This invention discloses systems and methods for detecting vulnerabilities in IT assets by utilizing crowdsourcing techniques. A corpus containing vulnerability data of IT assets with known vulnerabilities is established. Vulnerability data in the corpus comprises security aspects or attributes related to the IT assets. The security aspects of an IT asset constitute its attack surface which is represented as a feature vector in a feature space. A determination is made as to how similar/close a target asset whose unknown vulnerabilities are to be detected, is to the rest of the IT assets in the corpus. This determination is made based on a measure of similarity/distance between the respective feature vectors in the feature space. Based on the review of similarity results by a community of researchers/experts, a determination of unknown vulnerabilities in the target system is made.

The detection of IT vulnerabilities and IT security remains an area of active interest among government agencies, and private sector entities, both large and small, private or public. The news of vulnerability exploits, and hacking of IT assets is a familiar phenomenon to most business professionals in today's interconnected world. Unsurprisingly, a lot of attention and focus has been devoted by many organizations and academic institutions in developing platforms, tools and ideas that can detect vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in an organization's IT infrastructure.
A timely detection of the vulnerabilities/bugs in an IT infrastructure is essential for their proper and timely remedy/fix. As a consequence of timely fixes of these vulnerabilities, their exploitation by adversaries can be prevented. Otherwise, such exploitation can have catastrophic consequences for the respective businesses, organizations and/or their customers/partners.
There are many ways of detecting and addressing vulnerabilities in IT assets in the prior art. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2007/0067848 A1 to Gustave discloses security vulnerability information aggregation techniques in which vulnerability information associated with one or more security vulnerabilities is obtained from multiple sources and aggregated into respective unified vulnerability definitions. Aggregation may involve format conversion, content aggregation, or both. The definitions may be distributed to vulnerability information consumers in accordance with consumer-specific policies. Storage of vulnerability information received from the sources could allow the aggregation process to be performed on existing vulnerability information retroactively.
NPL reference "Using Crowdsourcing for Collecting Information about Security Vulnerabilities" by Infosec Institute, dated 2013 explores the possibilities for using crowdsourcing for collecting information about security vulnerabilities, such as software bugs. In particular, the article discusses online competitions in which participants try to find out security vulnerabilities in software applications, collecting information about security from consumers and collection information about security vulnerabilities from the web.
NPL reference "Security Trend Analysis with CVE Topic Models" by Neuhaus, dated 2009 explores the vulnerability reports in the Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE) database by using topic models on their description texts to find prevalent vulnerability types and new trends semi-automatically. In their study of the 39,393 unique CVEs until the end of 2009, they identify the following trends, given here in the form of a weather forecast:                PHP: declining, with occasional SQL injection.        Buffer Overflows: flattening out after decline.        Format Strings: in steep decline.        SQL Injection and XSS: remaining strong, and rising.        Cross-Site Request Forgery: a sleeping giant perhaps, stirring.        Application Servers: rising steeply.
Non-Patent Literature (NPL) reference "Offensive Security Exploit Database Archive" dated Jul. 27, 2016 at website https://exploit-db.com is an exploits database. The database is an archive of exploits and is maintained by Offensive Security. According to the website, Offensive Security is an information security training company that provides various Information Security Certifications as well as high end penetration testing services. The Exploit Database is a non-profit project that is provided as a public service by Offensive Security.
A shortcoming of the prior art teachings is that they do not fully exploit the potential of a crowd and online communities in the detection of IT vulnerabilities. They fail to teach how to detect vulnerabilities in a target asset or system that is one of several IT assets or systems belonging to various organizations. They are also silent about establishing attack surfaces for IT assets, and representing these attack surfaces as feature vectors in an attack surface vector space or a feature vector space or simply put, a feature space. They are also silent about detecting vulnerabilities in the target asset/system based on a measure of similarity between the target asset/system and a collection of other IT assets/systems with known vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability detection in IT assets by utilizing crowdsourcing techniques


A dual-mode exhaust system includes a housing with an input port attached to the existing muffler exhaust system and positioned downstream thereof. The system further includes a mechanism for selectively distributing vehicle exhaust from the input port to the first and second output ports, upper and lower chambers vertically stacked within the housing, and first and second vertically spaced pendulum arms disposed within the upper and lower chambers respectively and anchored at respective distal ends thereof respectively. First and second vehicle exhaust pipes are coupled to the first and second output ports.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to exhaust systems and, more particularly, to a dual mode vehicle exhaust system for allowing a user to generate a desired audible sound from an existing muffler exhaust system of the vehicle.
2. Prior Art
There was a time when America's auto makers competed to offer consumers the biggest tail fins, the most powerful engines, the latest in bucket seats and vinyl roofs. Many car models, referred to as muscle cars, produced a distinctive engine sound that conveyed a sense of power waiting to be unleashed. Today, however, emphasis is placed on producing fuel efficient, quieter cars that make very little engine noise. Many motorists, however, especially car aficionados, regardless of what kind of car they buy, want a car that communicates a distinguishing sound of controlled power, like a finely-tuned instrument. Obviously, it would be advantageous to provide a means for allowing motorists to select an exhaust pipe that produces a quiet, muffled sound or a distinctive and powerful sound.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,342,194 to Paddock discloses an electric air control switching valve for use in controlling the delivery of secondary air from an engine driven air pump selectively. The valve functions with both engine operation and the operation of its associated emission control system, with either the exhaust manifold of an engine, preferably at a location closely adjacent to the exhaust ports of the engine. The valve further functions during low temperature engine operation, to the atmosphere, as at the dirty side of the air cleaner associated with the induction system of the engine. During low temperature engine deceleration, to a converter in the exhaust system for the engine downstream of the exhaust manifold during normal engine operation, or again to the atmosphere, as at the dirty side of the air cleaner, when the converter temperature exceeds a predetermined temperature. Unfortunately, this prior art example does not enable a user to determine what type of sound is emitted from a vehicle exhaust system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,408 to Lawrence discloses an exhaust system for vehicles and other devices with internal combustion engines such as boats, airplanes, lawnmowers, tractors, and the like. The system includes a sound attenuating chamber with a single, common opening in an imperforate container providing access for exhaust gases both to and from the container while attenuating the exhaust sound thereof. The system maintains low back pressure during operation. Resonator tubes and optional sound absorbing material may be used in the chamber to control exhaust sounds. An optional, remote-operated, sound control valve upstream of the chamber allows individualized control of the exhaust sound by the vehicle driver. An optional baffle in the exhaust outlet and/or an optional helical insert in the exhaust pipe further deadens the sound. In a preferred form, the system is attached downstream of a catalytic converter and includes dual sound attenuating chambers and dual exhaust outlets at the opposite vehicle sides between the front and rear wheels. Unfortunately, this prior art example does not enable a user to determine what type of sound is emitted from a vehicle exhaust system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,202,409 to Taylor discloses an acoustical system with a sound-producing transducer mounted in the exhaust pipe of the engine, at proximity of the exhaust port and oriented toward the exhaust port, for emitting and directing a sound pulse toward the exhaust port. The sound-producing transducer is operable for bouncing a first sound pulse off the piston wall during the expansion cycle and immediately before opening the exhaust port, for creating a low pressure zone at the exhaust port and for enhancing the evacuation of exhaust gases from the combustion chamber. A second sound pulse is emitted at every compression cycle of the engine and directed at the exhaust port immediately before closing the exhaust port. The combination of the first and second sound pulses at every rotation of the engine provides an efficient scavenging and plugging of the engine for increasing the performance of the engine. Unfortunately, this prior art example does not enable a user to determine what type of sound is emitted from a vehicle exhaust system.
Accordingly, the present invention is disclosed in order to overcome the above noted shortcomings. The present invention satisfies such a need by providing a system that is convenient and easy to use, lightweight yet durable in design, and designed for allowing a user to generate a desired audible sound from an existing muffler exhaust system of the vehicle. The system is rust resistant, heat resistant, and allows a user to adapt a vehicle exhaust system to allow motorists to select the type of exhaust sound produced by a vehicle. The pipe that produces a relative quiet sound is advantageously used in restricted noise areas or residential areas and the loud exhaust pipe is used when the driver wants to produce a powerful resonating sound that sounds like a muscle car or an expensive sports car. The pipe selected and type of noise produced is determined by the switch position selected by the driver. The present invention is simple to use, inexpensive, and designed for many years of repeated use.

