A Natural Language Processing System utilizes a symbol parsing layer in combination with an intelligent word parsing layer to produce a syntactically or pragmatically correct output sentence or other word message. Initially, a plurality of polysemic symbol sequences are input through a keyboard segmented into a plurality of semantic, syntactic, or pragmatic segments including agent, action and patient segments, for example. One polysemic symbol sequence, including a plurality of polysemic symbols, is input from each of the three segments of the keyboard. A symbol parsing device, in a symbol parsing layer, then parses each of the plurality of symbols in each polysemic symbol sequence to access a previously stored word, morpheme, or phrase. The word, morpheme, or phrase is accessed which corresponds to the polysemic symbol sequence and further corresponds to one of the designated agent, action or patient segments. Each accessed word, morpheme, or phrase further accesses corresponding and previously stored grammatical and semantic information. An intelligent word parsing layer then receives and subsequently applies each of the plurality of words, morphemes, or phrases to a predetermined hierarchy of rules based upon the grammatical and semantic information corresponding to each of the plurality of words, morphemes, or phrases. The intelligent word parsing device in the word parsing layer subsequently parses the received plurality of accessed words, morphemes, or phrases into a syntactically or pragmatically correct output sentence or other word message.

The present invention relates to a natural language processing system in general, and more particularly relates to a system for initially parsing a plurality of symbols and subsequently parsing a plurality of words, morphemes, or phrases to produce a syntactically or pragmatically correct output sentence.
A system and method for producing synthetic plural word messages for use by people unable to use their own voices is known in the speech synthesizing arts. The system was originally implemented as a linguistic coding system with an associated keyboard, in which the coding system was based on a symbol rather than a word, phoneme or letter. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,661,916 to Baker et al issued Apr. 28, 1987.
In such a system, the keyboard is coupled to a computer which stores a plurality of plural word messages in a memory thereof for selective retrieval by the keyboard. The plural word messages retrieved by the keyboard are fed to a voice synthesizer which converts them through a loudspeaker to achieve audible messages. The keyboard utilizes polysemic (many-meaning) symbols or icons on the respective keys and by designating one or more of the keys and its associated polysemic symbols, selected previously recorded plural word messages from the computer memory may be retrieved in a simple transduction manner. The messages in memory are retrieved by actuating a particular sequence of a plurality of keys, to vary the context of the polysemic symbols. Thus, a plurality of sentences associated with each key in a particular sequence with a plurality of other keys may be selectively generated as a function of each polysemic symbol in combination with other symbols to access the plural word message or sentence.
Since such a communication aid is designed to be adaptable to either people of high intellect and education who are physically unable to speak or people with decreased cognitive abilities or little education, a system which is both easy to understand and operate, as well as quick and efficient, is necessary. Further, it is essential that both the cognitive and physical loads required by the user are reduced as much as possible. However, systems other than Baker '916 for synthetic speech, or typing devices, which have coding systems based on words, phonemes, or letters to be implemented by keyboards with indicia thereon relating to the words, phonemes, or letters are somewhat limited in efficiency of operation.
In utilizing a system based upon letters, for example, a limited number of keys could be utilized (i.e., 26 letters in the alphabet). However, such a system utilizing letters has several drawbacks. One drawback is that in a system for people physically unable to speak or who are cognitively impaired, spelling is difficult to master. People who can't articulate the sounds of a language have a limited ability to deal with letters. Finally, in utilizing letters one must type a large number of letters in a sequence to form a word, phrase and especially a sentence. Such a large number of keystrokes is especially cumbersome for someone with decreased cognitive or physical abilities.
In order to combat the problem of the need for a large number of letters in a sequence, single meaning picture or symbol approaches have been developed. In these systems, a symbol or picture can be utilized to represent a single basic concept or word. Because these systems are based upon single concepts or words and not letters, only a few symbols need be utilized, in sequence to represent a phrase or sentence. However, the major drawback of these systems is different from letter based systems. Although only a few symbols are necessary to form a sequence, many hundreds of symbols could be necessary to represent enough vocabulary to interact at home, at school or in the workplace. Thus, hundreds and even thousands of symbols could be necessary for a user to choose from. These large symbol sets are not only physically difficult (if not impossible) to represent on a keyboard, but also put a severe strain on the cognitive and physical abilities of a user both to choose a symbol from the large symbol set and further to key in the selected symbol.
Various techniques have been developed in an attempt to deal with the deficiencies of either the need for a large number of letters to form a sentence in a letter-based system; or the need for a large symbol set to represent all the notions or vocabulary necessary for daily interactions in a single-meaning picture/symbol system. One approach aimed at combating the long sequences of letters necessary in a letter system is to use alphabetic abbreviations. With such systems a user was unsure as to what each abbreviation stood for, for example, (wk) could stand for "walk" and (wo) could stand for "word", but what would stand for "work". The user could become confused and think either (wk) or (wo) stood for "work".
Another attempt to alleviate the large number of keystrokes needed in spelling was word/letter prediction systems. In such systems, a user would type a letter such as "B" and five words starting with "B" would appear on a display. Upon not finding the desired word displayed, an operator would then hit the next letter "0" of the desired word (if the desired word were "Bottle" for example). If the desired word is then displayed on the word list the number next to the desired word is noted and then hit. Such systems are highly visual requiring attention directed at two different fields, the keyboard and the screen. And these systems require operators to have strong spelling abilities (if he hit the wrong letter such as a "C" when the word "kitten" was desired, prediction would start with five words beginning with "C" and the user would be lost) and further, it was cognitively disorienting because it required the user to key a letter, read word lists on a display, key in another letter, select a number, etc.
Levels/locations systems were developed in an attempt to alleviate the large symbol set of single meaning picture/symbol systems. In such systems, a plurality of keyboard overlays were utilized. Each overlay contained a plurality of single-meaning pictures or symbols for a particular activity For example, there was a "party" overlay, a "going to the zoo" overlay, an A.M. activities overlay, etc. However, although only a limited number of symbols were on a keyboard at one time, the system severely limited a user's vocabulary at all times. For example, if there were 7 overlays, when a user had one on the keyboard, 85% of his vocabulary was unavailable to him, it being on the other six overlays. Thus, the abilities of a user were severely limited.
The linguistic coding system of Baker et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,661,916, thereby solved a great number of these problems by employing a technique called semantic compaction. Semantic compaction utilized a keyboard with polysemic (many-meaning) symbols or icons on the respective keys. These polysemic symbols allowed for a small symbol set (each symbol having many different meanings depending upon other symbols in combination) and further allowed for utilization of only a small number of symbols in a sequence to transduce a previously stored word, phrase, or sentence. An example of the polysemic symbols of the Baker '916 patent are shown in FIG. 1. Thus by input of only a limited number of polysemic keys, a sentence or other plural word message can be selectively retrieved. The sentence can then be sent to a voice synthesizer to convert it, through a loudspeaker, to an audible spoken message. This device is a synthetic speech device which allows a user to go directly from thought to speech without the need to record words, phonemes and letter data of individual entities.
The Baker device retrieves and stores whole sentences and plural word messages for selective retrieval, and not just individual words, phonemes, or letters. By using these polysemic symbols, in combination, only a small number of key actuations are necessary to represent a sentence or plural word message. These iconic polysemic symbols or "icons" for short, as they are more commonly known, on the individual keys, were made so as to correspond to pictorial illustrations of real life objects, as can be seen by reference to FIG. 1. These icons were utilized because such symbols were more easily memorized and more versatile than alpha-numeric characters. Therefore, a user of low intellect, or one with a disability, would easily be able to access these icons representing real life objects to thus access plural word messages and thereby have these messages synthesized for output speech.
Large repertories of words, sentences and phrases were available and used by operators with a wide range of physical and cognitive disabilities. Many operators handled repertories in excess of 3000 vocabulary units.
However, although the system of Baker et al '916 is a revolutionary breakthrough in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), there is still room for improvement over an iconic system utilized which produces synthetic word messages. The system of Baker '916, utilizes a simple transduction algorithm wherein a plurality of plural word messages or sentences are initially stored in a memory corresponding to a particular sequence of icons. Upon the user activating that particular sequence of icons, the corresponding plural word message or sentence are directly accessed from memory, sent to a voice synthesizer, and converted through a loudspeaker to achieve audible spoken messages. However, as previously mentioned, such a system merely utilizes simple transduction of a previously stored word message, that is words, phrases or sentences accessed via a particular sequence of polysemic symbols or icons.
The use of symbol parsing technology in Baker '916 was a revolutionary breakthrough but was limited to this simple transduction model. Although a finite-state transducer is easy to program into a small microchip, it is also inflexible and cannot anticipate the user's intentions the way a more intelligent parsing technology can. A system is desired in which users can have the greater freedom of icon selection, not having to worry about the precise ordering or completeness of an icon sequence, as well as a system having even fewer key actuations than a system such as Baker '916. Such a system, reducing the requirements of the user as well as reducing the number of necessary icons, can be achieved through intelligent parsing. A further reduction in the number of selections and the field of selections that such intelligent parsing can produce may be a substantial aid not only to those individuals who are cognitively intact and have intact language, but also to individuals who are cognitively impaired or have serious language deficiencies.
A natural language processing system is desired which further reduces both the cognitive and physical loads on the user. If the user is required to remember not only what concepts each icon represents, but also how to assign grammatical functions, morphological inflections, etc., then a smaller number of users will be successful. This is particularly true for potential system operators who have had strokes or experienced congenital, cognitive impairments. However, if the system can anticipate what is intended (for example, inferring that an action should be uttered as a particular inflection of a verb by taking into account subject-verb agreement) then the cognitive load of the user is reduced, since less information must be remembered and conveyed to complete an utterance.
In reducing the physical load, the number of keys can be reduced by eliminating entire classes of keys (like those that inflect verbs and verb tense) since fewer key actuations will be required. A reduction in key actuations greatly improves the quality of the user's interaction, especially for users with limited capabilities.
It is desired to combine parsing technology with interface technology to produce a successful device. These two technologies must be in balance so that the user's expectations are not violated. If the user is presented with an elegant interface that has little functionality behind it, he will become quickly disillusioned. Consequently, if the user is presented with a device that has an inadequate interface and excellent functionality, he will rapidly become frustrated. It is an unfortunate downfall of many computer systems in present technology that rely too much on fancy graphics to make up for a lack of real capability. The existing linguistic coding system of Baker et al '916, has an excellent balance between accessibility and functionality which should be preserved.
It is further preferred to design a system which uses particular semantic relationships among polysemic icons (multi-meaning symbols or pictographs) to assign a meaning to a sequence of key actuations made by a user. A sequence of icons may be associated with a particular language item, such as a morpheme, word, phrase or plurality of words, to be output when that particular icon sequence is actuated. Icons can be utilized to access language items and thus do what letters, single meaning pictures, words, and numbers cannot. Clearly, there are certain associations that can be made with both an icon and the word representing that icon. For example, it is easy to make the association with the word "food" when presented with either a picture of an apple or the word "APPLE". However, it is clear that there are certain kinds of association that can be made consistently and unambiguously with icons, although certain exceptions may hold.
For example, the greatest advantage that icons have over numbers, letters and words, is that, as pictographs, they each have distinct visual features that can be made easily transparent (translucent) to the user. For example, each icon has a shape, and a color, and picture some object which may have other visual properties as well. Although some symbols have shapes which are readily accessed (for example, 0, I, X, A), the abstract shapes of symbols are not unambiguous; the more abstract an association, the greater the chance the user will not prefer the intended interpretation. For example, "A" can be associated with a house or a mountain or a tall building, the tip of a pencil, etc. Since the shape of "A" is so abstract, many associations are possible. An icon of "house", however, is not subject to the same ambiguity.
Some systems have attempted to use letter coding to associate letters with concepts; however, this method of encoding is also prey to ambiguous interpretation. For example, a reasonable letter coding for the color "RED" would be the letter "R"; for "BLUE", the coding would be "B". However, what happens with the color "BROWN"?. The logical choice would also be "B", but a conflict arises with the code chosen for "BLUE". The same problem arises as in the previous example; since there are literally thousands of words which can be associated with a single letter, a letter-coded system rapidly runs out of coding space and is therefore limited in the number of concepts it can encode unambiguously.
Letter codes can be done in various ways. Two of the most common ways to encode plural word messages are called "salient letter encoding" and "semantic encoding". Salient letter encoding takes the initial letter of two or more fundamental words in the language string to be represented and uses them for the code. For example, "Turn the radio off" can be encoded as "RO" using this method. The problem arises that after many utterances, the same letters "RO" are needed to represent other language strings. For instance, "RO" are the most salient letters for "Turn the radio on". A strategy must then be employed to find other salient letters so that the ambiguity is avoided. Hence, "Turn the radio on" must be encoded using a different code such as "TO" or "TR". However, these letter combinations in turn can represent other common phrases such as "Take it off" or "Turn right". As the language corpus grows larger, the task of finding other unique combinations of salient letters becomes more and more difficult and by necessity must include codes that are less and less salient and more difficult to learn. After 500-1000 units are encoded, the codes become virtually arbitrary.
Semantic encoding takes letters to associate with concepts rather than individual words, so that "F" can be taken to represent food. The plural word message "I would like a hamburger" would then be encoded by "FH". The difficulty here is that "F" can represent many different concepts and must be used not only for "food" but for concepts such as "fast", "friends", etc. If each letter is assigned a single concept, a language corpus represented by the combinations of twenty-six root concepts would indeed be impoverished. If letters are allowed to represent one concept in initializing a sequence, and other concepts as second or third members of a sequence, this disambiguating what concept a letter means across a string of three letters becomes a difficult if not impossible task once the language corpus has grown to five hundred units or more.
A system is necessary which incorporates ideas from research and knowledge representation and natural language processing. The goal of knowledge representation research is representing an acquired knowledge from everyday domains (e.g., task planning, language understanding) that can be used by intelligent computer programs. The goal of natural language processing research is to investigate in particular the knowledge that is required for a computer program to understand and produce sentences in English or some other natural language.
It can be said that the intelligence of a system is determined by how much it knows. Before a computer can show an understanding of a linguistically complex utterance, it must have a significant body of knowledge about morphology, word meaning, syntax, etc. In order to support intelligent processing, much linguistic knowledge must be incorporated into the system.
The system may not only combine the symbol parsing of multi-meaning sequence icons along with intelligent word parsing, but further utilize a well-chosen geographic layout which can provide the system with syntactic and semantic information based on the locations of the icons which are selected. This therefore reduces knowledge and inferencing required by the intelligent word parser.

