106A) ordinarily working as an interconnect, and another conductive layer (copper interconnect 106B) serving as both the interconnect and the lower electrode.
On the insulating interlayer 103, an insulating interlayer 109 is provided via an etching stopper layer 108. The insulating interlayer 109 includes a via 115 connected to the copper interconnect 106A and an upper electrode 116, buried therein. Accordingly, the etching stopper layer 108 works not only as the etching stopper when the via 115 is formed, but also as an insulating capacitor film 113. The portion of the etching stopper layer 108 working as the insulating capacitor film 113, i.e. the portion interposed between the lower electrode and the upper electrode, is made thinner than the remaining portions, because of the etching process that reduces the thickness.
The semiconductor device according to the Non-patent Documents 2 and 3 includes a second etching stopper layer on an upper electrode, in addition to a first etching stopper layer that serves as an insulating capacitor film. Such second etching stopper layer is intended for use as the etching stopper when a via plug to be connected to the upper electrode is formed.

Semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same


The object of the present invention is a method for the photocatalytic treatment of aqueous mixtures of polluting substances. Such a method consists in submitting such mixtures to irradiation in the presence of titanium dioxide while they are circulating inside a reactor formed by a hollow space of not more than 5 cm of thickness, whose inner wall is the wall of a lamp emitting at least a fraction of its radiations with a wavelength shorter than 400 nm.. In this reactor a cooling sheath is not provided between the lamp and the reaction mixture and temperature control is accomplished by means of the circulation of the same reaction mixture inside the reactor.

The present invention relates to a method for performing processes of heterogeneous photocatalysis, which process optimizes the exploitation of the radiations emitted by the light source and can be applied to large reaction volumes. Thanks to these features, the present method is highly interesting in particular for carrying out processes of heterogeneous photocatalysis on an industrial scale.
By now, a large number of photocatalytic processes in heterogeneous phase have been described in pertinent technical literature.
Such processes are characterized by the use as the catalyst, in aqueous media, of a semiconductor, such as, e.g., TiO.sub.2, on whose surface the substance is adsorbed, which has to be transformed.
By irradiation with photons having a sufficiently high energy, the promotion of an electron from the "valency band" to the "conduction band" of semiconductor is carried out.
In that way, a separation of charges, denominated "electron-hole pair" is accomplished, which migrates to the interface between the liquid phase and the semiconductor, where it is capable of causing redox reactions on the adsorbed compounds.
Many chemical substances exist, which when are individually taken and are submitted to such a treatment undergo transformations: e.g., CN.sup.-- and SO.sub.3.sup.2--, which are oxidated ([Bard, J. Phys. Chem. 1977-81 (1984)], organic acids, which are decarboxylated (Bard, J.A.C.S. 1978 100: 2239), hydrocarbon compounds, which undergo oxidation, atrazine, which is transformed into cyanuric acid.
Some substances in particular, under the hereinabove disclosed conditions, are completely mineralized, i.e., their skeleton of carbon atoms is completely converted into carbon dioxide. For example, aliphatic and aromatic halides, phenols and chlorophenols can be completely mineralized by means of heterogeneous photocatalysis [Pelizzetti, Serpone, Borgarello, Photocatalysis and Environment 467-497 M. Schiavello (Ed.) 1988]
Therefore, the great importance is evident, which such a type of reaction can have in the fight against the pollution of drinkwater and in general of aquatic environment.
In this regard, the decay due to the mineralization of, besides the hereinabove mentioned compounds, dichlorobenzenes, chloronitrobenzenes, polychlorobiphenyls and polychlorodioxines (Barbeni Chemosphere 15: 1913 1986) is known.
Such descriptions relate to processes accomplished on the laboratory scale, whilst their application on the industrial scale involves considerable problems as regards the equipment and the possibility of application to complex polluting mixtures.