Dual mode vehicle exhaust system and associated method


A singulation method comprising: (a) providing a molded product including semiconductor chips attached and electrically coupled to an upper surface of a lead frame wherein a lower surface of the lead frame is exposed from the bottom of the molded product, the lead frame including a plurality of units in an array arrangement and cutting streets between the units, each unit having a die pad and leads arranged at the periphery of the die pad, a first metal layer formed on the entire lower surface of the lead frame except the cutting streets; (b) etching the lower surface of the lead frame with the first metal layer as mask such that the cutting streets are etched away to form a plurality of grooves; and (c) cutting the etched molded product along the grooves to obtain the leadless semiconductor packages.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process for making leadless semiconductor packages and more specifically to a singulation method used in the leadless packaging process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Lead frame packages have been used for a long period of time in the IC packaging history mainly because of their low manufacturing cost and high reliability. However, as integrated circuits products move its endless pace toward both a faster speed and a smaller size, the traditional lead frame packages have become gradually obsolete for some high performance-required packages. Thus BGA (Ball Grid Array Packages) and CSP (Chip Scale Package) have emerged and become increasingly popular as a new packaging choice. The former has been widely used in IC chips that have higher I/Os and need better electrical and thermal performance than the conventional packages such as CPU and graphic chips. The latter has been widely used in mobile products of which the footprint, package profile and package weight are major concerns.
However, the lead frame package still remains its market share as a cost-effective solution for low I/O ICs. Traditional lead frame package has its limit of providing a solution for chip scale and low profile package due to the long inner leads and outer leads. Therefore, the semiconductor packaging industry develops a leadless package without outer leads such that both the foot print and the package profile can be greatly reduced. FIG. 1 shows a bottom view of a leadless package 10 wherein the leads 11 a are disposed at the bottom of the package as compared to the conventional gull-wing or J-leaded type package. The die pad 11b of the leadless package 10 is exposed from the bottom of the package thereby providing better heat dissipation. Typically, there are four tie bars 11c being connected to the die pad 11b.
Due to the elimination of the outer leads, leadless packages are featured by lower profile and light weight. Furthermore, due to the lead length reduction, the corresponding reduction in the resistance, conductance and capacitance make the leadless package 10 very suitable for RF (radio-frequency) product packages operating in several GHz to tens of GHz frequency range. It""s also a cost-effective package due to its use of existing BOM (bill of materials). All the above-mentioned properties make the current leadless packages very suitable for telecommunication products such as cellular phones, portable products such as PDA (personal digital assistant), digital cameras, and IA (Information Appliance).
The conventional leadless packaging process comprises the following steps.
Firstly, a polyimide (PI) tape was attached to the bottom of a lead frame, and this is to prevent the mold flash problem in the molding process. Typically, a lead frame (denoted as 15 in FIG. 2) for used in the MAP (mold array package) molding process comprises a plurality of units 11 each including a plurality of leads 11a arranged at the periphery of a die pad 11b. Each die pad 11b is connected to the lead frame 15 by four tie bars 11c.
Then, referring to FIG. 3, IC chips 12 are attached to the die pads 11b by means of silver epoxy, and the epoxy is cured after die attach. After that, a regular wire-bonding process is performed to make interconnections between the silicon chips 12 and the leads 11a of the lead frame 15. After wire bonding, the lead frame 15 and the chips 12 attached thereon are encapsulated in a package body 13. Typically. a MAP molding process was used to accomplish this encapsulation. The PI tape is then removed after the molding process. The molded product is then marked with either laser or traditional ink. Finally, post-mold curing and singulation steps were conducted to complete the packaging process. In the singulation process, a resin-bond saw blade is used to cut the molded product into separate units along predetermined dicing lines to obtain the finished leadless semiconductor packages. Typically, the leadless semiconductor package 10 is mounted onto a substrate, such as a printed circuit board (PC board), by using conventional surface mount technology (SMT).
One major problem during the manufacturing of the package occurred in the singulation process. Since the saw blade has to cut through two different materials, i.e., the metal leadframe as well as the molding compound. Cutting through two different materials not only results in shorter blade life, but also creates lead quality problems such as metal burrs created at the lead cutting ends 14 of the leads 11a, which will introduce unsatisfactory coplanarity of the finished packages, thereby complicating and reducing the yield of the later SMT mounting process.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a singulation method used in a leadless packaging process wherein the lifetime of the blade used in the singulation operation is significantly increased by avoiding direct cutting of the lead frame.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a singulation method used in a leadless packaging process wherein no metal burrs will be created during singulation such, that the finished leadless semiconductor packages will have a better coplanarity.
In order to achieve the object mentioned above, the present invention provides a singulation method comprising: (a) providing a molded product including a plurality of semiconductor chips attached and electrically coupled to an upper surface of a lead frame wherein a lower surface of the lead frame is exposed from the bottom of the molded product, the lead frame including a plurality of units in an array arrangement and a plurality of cutting streets between the units, each unit having a die pad and a plurality of leads arranged at the periphery of the die pad, a first metal layer formed on the entire lower surface of the lead frame except the cutting streets; (b) etching the lower surface of the lead frame with the first metal layer as mask such that the cutting streets are etched away to form a plurality of grooves; and (c) cutting the etched molded product along the grooves to obtain the leadless semiconductor packages.
Since the cutting streets of the lead frame are etched away during step (b), the lifetime of the blade is significantly increased by avoiding direct cutting of the cutting streets of the lead frame. Furthermore, since no metal burrs will be created when the blade cuts through the molded product, the finished leadless semiconductor packages will have a good coplanarity thereby enhancing the yield of the SMT mounting process.
The present invention further provides a process for making a plurality of leadless semiconductor packages. The process comprises the steps of: (a) providing a lead frame having opposing upper and lower surfaces, the lead frame including a plurality of units in an array arrangement and a plurality of cutting streets between the units, each unit having a die pad and a plurality of leads arranged at the periphery of the die pad, a first metal layer formed on the entire lower surface of the lead frame except the cutting streets; (b) attaching a plurality of chips onto the die pad of the lead frame; (c) electrically coupling the chips to the leads of the lead frame; (d) attaching a tape onto the lower surface of the lead frame; (e) encapsulating the chips against the upper surface of the lead frame to form a molded product; (f) removing the tape from the bottom of the molded product; (g) etching the bottom of the molded product with the first metal layer as mask; and (h) cutting the etched molded product along the cutting streets to obtain the leadless semiconductor packages. Preferably, each of the leads is half-etched at its lower surface to form an indentation at a location adjacent to the cutting street. During the step (e), the molding compound will fill in the indentations thereby helping to reduce the xe2x80x9cundercutxe2x80x9d problem occurred in the isotropic etching process.

Singulation method used in leadless packaging process

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc.


A ball collection apparatus constituted of: a control circuitry; a body; motors; wheels arranged to rotate responsive to the motors, the body arranged to move along a surface responsive to the rotation of the plurality of wheels; a collection compartment arranged to maintain a ball within a predetermined area in relation to the body; a ball input port in communication with the collection compartment; and a ball ejector arranged to eject the ball from the collection compartment, wherein the control circuitry is arranged to: receive information regarding the location of the ball; responsive to the received information, control the at least one motor to advance the body towards the location of the ball, the collection compartment arranged to collect the ball through the ball input port; and control the ball ejector to eject the ball from the collection compartment and propel the ejected ball towards a predetermined target area.