Natural language processing system and method for parsing a plurality of input symbol sequences into syntactically or pragmatically correct word messages


A method for storing data is provided which includes transmitting a storage operation request to one of at least two controllers where the at least two controllers is capable of managing communication with a plurality of targets. The method further includes directing the storage operation request to an operational one of the at least two controllers when the one of the at least two controllers is inoperable. The method also includes processing the storage operation request with the operational one of the at least two controllers.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of computing technology and more particularly concerns optimization of RAID applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since the inception of computers, data protection has been one of the main concerns in designing data storage systems. Valuable data stored in hard drives can be lost due to abnormal occurrences such as human errors, equipment failures, and adverse environmental conditions. With the advent of on-line, interactive computing, the protection of data against loss has become an even more important consideration in designing data storage systems. For example, modern e-commerce enables companies to conduct all or sizable portion of their business over the Internet using computers. In such a scenario, if hard drives on a company's server computer fail, the company's business may come to a standstill. This may lead to a substantial loss in business and goodwill from its customers.
To guard against such disastrous events and enhance I/O performance, many computer systems implement a Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) system, which is a disk system that includes a collection of multiple disk drives and an array controller. The disk drives are organized into a disk array and managed by the common array controller. The array controller presents the array to the user as one or more virtual disks. Disk arrays are the framework to which RAID functionality is added in functional levels to produce cost-effective, highly available, high-performance disk systems.
In RAID systems, data is distributed over multiple disk drives to allow parallel operation, thereby enhancing disk access performance and providing fault tolerance against drive failures. Currently, a variety of RAID levels (e.g., RAID level 0 through level 6) has been specified in the industry. For example, RAID level 5 architecture provides enhanced performance by striping data blocks among N disks and provides fault-tolerance by using 1/N of its storage for parity blocks, which are typically calculated by taking the exclusive-or (XOR) results of all data blocks in the parity disks row. The I/O bottleneck is thus reduced because read and write operations are distributed across multiple disks. RAID systems are well known in the art and are amply described, for example, in The RAID Book, A storage System Technology Handbook, by Paul Massiglia, 6th Ed. (1997), which is incorporated herein by reference.
It is becoming very clear that serial advanced technology attachment (serial ATA or SATA) drives will soon replace ATA drives as the mass market storage solution for storage systems such as RAID systems. As such, they will enjoy significant cost advantages over other disk drives. Using these devices with a RAID controller can protect the data from loss through drive failure, but may render it temporarily inaccessible due to controller failure. For those systems where continuous data access is required, the standard solution is to use two controller cards, and allow them both to access all drives by connecting them to each SCSI cable (dual initiator) or using dual port Fibre Channel drives. However, the highly economical SATA drives are only single ported, rendering that type of solution impossible.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional external storage architecture 10. The storage architecture includes hosts 12 and 16 connected to an InfiniBand-PCI (IB-PCI) target channel adapter (TCA) 18 through an InfiniBand fabric 14. The InfiniBand-PCI TCA 18 is connected to a bridge 22 which is in turn connected to a RAID processor 20, memory 24 and SATA host adapters (HA) 30 and 32 which in turn are connected to storage devices 42 and 44. From an InfiniBand perspective, it requires one queue pair (QP) per host process, with the RAID processor 20 sending and receiving all SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP) or (direct access file system) DAFS messages and generating remote direct memory access protocol (RDMA) operations to transfer data to and from the hosts. A queue pair is an endpoint of a link between communicating entities where communication is achieved through direct memory-to-memory transfers between applications and devices. Within the external RAID box all data is transferred by PCI DMA operations and control information by PCI DMA and PCI PIO.
There are numerous disadvantages to this approach, which will become more significant over time. The approach requires that all data pass through the memory block, which doubles memory bandwidth requirements and increases latency. At present, the memory pass through approach is the only option and as data throughput in other parts of the system increase, memory pass through blockage will probably become an increased bottleneck. An additional problem is the bandwidth limitations of parallel, shared busses, such as PCI which can be overloaded with data and therefore decrease data transmission throughput and efficiency. Therefore, as time progresses and data throughput needs becomes greater, the prior art data transmission architecture will generally not have enough capabilities to enable optimal data transmission. In addition, if the RAID processor 20 fails, the whole system would become inoperable. Therefore, there is a single point of failure in the system 10. Consequently, failure in just one location of the entire system can prevent data storage or retrieval from the storage devices 42 and 44.
Therefore, there is a need for a RAID system with no single point of failure that is capable of utilizing advanced routing methods thereby enhancing data transmission efficiency.

