Transaction management for contract and contract-related approaches is facilitated. According to an example embodiment of the present invention, a transaction management computer is programmed to automatically set contract terms for a transaction based on business rules previously established between parties to a transaction. In one implementation, the transaction management node automatically derives a contract term including a pricing-related term for a transaction between a buyer and seller using contract information therefor. In one instance, previously-agreed-upon price approaches, such as fixed pricing, seller-controlled pricing, quantity-related tiered pricing and pricing management schemes are stored and used by the transaction management node to automatically derive the prices. With these approaches, pricing disputes that can occur after a transaction has been processed are reduced and/or eliminated.

Operational management of contractual and transactional interactions between buyers, sellers and others involved in the exchange of products for purposes of commerce have typically been labor and time intensive. Generally, the processes of managing transactions between business entities have been unduly burdensome and inefficient. The various parties involved in a transaction typically change proposed terms and aspects of a proposed transaction on a concurrent and/or iterative basis. Data representing each corporate participant's view of the interaction is stored across one or more enterprise systems managed by that particular corporate participant and not accessible by other corporate participants. Consequently, it can be difficult to know which draft document represents the most current information about the interaction and whether the parties to the transaction have a common understanding. Where the corporate participants have communicated electronically (e.g., via email and Internet-enhanced communications), these document-synchronization difficulties have been compounded by an increased number of co-existing draft documents being viewed by the parties. Commercial transactions then become more difficult as business entities attempt to perform business with each other.
A typical commercial interaction between a seller offering a product and a buyer desiring to acquire that product moves through multiple steps. First, the buyer and the seller negotiate an agreement as to the price the buyer will pay. When this agreement covers an extended period of time it is typically formalized in a contract or catalog. Contracts and catalogs are typically maintained by the seller in a seller-managed computer system that is separate from the computer system or systems which the seller uses to accept orders, fulfill orders and generate invoices. When the invoice system used by the seller to bill the buyer has a different price file than is resident in the seller-managed contract system, pricing exceptions will occur which will increase the cost of the interaction because buyer and seller personnel will have to resolve the differences before the transaction can be completed. The problem can be compounded when the buyer loads the current contract prices into its procurement system for determination of whether the seller is billing correctly during the pre-payment order/invoice reconciliation process. All of seller's invoicing systems could be representing the current contract while one or more of the buyer's systems still represent an expired or not yet active contract. Some or all of the seller's invoicing systems could be representing expired or not yet active contracts while all of the buyer's procurement systems are up to date. The number of combinations of events leading to transaction misunderstandings and disagreements contribute significantly to the overall cost of settling for the exchange of products. As a further complication, the contract contents, the order, the invoice and other documents representing the transaction, and which are required to settle the transaction, often only exist in paper form for access to the individuals attempting to resolve exceptions. Further, the data that does exist electronically is often scattered across numerous applications such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchasing, accounting, buyer or seller group, shipping, and receiving. Moreover, where each buyer does business with many sellers and each seller does business with many buyers, tracking such drafts becomes increasingly more difficult.
One type of transaction for which the above difficulties apply is a shipping transaction. Traditional approaches have lead to many challenges to managing transactions between one shipper and one carrier. Typically, however, there are multiple carriers and shippers involved in multiple transactions, which makes the management process more complex, and that much more time-consuming and inefficient. The process is labor intensive in that it relies on physically matching the hard copy of a bill of lading (BOL) for proof of delivery with the hard copy invoice and then trying to apply the terms of a hard copy contract to calculate whether the invoice amount is proper to pay. Exceptions need to be communicated to the trading partner, often involving faxing or mailing paper copies of support materials. Responses to requests for information often result in more paper copies with hand-written annotations that alter the understanding of how the transaction actually transpired. The ensuing series of repetitive and time consuming steps are a source of additional operational expense for both buyer and seller. Also, each BOL is often rated multiple times by multiple parties creating excessive redundancy.
Due to such difficulties and convoluted processes, traditional shipment transaction management systems are highly susceptible to billing errors and fraud. For example, there has been no connection between the delivery of goods and when the shipper is billed for delivery. This may result in double billing, no billing at all, or overbilling the shipper for freight delivery charges. Also, auditing errors may occur, which results in incorrect billing or payment. In addition, the carrier waits a disproportionately long time for payment while the invoice is being audited and/or disputed. For example, traditionally, a delivery takes about five days whereas payment takes about forty-five days. This delay adversely affects the carrier's working capital resources which, in turn, raises the carrier's cost of doing business and raises the prices the carrier must charge to earn the economic return required to remain in business.
Additional costs arise as a result of the existing inefficiencies. Many of the costs are individually small, but very large in the aggregate. For example, the carrier incurs administrative costs including: the cost to create and deliver the initial invoice, costs of resolving billing disputes, costs of providing a signed copy of the BOL to the shipper, and costs of posting accounts receivable. The shipper incurs similar administrative costs to receive the bill, match it with the BOL, manually check the contracts to determine if pricing is correct, generate and deliver payment to the carrier.
Another challenge present in many traditional systems involves the incompatibility of product and service (hereinafter the terms "product" and/or "service" are collectively referred to as "product") reference identifiers between buyers, sellers and other related entities (e.g., a distributor or group purchase organization (GPO)). When multiple reference identifiers are used, tracking and reconciling business transactions become more difficult. The complexity of modern business has also lead to expensive administrative costs associated with commercial transactions. Administrative costs include personnel, software, hardware, and entire departments created for managing commercial transactions to ensure accurate and timely billing and payment. Even with the expensive administrative cost, most transactions have typically relied on paper as the means of communicating within and between corporations. Paper copies are expensive and difficult to track and are not simultaneously accessible from geographical disparate locations. Disputes can also occur with various paper copies circulating within and between corporations (e.g., price discrepancies, short pays, and lengthy price disputes). These disputes can result in burdensome and lengthy negotiations, further frustrating both the buyer and seller. Additionally, the disputes can lead to a deterioration or possibly extinction of the relationship between the buyer and seller. Further costs are incurred if new buyers or sellers need to be found.
Most industries are quite competitive and any cost savings are therefore important. Administrative costs are targeted for reduction as no revenue is directly generated from administrative functions. However, administrative costs associated with commercial transactions have been difficult to reduce in the current business environment with widely diffused data.
The above and other difficulties in the management and coordination of business transactions have presented administrative and cost challenges to business entities on both the buyer and seller ends of transactions, as well as those involved in other aspects of such transactions, including distributors and buying organizations (such as GPOs) who negotiate contracts on behalf of a large, disparate group of buyers.

Automated transaction processing system and approach


A laryngeal mask including a dome and an airway tube extending from a proximal passage through the dome. The dome has a periphery about its base including at least one receptacle. An inflatable cuff of flexible material has a first longitudinal edge and a second longitudinal edge. The longitudinal edges are joined to form a tube forming the cuff. The cuff substantially encircles the periphery of the dome. The mask has at least one buttress adjacent to the periphery at a distal portion of the dome. The tube is fused adjacent the buttress of the dome, and the fusing is below a posterior surface of the dome wherein, upon deflation of the cuff, the buttress upturns the cuff to facilitate insertion of the laryngeal mask into a patient.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a laryngeal mask and method for making such a mask. Specifically, this invention relates to a laryngeal mask with a sanitary, air-tight seal between the dome and tubular cuff that form the mask.
2. Description of Related Art
Laryngeal masks are well known and are commonly used by medical and emergency medical personnel to intubate an unconscious patient for anesthetic and ventilation purposes. A laryngeal mask is inserted into the throat or pharynx of an unconscious patient, such as an accident victim. The laryngeal mask forms a seal around the laryngeal inlet and prevents the epiglottis from blocking the lumen. The laryngeal mask provides an open airway to permit the unconscious patient to breathe and be provided anesthesia.
Laryngeal masks are made by numerous manufacturers and have similar structures for the basic components. These manufacturers use standard terminology for the common components of these devices.
Typically, the basic components of a laryngeal mask include a dome, an airway tube or shaft, and a cuff or rim. The dome is a teardrop-shaped, semi-rigid member wherein the more angular portion of the teardrop shape provides the distal or leading edge for insertion into a patient's larynx. A rigid, yet flexible, tube is inserted into an orifice in the proximal portion of the dome and projects from this rounded portion of the dome. The flexible tube is of sufficient length to traverse a curve or angle from the larynx of a patient to a point outward from the patient's mouth. An inflatable cuff encircles the periphery of the dome and is made of soft, flexible material. When the dome is positioned in the larynx of the patient, the cuff is inflated and forms a seal with the surrounding tissue in the upper esophageal sphincter, pyriform fossae, and esophageal inlet to secure the laryngeal mask in place and to ensure that the internal lumen of the mask is positioned over the laryngeal inlet. Various sizes of laryngeal airway devices are available to accommodate different sizes of patients which include both children and adults. It is desirable that the laryngeal mask be constructed of medical-grade materials that can withstand repeated autoclaving to allow repeated use of the laryngeal mask device. Lesser medical-grade materials can be used for single-use or "disposable" laryngeal mask devices.
The industry strives to improve these individual components as well as the collateral components used in these devices. Collateral components include inflation tubes for the cuff, devices for inserting the laryngeal mask without damaging nerve or other structures, and similar components.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,547 to Brain discloses a laryngeal mask construction. The improvement of this patent focuses on "an inflatable ring configured, upon inflation, to establish a peripheral seal around a patient's laryngeal inlet. Installation (insertion) is made in the fully deflated state, wherein the structural relation between the body of the mask and the inflatable ring is such that the deflated ring surfaces become tightly opposed to each other so as to form a thin flange which peripherally surrounds the body of the mask and is concave on the posterior side of the mask; the concave flange effectively displaces all ring material away from the aperture of the mask, in the manner of the upturned brim of a hat." The invention of this patent approached this problem by placing an excess or bead of filler in the V-shaped area formed between the body (dome) and ring (cuff) of the device. The excess filler enables body stiffness to extend preferentially over posterior material of the ring. This excess bead of filler, however, forms two creases within the narrow V-shaped area wherein contaminants and/or microbes can collect.
The industry lacks a sanitary means and a method for manufacturing a secure air-tight seal between the cuff or tubular structure and dome of laryngeal masks wherein the flexible wall of the cuff is buttressed such that, when deflated, it forms a shape or geometry that facilitates the insertion of the laryngeal mask into the throat of a patient.
The industry also lacks a method for making a secure air-tight seal between the cuff and dome of a laryngeal mask which does not require a protrusion above the seal of continuous filler material to form a buttress for the cuff.