This invention relates in general to the need of collecting balls scattered around a large size court in a ball game or practice. One particular, non-limiting example of such a ball game is tennis—for which the following description and embodiments will relate to in details, but this invention is relevant and includes also other sports involving balls scattered around during a game or practice.
Tennis in particular is a leading example of a sport involving a large size court, wherein a large number of balls become scattered around the court during the game or practice. The problem of tennis ball scattered around the court can be divided into two distinct scenarios: during a tennis game, where few balls are scattered about the court and during tennis practice, where a large number of tennis balls may be scattered about the court.
In both scenarios, there is a need to collect the balls automatically: firstly since the balls interfere with the course of the game or practice, and can even cause injuries if stumbled upon; and secondly since in the absence of automated ball retrieval the game or practice must be stopped when the available stock of balls is exhausted. This especially problematic during the game, where an average of only 3-6 balls are in use by the players.
The prior art does not provide a solution for the problem of collecting the scattered balls during the game. Rather, the prior art demonstrates a number of solutions for collecting the balls during a break in practice, typically caused by exhaustion of the available stock of balls. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,533 issued Mar. 7, 1978 to Meyer, the entire contents of which are in incorporated herein by reference, is addressed to a tennis ball retrieving device which utilizes a rotary drum for retrieving balls. U.S. Patent Application Publication S/N 2016/0243970 published Aug. 25, 2016 to Eletrabi, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, is addressed to a dual function robot and storage bin teaches a means for automatically finding and collecting balls, however such a device is intrusive and requires a significant amount of time to collect the balls and return same to the players which makes it suitable only for collecting large amount of balls after a practice session and is not intended and not practical for use during the game.
German Patent Application Publication S/N DE102015005825A1 published Nov. 10, 2016, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, attempts to solve the problem of retrieving balls to the players during the game. Unfortunately, the method taught takes a lot of time to retrieve each ball, it doesn't solve the problem of retrieving a few scattered balls during the game and it involves robot/s that moves along the court lines during the game which will disturb many of the players. Thus, this solution is not practical for this problem.
Thus there is a long felt need for a fast, small and affordable solution for retrieval and return of the balls to the players during a tennis game without interfering in the course of the game.


A multicell transistor for use in a circuit has an input ground plane for an input waveguide and an output ground plane for an output waveguide. The multicell transistor includes a gate electrode coupled to the input waveguide, a drain electrode coupled to the output waveguide, and a source electrode coupled to the input ground plane. An output ground strap spaced from the drain electrode couples the output ground plane to the source electrode. A pair of transmission lines are orthogonally connected to and extend from the gate electrode to form a pair of inductors for matching the impedances of the gate electrode and the input waveguide.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) and, more particularly, to high power multicell transistor configurations therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ground potential continuity in flip-chip monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) having multicell transistors is critical for preventing the excitation of undesirable slot line modes, which may lead to signal attenuation and degradation. Attempts to achieve ground potential continuity in prior multicell transistor configurations have, however, been unsatisfactory and/or deficient. As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional multicell transistor configuration 10 (each cell being a separate field effect transistor) includes multiple ground straps or bridges 12 for coupling a source interconnect electrode 14 to a pair of ground planes 16 associated with an input coplanar waveguide (CPW) 18. An additional bridge 20 may span an input transmission line 22 of the input CPW 18 to connect the input ground planes 16. Similarly, yet an additional bridge 24 may span an output transmission line 26 of an output CPW 28 to couple a pair of ground planes 30 associated therewith.
Although the ground potential is equalized to a certain extent by the bridges 12, 20, and 24, the conventional multicell transistor 10 does not provide a suitable connection between the input ground planes 16 and the output ground planes 30. Ground potential continuity between the input and output ground planes 16 and 30 may, therefore, be problematic. Furthermore, the ground path (i.e., between the input and output ground planes 16 and 30) is longer than the RF signal path travelling directly through the multicell transistor 10. As a result, an undesirable inductance is effectively added in series with the multicell transistor 10 at microwave frequencies. Still further, the effective signal path for a transistor cell in the center of the multicell transistor 10 differs from that of a transistor cell near the edge of the multicell transistor 10, thereby decreasing or limiting the power combining efficiency of the multicell transistor 10.
The conventional multicell transistor configuration 10 is also undesirable because the fabrication of each bridge 12, 20, and 24 results in a reduction in the thickness of the transmission line over which the bridge crosses. This reduction is particularly critical for the transmission line 26, which typically carries large DC currents. The resulting high DC current density may lead to undesirable electromigration in the transmission line 26.
Attempts to design around the electromigration problem have led to unfavorable consequences. One approach involves widening the transmission line 26 at the crossover point, which modifies the characteristic impedance of the transmission line unless the slot width (shown in FIG. 1 as "w") is increased accordingly. However, the increased slot width renders the multicell transistor more susceptible to loading effects from the substrate of the flip chip module. Alternatively, simply increasing the thickness of the metal layers universally is also undesirable because it requires drastic and potentially unworkable modifications to the fabrication process and overall MMIC design.
The conventional multicell transistor 10 shown in FIG. 1 is still further undesirable because of the configuration of a pair of transmission lines 32 connected to a gate feed electrode 34 for matching the impedances of the input CPW 18 and the gate feed electrode 34. Such a multicell transistor is then said to be prematched, and the power supplied to the gate feed electrode 34 is maximized. The pair of transmission lines 32 have typically been configured to be inductive at microwave frequencies due to the capacitive nature of the gate feed electrode 34. To this end, each transmission line 32 includes a first section 36 extending from the gate feed electrode 34 and a second section 38 orthogonally connected thereto. Each transmission line 32 further includes a third section 40 having one end orthogonally connected to the second section 38 and another end coupled to a respective metal layer 42 spaced from the input ground plane 16 to form a capacitor. Additional bridges 44 couple the input ground planes 16 to exterior ground planes 45 at each of the orthogonal connections to prevent the formation of undesirable slot line modes.
At microwave frequencies, the respective lengths of the sections 36, 38, and 40 provide the inductance necessary for matching the impedances. The capacitors formed by the metal layers 42 and the input ground planes 16 then provide a short to ground for only the higher (i.e., microwave) frequencies.
As shown in FIG. 1, however, the first section 36 of each transmission line 32 extends outwardly from the gate feed electrode 34. As a result, the conventional multicell transistor 10 matches the impedances at the expense of an increase in the overall width of the multicell transistor 10. The increased overall width, in turn, limits the number of transistors that can be placed in a parallel array on the MMIC chip and, therefore, limits the power of the device fabricated therefrom.