No single point of failure RAID box using SATA drives


A dental handpiece for use with a prophylaxis treatment of carious teeth by means of a powder mixed with air and water is provided on a gripping sleeve of the handpiece with an integrated powder container which is formed as a closed hollow body of rotation. The hollow body of rotation forms a whirl chamber which spatially acts in all directions for a mixing of the stored powder with air which is supplied substantially in the geometric center of the body of rotation whereas the powder and air mixture which is formed in this powder container is transferred by means of a transfer line to a multiple nozzle arrangement of a spray head of the gripping sleeve via an inlet end of the transfer line which is provided also substantially in this geometric center directly adjacent to the outlet end of the flow line for air, the nozzle arrangement being also connected with a supply line for water.

U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,840 discloses a dental handpiece of the before mentioned kind which is provided at a backward end of a gripping sleeve or handle with an integrated powder container. This powder container stores a predetermined amount of powder as an abrasive material for the polishing or cleaning of teeth in the course of a singular treatment of teeth. The powder container is designed as a cylindrical pot or cannister the axis of which extends downwardly and substantially perpendicular to the axis of the gripping sleeve. This cylindrical cannister is provided on its open end with a screw connection for its connection with the gripping sleeve. The gripping sleeve is provided at this screw connection with the inlet end of a flow line for pressurized air and at a directly adjacent position with the outlet end of a transfer line for powder mixed with air. Both of these inlet and outlet ends are formed as connection bores of the respective flow and transfer lines whereby their axis extending in parallel to each other are both directed towards the bottom of the cannister. The powder and air mixture which is formed in the powder container is transferred via the transfer line to a multiple nozzle arrangement of a forward spray head of the handpiece. A supply line for water is also connected with this nozzle arrangement so that at the time of a tooth treatment a common delivery of the powder and air mixture together with water may be obtained. Supply of pressurized air in common with supply of water is obtained at the backward end of the gripping sleeve via a turbine in-line quick coupling of a supply connection for air and water of a standard dental unit as generally available in any dentist's office.
With the particular design of the powder container as a cylindrical cannister and further with the particular design of its connecting bores connected to the flow line for pressurized air and to the transfer line for powder mixed with air respectively there may be caused unfavorable mixing conditions within the powder container at the time of an actual tooth treatment. For avoiding any unnecessary disadvantages of the prophylaxis treatment the known handpiece therefore requires some increased skill of the dentist for his handling of such a handpiece whereby he also has to consider different specific gravity characteristics of the handpiece due to the arrangement of the powder container directly adjacent its turbine in-line quick coupling of the supply connection for air and water since such additional equipment is missing in other similar add-on dental instruments.


A handchime includes a main tube with a clapper assembly for striking one of two tines at the end of a tubular body. An elastomeric damper block is fitted in compression between the inside surfaces of the side walls of the tine which the clapper strikes. The damper block is located at a distance approximately one-third the length of the tine from its base. The damper block includes raised portions in contacting relation with the horizontal inside surface of the tine, and is preferably affixed by an adhesive.

Handchimes which produce a musical note consisting of a tubular body with an integral clapper are well-known in the musical arts. A handchime of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,599,932 issued to Malta. A problem with this type of instrument is unwanted overtones or harmonics of the fundamental tone which are created by the vibrating tines that produce the musical note. The purest sound is produced when only the fundamental frequency alone is heard.
As disclosed in the Malta patent, a damper pad slidably affixed to the clapper bar may be used to control the sharpness of the sound. By positioning the damper pad along the top of the upper tine of the instrument, the amount of sustain of the sound may be controlled. Because the damper pad moves with the clapper, a totally unsustained note may be played by holding the handchime at a backward angle so that the damper pad does not contact the tines after the note is struck. Although the adjustable damper pad of the prior art devices has been used to control the sustain of the note, there has been no regard to intentionally isolate the fundamental tone.


A method of storing address lease information including a Media Access Control (MAC) address, an IP address, and a port for a subscriber in a database coupled to a network edge device when an address lease is associated with the subscriber, receiving subscriber packets on at least one port of the network edge device, comparing source address information from packets purportedly transmitted by the subscriber with address lease information associated with the subscriber, and forwarding those of the packets if source address information from the packets, including source MAC and IP addresses, corresponds to address lease information associated with the subscriber.

Communication is the cornerstone of business and personal relationships. Today, people in offices and homes do a great deal of communicating over computer networks and expect such communication to be reliable and their data secure. Therefore, network security has become a major concern for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and company network administrators. Network security seeks to prevent hackers from attacking a network and disrupting the flow of communication, productivity, and overall service.
Hacker is a slang term used to refer to individuals who attack or gain unauthorized access to computer systems for the purpose of manipulating and/or stealing data and/or disrupting the flow of data in and out of a network. Hacking can occur from within or from outside the network being hacked and requires knowledge of how a network is organized.
Network communication is best explained by using the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard referred to as Open System Interconnection (OSI). OSI is a standard for worldwide communications that defines a networking framework for implementing protocols in seven layers. Its purpose is to guide product implementers so that their products will consistently work with other products.
The OSI seven layers are as follows: Application Layer 7, Presentation Layer 6, Session Layer 5, Transport Layer 4, Network Layer 3, Data Link Layer 2, and Physical Layer 1. For example, a Local Area Network (LAN) connected to a subscriber network by an Ethernet switch is considered to be in the Network Layer 3. The Data Link Layer 2 includes two sub layers, a Logical Link Control (LLC) layer and Media Access Control (MAC) layer. The MAC layer interfaces directly with the network media such as Ethernet switches, routers, or subscriber access devices through a MAC address. A MAC address is a hardware address that uniquely identifies each node or device on a network as compared to an Internet Protocol (IP) address that is a virtual identifier of a user or computer on a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network. These addresses and other transmission information are found in network packets sent and received by network users.
FIG. 1 shows typical network packet protocol fields. The protocol address space 102 specifies the type of protocol or packet type, such as IP. The operation code 104 specifies whether the packet is an ARP request packet or an ARP reply packet. The hardware address of the sender 106 and the protocol address of the sender 108 are the sender's MAC address and IP address, respectively. An IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocols route packets based on the IP address of the destination. The protocol address of the target 112 is the destination IP address of the machine the sender is trying to contact. Because the purpose of an ARP request packet is to resolve the target MAC address, the hardware address of the target 110 is undefined in a request packet and would only be defined in an ARP response packet.
Routers and switches are the typical devices for handling packet transmission into and out of networks. A router is a device or, in some cases software, that determines the next network point to which a packet should be forwarded toward its destination. This device is also called a gateway and it serves as the entrance into the network. A router is connected to at least two networks and decides which way to send each packet based on its current understanding of the state of the networks it is connected to. A switch is a device that filters and forwards packets to LAN segments and supports any packet protocol (e.g., ARP or IP). Generally, a switch includes the function of a router, which creates and maintains a routing or forwarding table of the available routes and their conditions for correctly forwarding packets. Many attacks are designed to take advantage of these gateway functions.
Firewall systems are the most common defense to combat unauthorized access to or from a network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or combination of both. All messages entering or leaving the network pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria. A few common firewall techniques are packet filtering and using a proxy server. Proxy servers intercept all messages entering and leaving the network and effectively hide the true network addresses of users behind the firewall, thus keeping an outside attacker from misappropriating a user's IP address. Packet filtering examines each packet entering or leaving the network and accepts or rejects it based on user-defined rules. Packet filtering is fairly effective and transparent to users, but it is difficult to configure and susceptible to IP spoofing. IP spoofing is one technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers, whereby the intruder sends messages to a computer with an IP address indicating that the message is coming from a trusted host. To engage in IP spoofing, a hacker must find an IP address of a trusted host and then modify the packet header information so that it appears that the packets are coming from that host. Consequently the packets are erroneously transmitted creating a gap in network security.
FIG. 2 shows a common method of network ingress filtering. As discussed above, packet filtering is a common firewall technique to prevent unauthorized access to or from a network. In this method, a provider assigns a user IP address from a range of available IP addresses and records what IP address is assigned to which user (step 202). The provider gateway waits for the arrival of a new packet from the user (step 204). When a new packet arrives at the gateway device the source IP address of the user packet is extracted (step 206). If the source IP address of the packet resides within the provider's assigned range of IP addresses (step 208), the packet is forwarded towards its destination (step 212). If the source IP address of the packet does not reside within the provider's assigned range of IP addresses (step 208), the packet is discarded (step 210). Although this method prevents an attack using forged source IP addresses that do not conform to the ingress filtering rules, it does not prevent against flooding attacks that originate from valid IP addresses using a spoofed MAC address. A flooding attack is an excessive transmission of packet traffic that results in the denial of service due to an excessive consumption of provider network resources.
Approaches to network security often depend on what type of IP address lease scheme an Internet service provider employs. An Internet service provider (provider) can offer two types of IP addresses to its users, a static IP address and a dynamic IP address. In either case the provider has a fixed range of valid IP addresses it can offer. In the case of a static IP address, a provider will assign or lease, for a mutually agreed upon term, a fixed IP address. This allows a user to register a domain name and have the name associated with its fixed IP address. Alternatively, the provider may dynamically assign an IP address to the user by using a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server. In this case, the DHCP server assigns an IP address from the provider's valid range of IP addresses each time the user logs-on to the provider network by sending a DCHP request packet. Ideally, in either case, only one IP address is assigned per user MAC address. An issue arises in the dynamic case, however, when a user forges or spoofs a MAC address within the IP address request. When done repeatedly, this attack causes the DHCP server to assign all its available IP addresses to fictitious MAC addresses leaving none available for legitimate users.
FIGS. 3A and 3B illustrate current methods of handling spoofed MAC and IP addresses in the case of a dynamically assigned IP address. These methods are implemented by a DHCP relay agent coupled to a DHCP server. The server determines if assigning an IP address is appropriate and updates the database if necessary. The database contains IP address, MAC address, and remote identification (ID). Remote ID is a field that identifies the remote host or user and might be a caller ID, modem ID, or user name prompted for by a remote access server.
FIG. 3A shows a method of preventing a DHCP exhaustion attack by spoofed MAC addresses. A DHCP exhaustion attack consists of a hacker spoofing MAC addresses within individual DHCP request packets until the server has assigned all available IP addresses. As shown in FIG. 3A, a new connection, or more specifically an IP address, is requested from the DCHP server (step 302). Once the request packet has been received, the DHCP server extracts the MAC address from within the DHCP request and checks to see if the MAC address is already associated with the remote ID in the database (step 304). If the MAC address is already associated with the remote ID, the DHCP server re-offers the same IP address that is in the lease database (step 306). If the MAC address is not associated with a remote ID, the DHCP server verifies (step 304) that the number of IP addresses has not been exceeded for this subscriber before assigning a new lease (step 308).
FIG. 3B illustrates a current method of an edge device dealing with forged IP addresses by implementing a DHCP relay agent. After the DHCP server assigns an IP address to the user and creates a remote ID entry (step 310), the edge device receives packets from the user, extracts source and destination information, and accesses the database (step 312). The edge device checks to see if the source IP address within the packet transmitted by the user is associated with the remote ID (step 314). If the IP address is not associated with the remote ID the edge device discards the packets accordingly (step 316). If the IP address is associated with the remote ID then the packets are forwarded toward their destination (step 318).
However, neither of the methods discussed above address a denial of service attack created by spoofed source MAC addresses in a layer 2 network after a static or dynamic IP address has been assigned. A spoofed MAC address is harmless in a layer 3 network because the MAC address is not seen beyond the first hop router. However, in a layer 2 based network, spoofed MAC addresses may cause incorrect forwarding decisions and overflows in the forwarding tables on the provider's switches and bridges.