Laryngeal mask and method for making the same


The dual mode catheter of the present invention combines an over-the-wire catheter with a MONORAIL (trademark) catheter to allow simultaneous use of and switching between the MONORAIL (trademark) and over-the-wire catheters in situ, for example to manipulate stents, balloons, other medical devices, or combinations thereof. Thus combined, the present invention allows greater control of the medical devices and the catheter by a single physician while simultaneously allowing distal injection of individual components such as iodinated contrast fluids or drugs. Other advantages will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the medical arts such as reducing necessary exposure to radiation for both doctor and patient.

The present invention pertains generally to medical equipment and, more particularly, to a dual mode catheter system and method for using same appropriate for use in percutaneous coronary intervention. The present invention pertains more specifically still to a dual mode catheter combining the abilities of an over-the-wire catheter with the abilities of a MONORAIL (trademark) catheter for use in percutaneous coronary intervention whereby a dual-lumen catheter can be used for delivery of drugs, contrast fluids, and other desired elements through a lumen adapted to further be used for over-the-wire use while simultaneously having a second lumen adapted for use by a shorter wire.
Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is a procedure which is well established for the treatment of blockages in the coronary arteries. For example, blockages may occur from cholesterol precipitation on the coronary wall which may be in any stage from initial deposit through aged lesions. PTCA is a technique performed through the skin (percutaneous) inside an artery (transluminal) of the heart (coronary), for example to reshape (angioplasty) that artery. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) is also a known treatment of other types of blocked body lumens.
In general, catheters are used to advance a medical device, such as a balloon or stent, or medical fluid, such as a drug or a contrast fluid, into an artery of a patient to accomplish a desired task inside the artery. For example, in many of today""s surgical procedures, medical devices such as catheter mounted angioplasty balloons, incisors, stents and artherectomy cutters are routinely introduced into patients"" cardiovascular systems in accordance with prescribed protocols.
One commonly used apparatus for introducing these medical devices is a guide wire. Typically, whenever a guide wire is used for the purpose of introducing a medical device into the cardiovascular system of a patient, the guide wire is pre-positioned in situ, usually through an introducer catheter which is used to establish an access site into the patient""s cardiovascular system. In a typical operation, the guide wire is positioned within an artery or other vessel. As the catheter is advanced over the guide wire, a proximal end of the guide wire will remain outside or emerge from a side wall aperture such that the proximal portion of the guide wire remains outside of the catheter as the catheter is advanced to its desired operative site. If it becomes necessary or desirable to exchange a device such as with a balloon dilation catheter, the proximally exposed portion of the guide wire can be secured and stabilized manually by an operator while the first catheter is removed and a second catheter is slid over guide wire.
The most widely used form of percutaneous angioplasty makes use of a dilatation balloon catheter. In typical PTCA or PTA procedures, the cardiovascular system of a patient is accessed with an introducer, usually via the femoral artery, brachial artery, or radial artery. All other devices including a guiding catheter are percutaneously introduced into the cardiovascular system of a patient through the introducer and advanced through a vessel until the distal end thereof is at a desired location in the vasculature. A guide wire and a medical device are introduced through the guiding catheter with the guide wire sliding through the dilatation catheter. The guide wire is first advanced out of the guiding catheter into the patient""s coronary vasculature and the requisite device such as a dilatation catheter is advanced over the previously advanced guide wire until the device is properly positioned and the desired procedure is then performed.
At present, two general types of catheters are utilized in clinical practice such as in percutaneous coronary intervention: so-called xe2x80x9cover-the-wirexe2x80x9d catheters using full length guide wires and xe2x80x9cmonorailxe2x80x9d catheters using shorter guide wires than the over-the-wire catheters. MONORAIL is a trademark of SciMed Life Systems, Inc., One SciMed Place, Maple Grove, Minn., United States of America 55311. Each of these catheter systems has advantages as well as disadvantages. The dual mode catheter of the present invention combines an over-the-wire catheter with a monorail catheter to allow simultaneous use of and switching between the MONORAIL (trademark) and over-the-wire catheters in situ, for example to manipulate stents, balloons, other medical devices, or combinations thereof.
A wide variety of catheters have been developed in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,776,111 issued to Tesio teaches a multiple catheter assembly having two single catheters each having multiple lumen. Tesio ""111 also discusses other typical examples of a multiple lumen catheters such as a dual lumen catheter, commonly known as Tesio catheters, in which one lumen in the catheter tube introduces fluids and the other lumen in the tube removes fluids. Tesio ""111 does not teach or suggest having over-the-wire and MONORAIL (trademark) capabilities simultaneously present in a single catheter. In the prior art, such a delivery tube is incapable of supporting a guide wire.
The present invention allows greater control of the medical devices and the catheter by a single physician while simultaneously allowing distal injection of individual components such as iodinated contrast fluids or drugs. Other advantages will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the medical arts such as reducing necessary exposure to radiation for both doctor and patient.
Over-the-wire catheters incorporate a guide wire lumen extending substantially through the entire length of the catheter. The guide wire lumen is typically separate from catheter mounted devices such as balloons, stents, and the like.
After positioning the guide wire, the catheter mounted medical device is then subsequently advanced through a guiding catheter and over the guide wire. During the advancement of the catheter over the wire, however, it is extremely important for the physician to maintain positive control over both the stability of the guide wire and the advancement of the catheter. Further, it is important that the means for controlling the stability of the guide wire and the means for controlling the advancement of the catheter be relatively close to each other and relatively near the introductory access site into the patient.
An over-the-wire catheter may be used with numerous devices such as stents, balloons, and the like, and also allows distal injections of iodinated contrast fluids and drugs. Further, over-the-wire catheter may be advanced, the guide wire exchanged, and/or a wire tip reshaped without losing ground in situ such as within a coronary artery. However, the long guide wire used in over-the-wire catheters can be difficult to steer when attempting to accurately position the stents, balloons, and the like. Further, advancing such medical devices around, through, or across a coronary obstruction is not easily performable by a single operator.
One solution to the control problem for an over-the-wire catheter is to provide a guide wire of sufficient length so that any extracorporeal portion of the guide wire is longer than the catheter that is being introduced over the wire. Typically, over-the-wire systems incorporate a three hundred centimeter length guide wire. This, however, can be cumbersome and may require manipulation of the system at a substantial distance from introductory access site. A solution to this problem has been the use of so-called MONORAIL (trademark) catheters.
In a MONORAIL (trademark) style of angioplasty catheter, a guide wire lumen extends through only a distal portion of the catheter, typically from a distal tip orifice to a proximal aperture formed in the side wall of the catheter body. The MONORAIL (trademark) catheters in use today have a relatively short guide wire deployed near the distal tip of the catheter so that the guide wire can be separated from the catheter. Typically, MONORAIL (trademark) wires are around one-hundred eighty centimeters in length. This arrangement, however, still requires the physician to effectively control both the guide wire and the catheter.
For over-the-wire systems, exchanging a catheter of device, sometimes desired, is difficult and requires greater exposure to fluoroscopy and radiation. Moreover, such exchanges are not readily performable by a single operator.
MONORAIL (trademark) catheters do not provide for distal injection of iodinated contrast fluids or drugs or the like. Wire exchanges and wire tip reshaping are not performable without removing the wire entirely from the body, leading to loss of ground of any initial advancement within the coronary artery. Second lumen within MONORAIL (trademark) catheters may allow for passage of wires such as those to deliver radioactive therapies, but do not extend through the entire length of the catheter and are not adapted to receive and support a guide wire.
Several catheters and techniques for positioning medical devices in the cardiovascular systems of patients have been previously proposed in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,568 to Schatz teaches an over-the-wire catheter including a catheter that is formed with a lumen for receiving a guide wire there through. In operation, the guide wire is pre-positioned as desired and an end of the guide wire is then passed through an orifice of a connector and is inserted into the guide wire lumen of the catheter. The distal end of the catheter is then inserted over the wire and through the orifice of the connector. The catheter is advanced through the orifice of the connector and over the guide wire. No suggestion is made to combine a short wire style catheter with an over-the-wire style.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,976,106 to Verin et al teaches a dual or triple lumen catheter wherein the lumen means may be closed distally. The catheter may comprise a long guide wire lumen with an entry and an exit distal of the balloon, which advantageously results in a two lumen catheter construction. The catheter may also comprise a guide wire lumen with an entry distal of the balloon and an exit proximal of the balloon. However, Verin ""106 teaches that the long guide wire lumen is closed at one end and that the purpose of such a long guide wire lumen is not for use as an over-the-wire catheter guide or fluid delivery but rather as a means to allow entry of a radioactive emitter, which makes limiting travel within the long guide wire lumen necessary for safety purposes. No teaching or suggestion exists to combine over-the-wire and MONORAIL (trademark) for simultaneous use. Verin ""106 also teaches a balloon at the distal functional end.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,817,053 to Agarwal teaches a guide catheter exchange device for exchanging a guide catheter advanced over a balloon catheter and a coronary guide wire without removing the coronary guide wire in percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. In one embodiment, the exchange device comprises two sections and a connecting device for connecting the sections. In a separate embodiment, the invention pertains to a guide catheter exchange device for exchanging a guide catheter employed by a MONORAIL (trademark) balloon catheter.
As noted in Agrawal ""053, a report in Catherization and Cardiovascular Diagnosis 33, pp. 284-287 (1994) describes a catheter reported to contain two inner lumen and four ports providing a partial MONORAIL (trademark) design wherein the exchange technique requires a moderate amount of operator skill and a learning curve. The exchange of the guide catheter requires threading the coronary guide wire through an exit port of the exchange device located 120 cm proximal to the distal tip of the device and reinserting the coronary guide wire through a re-entry port of the exchange device located 130 cm proximal to the distal tip of the device.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,571,089 issued to Crocker teaches a low profile perfusion catheter for use in coronary angioplasty applications. In one embodiment, an axially movable tubular support is movable within a lumen from a proximal, insertion position to a distal perfusion position. In a further embodiment, a porous drug delivery balloon is provided. Crocker ""089 teaches away from a dual mode catheter.
Accordingly, the prior art, although discussing possible use of either over-the-wire or MONORAIL (trademark) catheters, discusses these as mutually exclusive alternatives. No suggestion is made to combine an over-the-wire catheter with a MONORAIL (trademark) catheter. No suggestion is made to provide a second guide wire lumen capable of supporting a manipulatable guide wire there through in addition to allowing use such as for fluid or drug delivery.
Moreover, disadvantages still remain. None of the prior art catheters teach simultaneous provision of or switching between a MONORAIL (trademark) and an over-the-wire catheter in situ, for example to manipulate stents, balloons, other devices, or combinations thereof. No prior art exists that teaches how to allow distal injection of individual components such as iodinated contrast fluids or drugs while simultaneously allowing a MONORAIL (trademark) catheter to be in place.
Accordingly, an improved dual mode catheter is described.