High power prematched MMIC transistor with improved ground potential continuity


A front end module comprises a diplexer, a first duplexer, and a second duplexer. The first duplexer is connected to the diplexer through a first high frequency switch and separates transmission signals and reception signals of the N-CDMA from each other. The second duplexer is connected to the diplexer through a second high frequency switch and separates transmission signals and reception signals of the W-CDMA from each other. Each of the duplexers includes acoustic wave elements. A single multi-layer substrate for integration is used to integrate the components of the front end module. The diplexer is made up of a conductor layer located inside or on the surface of the multi-layer substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a front end module for processing transmission signals and reception signals in a communications device such as a cellular phone.
2. Description of the Related Art
Third-generation cellular phones have been introduced and it is getting required that such phones have not only the speech function but also the high-speed data communications function. Therefore, in various countries, adoption of a variety of multiplexing systems for achieving high-speed data communications is considered. In the current situation, however, it is difficult to unify the multiplexing systems. Consequently, it is required that the cellular phones be provided for multiple modes (systems) and multiple bands.
In Europe, for example, dual-band cellular phones operable under the global system for mobile communications (GSM) and the digital cellular system (DCS) have been used in the entire region. Each of the GSM and the DCS is a time division multiple access system. In Europe, as the third-generation cellular phones, it is expected that dual-mode, triple-band cellular phones are adopted, which are operable under the wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) capable of implementing a high data communication speed (2 Mbps, for example), in addition to the above-mentioned two systems.
If new functions as described above are added to the cellular phones, the circuits are more complicated and the number of components increases. Higher-density mounting techniques are thus required for the cellular phones. Under such a circumstance, it is necessary to achieve a reduction in size and weight of the components and to achieve combination and integration of the components for the high frequency circuits inside the cellular phones to reduce the mounting space.
The Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Heisei 11-225088 (1999) discloses a high frequency switch module for the dual-band cellular phones operable in the GSM and the DCS. This high frequency switch module separates the frequency band corresponding to the GSM and the frequency band corresponding to the DCS from each other through the use of a branching circuit, and separates transmission signals and reception signals in each of the frequency bands from each other through the use of two high frequency switches.
The Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application 2002-43977 discloses a high frequency module for processing transmission signals and reception signals of each of three communications systems using three frequency bands. This high frequency module separates a low frequency band from a high frequency band through the use of a diplexer. The high frequency band includes the two frequency bands of the first and second communications systems. The low frequency band includes the frequency band of the third communications system. A first high frequency switch separates the reception signals of the first and second communications systems from the transmission signals of the first and second communications systems. A second high frequency switch separates the transmission signals and the reception signals of the third communications system from each other. Two SAW filters separate the reception signals of the first communications system from the reception signals of the second communications system. In addition, the Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application 2002-43977 discloses that the components of the high frequency module are integrated through the use of a layered structure made up of a plurality of stacked sheet layers.
According to the high frequency switch module disclosed in the Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Heisei 11-225088, the high frequency switches are used to separate the transmission signals and the reception signals in each of the frequency bands from each other. According to the high frequency module disclosed in the Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application 2002-43977, the high frequency switches are used to separate the transmission signals and the reception signals from each other, too. Therefore, the high frequency switch modules disclosed in those publications have a problem that they are not operable in the CDMA.
In the Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application 2002-43977 the duplexers including two SAW filters for separating the reception signals of two communications systems are called SAW duplexers. However, duplexers generally mean those for separating transmission signals and reception signals from each other. In the embodiments of the invention those for separating transmission signals and reception signals from each other are called duplexers, too. Therefore, the SAW duplexers disclosed in the Published Unexamined Japanese Patent Application 2002-43977 are different from the duplexers of the embodiments of the present invention, in terms of function.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


Indole and indole-related compounds, compositions and methods are disclosed. The compounds of the invention are useful as phospholipase inhibitors. The compounds and compositions of the invention are useful for treatment of phospholipase-related conditions, such as insulin-related, weight-related and/or cholesterol-related conditions in an animal subject.