Filtering subscriber traffic to prevent denial-of-service attacks


A system and method for downlink power optimization in a partitioned wireless backhaul network with out-of-neighborhood utility evaluation is disclosed. The method comprises performing initial downlink power optimization for each neighborhood independently, considering only in-neighborhood utilities, by obtaining the transmit powers of all hubs and a utility performance of all served remote backhaul modules (RBMs) in the neighborhood. Power optimization data for each neighborhood are then reported to a central processing unit for storage. Thereafter, for each neighborhood, an out-of-neighborhood utility evaluation is performed by the centralized processing unit, based on reported power optimization data from other neighborhoods, for example, by obtaining delta out-of-neighborhood sum utilities for each hub as a function of hub transmit power, by curve fitting of reported data. Power optimization for each neighborhood is then performed by optimizing both in-neighborhood sum utilities and out-of-neighborhood sum utilities, and hub transmit powers are updated accordingly.

Wireless backhaul networks are deployed to carry the traffic between a wireless access network and the core network. For example, a wireless backhaul network may comprise a plurality of hubs, each connected to the wired core network, via Ethernet. Each hub serves multiple remote backhaul modules (RBMs), in a point to multipoint or point to point configuration, using a wireless channel. Each RBM is deployed close to an access network base station, such as a small cell base station, and connected to the base station via a cable. The hubs are deployed at the locations where wired high capacity access to the core network is available, e.g. at a fiber point-of-presence.
In a wireless backhaul network, the term cluster refers to a number of RBMs and their respective serving hub. Performance of an RBM such as throughput is contingent upon its received carrier-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (CINR) and the amount of bandwidth allocated to this RBM given a selected carrier. The received signal strength of an RBM is determined by the transmit power of its serving hub and the pathloss between the serving hub and the RBM. The received interference-plus-noise level of an RBM is determined by the transmit powers of all the interfering hubs and the pathlosses between interfering hubs and the RBM. An RBM is affected by an interfering hub when a desired signal and an interfering signal are transmitted over the same carrier frequency.
In orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) wireless networks, the frequency resources are divided into subcarriers or tones. In frequency reuse of 1 multi-sector deployment, transmit power optimization can significantly improve the network performance such as throughput, fairness, and coverage in an interference-limited radio environment. Power optimization in a wireless network generally requires the knowledge of channel gains of all radio links. However, in practice, power optimization across the entire network can be computationally complex. To reduce computational complexity, a wireless network is generally partitioned into several neighborhoods, each comprising a subset of hubs, and power optimization is carried out on a per-neighborhood basis.
By way of example, the following references provide background information on known approaches to clustering of nodes in various types of wireless networks:                (1) Lin, C. R.; Gerla, M., "Adaptive clustering for mobile wireless networks", Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on, vol. 15, no. 7, pp. 1265-1275, September 1997;        (2) Ameer Ahmed Abbasi, Mohamed Younis, "A survey on clustering algorithms for wireless sensor networks", Computer Communications, Volume 30, Issues 14-15, 15 Oct. 2007, Pages 2826-2841; and        (3) Geng Chen; Garcia Nocetti, F.; Gonzalez, J. S.; Stojmenovic, I., "Connectivity based k-hop clustering in wireless networks", System Sciences, 2002, HICSS Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on, pp. 2450-2459, 7-10 Jan. 2002.
In a fixed wireless backhaul network, which is partitioned as described herein, each partition or neighborhood comprises a subset of nodes or hub-RBM clusters, i.e. a subset of one or more hubs and the RBMs served by the subset of hubs. To reduce computational complexity for power optimization, each neighborhood has access only to the channel gains of the RBM-to-hub radio links within the same neighborhood. However, system performance tends to degrade if each partition or neighborhood tries to maximize its sum utility by optimizing its own power levels independently of other partitions or neighborhoods. Employing the same power optimization method independently in each neighborhood will result in higher hub transmit power and hence, poorer overall system performance.
Most of the existing power control schemes in partitioned wireless networks consider a network partitioning boundary in which the performance degradation of power control algorithms due to network partitioning is less than a certain threshold. However, this methodology generally requires a joint power control and network partitioning optimization, which can be computationally expensive. Another method is to apply power control algorithms within a network partition or neighborhood, which do not take into account the effect of in-neighborhood power control on the utilities of RBMs in other neighborhoods, referred to as out-of-neighborhood utilities. In one proposed solution, each hub exchanges their utilities with neighbouring hubs, e.g. via primal-dual decomposition. However, this approach is not scalable. Thus, there is a need for a system and method for power optimization in partitioned wireless backhaul networks which reduces performance degradation relative to known solutions.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved or alternative method and system for downlink power control in partitioned wireless backhaul networks, particularly for wireless backhaul networks comprising fixed or stationary nodes with directional antennas, including small cell non-line-of-sight (NLOS) backhaul networks.

System and method for downlink power optimization in a partitioned wireless backhaul network with out-of-neighborhood utility evaluation


A method of protecting a ship from missiles with two-color infra-red target seeking heads and which is characterized in that an interference transmitter disposed on the ship sends out exclusively short wave infra-red rays, at least intermittently, the strength of radiation from the interference transmitter being so adjusted that the ratio of short wave to medium wave infra-red radiation is so shifted that the ship cannot be reliably recognized as a target by the two-color infra-red target seeking head.