The present invention provides a bi-directional communication network which provides monitoring, data collection, and control of food service industry operations. The system includes a computer and control logic implemented by the computer which may be configured to perform various tasks. A communication network may be provided linking the computer with equipment and appliances having a microprocessor based controller capable of communicating with the system. In one embodiment, the system automatically verifies the performance of equipment-related manual tasks in food preparation. In another embodiment, the system schedules the maintenance of a plurality of kitchen appliances. In another embodiment, the system provides a hold timer for tracking the hold time of cooked food products and determines when the hold time elapses. In yet another embodiment, the system manages the inventory of cooked food products in a food preparation establishment.

In recent years, as cooking and restaurant appliances in large hotels or institutional kitchens have become more complex, there has been an increased need for the utilization of computers for diagnosing malfunctions. Today, cooking appliances are maintained and serviced, however, by a food service industry—that with exceptions—is too poorly equipped and untrained to do so. The domestic food service industry is composed of some three hundred independent service agencies, ranging in size from one up to hundreds of employees. Most, however, consist of just a few employees which are unfortunately burdened with the responsibility for preparing invoices, repairs, inventories, warranties, credits, returns, and the like. For example, these service agencies not only have to generate invoices, but also have to collect payment, which for obvious reasons is time consuming. With such other duties, service agencies have little time to keep up with the technology of today's complex kitchen or cooking appliances. With the existing food service industry so fragmented and ill-suited to handle administrative tasks as well as appliance repairs, it is estimated that their efficiency may be as low as 20%.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art to provide a cost-effective system which enhances the work force utilization of today's food service industry, allowing the proper work allocation of administrative and repair skills among those best suited to perform the tasks.
The food service industry is also faced with the problem of a difficult labor market. There is stiff competition for good employees and not enough workers to fill open positions. Supervision is difficult as well, especially for an owner/operator of multiple commercial units spread over many miles. Workers may be inadequately trained, careless or may take shortcuts in completing their tasks properly. Any of these problems can adversely affect food quality, level of service to the consumer, and compliance with various health and safety standards (for example, the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulations created by the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture to minimize bacteria-related illnesses which can result from improper food handling, preparation, and holding). These problems plague even computerized kitchen systems, because those systems can neither independently verify that the ascribed tasks have been properly completed, nor identify employees who are cheating the system. Moreover, to be competitive in today's global economy, the food service industry must gain tighter control over every process in the kitchen to combat escalating labor costs, achieve more accurate product forecasting, and realize faster and more efficient food preparation to better manage both facilities and human resources.
Appliance Status/Monitoring
There is a need in today's food service industry for a system that is capable of generating computerized task lists on a real time basis instructing employees to perform needed tasks, and then guiding the employees through the required tasks. These task lists could be transmitted and displayed on CRT's in the area of the restaurant where the task will be performed by the employee for easy reference. The task lists may also be accompanied by audible instructions in addition to, or instead of by visual means alone. Such task lists could, for example, provide timely communication between the point of sale (POS) and kitchen for placing orders. Computerized task lists could also provide important training for employees (especially new trainees), which due to high employee turnover rates in the food service industry, has become especially problematic for restaurant managers who have precious little time to spare for training in the first instance. Accordingly, computer generated lists could step employees through the cooking process for preparing various food items, various maintenance and cleaning procedures related to cooking appliances and other equipment, and any other required general duties.
Known systems use labor management tools to generate and printout a static list of tasks to be done, for example, at the beginning of each day. However, such lists do not have any real-time feedback and thus are not dynamic, and do not adapt to actual and ever changing operating conditions and requirements in a restaurant. Accordingly, there is also need for a system which can update and modify task list based on sensed or measured operating conditions.
Current fast-food systems typically use in-store CRTs to display tasks. When a task is complete, the employee typically hits a "bump bar" below the screen to notify the system that the task is done. The system then updates the CRT to indicate that task is done. But this assumes that there is no "cheating" (i.e., hitting the bump bar without properly completing the task) by the employee. This situation has been problematic for supervisors who in the fast-paced food service industry cannot possibly watch all their employees constantly to ensure that tasks are actually being properly performed. Furthermore, cheating by employees can have a detrimental financial impact on the fast-food and other restaurants. For example, pulling food prepared in a deep vat fryer out before it is done can adversely affect food quality (e.g., taste, texture, appearance, etc.) and shelf life. Likewise, for example, bakers who pull products out of ovens before they are finished baking adversely affect food quality. Improperly prepared food causes customer dissatisfaction and loss of repeat business which translates into financial losses for food service providers. Another example where cheating adversely affects the food service industry is in the area of maintenance Employees who are lazy or busy may often seek shortcuts by simply skipping maintenance tasks, or performing them inadequately, but still hit the bump bar. Known systems cannot detect and provide a sufficient check on this type of cheating. Accordingly, there is a need for a system which can provide automatic verification that a required task has been properly completed by sensing various operating parameters, rather than relying only on the honesty employees alone.
Virtual Hold Timer
The amount of time a food item can be held and served after it has been cooked is governed by both franchise standards and government regulations. For example, the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) standards established by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) dictates the amount of time food can be held at various temperatures after it has been cooked before it must be discarded. These standards are intended to prevent illnesses caused by ingesting food products contaminated with microbial pathogens which may be passed on to consumers by improper food handling practices. Therefore, accurate measurement and tracking of food "hold times" is of critical importance to the food preparation industry. Once this "hold time" expires, the food must be thrown out.
Current systems often use small plastic tags, for example, saying "00", "15", "30", "45", etc. to represent minutes past the hour when the food expires—the tag travels with the food. It is also possible to include a small mechanical or electronic timer that travels with the food. Another known system uses electric or mechanical timers at each successive location; however, it is complicated to set each successive timer based on the amount of time left on the timer at the previous location. These known systems have not worked well, and much food is often sold beyond its proper hold time, thereby subjecting food service operators to liability for violating HACCP standards and potentially exposing consumers to food-borne related illnesses.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system that can establish an automatic "virtual" hold timer associated with each batch of food that is prepared. Such a system could track the movement of each batch of food through the restaurant or kitchen, and figuratively "travel" with the food from the cooking appliance to various holding areas and the point of sale (POS). Such a system could also provide a single, continuous hold timer for each batch of food, thereby eliminating the need for kitchen or restaurant employees to set new times manually taking into account elapsed hold time from a previous cooking or hold station. This minimizes the risk associated with food handlers having to physically handle timers and either misplacing them or making errors in setting successive timers. Moreover, such a system could assist in controlling inventory of cooked food items by sensing that a particular batch of food being held is about to expire and then sending a signal instructing food preparers that another batch of the same product. Such a system could further be linked to the POS system and historical sales data maintained by the system to determine how much of a particular food product should be cooked to meet the anticipated demand and replace the food whose hold time is about to expire.
Shortening Management/Fryer Maintenance Management
The proper maintenance of deep-fat fryers is also of great concern to the operator of a commercial or institutional cooking establishment. Such fryers typically use food-grade oil or shortening as the cooking medium. However, the cooking medium degrades with each cooking cycle. In order to ensure consistent food quality, periodic filtering and/or changing of the cooking medium is required. Fryer controllers are often hardwired to demand cleaning at a fixed time each day; thus making it impossible to adapt fryer maintenance to actual operating data (such as sales conditions, number of cooking cycles, etc). Other prior art systems such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,575 to Koether et al. are directed to a stand-alone "smart fryer" in which a cooking computer is physically connected to an individual flyers. Such prior art systems offer some improvement over the fixed-time fryer controllers in that they attempt to ensure that changing or filtering of the cooking medium is conducted timely and properly, based on tracking actual flyer usage and other relevant parameters such as cooking temperatures. However, an individual fryer cooking computer only determines when cooking medium maintenance is required for the particular flyer with which it is physically associated, without regard for any other fryers. This is problematic for restaurant management because it is not desirable to have too many fryers unavailable due to maintenance when the restaurant is busy and demand for food is highest. Ideally, fryer maintenance should coincide with off-peak demand periods, or at the very least, multiple fryers should not be unavailable for service at the same time. Accordingly, there is a need for a networked control system that could monitor and control maintenance of all fryers at a given restaurant location. Furthermore, there is a need for a networked control system that can balance individual fryer usage and time the maintenance of all fryers at a given restaurant location to ensure that a maximum number of flyers are available for service during periods of peak food demand.