Reactor for photooxidations in an aqueous environment


An electric garden tiller is disclosed. The tiller is light weight, compact and easy to use. The tiller includes a two stage speed reduction transmission and an aluminum transmission housing. Connected to the transmission housing are a main housing and electric motor, a fender, a tine shaft and four tine assemblies, a rotatable wheel assembly and a foldable handle. Connected to the handle is a safety switch mechanism requiring two simultaneous actions to activate the motor. Once activated, if an operator's hand is removed, the motor will stop.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric tiller and more particularly to an electric garden tiller which is lightweight, easy to use, quiet and pollution free.
2. Description of the Related Art
Consumer type tillers for use in gardens and the like are well known. For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,567,949; 5,251428; 5,896,931; and 6,092,608. These tillers include a gasoline powered internal combustion engine, a transmission, a tine shaft bearing a number of tines, an operating handle and a set of wheels. These products tended to be noisy, sources of pollution, heavy and difficult to use.
The market has also seen electric rotary tillers, such as the POWER-TILL brand, sold by the assignee of the present application. These were quieter and non-polluting, however, they too tended to be heavy and somewhat difficult to use.
Efforts are still being made, in spite of the numerous prior attempts, to provide a more consumer and environmentally friendly tiller.


In a method of packaging a semiconductor IC, a tape is attached to a back surface of a lead frame array, and the lead frame array is held between an upper mold chase and a lower mold chase of a mold, with the back surface of the lead frame array upward. The upper and lower mold chases form an upper cavity and a lower cavity with respect to the lead frame array respectively. A mold compound is injected into the upper and lower cavities respectively. With respect to clearances between leads, between die pads and/or between the leads and the die pads, the mold compound injected into the upper cavity covers the portion of the tape over the clearances before the mold compound injected into the lower cavity fills the clearances, so that the tape is depressed. After curing the mold compound, removing the mold and de-taping, the mold compound filled in the clearances is recessed inward from the back surface, which increases the solderability in the subsequent surface mount process and decreases the possibility of the occurrence of lead short-circuits.