The invention relates to a method of and apparatus for protecting a ship from missiles with spectrally filtering infra-red target seeking heads.
In a battle situation, ships must be protected from an attack by rockets which are equipped with infra-red seeking heads. Seeking heads identify their target on a basis of an emission which distinguishes the ship from its surroundings. In recent times, seeking heads have been used which work on two frequencies, so-called two-colour seeking heads. These seeking heads evaluate the infra-red rays both in the short wave range, i.e. approx. 0.9 to 3 .mu.m, and also in the medium wave range, approx. 3 to 5 .mu.m. The ratio of short wave to medium wave infra-red radiation is a characteristic parameter by which a ship can be very satisfactorily distinguished from dummy targets and the rays reflected by the sun from the surface of the water. The reflection of the sun on the water substantially delivers rays which fall only in the short wave infra-red range, so that the proportion of short wave infra-red rays to medium wave infra-red rays is shifted strongly in the direction of short wave infra-red radiation. For the protection of ships, fired infra-red dummy targets likewise have fractions of their radiation which fall within the short wave infra-red range. In contrast, a ship generally emits no radiation in the short wave infra-red range but emits considerable levels of radiation in the medium wave infra-red range, so that there is here an intense shift in the direction of the proportion of medium wave infra-red rays. This shift can be evaluated by "intelligent" seeking heads.
It is known from DE-OS 36 08 578 to safeguard ships from an attack by infra-red controlled attack weapons in that there is disposed at a distance from the ship a heat source intended to exceed the infra-red signature of the ship and so divert the missile. This source of infra-red radiation is so disposed that on the one hand it can be recognised by the seeking head as belonging to the ship and on the other offers a centre of radiation to which the missile flies whereby in the event of any detonation it is not intended that any damage be caused on the ship itself.
It is known from "Wehrtechnik", 2/89, pages 48 to 54, to protect ships from missiles fitted with seeking heads in that zonal flares are ejected which irradiate heat and imitate the infra-red signature of the ship in order in this way to guide the seeking head to these flares.
DE-OS 32 17 336 describes a method of and an apparatus for camouflaging water-borne vehicles in which sea water is pumped up and expelled forming a curtain of water which falls outside the ship and which screens the areas to be camouflaged.
On the basis of the physical circumstances, it is not possible to produce dummy pyrotechnic targets which have a similar signature or spectral intensity of radiation as a ship. The object of the invention there was to provide a method and an apparatus by which ships can be protected from missiles with two-colour seeking heads.
This problem is resolved by a method of protecting a ship from missiles with two-colour infra-red target seeking heads which is characterised in that an interference transmitter disposed on the ship emits short wave infra-red rays at least intermittently, the intensity of the radiation from the interference transmitter being so adjusted that the ratio of short wave to medium wave infra-red radiation is so shifted that the ship cannot be reliably recognised as a target for the two-colour infra-red target seeking head.

Method and apparatus for protecting a ship from missiles with two-color infra-red target seeking heads


By using a microfabrication technique such as nanoimprinting, a structure for cell culture comprising: a concavo-convex structure having a plurality of successive unit structures each formed in a polygonal shape in a planar direction and having a minimum internal diameter of less than or equal to 3 μm, wherein a width between adjoining unit structures is less than or equal to 3 μm, a concavo-convex depth is greater than or equal to 10 nm, and the concavo-convex structure functions as a cell adherence surface. By culturing cells in this structure or a cell culture vessel comprising this structure integrated therein, a structure having a spheroid or a vessel having a spheroid, in which a spheroid with lamellipodia has been formed, can be obtained. Thus, it is possible to produce the structure or the cell culture vessel in which the shape, size and material of the peak-and-valley structure are controlled. Furthermore, a spheroid suitable for, e.g., screening a drug can be easily cultured within a short period of time at a low cost.

Nowadays, cells cultivated through cell culture techniques are used as simulators for the pharmacological activity evaluation of medicines or toxicity tests thereof in development of drug discovery.
However, because cells cultivated through the conventional cell culture techniques are monolayer cells widespread in a two-dimensional direction, it is difficult to constitute a three-dimensional tissue which is equivalent to the interior of a biological object, and it is difficult to maintain a specific function that a cell in a body has for a long time. As a result, there is a problem that the precision of a simulation cannot be secured.
Consequently, cultivation of a spheroid which is a three-dimensional tissue having the same function as that of the interior of a biological object attracts attention. For example, there is a technology that seeds a plurality of single cells in a well having an infundibulum-like bottom surface, agglutinates and splits the single cells at the bottom surface to cultivate a spheroid (see patent literature 1), and a technology that makes a dew condensation of water on the surface of a cast liquid of a predetermined polymer mixture, and evaporates fine water droplets caused by the dew condensation to cultivate a spheroid on a honeycomb structure (see patent literature 2).
[Patent Literature 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H6-327462 (paragraph 0016, and FIG. 1)
[Patent Literature 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-335949 (page 3, and FIG. 1)

Structure for cell culture, cell culture vessel, structure with spheroid, vessel with spheroid, and manufacturing methods thereof


An illuminating device according to the present invention comprises a first reflector for irradiating forward light beams from a light source, a second reflector that has an aperture and is disposed in front of the first reflector so as to reflect toward the light source the light beams from the first reflector to condense the light beams, a third reflector disposed so as to make the light beams condensed by the second reflector exit through the aperture, and a reflector moving means that moves the second reflector or the third reflector along an optical axis.

The present invention relates to an illuminating device and a projected image display device using the same. JP-A-2002-23266 discloses an art in which an aperture is inserted in an optical path of a projection display device so as to adjust a quantity of light.
In addition, an art has been proposed in which, as a means for increasing contrast ratio of a display image of a projection display device, thereby enhancing the brightness and darkness of the display image and increasing hue depth at intermediate scale, an aperture is mechanically and rapidly inserted in the light path, with a time cycle in synchronization with an image frame, so as to dynamically adjust a quantity of light.
Alternatively, an art has been proposed in which an illuminating element is utilized so as to transmit or diffract irradiated light, thereby adjusting a quantity of light at a light emitting side.
In general, in illuminating optical systems typified by a projection display device, a high-color-rendering discharge-lamp light source, such as a metal halide lamp, a high-pressure mercury lamp, or a xenon lamp, which is high-luminance and superior in the spectral characteristics has been utilized. In addition, a light source utilizing a light emitting diode (LED), which is superior in lifetime, has recently been put into practical use.
Because high color rendering properties are demanded to the foregoing light sources, stable discharge performance and stable lighting drive performance are needed. In other words, it is required that the light source is kept lighted at a constant quantity of light and therefore, the quantity of light cannot quickly be changed.
However, in an image display device such as a front projector or a rear projection TV, in order to emphasize, in accordance with an image scene, the difference between brightness and darkness, thereby enhancing intermediate-gradation rendering power, needs to dynamically and quickly changing a quantity of light for enhancing the contrast of a projected image has been aroused.
As means for projecting an image by dynamically and quickly changing a quantity of light, arts for an illuminating device in which, as described above, an aperture is mechanically inserted in the light path, an illuminating device in which an illuminating element whose light transmission amount is changed when voltage is applied is permanently provided, and the like have been proposed.
In the foregoing mechanical illuminating device, when an aperture pivoting part is continuously and quickly pivoted forward and backward around a pivoting axis, it becomes a cause to raise mechanical vibration and acoustic noise by receiving influence of inertia of the aperture pivoting part.
Meanwhile, in the illuminating device in which the illuminating element is permanently provided in the light path of the illuminating optical system, because loss of passing light is inevitable, efficiency of light is deteriorated, whereby brightness is reduced.
In the background described above, in image display devices such as a front projector and a rear projection TV, high display-image luminance and high display-image contrast ratio are important items that raise the values of the image display devices and therefore, the mechanical illuminating device, in which, an aperture is inserted only when needed so that light for an illuminating optical system is efficiently introduced, have become dominant.
FIG. 12 is an external view of a conventional mechanical illuminating device, and FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view of an optical apparatus equipped with the illuminating device.
In FIG. 12, reference characters 7a and 7b denote a pair of apertures for dynamically cutting off a light beam irradiated from the light source so as to narrow down the quantity of light and the apertures, each have a pivoting axis 7c, are opened or closed symmetrically with each other, through the mechanical power of an actuator 8. The illuminating device is mounted in an optical apparatus shown in FIG. 13 and incorporated in an image display device.
In general, light beams 9 emitted from a high-color-rendering point light source 1 which is high-luminance and superior in the spectral characteristics, such as a metal halide lamp, a high-pressure mercury lamp, a xenon lamp, or an LED, are condensed or parallelized, in front of the point light source 1, by a first reflector 2 utilizing an elliptic mirror or a parabolic mirror.
The apertures 7a and 7b of the illuminating device are arranged in the light path in front of the first reflector 2 and in response to an image signal of the image display device, the opening and closing operation of the apertures 7a and 7b is performed. In general, the opening and closing operation of the apertures 7a and 7b is performed, with a time cycle corresponding to every video-image frame and with high-speed direct drive way of a magnetic motor utilizing a voice coil, and the like. An optimal control signal is inputted to a servo circuit of the illuminating device to drive the actuator 8 so that the apertures 7a and 7b are pivoted in a closing direction so as to further narrow down the light beam 9 when light arrangement in an image to be displayed is dark in average, and reversely, the apertures 7a and 7b are pivoted in an opening direction to be apart from the light path so as to reduce loss in the light beam 9 when the light arrangement in an image to be displayed is bright in average.
The size of the pair of apertures 7a and 7b is required to be large enough to cover the light beam 9 emitted from the first reflector 2. When narrowing down the light beam 9, the apertures 7a and 7b are exposed to a high-intensity light beam and therefore, a material that has a high heat resistance and is hard to deform is selected. Moreover, in order to prevent interference between the frames of image projected from the projection lens, thereby dynamically narrowing down the quantity of light, the opening and closing operation of the apertures 7a and 7b is performed at high speed, with a time cycle corresponding to video image frame frequency of 60 Hz, in general; therefore, the apertures 7a and 7b are each required to have a minimal size and a minimal mass so as to ensure necessary strength thereof and reduce the inertia of the pivoting part. In order to satisfy the foregoing condition elements, a metal material such as a thin aluminum plate is suitable.
As described above, the light beam 9 that has been light-adjusted in the illuminating device passes through an integrator 12 such as, in general, a condenser lens or an illuminating rod for a kaleidoscope, so that the distribution of light intensity on the irradiation plane is improved, whereby the uniformity is raised. Subsequently, the light beam 9 passes through a spectroscope 13, such as, in general, a dichroic mirror, a prism, or a color wheel, and is converted into primary colors, such as Red, Green, and Blue, and the like. Subsequently, the resultant rays pass through a reflection-type or transmission-type image element 14, so that an image, which is a frame image in which respective primary-color images are integrated, is created, and the image passes through a projection lens unit 15 and is projected onto a screen, as a final image.
As described above, in a conventional illuminating device, by utilizing an aperture, which mechanically opens and closes, in the light path of the illuminating optical system, a light beam is dynamically narrowed down. By performing opening and closing operation with a time cycle corresponding to every image frame frequency, a projected image, in which still images each having well-defined rendering power, a high contrast ratio, and sharpness are created, is perceived as a high-quality continuous image.
However, when an artificial aperture is inserted into and removed from the light path of the illuminating optical system of a projection display device or the like, a light beam at an edge of an artifact, in other words, a light beam at a boundary portion between a dark image portion the light beam for which is cut off by the aperture and a bright image portion the light beam for which passes through the aperture without being cut off diffracts, thereby producing the difference in the light path length, whereby an aberration is caused. When the aberration exceeds a given limitation, the aberration deteriorates the image quality of an image projected onto a screen and is perceived as color unevenness.
Moreover, the aperture pivoting part continuously and rapidly repeats the forward and backward movement around the pivoting axis, and design, in which the motor torque required for acceleration and forward-and-backward switching is made to have a enough margin for the inertia of the aperture pivoting part, is needed, and therefore, the voice coil, the magnetic circuit, the servo circuit, and the like become sizable, thereby making the downsizing of the illuminating device difficult.
Still moreover, the foregoing forward and backward movement around the pivoting-axis is accompanied by a mechanical vibration and acoustic noise, and therefore, in order to improve the acoustic noise to the extent such that it can aurally be allowed, a housing of the illuminating device needs to be rigid, thereby hindering the downsizing of the illuminating device and ensuring of the reliability.