Phospholipases are a group of enzymes that play important roles in a number of biochemical processes, including regulation of membrane fluidity and stability, digestion and metabolism of phospholipids, and production of intracellular messengers involved in inflammatory pathways, hemodynamic regulation and other cellular processes. Phospholipases are themselves regulated by a number of mechanisms, including selective phosphorylation, pH, and intracellular calcium levels. Phospholipase activities can be modulated to regulate their related biochemical processes, and a number of phospholipase inhibitors have been developed.
A large number of phospholipase-A2 (PLA2 or PLA2) inhibitors are known in the art. PLA2 inhibiting moieties include, for example, small molecule inhibitors as well as phospholipid analog and transition state analog compounds. Many such small-molecule inhibitors were developed, for example, for indications related to inflammatory states. A non-exhaustive, exemplification of known phospholipase-A2 inhibitors include the following classes: Alkynoylbenzoic, -Thiophenecarboxylic, -Furancarboxylic, and -Pyridinecarboxylic acids (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,067); Amide carboxylate derivatives (e.g. see WO9108737); Aminoacid esters and amide derivatives (e.g. see WO2002008189); Aminotetrazoles (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,968,963); Aryoxyacle thiazoles (e.g. see WO00034254); Azetidinones (e.g. see WO9702242); Benzenesulfonic acid derivatives (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,470,882); Benzoic acid derivatives (e.g. see JP08325154); Benzothiaphenes (e.g. see WO02000641); Benzyl alcohols (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,124,334); Benzyl phenyl pyrimidines (e.g. see WO00027824); Benzylamines (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,039,706); Cinammic acid compounds (e.g. see JP07252187); Cinnamic acid derivatives (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,639); Cycloheptaindoles (e.g. see WO03016277); Ethaneamine-benzenes; Imidazolidinones, Thiazoldinones and Pyrrolidinones (e.g. see WO03031414); Indole glyoxamides (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,326); Indole glyoxamides (e.g. see WO9956752); Indoles (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 6,630,496 and WO9943672; Indoly (e.g. see WO003048122); Indoly containing sulfonamides; N-cyl-N-cinnamoylethylenediamine derivatives (e.g. see WO9603371); Naphyl acateamides (e.g. see EP77927); N-substituted glycines (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,298,652); Phosopholipid analogs (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,144,045 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,495,596); Piperazines (e.g. see WO03048139); Pyridones and Pyrimidones (e.g. see WO03086400); 6-carbamoylpicolinic acid derivatives (e.g. see JP07224038); Steroids and their cyclic hydrocarbon analogs with amino-containing sidechains (e.g. see WO8702367); Trifluorobutanones (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 6,350,892 and US2002068722); Abietic derivatives (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,813); Benzyl phosphinate esters (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 5,504,073).
Pancreatic phospholipase A2 IB (PLA2 IB) is thought to play a role in phospholipid digestion and processing. For example, PLA2 IB is an enzyme having activity for catabolizing phosphatidylcholine (PC) to form lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) and free fatty acid (FFA) as reaction products. It has been reported that biliary phospholipids retard cholesterol uptake in the intestinal mucosa and that lypolysis of PC is a prerequisite for cholesterol absorption. (Rampone, A. J. and L. W. Long (1977). "The effect of phosphatidylcholine and Iysophosphatidylcholine on the absorption and mucosal metabolism of oleic acid and cholesterol in vitro." Biochim Biophys Acta 486(3): 500-10. Rampone, A. J. and C. M. Machida (1981). "Mode of action of lecithin in suppressing cholesterol absorption." J Lipid Res 22(5): 744-52.) Further indication that phosphatidylcholine retards cholesterol absorption has been obtained in feeding studies in rats and man. For example, it has been reported that PLA2 IB catablolizing of PC within mixed micelles that carry cholesterol, bile acids, and triglycerides is an initial step for uptake of cholesterol into enterocytes. Mackay, K., J. R. Starr, et al. (1997). "Phosphatidylcholine Hydrolysis Is Required for Pancreatic Cholesterol Esterase- and Phospholipase A2-facilitated Cholesterol Uptake into Intestinal Caco-2 Cells." Journal of Biological Chemistry 272(20): 13380-13389. It has been reported as well that PLA2 IB activity is required for full activation of pancreatic lipase/colipase-mediated triacyl glycerol hydrolysis within phospholipid-containing vesicles, another preliminary step in the absorption of triglycerides from the GI tract. (Young, S. C. and D. Y. Hui (1999). "Pancreatic lipase/colipase-mediated triacylglycerol hydrolysis is required for cholesterol transport from lipid emulsions to intestinal cells." Biochem J 339 (Pt 3): 615-20). PLA2 IB inhibitors were shown to reduce cholesterol absorption in lymph fistula experiments in rats. (Homan, R. and B. R. Krause (1997). "Established and emerging strategies for inhibition of cholesterol absorption." Current Pharmaceutical Design 3(1): 29-44).
More recently, a study involving mice genetically engineered to be PLA2 deficient (PLA2 (−/−) mice, also referred to herein as PLA2 knock-out mice), in which the PLA2 (−/−) mice were fed with a normal chow, indicated that the cholesterol absorption efficiency and the plasma lipid level were similar to the wild-type mice PLA2 (+/+). (Richmond, B. L., A. C. Boileau, et al. (2001). "Compensatory phospholipid digestion is required for cholesterol absorption in pancreatic phospholipase A(2)-deficient mice." Gastroenterology 120(5): 1193-202). The same study also showed that in the PLA2 (−/−) group, intestinal PC was fully hydrolyzed even in the absence of pancreatic PLA2 activity. This study supports the observation that one or more other enzymes with phospholipase activity compensates for PLA2 activity in catalyzing phospholipids and facilitating cholesterol absorption. From this observation, one can further deduce that previously reported PLA2 inhibitors used to blunt cholesterol absorption (See, e.g., WO 96/01253 of Homan et al.) are probably non-selective (non-specific) to PLA2; that is, these inhibitors are apparently also interfering with phospholipases other than PLA2 (e.g., phospholipase B) to prevent such other enzymes for compensating for the lack of PLA2 activity. Accordingly, one can conclude that PLA2 inhibition, while necessary for reducing cholesterol absorption, is not itself sufficient to reduce cholesterol absorption in mice fed with a normal chow diet.
Further studies using PLA2 knockout mice reported a beneficial impact on diet-induced obesity and obesity-related insulin resistance in mice on a high-fat and high-cholesterol diet. (Huggins, Boileau et al. 2002). Significantly, and consistent with the earlier work of (Richmond, Boileau et al. 2001), no difference in weight gain was observed between the wild-type and PLA2 (−/−) mice maintained on a normal chow diet. However, compared to wild-type PLA2 (+/+) mice, the PLA2 (−/−) mice on high-fat/high-cholesterol diet were reported to have: reduced body weight gain over a sixteen week period, with the observed weight difference being due to increased adiposity in the wild-type mice; substantially lower fasting plasma leptin concentrations; improved glucose tolerance; and improved protection against high-fat-diet induced insulin resistance. However, it was reported that no significant differences were observed between the wild-type PLA2 (+/+) mice and the PLA2 (−/−) mice on high-fat/high-cholesterol diet with respect to plasma concentrations of free-fatty acids, cholesterol and triglycerides. Although there was evidence of increased lipid content in the stools of the PLA2 (−/−) mice, the effect did not produce overt steatorrhea, suggesting only a slight reduction in fat absorption.
Diabetes affects 18.2 million people in the Unites States, representing over 6% of the population. Diabetes is characterized by the inability to produce or properly use insulin. Diabetes type 2 (also called non-insulin-dependent diabetes or NIDDM) accounts for 80-90% of the diagnosed cases of diabetes and is caused by insulin resistance. Insulin resistance in diabetes type 2 prevents maintenance of blood glucose within desirable ranges, despite normal to elevated plasma levels of insulin.
Obesity is a major contributor to diabetes type 2, as well as other illnesses including coronary heart disease, osteoarthritis, respiratory problems, and certain cancers. Despite attempts to control weight gain, obesity remains a serious health concern in the United States and other industrialized countries. Indeed, over 60% of adults in the United States are considered overweight, with about 22% of these being classified as obese.
Diet also contributes to elevated plasma levels of cholesterol, including non-HDL cholesterol, as well as other lipid-related disorders. Such lipid-related disorders, generally referred to as dislipidemia, include hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia among other indications. Non-HDL cholesterol is firmly associated with atherogenesis and its sequalea including cardiovascular diseases such as arteriosclerosis, coronary artery disease myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, and other forms of heart disease. These together rank as the most prevalent type of illness in industrialized countries. Indeed, an estimated 12 million people in the United States suffer with coronary artery disease and about 36 million require treatment for elevated cholesterol levels.
In patients with hypercholesteremia, lowering of LDL cholesterol is among the primary targets of therapy. Hydroxymethylglutaryl-coenzym A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors ("statins") are reported to be used to reduce serum LDL cholesterol levels. However, severe and sometimes fatal adverse events, including liver failure and rhabdomyolysis (muscle condition) have been reported in connection with such use of statins. More recently, ezitimibe was introduced as a cholesterol absorption inhibitor, for use alone or in combination with statins. In patients with hypertriglyceridemia, fibrates (e.g. gemfibrozil) are used to lower high serum triglyceride concentrations. However, some patients report gastrointestinal side effects when using these drugs, and when gemfibrozil is used in combination with a statin, some patients develop significant myositis. Renal and/or liver failure or dysfunction are relative contraindications to gemfibrozil use as about 60-90% of the drug is reportedly cleared by the kidney, with the balance cleared by the liver. Notably, hypertriglyceridemia can be associatively linked with hypercholesterolemia; it has been reported that patients with triglyceride levels between 400 and 1000 mg/dl can have unwanted increases in LDL cholesterol by 10-30%. In patients with high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol, nicotinic acid is used to increase serum HDL cholesterol and lower serum triglycerides. The main side effect is flushing of the skin in some patients. See generally, for example, Knopp, R H: Drug treatment of lipid disorders, New England Journal of Medicine 341:7 (1999) 498; Pasternak, R C et al: ACC/AHA/NHLBI Clinical Advisory on the use and safety of statins, Circulation 106 (2002) 1024; Grundy, S M et al: Implications of recent clinical trials for the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III Guidelines, Circulation 110 (2004) 227.
With the high prevalence of diabetes, obesity, and cholesterol-related conditions (including lipid disorders, generally), there remains a need for improved approaches to treat one or more of these conditions, including reducing unwanted side effects. Although a substantial number of studies have been directed to evaluating various phospholipase inhibitors for inflammatory-related indications, a relatively small effort has been directed to evaluating phospholipase-A2 inhibitors for efficacy in treating obesity, diabetes and cholesterol-related conditions. Notably, in this regard, particular pharmaceutical compounds effective as phospholipase-A2 inhibitors have not heretofore been identified that have a phenotypic effect approaching and/or comparable to the demonstrated beneficial effect of genetically deficient PLA2 (−/−) animals.