At present, a lead frame is often used to provide a semiconductor chip with electrical interconnection. That is, the chip is attached to die pad of the lead frame, and then the pads on the semiconductor chip are electrically connected to leads of the lead frame using wires by way of a wire bonding technique. Thereafter, an integrated circuit comprising a semiconductor chip, a lead frame and wires is packaged using mold compound. Exposed areas of the leads are used for providing electrical interconnection from the outside to the semiconductor chip.
In order to provide good electrical interconnection with other devices, a portion of the leads must be fully exposed. If the lead area is covered with mold compound, or not fully exposed or not easily contactable, a solderability problem of the leads and a printed circuit board (PCB), for example, may arise.
In the IC package application, it has been found that, due to a lower lead stand-off or even the lack of the lead stand-off in a Quad Flat No-lead (QFN) or Power Quad Flat No-lead (PQFN) package, some circuit board level problems tend to occur, for example, the solderability is poor, and particularly, a lead short-circuit or the like is liable to occur. Increasing the lead stand-off (a projected portion of the leads with respect to the mold compound in the periphery of the leads) would be helpful for resolving the above problem.
First, referring to FIGS. 1A-1D, a conventional mold compound packaging method is described. FIGS. 1A-1D are cross-sectional views showing the current mold compound packaging process using a single-cavity mold.
FIG. 1A shows a cross-sectional view of a beforehand prepared lead frame array in which semiconductor chips 14 have been mounted and interconnects between the semiconductor chips 14 and leads 20 are performed by wires 18. The lead frame array comprises one or more lead frames 10. For convenience, FIG. 1A only schematically shows two lead frames 10, which however is not a limit in practice.
Each lead frame 10 has leads 20 and die pads 16. After the leads 20 and the die pads 16 on the lead frame 10 are formed by full-etch, edge portions of the leads 20 and/or the die pads 16 are usually further half-etched from a back surface 15 of the lead frame to form half-etched portions 12, thereby causing clearances 11 between the leads 20 and/or the die pads 16 to have an increased size on the back surface 15.
FIGS. 1A-1D only show the clearances 11 between the leads 20 and the die pads 16, but a person skilled in the art should understand that there may also exist clearances 11 between the leads 20 and between the die pads 16 (provided that a plurality of the die pads 16 are provided on one lead frame 10).
On a front surface 13 (an upper surface shown in FIG. 1A) of a lead frame array, the semiconductor chips 14 are attached to the corresponding die pads 16 respectively, and pads on the semiconductor chips 14 and the corresponding leads 20 of the lead frame 10 are connected by the wires 18.
A tape 22 is attached to the back surface 15 of the lead frame array, whereby the lead frame array structure as shown in FIG. 1A is formed, so as to be loaded into a mold for mold compound packaging.
FIG. 1B shows a process of packaging the lead frame array structure of FIG. 1A using the conventional mold compound packaging method. As shown in FIG. 1B, the currently employed mold has a single cavity 27. In the single-cavity mold, the lead frame array structure shown in FIG. 1A is disposed in a cavity 27 formed between a lower support table 28 and an upper mold chase 24 of the mold, with the front surface 13 thereof upward (a lead frame normal direction N being upward). A flow of mold compound 26 is injected into the cavity 27, until the cavity 27 is filled with the mold compound 26, thereby forming a structure as shown in FIG. 1C. As an example, the mold compound may be an epoxy mold compound (EMC).
After curing the mold compound 26 in the cavity, the lead frame array is taken out of the mold. Then, the tape 22 is removed, and a dicing/cutting process is performed.
FIG. 1D shows a partially enlarged view of the clearances 11 between the leads 20 and the die pads 16 in the structure shown in FIG. 1C. As shown in FIG. 1D, in the semiconductor IC package obtained using the conventional packaging method, the leads 20 and the die pads 16 are at substantially the same height as the mold compound 26 in the clearances 11 therebetween, thereby forming a substantially planar surface, that is, no lead stand-off is produced.
Due to the absence of lead stand-offs, the back surface 15 of the lead frame is planar. During surface mounting (attaching the packaged IC to a PCZB), it is impossible to provide a channel for redundant solder paste to smoothly flow out, and thus the redundant solder paste extends into the clearances 11 between the leads 20 and/or the die pads 16. As a result, a possibility of short-circuit between adjacent leads 20 and/or die pads 16 is increased due to the redundant solder paste.
Some methods, such as a thicker plating method and an epoxy bumping method, have been taken into consideration for solving the above problem, but these methods bring about some other problems.
In the so-called thicker plating method, a semiconductor IC package, after being formed, is thicker plated; meaning the mold compound portions are not plated, whereas additional plating is added to the lead and die pad portions to form a thicker plated layer, thereby forming a lead stand-off. However, this method has the following problems: a long plating time results in a very low UPH (Units Per Hour) in the plating process; the thicker plating process is difficult to control; in a dicing/cutting process, it is hard to perform alignment using calibration points set on the back surface of the lead frame due to the existence of the thicker plating layer; also, there exists a higher risk of whisker growing. Further, the stand-off obtained by means of the thicker plating method does not have a great height.
In the so-called epoxy bumping method, epoxy bumps are set on the back surface of the lead frame using an adhesive injection method to leave space between the lead frame and the printed circuit board, thereby causing redundant solder paste to flow out during the surface mounting process. However, in this method, besides the difficulty of controlling the co-planarity of bumps, additional equipment costs for setting epoxy bumps are increased.
In view of the above situations, there is a need for a solution that can increase lead stand-off to solve the above problems such as poor solderability, and particularly lead short-circuit, without causing a great increase of process costs.
The following are some currently existing prior-art documents in which packaging is carried out using a dual-cavity mold, but which are different from the present invention. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2002/0041911A1 discloses a resin encapsulation mold, which comprises an upper mold chase and a lower mold chase that form recessed portions respectively to receive a semiconductor device, and which avoids the development of air bubbles near ejection pins by adjusting the amount of protrusion of the ejection pins ejected from bottoms of the upper and lower mold clamps respectively. U.S. Pat. No. 6,746,895 discloses a method for encapsulating a multi-chip substrate array. In this method, a mold comprising an upper mold chase and a lower mold chase is used, wherein the upper mold chase has a cavity for encapsulating interconnections on a first side of a multi-chip carrier substrate, and the lower mold chase has a cavity for encapsulating the entire second side of the multi-chip carrier substrate, on which a plurality IC chips are formed. U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,816B1 discloses a method of encapsulating thin semiconductor chip-scale packages, in which upper and lower halves of a mold together form one cavity.