A harvesting system is provided. The harvesting system includes a track, a cart configured to move along the track, the cart including an upper plate configured to support a plant, one or more sensors, a lifter, and a controller. The controller includes one or more processors, one or more memory modules, and machine readable instructions stored in the one or more memory modules that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the controller to: receive information from the one or more sensors, determine whether the plant in the cart is ready to harvest based on the information, and send to the lifter an instruction for tilting the upper plate by a degree in response to determination that the plant in the cart is ready to harvest.

While crop growth technologies have advanced over the years, there are still many problems in the farming and crop industry today. As an example, while technological advances have increased efficiency and production of various crops, many factors may affect a harvest, such as weather, disease, infestation, and the like. Additionally, while the United States currently has suitable farmland to adequately provide food for the U.S. population, other countries and future populations may not have enough farmland to provide the appropriate amount of food.
Harvesting plants requires a great deal of human labor and time. Additionally, once plants are harvested, the land where the plants had been grown needs some time until planting new plants. Thus, a system for automatically harvesting plants in an indoor crop grow pod in a continuous manner may be needed.

Systems and methods for harvesting plants


A color filter substrate for use in a fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display wherein the color filter substrate and an array substrate provided with a comb-shaped pixel electrode having an electrode width of 10 μm or less are arranged facing each other with a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The color filter substrate comprises a transparent substrate, a black matrix provided on the transparent substrate, includes an organic pigment as a main coloring agent, color pixels having a relative dielectric constant of 2.9 or more but 4.4 or less, and a transparent resin layer provided on the color pixels. The relative dielectric constant of each of the color pixels falls within ±0.3 of an average relative dielectric constant of the color pixels.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color filter substrate for fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display and a fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display in which the color filter substrate is used.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display in which the initial alignment of liquid crystal is horizontal to the surface of a substrate and in which the liquid crystal is rotated horizontally to the substrate surface and a novel fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display designed to attain an enhanced transmittance have been proposed and are being marketed. These liquid crystal displays are used in a normally black mode (when no driving voltage applied, the liquid crystal horizontally aligned; crossed nicols used as the polarizer), and realize a wide viewing angle and a high contrast, so that they are becoming a mainstream display for use in large-size TVs and mobile devices.
The fringe-field switching (hereinafter referred to as FFS) mode liquid crystal display can realize higher transmittance and higher displayed image quality than those of the conventional in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display. However, the requirement for the electrical properties, especially relative dielectric constant, of color filter and other members, including an insulating layer between the pixel electrode for driving the liquid crystal and the common electrode, for use in the fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display is becoming severe.
The difference between the in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display and the fringe-field switching liquid crystal display will be described with reference to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2.
FIG. 1 shows a cross section of the in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display. The in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display is so constructed that a color filter substrate 40 and an array substrate 50 are arranged facing each other and stuck together with a liquid crystal layer 46 interposed therebetween. Pixel electrodes 51 and common electrodes 52 are provided on the array substrate 50 with an insulating layer 22 interposed therebetween. The pixel electrodes 51 and the common electrodes 52 are wiring layers comprised of a highly conductive material, such as a metal. They are often provided in a comb-shaped pattern with a pitch of tens of microns. In the liquid crystal layer 46, use is made of a liquid crystal that makes an initial alignment horizontal to the surface of the substrate and exhibits positive dielectric constant anisotropy.
FIG. 1 shows the state of "white display" in which, for example, a liquid-crystal-driving voltage of 5 V is applied between the pixel electrodes 51 and the common electrodes 52. Electric field is applied in a lateral direction as indicated by a line of electric force 43 in FIG. 1, so that the liquid crystal molecules between the pixel electrodes 51 and the common electrodes 52 are horizontally rotated by the applied voltage. The liquid crystal molecules 47 close to the substrate surface cannot attain satisfactory rotation because of a strong restraining force of rubbing on the alignment film. In FIG. 1, not only the liquid crystal molecules 48 on the pixel electrodes 51 but also the liquid crystal molecules 49 on the common electrodes 52 remain in the initial horizontal alignment and are not rotated because the application of the voltage for rotating the liquid crystal molecules is poor (liquid crystal molecules 49 are oriented in the direction perpendicular to the sheet). This means that even when, for example, the pixel electrodes 51 and the common electrodes 52 are formed of a transparent conductive film, such as ITO, liquid crystal molecules that do not rotate regardless of the application of a driving voltage are left, causing a lowering of transmittance.
FIG. 2 shows a cross section of the fringe-field switching liquid crystal display. The fringe-field switching liquid crystal display is so constructed that a color filter substrate 40 and an array substrate 60 are arranged facing each other and stuck together with a liquid crystal layer 56 interposed therebetween. Pixel electrodes 61 and a common electrode 62 are provided on the array substrate 60 with an insulating layer 22 interposed therebetween. Both the pixel electrodes 61 and the common electrode 62 are formed of a transparent conductive film, such as ITO. A characteristic feature of this electrode structure is that within a pixel, the common electrode 62 is provided in a solid planar form, while the pixel electrodes 61 are provided very finely with an electrode width (WL) of about 2 to 10 μm and with a pitch of 15 μm or less.
For example, the pixel electrodes 61 can be provided with an electrode width (WL) of 5 μm and a pitch of 11 μm. The smaller the electrode width (WL) and pitch of the pixel electrodes 61 are, the greater the contribution to the increase of the transmittance of the liquid crystal display is. The reason therefor is that the fringe electric field provided from the pattern edges of the pixel electrodes 61 to the common electrode 62 is the agent of liquid crystal drive. When the electrode width (WL) is, for example, 2 μm, rendering the inter-electrode distance (Ws) a little bit large, about 3 μm, realizes high efficiency from the viewpoint of transmittance.
In the liquid crystal layer 56 shown in FIG. 2, liquid crystal molecules are rotated across substantially all the area within the pixel by the application of a liquid crystal driving voltage between the pixel electrodes 61 and the common electrode 62, thereby realizing a display of high transmittance. In a liquid crystal display device in which a liquid crystal of initial horizontal alignment is used, the FFS mode can be regarded as means for transmittance enhancement by the generation of fringe electric field at a short cycle.
Known technologies relating to the color filter for in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display are disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. (hereinafter referred to as JP-A-) 2009-229826 and JP-A-H9-292514. The technology disclosed in JP-A-2009-229826 comprises specifying the dielectric dissipation factor and chromaticity of a color filter applicable to an in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display. The relative dielectric constant required for the in-plane switching mode is claimed therein. However, there is no disclosure of particular values with respect to the relative dielectric constant of each of red, green and blue color layers, and there is no disclosure with respect to a requisite average of relative dielectric constant and an extent of variation thereof.
Therefore, naturally, no attention is drawn to the respective dielectric constants to be uniformly exhibited by red, green and blue color layers, which are required at the time of halftone display. Moreover, there is no disclosure at all with respect to the influence of the dielectric constant of a black matrix usually provided for ensuring contrast at the time of color display by such color pixels. There is no description with respect to the relative dielectric constant of a color filter needed in the fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display that while realizing a high-transmittance display, requires high-level electrical properties on liquid-crystal-surrounding members. Further, no study is made with respect to the liquid crystal driving frequency (120 Hz, 240 Hz) prevailing in liquid crystal televisions in which the in-plane switching mode or fringe-field switching mode is employed. The relative dielectric constant at the frequency is not disclosed. The electrical properties of liquid-crystal-surrounding members often change the values thereof in low-frequency regions and high-frequency regions, so that they should be measured in actual use conditions.
In the structuring of the color filter described in JP-A-2009-229826, an overcoat layer comprised of a transparent resin layer is avoided. In the FFS mode liquid crystal display device, an overcoat layer comprised of a transparent resin layer must be provided on the color layer of the color filter thereof. The reason therefor is that there are extremely high-level requirements with respect to the voltage holding ratios of liquid crystal materials for use in the FFS mode, and that in order to avoid any lowering of voltage holding ratio attributed to any adverse effect of impurity ions contained in an organic pigment of the color layer, it is essential to provide an overcoat layer comprised of a transparent resin layer.
JP-A-H9-292514 discloses a color film whose relative dielectric constant is 4.5 or below, and in paragraph 0014 discloses a pigment black 7 comprised of carbon as a black pigment of black matrix. However, with respect to the color films disclosed in FIG. 3 of JP-A-H9-292514, for example, the relative dielectric constant at a frequency of 100 Hz of blue color film can be read as about 3.9, that of red color film as about 3.45 and that of green color film as about 3.1. The variation of relative dielectric constant is large, so that the color films can be applied to the conventional in-plane switching mode liquid crystal display but cannot be applied to the display of high image quality by fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display. JP-A-H9-292514 does not disclose any concept of uniformizing the relative dielectric constants of individual color films. Further, there is no disclosure with respect to any impact of the relative dielectric constant of black matrix on the FFS mode liquid crystal display device.