Multivalent indole compounds and use thereof as phospholipase-A2 inhibitors


Disclosed herein are a die package and a method of manufacturing the die package. A solder layer is formed on a lower surface of a die. The die is self-aligned and attached to a support plate using surface tension between the solder layer and a metal layer of the support plate, thus reducing attachment lead time of the die.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a die package and a method of manufacturing the die package.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the electronics industry trend is to provide products which have light, thin, short and small structures, multifunctions and high performance and can be produced at low costs. Packaging technology is one of the technologies which realizes the above-mentioned goals. Particularly, a lot of research into an SIP (system in packaging) technology based on a PCB (printed circuit board) has been actively conducted because it is a packaging technology which enhances mounting efficiency.
The SIP technology includes an SMT (surface mounting technology) which mounts dies to the surface of a PCB, and an EAD (embedded active die) technology which embeds dies in a PCB. These technologies are conducted using die attachment apparatuses.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating a method of mounting a die to a PCB using a die attachment apparatus, according to a conventional technique. Hereinafter, the die attachment apparatus and a die attachment method using the same according to the conventional technique will be explained with reference to FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, the die attachment apparatus 10 according to the conventional technique includes a die loading unit 20, a slide glass 30, visual cameras 30a and 30b and a die bonding unit 40.
The die loading unit 20 picks up each die D that has been diced from a wafer W and moves it on the slide glass 30. The die loading unit 20 includes a pickup head 22 for to loading. Here, pads P are formed on the upper surface of the die D. A die attach film (DAF) is attached to the lower surface of the die D.
The slide glass 30 allows the positions of the corners of the die D and the positions of the pads P to be recognized using the visual cameras 30a and 30b. To achieve this purpose, the slide glass 30 is made of transparent material. That is, the die D is placed on the transparent slide glass 30, so that the positions of the corners of the die D and the positions of the pads P can be determined by the visual cameras 30a and 30b.
The visual cameras 30a and 30b function to recognize the positions of the corners of the die D and the positions of the pads P in an image recognition manner. The visual cameras 30a and 30b include an upper visual camera 30a which is disposed above the slide glass 30, and a lower visual camera 30b which is disposed below the slide glass 30.
The die bonding unit 40 includes a pickup head 42 which picks up the die D and attaches the die D to a board 50. The die bonding unit 40 attaches the die D to the board 50 using the positions of the corners of the die D and the positions of the pads P which are measured by the visual cameras 30a and 30b.
However, to attach the die D to the board 50 using the die attachment apparatus according to the conventional technique, the slide glass 30 and an image recognition process using the slide glass 30 are absolutely necessary. In particular, because the process of dicing each die from the wafer W causes a dicing error, not only the positions of the corners of the die D but also the positions of the pads on the die D must be precisely measured to reduce an error in alignment. Thus, the slide glass 30 is also essential to measure both the upper surface and the lower surface of the die D using the visual cameras 30a and 30b.
In such an image recognition process using the slide glass 30, the die D is loaded and placed on the slide glass 30. Thereafter, the visual cameras 30a and 30b recognize the positions of the corners of the die D and the positions of the pads. The die bonding unit 40 subsequently picks up the die D and mounts it to the board 50. As such, the process is complex, so that processing time is increased.
Furthermore, because the die D is stuck on the slide glass 30 by the DAF attached to the lower surface of the die D, when the pickup head 42 of the die bonding unit 40 picks up the die D from off the slide glass 30, the die D may not smoothly detach itself from the slide glass 30.
In addition, when the lower visual camera 30b recognizes the positions of the corners of the die D through the slide glass 30, the recognition rate of the positions of the corners of the die D may be markedly impaired because of deterioration of the reflection rate of the DAF.
As well, the conventional die attachment apparatus is problematic in that it is expensive, the lead time per unit process is relatively long, and costs per unit process are high.