Illuminating device and image display device using the same


A finite field inverse circuit (600) for use in an elliptic curve processor (12). The finite field inverse circuit (600) comprises a control circuit (610) and a data circuit (660). The data circuit (610) comprises a data multiplexer (668) for coupling the contents of one of three registers (662, 664, 680) to a finite field arithmetic logic unit (122). A first plurality of bits representing the finite field element to be inverted is initially loaded into a first one of the three registers. The control circuit (660) comprises a shift register (614) suitable for storing a second plurality of bits representing a size of the finite field element to be inverted. Counter and detection circuitry (630) is provided and coupled to the shift register (614) to decrement, shift and detect contents of the shift register (614) that generates control signals (CS1, CS2 and CS3) connected to the control signal inputs (C1, C2 and C3) of the multiplexer (668) of the data circuit (660) in order to cause a series of finite field operations to be performed upon the contents of the three registers (662, 664 and 680) to compute an inverse of the first plurality of bits representing the finite field element.

Secure communication of information afforded by encryption techniques is desirable in the field of wireless communication devices, such as pagers, cellular telephones, etc. In these environments, there is a need to minimize the amount of information transmitted to control costs and profitability of systems. When the data to be transmitted is encrypted, it is still desirable to minimize the overall amount of data actually transmitted.
Elliptic curve (EC) cryptography has become particularly useful in the field of wireless communication because it is more efficient both in terms of bandwidth and computation time than other public key industry encryption standards, such as RSA. An EC processor includes a finite field arithmetic logic unit (ALU) which performs the lowest level finite field arithmetic operations upon an EC point.
One particular operation to be performed by a finite field ALU is a finite field inverse operation. In EC cryptosystems, the size of the finite field is represented by as many as 160 bits or more. Therefore, computing the inverse of a field element is a costly task to perform, in terms of software or hardware allocation. There are several known arithmetic processes for computing a finite field inverse. One is the Extended Euclidean Algorithm. Others involve the repeated use of finite field squaring and multiplying operations.
The present invention is directed to a finite field inverse circuit and method which minimizes the number of finite field arithmetic operations.

Finite field inverse circuit for use in an elliptic curve processor


An add-on video camera arrangement permits onscreen viewing of a target within an enclosed structure, such as a patient's body cavity, using an optical laparoscope. A standard C-mount adaptor is fitted to the ocular of the laparoscope lens tube. The camera arrangement has a handle unit that is formed of a short one piece housing. A camera lens and imager unit is disposed therein at the distal end of the housing. A standard female-thread socket receives the standard male thread of the C-mount adaptor. A flexible umbilical tube couples the housing to a connector module that plugs into a light and power supply unit. The fiber optic bundle light conduit has its proximal end within the connector module to receive light from the light unit, and the light conduit extends through the umbilical tube in the handle unit housing and exits the housing at a light conduit port. A flexible tubular connector extends from this port and carries the fiber optic bundle light conduit. A coupler device at the distal end of this conduit fits onto the light tube fitting that is provided on the laparoscope lens tube.

This invention relates generally to borescopes or endoscopes of the type in which a video camera is mounted onto an elongated insertion tube which carries an image of a target that is concealed within an enclosure, i.e. the body cavity of a human patient. The invention is more particularly concerned with an add-on camera for an optical laparoscope which produces a video image of the target for display on a video monitor.
Recently, interest has increased in the use of video instruments for surgical applications to permit a surgeon to carry out a procedure with minimal intervention in the patient. An example of one such video instrument is a laparoscope for performing surgery in the abdominal cavity, where the instrument is inserted through a small incision. Other probes are provided for diagnosis of medical conditions in the colon or in the gastro-enteric tract. Small probes can also be used in eye surgery. Further examples are found in industrial probes, i.e., borescopes, for inspection of equipment such as boilers or steam generators, or of jet engine rotors where nondestructive penetration of the equipment is necessary.
Most commonly, a laparoscope employs a lens tube which acquires an image in an objective lens at its distal end, a relay lens system within the lens tube, and an ocular or eyepiece at the proximal end which permits viewing of tissues within the patient's body cavity.
In order to illuminate target body tissues, light is carried on optical fibers within the lens tube. A fitting at or near the proximal end of the lens tube contains one end of a fiber optic bundle, and couples to a flexible light conduit that in turn receives light from a light source. The fiber optic bundle fans out inside the lens tube and the fibers terminate at the distal or objective end.
A C-mount adapter is employed with a laparoscope to couple the eyepiece to a camera for observing the tissues on screen or for recording the image electronically or on film. The adapter has a fitting on its distal end for attaching to the laparoscope eyepiece, a standard malethread fitting on its proximal end for screw mounting to a camera, and a lens system for focusing and adjusting the image of the target.
Up until this time, camera attachments for optical laparoscope have been heavy and clumsy to use, and have require a separate light box for the illumination conduit and video processor and power supply for the camera. Also, up until now light sources for probes of this type have produced high levels of infrared, i.e., radiant heat, as well as visible radiation. The infrared causes a danger of tissue damage from heating. This limits the flexibility of laparoscopic procedures and limits the amount of time that any individual organ or tissue cluster can be observed.
Recently, a laparoscopic instrument has been proposed in which a small video camera is carried at the distal end of a rigid insertion tube, and a balanced white light is produced by a low-power metal halide discharge lamp which produces red, green, and blue visible light but only a minimal amount of infrared so that the danger of tissue damage is reduced. A device of this type is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/780,762, filed Oct. 22, 1991, and having a common assignee herewith.
In this type of instrument, the insertion tube is connected by a flexible cable or umbilical to a connector module that plugs into a socket in a light and power supply unit. A video cable that extends through the insertion tube and umbilical has terminals in the connector module that supply the video signal from the miniature camera to a wiring harness in the light and power supply unit, which supplies a suitable signal to a full color or monochrome monitor. An image of a target area, such as a tissue within an patient's body cavity, can be viewed on the monitor.
Also within the light and power supply unit is a high illuminance, but low-wattage light source in the form of one or more metal halide discharge lamps. These can preferably be of the type described in copending U.S. patent applications Ser. Nos. 07/484,166, filed Feb. 23, 1990; 07/636,742, 07/636,743, and 07/636,744, each filed Dec. 31, 1990, and which have an assignee common herewith. The lamp typically operates at a power of about 20 watts, and has an efficacy of 35 lumens per watt or more. The quality of light produced, which can be controlled by the selection of salts employed, the dosage of mercury, and mechanical structure, has an emission spectrum in the visible band, with very little radiation produced in the infrared band. Also, the arc gap of this lamp is small, which produces a small spot of light when focused onto the fiber optic bundle used for illumination. The small spot size allows almost all the light energy to be directed into the proximal end of a very small fiber bundle. The small illumination bundle permits the insertion tube to be made much smaller than was otherwise possible while still delivering plenty of light to the target area. Also, because small optical fiber bundles can be used, the probe can incorporate redundant optical fiber bundles which can each be associated with a respective light source. Moreover, because the lamp operates at low power (e.g. 20 watts), producing limited infrared radiation, and because virtually all the light is focused onto the fiber optic bundle, the light source can be made much more compact. Also, the lamp ballast and power supply can be made much smaller and easier to cool.
The light incident on the target contains substantially only visible light, with very little radiant heat. This permits the operator to view and examine tissues for extended intervals without danger of tissue damage.
The modular connector at the proximal end of the umbilical tube permits the instrument to be plugged into the socket of the light and power unit, or unplugged and then inserted in another similar unit as need be. Also, a number of instruments of similar or different styles, but with similar modular connectors, can be used interchangeably with one or another of the light and power units.
No one until now has made or proposed a video camera attachment for attaching to the eyepiece of a traditional optical laparoscope lens tube, and which can be quickly plugged into a light and power unit.