Semiconductor integrated circuit package and method of packaging semiconductor integrated circuit


The present invention relates to methods for assaying inhibitors for S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) hydrolases and assaying inhibitors for S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)-dependent methyltransferases. The methods are amenable for use in high throughput formats. Kits for performing the methods are also provided.

S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) hydrolase is a ubiquitous cellular enzyme catalyzing the hydrolysis of SAH to adenosine (Ado) and homocysteine (Hcy). SAH hydrolase has been an attractive therapeutic target for a number of medical indications including antiviral, anticancer, anti-inflammation, immunosuppression, and plasma Hcy-lowering for prevention or treatment of cardiovascular diseases due to its central role in regulation of biological methylation reactions. Yuan et al., Exp. Opin. Ther. Patents, 9: 1197-1206 (1999); Yuan et al., in Adv. Antiviral Drug Des. vol 2, pp. 41-88, De Clercq (ed)., JAI Press, Inc. London, UK (1996). Inhibition of SAH hydrolase results in inhibition of S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM)-dependent methylation reactions. For example, inhibition of SAH hydrolase results inhibition of viral mRNA methylation, thus inhibiting viral replication (Scheme 1).

Numerous inhibitors of SAH hydrolase have been identified from naturally occurring compounds and synthetic compounds, including irreversible and reversible inhibitors. See, e.g., Yuan et al., Exp. Opin. Ther. Patents, 9: 1197-1206 (1999); Wolfe and Borchardt, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 34:1521-1530 (1991); Votruba and Holy, Coll. Czech. Chem. Commun., 45:3039 (1980); Schanche et al., Molecular Plarmacology, 26:553-558 (1984); U.S. Ser. No. 10/410,879. It is an object of the invention to provide methods for screening inhibitors of SAH hydrolase.
S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)-dependent methyltransferase is an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of a methyl group from SAM to a substrate and converts SAM to SAH. Methyltransferase, including SAM-dependent methyltransferase catalyzing abnormal methylation has been linked to pathological conditions (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,996). For example, covalent modification of cellular substrates with methyl groups has been implicated in the pathology of cancer and other diseases (Gloria, et al., Cancer, 78:2300-2306 (1996)). Cytosine hypermethylation of eukaryotic DNA prevents transcriptional activation (Turker and Bestor, Mutat. Res., 386:119-130 (1997)). N6-methyladenosine is found at internal positions of mRNA in higher eukaryotes (Bokar, et al., J. Biol. Chem., 269:17697-17704 (1994)). Hypermethylated viral DNA is transcribed at higher rates than hypo- or hemimethylated DNA in infected cells (Willis, et al. Cell. Biophys., 15:97-111 (1989)).
In addition, many pathways of small molecule degradation, such as those of neurotransmitters, require methyltransferase activity (U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,996; and Kagan and Clarke, Arch. Biochem. Biophys., 310:417427 (1994)). Degradation of catecholamines (epinephrine ornorepinephrine) requires phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase. Hydroxyindole methyltransferase converts N-acetyl-5-hydroxytryptamine to melatonin in the pineal gland.
In their roles as a rate-limiting step in methyltransferase reactions, SAM-dependent methyltransferases have been identified as targets for psychiatric, antiviral, anticancer and anti-inflammatory drug design (U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,996). For instances, sequence-specific methylation inhibits the activity of the Epstein-Barr virus LMP1 and BCR2 enhancer-promoter regions (Minarovits et al., Virology, 200:661-667 (1994)). 2′-5′-linked oligo(adenylic acid) nucleoside analogues synthesized by interferon-treated mouse L cells act as antiviral agents (Goswarmi, et al., J. Biol. Chem., 257:6867-6870 (1982)). Adenine analog inhibitors of AdoMet-MT decreased nucleic acid methylation and proliferation of leukemia L1210 cells (Kramer et al., Cancer Res., 50:3838-3842 (1990)). Therefore, another object of the invention is to provide methods for screening for inhibitors for SAM-dependent methyltransferases.

Methods for assaying inhibitors of S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) hydrolase and S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)-dependent methyltransferase