Color filter substrate and fringe-field switching mode liquid crystal display using same


A mirror housing includes a temporary fixing member that is formed of a plate having a groove. An additional part includes a temporary fixing member that includes an insertion portion engaged with the groove to position and guide the additional part in a setting direction and a first direction, and a contacting portion that contacts the plate to position and guide the additional part in a second direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an outside mirror apparatus for a vehicle that includes an attachment.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been outside mirror apparatuses for a vehicle that include an additional part such as a lighting system and an image pickup device. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-337606 discloses such an outside mirror apparatus for a vehicle. The conventional outside mirror apparatus has a configuration such that a base of a lamp unit is inserted from an opening of a cover and coupled to the backside of a housing by a clip, and an illuminator of the lamp unit is engaged with the opening by a coupling strength of the clip.
The conventional outside mirror apparatus, however, has-no guiding and positioning member for fixing the lamp unit to the housing and the cover. Thus, there is a need of a technology for fixing the lamp unit to the housing and the cover easily and reliably.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


In accordance with the invention, arrays optical sources are combined in a multilevel planar optical waveguide structure for insertion into an optical fiber laser. The basic element of the combiner is a planar array of multiple waveguides which converge and are gradually tapered to a single output waveguide. A plurality of such elements integrally formed on successive cladding layers provides a high power stack of vertically aligned outputs. An arrangement is described for using such apparatus in the amplification of optical communications signals.

A typical optical communications system comprises a source of optical input signals, a network of optical waveguides coupled to the source, one or more optical amplifying devices along the waveguides and one or more optical receivers.
The waveguides are typically optical fibers--small diameter circular waveguides characterized by a core with a first index of refraction surrounded by a cladding having a second (lower) index of refraction. Typical telecommunications fibers are made of high purity silica with minor concentrations of dopants to control the indices of refraction. They can transmit an optical signal containing a large amount of information.
For long distance applications, such as undersea cable and many terrestrial applications, it is necessary to periodically amplify the transmitted signal as by passage through a rare-earth doped fiber amplifier. Such amplifiers typically comprise a short (typically 30 m) length of optical fiber doped with a small percentage of rare earth elements such as Er. After these fibers are exposed to light of an appropriate pump wavelength (shorter than the transmitted wavelength) they are capable of stimulated emission at the signal wavelength. Typical communications systems utilize signal wavelengths of about 1550 nm and Er fiber amplifiers pumped at 980 or 1440 nm.
Amplifying arrangements with compact, efficient pumping are currently a problem in optical communications. In general, the higher the level of pumping power, the greater the amplification. Raman amplification, for example, requires much more pump power than can be supplied by single semiconductor laser pumps. Arrays of pumps are used to supply adequate pump power. Anticipated applications seek as much pumping power as can be compactly generated and efficiently injected into the amplifier cores. The conventional pumping sources are arrays of semiconductor laser diodes. But the output of each diode is limited and it is difficult to combine the outputs of numerous diodes for efficient injection into the tiny core of an amplifying fiber.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,268,978 describes an apparatus for combining the outputs of numerous diodes. In essence, a plurality of fibers have one set of ends horizontally aligned along a cylindrical lens in registration with the diodes and the other ends are vertically stacked and focused onto a fiber laser having a large core. The difficulty with this approach for communications applications is that precise assembly and alignment of the numerous small components used in this apparatus would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. Moreover the large core multimode lasers thus produced are unduly large for communications applications.
Accordingly there is a need for an improved apparatus for pumping an optical fiber laser.

Apparatus for pumping an optical fiber laser


A method for tracking the motion of a person's face for the purpose of animating a 3-D face model of the same or another person is disclosed. The 3-D face model carries both the geometry (shape) and the texture (color) characteristics of the person's face. The shape of the face model is represented via a 3-D triangular mesh (geometry mesh), while the texture of the face model is represented via a 2-D composite image (texture image). Both the global motion and the local motion of the person's face are tracked. Global motion of the face involves the rotation and the translation of the face in 3-D. Local motion of the face involves the 3-D motion of the lips, eyebrows, etc., caused by speech and facial expressions. The 2-D positions of salient features of the person's face and/or markers placed on the person's face are automatically tracked in a time-sequence of 2-D images of the face. Global and local motion of the face are separately calculated using the tracked 2-D positions of the salient features or markers. Global motion is represented in a 2-D image by rotation and position vectors while local motion is represented by an action vector that specifies the amount of facial actions such as smiling-mouth, raised-eyebrows, etc.

Tracking the 3-D motion of a face in a sequence of 2-D images of the face is an important problem with applications to facial animation, hands-free human-computer interaction environment, and lip-reading. Tracking the motion of the face involves tracking the 2-D positions of salient features on the face. The salient features could be in the form of (i) points, such as the corners of the mouth, the eye pupils, or external markers placed on the face; (ii) lines, such as the hair-line, the boundary of the lips, and the boundary of eyebrows; and (iii) regions, such as the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. There are known techniques for using markers to track objects such as selected facial features including eyebrows, ears, mouth and corners of the eyes.
The salient features can also be synthetically created by placing markers on the face. Tracking of salient features is generally accomplished by detecting and matching a plurality of salient features of the face in a sequence of 2-D images of the face. The problem of detecting and matching the salient features is made difficult by variations in illumination, occlusion of the features, poor video quality, and the real-time constraint on the computer processing of the 2-D images.