Die package and method of manufacturing the same


A liquid electrophotographic toner having a coordinated association of steric stabilizer and charge directing moiety displays improved characteristics when the charge directing moiety has a monovalent alkali metal or ammonium cation bonded thereto.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to multicolor liquid toning of electrophotographic images, and particularly to processes of liquid toner development where two or more toner images of different colors are first superimposed and then simultaneously transferred to a receptor surface.
2. Background to the Art
Early toning of electrophotographic imaging was performed with toner powders even though benefits were recognized in the use of liquid toners.
Metcalfe & Wright (U.S. Pat. No. 2,907,674) recommended the use of liquid toners for superimposed color images as opposed to the earlier dry toners. These liquid toners comprised a carrier liquid which was of high resistivity e.g., 10.sup.+9 ohm-cm or more, colorant particles dispersed in the liquid, and preferably an additive intended to enhance the charge carried by the colorant particles. Matkan (U.S. Pat. No. 3,337,340) disclosed that a first deposited toner may be sufficiently conductive to interfere with a succeeding charging step. He described the use of insulative resins (resistivity greater than 10.sup.-10 ohm-cm of low dielectric constant (less than 3.5) covering each colorant particle. York (U.S. Pat. No. 3,135,695) disclosed toner particles stably dispersed in an insulating aliphatic liquid, the toner particles comprising a charged colorant core encapsulated by a binder of an aromatic soluble resin treated with a small quantity of an aryl-alkyl material. The use of explicit dispersant additives to the toner dispersion is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,886.
The use of polyvalent metal soaps and blends thereof for improved liquid toner conductivity characteristics is disclosed by Hochberg (U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,240). The characteristics included latititude in concentration addition of the charging agents and improved density uniformity. The application was for liquid toners used in electrostatic photocopying. U.S. Pat. No. 4,707,429 described polyvalent metal soaps which are dispersed with thermoplastic resin binders for improved imaging characteristics by affecting the charge direction.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,286 liquid toner mobility was found to be increased by the addition of insoluble monomeric organic acids and this was found most advantageous for high speed copying purposes. The toner particles described were negatively charged particles. U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,789 teaches the use of a variety of carrier soluble organic acids that enhance the positive charge of toner particles.
Improvements in copier performance have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,681,243 when the liquid toner contains at least one of the groups consisting of metal dialkyldithio-phosphates, sodium alkyl-phosphates, alkyl phosphates, alkali metal-alkyl sulphates, alcohols, monocarboxylic acids, phthalic acid, alkyl phthalates, ammonia, amines, aldehydes, and styrene.
The advantages of using binders comprising organosols (sometimes described as amphipathic particles) are disclosed in patents assigned to Philip A. Hunt Chemical Corp. (U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,760, U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,412, U.S. Pat. No. 3,991,226). Amongst the advantages is a substantial improvement in the dispersion stability of the liquid toner. The organosol is sterically stabilized with a graft copolymer stabilizer, the anchoring groups for which are introduced by the esterification reaction of an epoxy (glycidyl) functional group with an ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acid. The catalyst used for the esterification is lauryldimethylamine or any tertiary amine. A similar treatment is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,557 assigned to Fuji Photo Film Co., except that they claim a longer linking chain between the main polymer and the unsaturated bond of the stabilizing moiety. The comparative examples with the Hunt toners show improved image quality found over the Hunt toners due to image spread. They ascribe the improvement to the use of the longer linking chains. In both the Hunt and the Fuji patents charge director compounds, when used, are only physically adsorbed to the toner particles.
Diameters of toner particles in liquid toners vary from a range of 2.5 to 25.0 microns in U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,412 to values in the sub-micron range in U.S. Pat. No. 4,032,463, U.S. Pat. No. 4,081,391, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,446, and are even smaller in a paper by Muller et al, "Research into the Electrokinetic Properties of Electrographic Liquid Developers", V. M. Mueller et al, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol IA-16, pages 771-776 (1980). It is stated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,032,463 that the prior art makes it clear that sizes in the range 0.1 to 0.3 microns are not preferred, because they give low image densities.
Liquid toners that provide developed images which rapidly self-fix to a smooth surface at room temperature after removal of the carrier liquid are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,480,022 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,507,377. These toner images are said to have higher adhesion to the substrate and to be less liable to crack. No disclosure is made of the use in multicolor image assemblies.
In the toners disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,760, U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,412, U.S. Pat. No. 3,991,226 (the Hunt patents), the presence of a few parts per million of a tertiary amine in the liquid toner medium produces toners with very high conductivity especially when the toner is charged with a metal soap. This causes flow of the toner during imaging which in turn degrades the image. The high conductivity is derived from the protonation of the tertiary amine groups by the unsaturated carboxylic acid groups, thus giving ionic carriers in the liquid. Another problem associated with the use of tertiary amine is the high background in the non-imaged areas which is the result of negatively charged or non-charged particles. The esterification reaction of the glycidyl groups and the carboxylic groups usually does not go to completion under the reaction conditions for making the organosol. The examples in these patents show that between 25% to 50% of the carboxylic acid groups could be esterified. In other words about 50% to 75% of the carboxylic acid still remain in the dispersion medium. During the dispersion polymerization reaction for making the latex, the unreacted unsaturated acid can copolymerize with either the core part of the particle or the stabilizer polymer or both at the same time. The tertiary amine also may become attached onto the polymer particle by hydrogen abstraction. The presence of carboxylic acid on the particle and tertiary amine in the liquid medium or on the particle would be expected to result in the formation of carboxylic anions on the particle which is a good source for a negative charge.
These problems have been eliminated from our toner through the use of a suitable catalyst other than tertiary amines or the use of other anchoring adducts that can be catalyzed with catalysts other than tertiary amines.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,557 draws attention to the poor performance of the prior art (Hunt) toners and relates it to the number of carbon atoms in the linking chain. We have found that the use of a tertiary amine catalyst for attaching an unsaturated group to the main chain of the stabilizing resin via linking groups is the main reason for the poor performance of Hunt's liquid developers. It is believed therefore that the liquid developers of U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,557 showed better quality images compared with Hunt's because they do not use a tertiary amine catalyst, rather than the claimed use of long linking groups. However, that patent failed to disclose anything related to the present invention. Toners according to the present invention are superior to the toners of U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,557 for these reasons:
a) The prior art patent uses zirconium naphthenate as the charge director for their liquid toners. The metal cation is physically adsorbed onto the dispersed particles. This method usually results in a charge decay with time due to the gradual desorption of the metal soap from the particles. Toners according to the present invention do not suffer a charge decay because they are charged with metal chelate groups chemically attached to the resin particles.
b) U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,557 uses mercury acetate, tetrabutoxy titanium or sulfuric acid as catalyts for the anchoring reaction. Some of the substances are toxic (such as mercury acetate) and must be removed from the toner. However, the patent uses subsequent steps to remove the catalysts by precipitation from a non-solvent such as acetonitrile or methanol. These solvents may be trapped in the stabilizing polymer and are very difficult to remove. The present invention selectively chooses catalysts and reactants so that there is no need for the purification step.
The toners disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,574 are based on chelating polymers containing cationic groups neutralized with counter anions as the source of the charge. The polymer may be a homopolymer, copolymer, block copolymers or graft copolymer comprising a coordinating compound bound to the backbone of the polymer. The chelating polymer is prepared in solution by a free radical polymerization reaction (using DMF as the solvent). After precipitating the polymer and redissolving it in a suitable solvent (THF), it is allowed to react with a metal cation. Those toners are prepared by milling a solution of the polymer in a suitable solvent (THF) with a pigment. The ratio of pigment to polymer is 1:4. Through this process, the polymer is adsorbed onto the surface of the pigment particles. Finally the blend is diluted with Isopar.TM. G to the proper concentration.
The polymers of U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,574 are prepared in a liquid medium which is a good solvent for the polymer, whereas our chelate polymers, are prepared by dispersion polymerization techniques wherein the liquid medium is not a good solvent for the dispersed polymeric particles. It is also well known that conducting a metal chelate reaction of a transition metal cation and a polymer containing coordinating groups in a liquid, which is a good solvent for the polymer, results in the formation of a crosslinked metal chelate gel. Some coordinating compound groups can lose a proton when they form ligands with a transition metal cation. This proton can neutralize the anion of the metal cation, thus reducing the overall charge of the material, which would be expected in the practice of the technology of that patent. The resulting metal chelate complex does not dissociate in a hydrocarbon solvent system.
Also, that patent claims that the use of a coordination compound in combination with any neutralizing anion such as halide, sulfate, p-toluenesulfonate, ClO4.sup.-, PF6.sup.-, TaF6.sup.- or any relatively large anion, would improve the dissociation of the corresponding ion pair in an apolar medium. Transition metal complexes or salts of these anions usually do not dissolve in a hydrocarbon liquid such as Isopar.TM. G. It is not apparent how they could dissociate in such a non-solvent system to give the charge on the particles necessary for good electrostatic imaging. The physical results in practice, showing low Zeta potentials for toner according to that invention, substantiate this analysis.
The toners of the present invention are based on polymer dispersions which are prepared by dispersion polymerization techniques in an aliphatic hydrocarbon liquid. The polymer dispersion consists of pendant chelate groups attached to the soluble polymeric component of the particle. This component consists of a graft copolymer stabilizer containing metal chelate groups. The stabilizer polymer is chemically anchored to the insoluble part of the polymer (the core). Since these particles are in constant movement, cross-linking through the metal complex would be very difficult. In some cases cross-linking may take place in latices with high solid contents (>10%) due to the close distance between the particles. However, in latices with solid contents of less than 10%, cross-linking does not occur and the 1:1 complex is formed. In such a case only one counter ion (anion) of the metal salt is neutralized, while the other anions are still bound to the transition metal atom and dissociate in a hydrocarbon liquid. The new metal chelate latices of the present invention have been found to dissociate in a hydrocarbon liquid to give a high charge on the dispersed particle.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,778 a liquid electrostatic developer containing modified resin particles are described. Also described are several procedures for preparation of the liquid developers which contain the resin particles.
The resin particles consist primarily of ethylene homopolymers or copolymers with certain types of esters, where the esters have certain substituents, e.g., hydroxyl, carboxyl amine, and acid halide. The resin particles once formed have an average particle size of less than 10 um.
The process for preparation of developers with the resins include mixing with the nonpolar fluid (Isopar.TM. G) at an elevated temperature to liquify the resin, cooling the formed particles, reacting the suspension with compounds selected from alkyl amine, alkyl hydroxide amino alcohol, etc., and adding charge control agents to the suspension. The resultant toners carry a net negative charge as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,778.
There are several differences between the present invention and the described patent including the solubility of the added resinous material, and the polarity of the resultant liquid electrostatic developer, and the less complicated procedure of simply incorporating the described material during milling.