Add-on video camera arrangement for optical laparoscope


There is provided an electronic device that enables and ensures the detection of the open/close condition and attached condition of a plurality of cover bodies by only one detection switch. Therefore, an electronic device comprises an upper cover, a front cover, an actuator, and a mechanical switch. The upper cover is provided openable and closable with respect to a rolled sheet holder storing case, and the front cover is removably attached on the rolled sheet holder storing case for covering a component, which is housed in the rolled sheet holder storing case. The actuator is provided on the front cover, and it makes an action when the upper cover is closed to the rolled sheet holder storing case, and the mechanical switch detects the action of the actuator. This arrangement forms a system that detects sequentially the action taken for closing the upper cover to the rolled sheet holder storing case, by relaying the action via the actuator, which is provided on the front cover, to the mechanical switch, which detects the action.

It has been customary, in an electronic device comprising a main body housing provided with a cover body, for operating the electronic device in good condition and for maintaining security, that the electronic device be designed to make certain actions after the cover body is fully closed or attached. For this reason, there have been presented various technologies for detecting the opened or closed condition or the attached condition of a cover body provided for an electronic device.
As such a technology, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H5(1993)-262011 discloses a cover-open switch that comprises a detection switch as means for detecting the opened or closed condition of a printer cover, the detection switch being provided on the main board of the printer. For the actuation of the switch, part of the upper plate of a cabinet of the printer is formed into a lever-like part having resiliency, and the leading end of the lever-like part is positioned facing directly the detection switch. In addition, a protrusion is provided on the back of the printer cover so that the protrusion pushes the lever-like part when the printer cover is closed.
The arrangement disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-262011, which is described above, is an effective technology for the open/close detection of only one cover body. However, for a case where an electronic device is provided with a plurality of cover bodies, this technology has a problem that one detection switch must be provided for each of the cover bodies to achieve the open/close detection of all the cover bodies. This also presents other related problems such as increased number of manufacturing processes and increased costs. Conventionally,


A device for protecting a brassiere in a washing machine includes a pair of hemispherically shaped shells (preferably injection molded polypropylene material) adapted to assemble together over a cup of the brassiere as a protective covering for the cup. The outer shell has a circularly shaped first rim portion and a hemispherically shaped first dome portion larger than the cup of the brassiere that extends to the first rim portion. The inner shell has a circularly shaped second rim portion and a hemispherically shaped second dome portion that extends to the second rim portion, said second dome portion having a size adapted to fit within the first dome portion of the outer shell with the first and second rim portions in concentric relationship and the cup of the brassiere disposed intermediate the first and second dome portions. At least three pins are included on the second rim portion of the inner shell and at least three pin-engaging structures are provided on the outer shell for engaging the pins in order to removably secure the inner shell to the outer shell with the cup of the brassiere in between. Each pin-engaging structure preferably defines a slot adapted to receive a pin in multiple pin positions with a friction fit sufficient to engage the pin.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to brassieres, and more particularly to a protective bra cage device for protecting a brassiere during laundering in a washing machine.
2. Description of Related Art
Machine washing can easily damage a delicate brassiere. The garment protector of U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,013 alleviates that concern by using two domed-shaped basket members to hold the cups of the bra during laundering. After securing the cups tightly in the basket members with two hinged biasing members, the user rotates the basket members into a football-like configuration, locks them together, and proceeds to machine wash and dry the entire assembly.
Protecting the bra that way can help maintain the proper configuration of the cups without damage throughout the entire laundry cycle. But certain drawbacks exist. The hinged biasing members, for example, can put too much pressure on a delicate cup. In addition, they may not adequately adjust to and carefully hold various different bras, including sweater and pushup bras having different thicknesses of soft foam padding. Furthermore, the hinged biasing can introduce fabrication expense that might be avoided. Thus, consumers seek an improved device for protecting a bra during machine washing that is easier and less costly to fabricate while working better and lasting longer.

Protective bra cage device for protecting a brassiere in a washing machine


A mammalian polypeptide designated Inhibitory PAS Domain Protein (IPAS) is useful for the inhibition of angiogenesis and/or tumor progression. Screening methods exist to identify compounds potentially useful as medicaments for the treatment of medical conditions related to angiogenesis or tumor progression.

Oxygen plays a critical biological role as the terminal electron acceptor in the mitochondria of vertebrate cells. During evolution, these cells have developed ways to sense alterations in oxygen levels and, during this process, acquired the ability to conditionally modulate the expression of genes involved in adaptive physiological responses to hypoxia including angiogenesis, erythropoiesis, and glycolysis. These genes include vascular endothelial growth factor, eryhtropoietin, several glycolytic enzymes and inducible nitric oxide synthase, and have all been shown to contain hypoxia responsive elements (HREs). Under hypoxic conditions these response elements are recognized by a heterodimeric complex consisting of the hypoxia inducible factor-1a (HIF-1a) and Arnt. Both these transcription factors belong to the rapidly growing family of basic-helix-loop-helix (bHLH)-PAS (Per, Arnt, Sim) proteins.
A family of helix-loop-helix proteins designated Id has been identified as antagonists of bHLH transcriptional regulators. bHLH proteins typically bind regulatory sequences in a heterodimeric configuration and function to activate differentiation-linked gene expression. The heterodimer usually comprises a class A bHLH protein together with a class B bHLH protein. In the presence of excess Id protein, the class A bHLH partner is typically titrated out through heterodimerization with Id protein.
Dysregulation or overfunction of HIF-1 a might cause a variety of pathological conditions including tumor progression and inflammatory angiogenesis. Consequently, there is a need for identification of compounds acting as negative regulators of HIF-1a, said compounds being potentially useful against medical conditions related to angiogenesis and tumor progression.
Primary culture of mouse cornea epithelium cells were transfected with either antisense IPAS expression plasmid or empty vector (vector) and incubated under normoxic (N, 21% O2) or hypoxic (H, 1% O2) conditions for 24 h. Total RNAs from the cells were extracted and Northern blot analysis using radiolabelled mouse VEGF cDNA probe was performed. Total RNAs form normoxic and hypoxic Hepa1c1c7 cells were supplied as a reference for VEGF induction. As a loading control, 18S RNA levels are shown.


This specification describes a charging apparatus for use in an electric vehicle charging system which comprises an AC charging circuit connected to an AC power source, a DC charging circuit connected to a DC power source or the AC power source, the charging apparatus comprising: a first switch; a second switch; and a charging cable comprising a plurality of power lines, wherein each of the first switch and the second switch comprises a plurality of poles and a plurality of sets of contacts, wherein the plurality of poles corresponds to the plurality of power lines of the charging cable, the first switch is configured to move the plurality of poles of the first switch between a first position wherein the plurality of power lines of the charging cable is connected to a first set of contacts of the first switch connected to the AC charging circuit, and a second position wherein the plurality of power lines of the charging cable is not connected to the first set of contacts of the first switch connected to the AC charging circuit, and the second switch is configured to move the plurality of poles of the second switch between a first position wherein the plurality of power lines of the charging cable is connected to a first set of contacts of the second switch, and a second position wherein the plurality of power lines of the charging cable is not connected to the first set of contacts of the second switch.