The present invention provides a method, system, and computer program product for enhancing collaboration using a corporate social network to infer contacts. A method in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes: providing a social network for an organization, the social network including a plurality of nodes and links, wherein each node represents a member of the organization, and wherein each link represents a relationship between a pair of the nodes; receiving a request by a requesting member of the organization for a required type of contact; and inferring a contact to the requesting member by searching the social network along a plurality of dimensions from the node representing the requesting member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to contact management, and more specifically relates to a method, system, and computer program product for enhancing collaboration using a corporate social network to infer contacts.
2. Related Art
In any large organization, such as a university, company, or government, employees or other members of the organization have to collaborate with a wide variety of people in order to perform different kinds of tasks. They collaborate with people, not only in their own group or department, but also in other departments, especially service departments such as Human Resources, Legal, Finance, Information Technology, Purchasing, Facilities, Public Relations, etc. These service departments often assign specific people to handle predefined tasks for predetermined groups of employees. However, this contact information is often not available explicitly to the employees making use of the services. As such, it becomes difficult for a person, especially a new employee, to find the right contact for performing a particular task or for answering a particular question. Typically, an employee will ask his/her peers, managers, or assistants for the right contact. This approach, however, may not always be efficient or lead to the correct person.
Existing corporate directories normally provide certain details about each employee, such as contact information and position. Some corporate directories also indicate the management chain in the organization (e.g., via an org chart). Other directories also have expertise and skill information and allow searching for employees with certain skills or expertise. However, there is a distinction between an expert in a certain kind of task and the right contact for the task. The right contact for a task may not be the foremost expert in that area. Instead, it is often someone who is assigned to help a certain group of employees to perform a certain kind of task. To illustrate the distinction, consider the situation where a light bulb has blown out in an employee's office. The employee does not need the company maintenance expert, but the maintenance person who covers their office.
Another problem with expertise and skill directories is that these directories often rely on individual employees to fill in the details, which they don't always do. Hence, such information is often incomplete and out-of-date.
There are two broad approaches to providing employees with contact information. The first is a centralized approach, wherein a certain entity in an organization maintains and provides the contact information for all employees in the organization. One problem with this approach is that it requires personnel to be dedicated to the task of creating and updating the contact information. Using this approach is difficult if the set of contact types or job responsibilities is a large and constantly changing set. The other approach for providing contact information is a decentralized approach, such as that provided by a social network. This type of system allows people to create links to their friends or acquaintances. Users can then explore and interact with people in the resulting social network. One advantage of social networks is that the information is created and maintained in a collaborative and distributed manner. These systems do not depend on a central authority to collect and maintain information about the relationships between people. Since there are a large number of people maintaining information about their contacts, the system tends to have fairly accurate and up-to-date information. Unfortunately, such informal social networks typically only allow relationships based on friendship (and its variants) and are thus not sufficient for use in a corporate environment where many different types of relationships may exist among employees.

Method, system, and computer program product for enhancing collaboration using a corporate social network

International Business Machines Corporation


A data recording cartridge provided with a cartridge case and a recording medium accommodated therein, wherein the cartridge case is molded from at least one of the following materials:. (1) composition of uniformly dispersed styrol resin and a polycarbonate resin; PA1 (2) composition of uniformly dispersed styrol resin and a nitrogen containing resin; PA1 (3) composition of uniformly dispersed styrol resin and an ester resin; PA1 (4) styrol resin styrene of which is partially substituted with .alpha.-methylstyrene; PA1 (5) styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer modified with rubber; PA1 (6) composition of polypropylene polymer containing an inorganic filler dispersed therein; PA1 (7) copolymer of N-substituted maleimide resin and styrol resin; and PA1 (8) composition of uniformly dispersed N-substituted maleimide resin and styrol resin.

The present invention relates to a data recording cartridge such as a magnetic disk cartridge and the like inclusive of a flexible magnetic recording medium, and more specifically, to a data recording cartridge and flexible magnetic recording medium having high reliability even at high temperatures. The data recording cartridge referred to in the present invention is a cartridge having a tape-shaped, disk-shaped or card-shaped magnetic recording medium, optical recording medium or semiconductor recording medium accommodated in a cartridge case to which and from which data from a computer or the like is capable of be magnetically, optically or electrically recorded and reproduced. Further, the flexible magnetic recording medium is a tape-shaped, disk-shaped or card-shaped recording medium composed of a flexible substrate such as a plastic film having a magnetic thin film formed thereon which is capable of magnetically recording data.

Data recording cartridge including a flexible magnetic recording medium


A cruise or race boat sail able to create a straightening effect on the hull that is able to be configured, when used, to take the attitude, with at least a first portion having a first curvature, and at least a second portion having a second curvature, opposed with respect to the first one, where the second portion is the upper portion of the sail and includes at least two superimposed skins that can take different attitudes according to profiles having different curvatures.

To date sails are realized in different materials and the sector evolution involved the use of dacron, kevlar, mylar, as base materials, up to the most modern sails reinforced with carbon fiber and so on.
The evolution of the materials came about in response to the need to give the sail the ability to maintain its shape, without being deformed even in extreme use, and over time.
Two main families exist, namely fabrics and laminates sails. The fabrics sails are generally based on Dacron, the most used material for cruising sails. Laminate, on the other hand, is the composition of several materials to produce a product having desired mechanical characteristics. In a complex laminate, different elements can intervene: a light external Dacron fabric for protection against rubbing and light, inside which can be a Mylar film to stabilize the shape with Kevlar wires or fabrics (rarely) reinforcements, Kevlar being instead the material to which true resistance to loads is assigned.
The shape is decided by the sailmaker based on the characteristics of the boat according to different needs. Generally speaking, a sail is defined by the amount of "fat" portion desired and by its position along a longitudinal direction with respect to the sail (fore-aft direction). What is called trivially fat is therefore the depth of the sail.
On the basis of the fluid dynamics, it is easy to understand how the thicker or "fat" profiles of a sail are suitable for low speeds and thinner, or "thin", profiles are suitable for higher speeds.
A material problem also exists, since Dacron fabrics are less likely to support the shape without deformation compared to more complex laminates. To obtain such a result in racing sails, Dacron is treated with finishes, stiffening them and making them more windproof.
The fat portion of the sail is obtained by working on panel cutting, which are not exactly parallel as it may seem at first sight. Generally speaking, at least four panels are realized to give the shape to a sail, a higher number if the maximum height of the fabric/laminate requires it.
One of the most modern techniques currently used for the realization of a sail without panels is the so called 3DL technique: essentially, a convex mold is prepared and the layer of laminate forming the sail is placed in a single body. In practice, while the laminated material is realized, the shape of the sail is also realized.
An alternative method provides for realizing a laminated flat membrane to which the shape is given with the usual curved cut of the panels. The difference lies in the length of the "threads" that are continuous, and that are interrupted when panels are included.
Besides the materials and the techniques for making the sails, as it is known, the sails are used to obtain a thrust, and when the boat luffs, the wing profile of the sail creates a thrust allowing it to advance, but which also creates a heeling moment tending to make the boat tilt, and which must be counterbalanced by a straightening moment generally generated by a bulb or "foils", i.e. real wings in the most modern boats.
In a simple but effective way, the shape of the sails can be defined by three adjectives: concave (fat), flat (lean) and buckled.
A sail is concave when it has a discreet "belly". The horizontal section of the sail has a "spoon" shape ("a" in FIG. 1).
It is important, for the sake of a good aerodynamic performance of a sail, that the concavity is displaced forward with respect to its center. In fact, by observing FIG. 2, it is clear that the aerodynamic force "F" exerted by the wind on the sail is greater on a concave sail ("Fc") than on a flat sail ("Fp") and that the displacement towards the bow of the concavity also carries with it the forward rotation of the involved force.
Modern sails tend to have an "Fc" shape in the lower part and more and more an "Fp" shape in the upper part towards the head: this is due to the different intensity and direction of the wind in the upper part with respect to the lower part, respectively stronger and with a greater angle (buckling angle) with respect to the longitudinal axis of the boat.
At the same time, however, the thrust on the sail generates, particularly in case of close-hauled, that is when the boat goes toward the wind, a heeling moment, which tends to tilt the boat and makes it drift downwind.
Furthermore, the wind hitting the sail is the apparent wind that is the sum of the real wind (the wind that would hit the boat if it was still) and the advancement wind caused by the speed of the boat itself. With a weak real wind, the advancement wind contributes decisively to the formation of the apparent wind that moves very close to the bow and to the direction of the longitudinal axis of the hull. As the real wind strengthens, its contribution to the formation of the apparent wind increases and the latter approaches the direction of the true wind, moving away from the axis of the hull and thus being redundant.
The friction that the sea surface exerts on the air masses moving above it causes the wind speed to increase as the altitude increases (FIG. 3).
A so called speed gradient is created: between the speed at sea level and that at the height of the mast head (for example: about ten meters) there can be, depending on weather conditions, a difference of 20-30%.
As it is evident, this speed gradient further accentuates the heeling effect.
While advancement speed of the sail is constant at any altitude, it is not true for real wind. In fact, the stronger the real wind is, the more the apparent wind moves away from the axis of the boat, and therefore the sails are subjected to an apparent wind that moves further away from the axis of the boat the more the altitude increases.
For this reason, an optimal adjustment of the sail requires that the same is presented to the wind with an angle that varies according to the height, i.e. the sail must be "buckled" (FIG. 4).
In order to luff avoiding that the boat drifts, and to avoid the heeling of the boat, thrust on the sails must be counterbalanced by the keel, by the bulb or even by foil creating a straightening moment.
To date there is no sail capable of generating a straightening moment.


A recognition-by-parts authentication system for determining if a physical test target represented in test image(s) obtained using an imaging device matches a physical training target represented in training image(s). The system includes a multitude of adaptive and robust correlation filters. Each of the adaptive and robust correlation filters is configured to generate correlation-peak-strength and distance-from-origin data using a multitude of related images. Each of the multitude of related images representing a similar part of a larger image. The related images originate from the test image(s) and training image(s).

A reliable recognition system is needed that can effectively recognize targets (such as faces, vehicles, animals, etc.) that have been modified to hide their true identity. Some targets of interest may include camouflaged or occluded military installations, weapons and vehicles. Still other targets of interest may include human beings, and in some instances, human faces.
In the field of biometric analysis, denial stands for occlusion, and deception stands for masking. Both denial and deception affect biometric analysis. Biometrics should not assume that the personal signatures are complete and reliable. Occlusion and disguise are not necessarily deliberate. They can also take place in crowded environments, e.g., CCTV when only parts of faces are visible from time to time. Temporal changes can also easily deceive current face recognition engines. Examples of phenomena, with deceptive impact, include bags under the eyes and wrinkles from aging, changes in appearance due to the use of cosmetics, medical condition (injuries and allergies), fatigue, hair style and facial hair. "Our face reflects the lifelong pull of gravity, which lengthens the jaws and deepens orbital bags. In addition people develop fat pads under the eyes, shadows fall differently on the upper and lower eyelid" [1]. Current face recognition systems are ineffective when temporal changes, involuntary or not, occur. In addition, the working hypothesis for the (large) face recognition evaluations carried out so far has not been particularly concerned with the very possibility that targets would seek to deny and/or foil their true biometric signatures. Most clients are legitimate and honest. They have nothing to hide, and have all the incentives to cooperate. The very purpose of biometrics, however, is to provide security from impostors and those seeking to breach security. It is quite obvious that such clients are well motivated to interfere with the proper acquisition of their biometric signatures, and will attempt to hide and/or alter information that is needed for their identification. As occlusion and disguise usually affect only parts of the face.

Recognition by parts using adaptive and robust correlation filters

George Mason Intellectual Properties, Inc.


Aspects of the disclosure provide a system and method used for time-of-flight lidar applications. Such systems and methods include a laser and pulse clipper which produces a shuttering effect to reduce the instantaneous output power from the pulse clipper. Accordingly the output from the pulse clipper is more suitable for time-of-flight lidar applications than that initially produced by the laser. This can allow for lasers which may otherwise exceed eye safety limits to be used for time-of-flight lidar applications without exceeding the eye safety limits.

Lidar systems generate a pulse, typically from a laser, and utilize reflected light for imaging, detection and ranging. Lidar systems have many applications, including use in sensors for automated automotive applications. Lidar is sometimes also spelled LIDAR as an acronym for either Light Detection and Ranging or Laser Radar.
To avoid eye injuries, eye safety regulations exist in some jurisdictions for lidar systems. Eye safety regulations limit the power level for continuous wave lasers or put limits on the allowed energy per pulse for pulse lasers.
In order to obtain high resolution (in the order of centimeters) distance measurements, a short laser pulse in the order of 100 picoseconds (hereafter ps) is needed. However, it is difficult/expensive to make a laser generate a pulse sufficiently short to satisfy the distance requirements for some lidar applications, while remaining within eye safety regulations.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method that at least partially addresses one or more limitations of the prior art. In particular, there is a need for a lidar system which is inexpensive, has sufficient range for a variety of lidar applications, and satisfies eye safety limits.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.


A volume system that presents a volume having an extent of logical addresses to a file system. A volume exposure system exposes the volume to the file system in a manner that the volume has multiple tiers, each offering storage of different traits. This is performed using multiple heterogenic underlying storage systems, each having different storage system-specific traits. Each underlying storage system may be hardware, software, or a combination thereof that permits each storage system to expose storage having the particular storage system-specific traits to the file system. The volume system supports each tier by mapping logical addresses of the tier to portions of underling storage systems that are consistent with the tier traits.

Computing systems obtain a high degree of functionality by executing software programs. Computing systems use storage hierarchies in order to store such software programs and other files. At the lowest level of a local storage hierarchy might be a disk, such as a mechanical disk, optical disk and the like. Higher up in the storage hierarchy might be devices such as solid-state disks or non-volatile memory and the like.
Computing systems operate most efficiently when the most in demand blocks of data are located high in the storage hierarchy, wherein the lesser demanded blocks of data might be located lower in the storage hierarchy. The decision on where to place blocks of data within the storage hierarchy conventionally takes place below the file system.
The file system itself typically has no visibility on this storage hierarchy, but instead views storage in the form of a volume. A volume is a single logical namespace visible to the file system. A volume may be provisioned to be a certain size and often corresponds to the boundaries of an underlying storage device. For instance, a disk may be a single volume, or perhaps be partitioned into multiple volumes. Furthermore, a volume may be made up of multiple disks. The file system may then structure directories within the volume, and save files into the namespace, either at the root directory of the namespace, or within one of the directories of the namespaces.
A single volume may have particular traits. For instance, a volume might be set up to be mirrored and thus have a certain level of built-in redundancy. A volume might also be set up to be encrypted or compressed. Conventionally, the traits are set up on a per-volume basis. Thus, the file system itself views any block of storage within that volume to have the same traits as any other block of storage within that volume, and relegates any decisions regarding how blocks are placed to the storage system that is abstracted from the file system view.

Volume having tiers of different storage traits


A method of preventing polymer scale deposition in a polymerization vessel in polymerization of a particular monomer having an ethylenic double bond having a high dissolving power against the conventional scale preventive coatings, wherein said polymerization is carried out in a polymerization vessel of which the inner wall has been previously coated with a first coating liquid comprising:. (A) a water-soluble anionic dye, and PA1 (B) a metal salt, to form a first coating, and the first coating thus formed has been then coated with a second coating liquid comprising: PA1 (C) an alkaline earth metal compound, and at least one member selected from the group consisting of: PA1 (D) a water-soluble anionic dye and PA1 (E) an inorganic colloid,. to form a second coating. Polymer scale deposition can be effectively prevented.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of preventing polymer scale deposition in a polymerization vessel during polymerization of a monomer having an ethylenic double bond.
2. Description of Prior Art
In processes of preparing polymers by polymerizing a monomer in a polymerization vessel, the problem that polymers deposit on the inner wall surface and other parts which come into contact with the monomer such as stirring blades of the polymerization vessel in the form of scale, is known. The deposition of the polymer scale on the inner wall results in disadvantages that the yield of the polymer and the cooling capacity of the polymerization vessel are lowered; that the polymer scale may peel and mix into manufactured polymer, thereby impairing the quality of the manufactured polymer; and that removal of such polymer scale is laborious and hence time-consuming. Further, since the polymer scale contains unreacted monomer, there is a danger that the operators may be exposed to the unreacted monomer, which may cause some physical disorders.
Heretofore, there are known methods for preventing polymer scale deposition in which the inner wall and so forth are coated with a suitable substance as a polymer scale preventive agent. Such substances suited as polymer preventive agents include, for example, particular polar compounds (Japanese Patent Publication (KOKOKU) No. 45- 30343(1970)); dyes or pigments (Japanese Patent Publication (KOKOKU) No. 45-30835(1970)); aromatic amine compound (Japanese Pre-examination Patent Publication (KOKAI) No. 51-50887(1976)); a reaction product of a phenolic compound with an aromatic aldehyde (Japanese Pre-examination Patent Publication (KOKAI) No. 55-54317(1980)).
These methods are effective in preventing polymer scale deposition, in the case where the monomer to be polymerized is a vinyl halide such as vinyl chloride or a monomer mixture containing largely a vinyl halide. However, in the case where the monomer having an ethylenic double bond to be polymerized is a monomer having the general formula: EQU CH.sub.2 .dbd.CXY
wherein X is a hydrogen atom or the methyl group; Y is a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group or a group represented by the formula: --COOH, --COOM where M is an alkali metal or an ammonium ion, --COOR, --OCOR, --OR (where in the formulas R is an alkyl group), --CN, --C.sub.6 H.sub.5, --C.sub.6 H.sub.4 Z (where Z is an hydrogen atom, --OH, --CH.sub.3 or --CH.dbd.CH.sub.2), or --CH.dbd.CH.sub.2, including styrene, .alpha.-methylstyrene, acrylates and acrylonitrile, which have as high dissolving power against the coatings formed by the above prior art methods, the coatings may be partly or completely dissolved away. Consequently, it becomes impossible to prevent the deposition of polymer scale effectively. Particularly, among the monomers, styrene, .alpha.-methylstyrene, acrylates and acrylonitrile have extremely strong dissolving power; therefore effects of preventing polymer scale can not be attained as desired. Besides, particularly where a polymerization vessel made of stainless steel is used, polymer scale is liable to deposit on the inner wall surfaces of the polymerization vessel.