Electric vehicles have been gaining momentum in recent years. Charging electric vehicle, or more accurately charging the batteries or battery packs of electric vehicle, is one of the key factors for the growth of electric vehicles on road.
An electric vehicle (EV), is generally equipped with a vehicle on-board charger and an AC (e.g. alternating current) charging inlet (e.g. socket) supplying the on-board charger AC power. In other words, the vehicle on-board charger takes in AC power through the vehicle on-board charging inlet and converts the AC power to DC power and charges the batteries of the electric vehicle. Some EV models are equipped with single-phase on-board charger. Other models have three-phase on-board charger, which may be configured to run as single-phase charger when the power supply is a single-phase AC power source.
An electric vehicle may be configured to take in controlled DC power charging the batteries of the electric vehicle through a DC charging inlet or a combined AC and DC charging inlet.
An electric vehicle charging system involves a vehicle on-board charging system including at least one vehicle on-board charging inlet and a vehicle on-board charger, at least one charging cable (e.g. connector) comprising a vehicle-end plug for conductive charging, at least one external EV charger (hereafter EV charger) or charging station and/or at least one power source, which may be an AC and/or DC power source, and communication between the vehicle on-board charging system and the external EV charger. For interchangeability, it is a general practice to establish standards for the electric vehicle charging systems, both DC and AC charging systems.
Currently there are at least three standards for DC charging in terms of communication, control and physical connection between the EV charger or charging station and the vehicle on-board charging system, namely CHAdeMO, GB/T and CCS. CHAdeMO is the Japanese standard for DC charging and has applications in Japan, Europe and America. GB/T is the Chinese standard for DC charging and is dominant in China. CCS, Combined Charging System, is a standard for electric vehicle charging system in Europe and America and has been gaining support from most electric vehicle manufacturers in Europe and America.
The CCS Combo 1 and CCS Combo 2 define the physical connection standards between the vehicle on-board charging inlet and the vehicle-end plug of the charging cable.
The three standards (e.g. CHAdeMO, GB/T and CCS) use different communication, control and physical connections between vehicle on-board charging inlet and charging plug, and which create huge problems and cost the industry billions of dollars each year. Today many EV chargers or charging stations in Europe and America have two or three connectors of different standards, one CHAdeMO and one CCS Combo 1 or Combo 2 for DC charging, and one Type 1 or Type 2 for AC charging.
If one standard can be agreed globally, things will be much simpler. However, it is unlikely this will happen in the near future and the three (or more) standards will co-exist for a while. Therefore, there is a need to develop an electric vehicle charging system with a single vehicle on-board charging inlet, and a single charging socket and/or charging cable which may be used for most or all electric vehicles in Europe and America, and worldwide.

Charging apparatus for use in an electric vehicle charging system


A security system, for use with a chassis enclosing electrical circuitry and having a lid movable relative to the chassis to allow access to the electrical circuitry, including: (1) a plurality of switches, couplable to the electrical circuitry, that are configured to store a security code readable by the electrical circuitry and (2) a trip mechanism, coupled to the chassis, that alters the security code stored by the plurality of switches when the lid is moved relative to the chassis, whereby the electrical circuitry may detect that the lid has been moved by detecting that the security code has been altered.

Many utility and entertainment services, such as cable television ("TV"), require the use of customer premises equipment ("CPE"). A service provider may use such CPE to control the services received by each customer. For example, a video interdiction unit, commonly referred to as a "cable TV box," while permitting the reception of basic services, can block the receipt of premium services, such as pay-per-view movies, unless it is programmed by the service provider to receive such services. Thus, a service provider can independently control the capability of a customer to receive only the services that the customer has subscribed to, and paid for, by selectively-configuring the CPE provided to that customer.
When a piece of CPE is not subject to a service provider's continuous control, it is possible for the CPE to be tampered with by a customer. For example, a customer may alter the operation of the CPE to allow the customer to receive services that the customer has not subscribed to or paid for. Because of this, service providers have developed and used various tamper detection methods, some of which merely allow a service provider to detect whether the CPE has been tampered with, and some which disable the CPE if an attempt is made to tamper with it.
A simple tamper detection method employs a physical seal, such as an adhesive tape, which must be detectably broken before the CPE chassis can be opened. Although this method is very inexpensive, it can only alert the service provider to potential tampering if the CPE is physically examined on a periodic basis. Thus, the use of this method is generally limited to those services that require regular field inspections independent of the need to deter and detect tampering; e.g., for use-based services, such as electricity, that require periodic meter-reading to determine service usage.
A second method used to deter tampering employs a mechanical device that destructively disables a critical component of the CPE if an attempt is made to tamper with it, thus requiring a customer that attempts to tamper with the CPE to call the service provider and request either a new CPE or servicing of the disabled device. While this method eliminates the need for a service provider to conduct periodic inspections to detect tampering, it is more costly than other alternatives due to the need for replacement of the disabled component.
A third method to deter CPE tampering employs an electrical sensor that detects when a door of a CPE chassis is opened. The electrical sensor provides a signal to circuit logic, contained within the CPE, that disables the operability of the CPE, thus requiring a customer that attempts to tamper with the CPE to call the service provider in order to restore service. This method also eliminates the need for a service provider to conduct periodic inspections to detect tampering. If a customer removes the source of electrical power to the CPE before tampering with it, and closes the chassis door before restoring electrical power thereto, however, the electrical sensor is incapable of providing a signal to the circuit logic designed to disable the device. Thus, this method cannot prevent tampering by those customers who understand how the tamper detection mechanism operates.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a security system and method for detecting chassis tampering that does not require period field inspections, does not require the replacement of disabled circuit components, and which cannot be circumvented by removing electrical power from the device within the CPE chassis.

Security system and method for detecting chassis tampering


A system for fault tolerant multi-stage data replication with relaxed coherency comprises one or more processors and memory coupled to the processors, where the memory stores program instructions executable by the processors to implement a data replication service. In response to an update request directed at a data object, in a first stage of replication, the data replication service is configured to update respective primary replicas at a plurality of primary replica sites for the data object, and to store metadata descriptors at each of the plurality of primary replica sites. The data replication service is configured to determine whether a notification of the update is to be sent to any other replica sites. In response to identifying such other replica sites, an update notification including contents of a metadata descriptor may be sent to the other replica sites in one or more additional replication stages.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer systems and, more particularly, to multi-stage file replication techniques within distributed data management systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Business data for large corporations and government entities is often spread across multiple physical locations and data centers. A given enterprise company may employ tens of thousands of employees around the world, distributed across tens or hundreds of offices. Many employees from different locations often have to access and/or update the same underlying data, some of which may have to be obtained across relatively slow network connections such as wide area networks (WANs), metropolitan area networks (MANs), and the like. The problem of designing scalable large scale distributed data management systems to support today's distributed enterprises is becoming even more complicated as the total amount of enterprise data rapidly increases to terabyte levels, while continuing financial constraints and industry-wide trends to become more standards-compliant restrict the ability to, for example, deploy proprietary or customized high-speed networks and/or protocols.
One common approach used for data sharing across long distances is to replicate data locally: e.g., in a distributed software development environment with several software engineering sites, data objects such as source code files, design documents, status documents etc. may be replicated at each of the several sites. The volume of the data to be shared, especially when combined with high frequency of updates and large numbers of potential replication sites, however, may make brute-force replication of the needed data impractical. Traditional data replication systems may suffer from various types of limitations. For example, traditional replication schemes involving synchronous replication of files being updated may not be appropriate when the synchronous replication has to be performed over slow wide area network links. Some replication schemes may be too centralized for large scale systems spread over hundreds or thousands of servers and workstations: e.g., if a single server is responsible for propagating updates to a given file across the entire network, the server may quickly become a performance bottleneck and/or an availability risk. Replication schemes that attempt to maintain strict replica coherency, e.g., schemes that require that only the single latest version of a replicated data object be accessed at all replication sites, may also not scale well in large networks, since coherency-related traffic may potentially dominate the network linking the sites, and coherency-related delays may significantly affect user response times. The problem of efficiently providing the data needed at various sites in distributed data management systems with reasonable levels of performance is non-trivial even under normal operating conditions, e.g., in the absence of errors and failures. The requirement to respond effectively to failures such as transient or long-lasting system and network outages, which may, for example, potentially result in a disruption of an ongoing replication data stream, or in a node of a cluster becoming unavailable for hours, only complicates the problem further.
Techniques used to alleviate one class of problem in large-scale distributed data management may sometimes tend to aggravate other classes of problems—e.g., increasing the number of replication sites for a file in an effort to reduce access latencies may require extra work for maintaining coherency among the newly added replicas. Large-scale distributed data management systems that employ replication may therefore have to take into consideration various tradeoffs between potentially conflicting goals such as high performance, replica coherency, high availability, and ease of use.

Fault tolerant multi-stage data replication with relaxed coherency guarantees