Method of preventing polymer scale deposition


A monaural hearing device includes: a first housing accommodating a first near-field magnetic induction communication unit and a first magnetic field antenna connected to the first near-field magnetic induction communication unit, wherein the first housing is configured for placement behind an ear of a user of the monaural hearing device; and a second housing accommodating a second near-field magnetic induction communication unit and a second magnetic field antenna connected to the second near-field magnetic induction communication unit; wherein the first and second near-field magnetic induction communication units connected to the first and second magnetic field antennas, respectively, are configured to perform near-field wireless data communication with each other.

BTE (behind-the-ear) hearings aids are well-known in the art. A BTE hearing aid has a BTE housing that is shaped to be worn behind a pinna of an ear of a user. The BTE housing accommodates components for hearing loss compensation. A sound signal transmission member, i.e. a sound tube or an electrical cable, transmits a signal representing the hearing loss compensated sound from the BTE housing into the ear canal of the user.
The output transducer may be a receiver positioned in an ear canal of the user of the hearing aid, a so-called Receiver-In-the-Ear. In the following, a hearing aid with a Receiver-In-the-Ear is denoted a RIE hearing aid.
In the RIE hearing aid, the sound signal transmission member comprises electrical conductors for propagation of hearing loss compensated audio sound signals from the hearing aid circuitry in the BTE hearing aid housing through the conductors to the receiver positioned in the ear canal of the user for emission of sound towards the eardrum of the user.
In order to position the receiver securely and comfortably in the ear canal of the user, an in-the-ear housing, earpiece, shell, or earmould may be provided for insertion into the ear canal of the user.
In the following, the terms in-the-ear housing, earpiece, shell, and earmould are used interchangeably.
Monaural head-sets that do not perform hearing loss compensation, but otherwise resemble the RIE hearing aids by having a BTE housing and an in-the-ear housing, are also well-known in the art.
Auxiliary devices that can be mounted to hearing aids for interfacing the hearing aids to external devices are also well-known in the art. Examples of such external devices include TVs, radios, mobile phones, digital audio players, streaming devices, programming devices, test devices, etc. Clearly, the physical connection used for such an auxiliary device must be very small. Some hearing aids use three small golden contact points on the underside of the BTE housing just above the battery door; other hearing aids have a proprietary set of contacts for connection with the auxiliary device. One known connector uses five contacts and may be used to interface to the hearing aid. The auxiliary device with the circuitry required to provide the desired interface to the hearing aid typically has a "piggy-back" housing and is typically referred to as a "boot", an "audio boot", or an "audio shoe". The housing of the auxiliary device may fit around the end of the BTE housing and may be detachably connected to the connector of the BTE housing, e.g. with a snap-fit coupling. The auxiliary device, e.g. the audio shoe, provides an audio signal that is forwarded to the hearing aid's Direct Audio Interface (DAI).
The various connectors for interfacing components and circuitry of the hearing aid, add to the size and cost of the hearing aid. Some hearing aid housings are so small that they do not have room for a connector so that an audio boot cannot be offered for such a hearing aid.
Thus, users who might benefit from further listening options have to select a monaural hearing device that supports auxiliary devices, such as audio boots.

Monaural hearing device with parts that are interconnected utilizing near-field wireless communication


A system and method are directed to determining light illumination in a graphical environment. One or more light sources are illuminating a surface. The surface is divided into one or more cells. The orientation of each cell is determined and saved in an orientation field. A multidimensional light map value is derived and associated with the surface. The multidimensional light map value defines the combined illumination of the one or more light sources on the surface, and may optionally be a vector. At least one cell to be drawn is determined. For each cell to be drawn, an illumination value associated with that cell to be drawn is determined. The illumination value is based on the orientation field and the multidimensional light map value. The illumination value may be the dot product of the orientation field and the multidimensional light map value.

It has long been the goal of the computer arts to create compelling visual images through computer graphics. While these visual images may represent real or imaginary things, they still require that certain aspects be presented with high realism. This requirement is especially true for optics. Humans rely on light to perceive the world around them. Variations in light due to various optical interactions are decoded by our brains into information about the nature, position shape and relationship between objects in the world. For this reason, any representation in computer graphics whether realistic or fantastic requires a certain amount of optical realism in order to be properly evaluated by the human brain.
Since we live in and perceive a three dimensional world, three dimensional computer graphics are usually more compelling. Three dimensional images may be simulated on a two dimensional screen by using various "tricks" known in the visual arts. In addition, "true" three dimensional images may also be displayed by providing two slightly different images to the viewer's eyes. Regardless of how the third dimension is realized, accurate and realistic optical effects are desirable for creating three-dimensional images.
It has also been the goal of the computer arts to create dynamic or real time computer generated graphics. That is, to create images that change in real time, preferably as a result of user input. Such graphics can be used in a variety of applications, such as, computer games, flight simulators, driving simulators, and the related training applications, virtual reality software, etc. Dynamic graphics usually require that a computer calculate the nature and positions of various objects and determine how to graphically represent these objects in real time. As a result, dynamic graphics require a considerable amount of processing power. In order to alleviate this need, preprocessing is often used.
Preprocessing refers to performing various processing actions for creating an image, at a time prior to the time when the image is to be created and when more processing resources are available. However, not all processing actions for creating an image may be performed at the preprocessing stage. In dynamic environments, some information about the placement of objects or the lighting may not be known until the time when the image is to be created. Therefore, the actions to be performed during preprocessing should be carefully selected as to use the limited information available at this stage in order to ease the processing requirements when the image is being drawn.
One known way of creating dynamic three dimensional graphics is the use of polygons. Three dimensional shapes are represented by one or more polygons. There are existing software packages that draw and manipulate predefined polygons. The performance of these packages is usually related to the number of polygons that are to be drawn. Shapes that have a high surface detail present a significant difficulty, as they may require a large number of polygons.
A known way to deal with this problem is to use a two dimensional picture that approximates the three dimensional qualities of the object. Thus, for example, a brick on a wall, may be represented by a two dimensional picture of a brick. While a brick does have three dimensional aspects, especially around the edges, these may not be kept track of by the computer. Instead, the two dimensional picture is drawn in such a way that it shows the three dimensional aspects. This method is especially useful when many identical elements are present. Such is the case, for example, when several hundred identical bricks are to be drawn on a wall.
However, a two dimensional picture does not always provide a good representation of the three dimensional brick. Three dimensional objects look different when viewed from different angles, and these differences cannot be represented by a single unchanging two dimensional picture. Furthermore, light reflects differently from a surface depending upon the surface's angle in relation to the angle of illumination. This information cannot be encoded in a fixed predefined two dimensional picture, because the angle of illumination is not usually known at the time the picture is created. This is especially true for light sources which are positioned dynamically, i.e., while a computer graphics application is running.
Environments that include a plurality of light sources are especially difficult to simulate in computer graphics. This difficulty is magnified if the simulation must be done in real-time. That is the case because the combined effect of multiple light sources on particular surface depends on many factors, including the location of the surface, the orientation of the surface, and the location and intensity of each light source. Furthermore, these relationships cannot be easily simplified. For example, it is difficult to combine the effects of the multiple light sources into a single representative light source, which can be used for all surfaces, because the combined effects of multiple light sources differ greatly depending on the spatial relationship between the surface and the light sources.

System and method for displaying the effects of light illumination on a surface