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company


A file protection scheme for fixed content in a distributed data archive uses computations that leverage permutation operators of a cyclic code. In an illustrative embodiment, an N+K coding technique is described for use to protect data that is being distributed in a redundant array of independent nodes (RAIN). The data itself may be of any type, and it may also include system metadata. According to the invention, the data to be distributed is encoded by a dispersal operation that uses a group of permutation ring operators. In a preferred embodiment, the dispersal operation is carried out using a matrix of the form [IN—C] where IN is an n×n identity sub-matrix and C is a k×n sub-matrix of code blocks. The identity sub-matrix is used to preserve the data blocks intact. The sub-matrix C preferably comprises a set of permutation ring operators that are used to generate the code blocks. The operators are preferably superpositions that are selected from a group ring of a permutation group with base ring Z2.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to techniques for highly available, reliable, and persistent data storage in a distributed computer network.
2. Description of the Related Art
A need has developed for the archival storage of "fixed content" in a highly available, reliable and persistent manner that replaces or supplements traditional tape and optical storage solutions. The term "fixed content" typically refers to any type of digital information that is expected to be retained without change for reference or other purposes. Examples of such fixed content include, among many others, e-mail, documents, diagnostic images, check images, voice recordings, film and video, and the like. The traditional Redundant Array of Independent Nodes (RAIN) storage approach has emerged as the architecture of choice for creating large online archives for the storage of such fixed content information assets. By allowing nodes to join and exit from a cluster as needed, RAIN architectures insulate a storage cluster from the failure of any one or more nodes. By replicating data on multiple nodes, RAIN-type archives can automatically compensate for node failure or removal. Typically, RAIN systems are largely delivered as hardware appliances designed from identical components within a closed system.
A representative archive comprises storage nodes that provide the long-term data storage, and access nodes that provide the interface through which data files enter the archive. To protect files, typically one of several possible schemes are used. These well-known file protection schemes include simple file mirroring, RAID-5 schemes that spread the file contents across multiple nodes using a recovery stripe to recreate any missing stripes, or variations on RAID 5 that use multiple recovery stripes to ensure that simultaneous node failures do not lead to overall system failure. One such variation is the Information Dispersal Algorithm (IDA), original developed by Rabin and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,474. Rabin IDA itself is a variant of a Reed-Solomon error correcting code, such as a linear block code used to ensure data integrity during transmission over a communications channel. Rabin IDA breaks apart a data file so that the pieces can be distributed to multiple sites for fault tolerance without compromising the integrity of the data. In particular, IDA uses matrix algebra over finite fields to disperse the information of a file F into n pieces that are transmitted or stored on n different machines (or disks) such that the contents of the original file F can be reconstructed from the contents of any m of its pieces, where m≦n. Because of the way in which the data is broken up, only a subset of the original pieces are required to reassemble the original data. In IDA, an important objective is to ensure integrity of the dispersed data, and this is accomplished by ensuring that each fragment of the data is not usable, in of itself, to recover the original data. This requirement is undesirable, as it is preferred to have as much of the data as possible freely available (as there may be no loss during transmission or storage), so that the checksum pieces are only used to reconstruct any of the original data that may be unavailable. Moreover, while Rabin IDA provides fault tolerance and data security, it is not computationally efficient, especially as the size of the file increases.
To address this problem, other types of error correcting codes with smaller computational requirements were developed. Tornado codes are similar to Reed-Solomon codes in that an input file is represented by K input symbols and is used to determine N output symbols, where N is fixed before the encoding process begins. In this approach, after a file is partitioned into a set of equal size fragments (called data nodes), a set of check nodes that are equal in size and population are then created. The encoding of the file involves a series of specially designed bipartite graphs. Each check node is assigned two or more nodes to be its neighbors, and the contents of the check node is set to be the bit-wise XOR of the value of its neighbors. The nodes are sequentially numbered, and the encoded file is distributed containing one or more nodes. Decoding is symmetric to the encoding process, except that the check nodes are used to restore their neighbors. To restore a missing node, the contents of the check node is XORed with the contents of certain neighbor nodes, and the resulting value is assigned to the missing neighbor. Tornado codes provide certain advantages but also have limitations. Among other issues, a graph is specific to a file size, so a new graph needs to be generated for each file size used. Furthermore, the graphs needed by the Tornado codes are complicated to construct, and they require different custom settings of parameters for different sized files to obtain the best performance. These graphs are usually quite large and require a significant amount of memory for their storage.
Still another approach to the problem of protecting content in distributed storage is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,614,366, to Luby et al, which also purports to address limitations and deficiencies in Tornado coding. In this patent, an encoder uses an input file of data and a key to produce an output symbol. An output symbol with key I is generated by determining a weight, W(I), for the output symbol to be generated, selecting W(I) of the input symbols associated with the output symbol according to a function of I, and generating the output symbol's value B(I) from a predetermined value function F(I) of the selected W(I) input symbols. An encoder can be called repeatedly to generate multiple output symbols. The output symbols are generally independent of each other, and an unbounded number (subject to the resolution of I) can be generated, if needed. A decoder receives some or all of the output symbols generated. The number of output symbols needed to decode an input file is equal to, or slightly greater than, the number of input symbols comprising the file, assuming that input symbols and output symbols represent the same number of bits of data are then created. This approach is said to provide certain advantages over Tornado or other Reed-Solomon based coding techniques.
While the approaches described above are representative of the prior art and can provide fault tolerant and secure storage, there remains a need to improve the state of the art, especially as it relates to the problem of reliable and secure storage of fixed content, especially across heterogeneous RAIN archives.

Fixed content distributed data storage using permutation ring encoding


Aspects of the invention are directed to an electro-optical device having a layer structure including a substrate, an electrically insulating layer on top of the substrate, a bonding layer on top of the electrically insulating layer, a Pockels layer on top of the bonding layer, a waveguide core on top of the Pockels layer, and a cladding layer cladding both the waveguide core and the Pockels layer, the latter coated by the cladding layer. The Pockels layer is a layer of a crystalline first material having a Pockels coefficient between 10 pm/V and 10 000 pm/V. The waveguide core includes a second material, which can be crystalline. The device can be adapted to optically couple radiation into and/or from the waveguide core. Each of the first material and the second material has a larger refractive index than the electrically insulating layer and the cladding layer for said radiation.

The invention relates in general to the field of electro-optical devices with integrated waveguide structures, as well as related silicon photonic circuits and methods of fabrication thereof. In particular, it is directed to a device including a Pockels layer having a selected crystal orientation.
Silicon photonics involve many components, starting with basic devices, such as active optical interconnects, including modulators and switches.
For example, integrated electro-optic modulators for high-order modulation formats need integration of Pockels materials (i.e., materials exhibiting a substantial Pockels effect) with silicon. Thin films with large Pockels effect are required, which effects are mainly present in crystalline materials. Now, crystalline layers are needed, which have an aligned or predetermined or selected crystal orientation, in order to maximize (effectively) the Pockels effect. A buffer layer, an epitaxial substrate, or a seed layer is therefore needed to achieve a well-aligned crystal orientation.
However, such an interface layer can be detrimental to the device performance, in terms of optical properties. Accordingly, aspects of the invention provide integrated Pockels devices having a selected crystal orientation, and which are substantially free of detrimental interfacial layers for crystal alignment purposes.

Integrated waveguide structure with pockels layer having a selected crystal orientation

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


A method for manufacturing a combined wiring board includes providing a metal frame having an accommodation opening portion, positioning a wiring board in the accommodation opening portion of the metal frame, and subjecting the metal frame to plastic deformation such that a sidewall of the wiring board is connected to a sidewall of the metal frame inside the accommodation opening portion of the metal frame.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combined wiring board and a method for manufacturing the combined wiring board, and more particularly, to a combined wiring board in which wiring boards to be processed in reflow are fixed in a frame.
Description of Background Art
Mounting of electronic components and other wiring board processing may be carried out with multiple wiring boards of the same type contained in a wiring board accommodation kit. JP 2011-23657 A describes a multipiece wiring board accommodation kit which contains multiple piece wiring boards and a frame having accommodation holes to accommodate the piece wiring boards. The entire contents of this publication (these publications) are incorporated herein by reference.

Combined wiring board and method for manufacturing combined wiring board


This is a musical rhythms game whereby players move to rhythms of music notation placed on a staff. There are two separate versions—a floor and table top version, which are designed to help players develop more rhythmic awareness and to create a better understanding of how music notation works on a staff.

The present invention relates to the field of music. Specifically, this invention relates to musical games that allow players to play competitively to understand rhythms in music and enhance note reading.
This invention was made after 15 years of teaching students in a studio, with ages ranging from 3 to 18 years. Many students had difficulty understanding basic rhythms, and did not have a clear grasp of how lines and spaces worked. Most students could not remember types of notes or values and had difficulty relating notes to rhythms. When placed in theory classes, students found this boring and could not successfully relate music theory to actual playing.
I decided that with a game, the fundamentals of music would be more visual and fun thus enhancing learning. In the floor version of the game, notes would be large and colorful helping students to better relate to them. Rhythms would be interchangeable so students would be able to try simple rhythms and build those into more complex versions as their levels of understanding developed.
Tokens would be given at the end of each round, to help students or players compute note values thus enhancing the basis of rhythms. Notes and tokens would be color coded to help students remember note values easily.
Notes would be placed at different intervals on the board for each rhythm given to help students associate note names with pitch i.e. if a player jumps to C above middle C on the score and then to G below, this would help them to relate high movement with a high pitch and downward movement with a lower pitch, making it easier for students to equate the movement in the game with finger movement on an instrument like the piano or violin. Even a wind player like a trumpeter, could relate this game to playing on his instrument, since the amount of energy exerted to reach high pitches, could be equated with the amount of energy needed to jump to high notes on the board.
It is my expectation that this game will excite children, friends and family members to play and keep the art alive.


The present invention reads out track addresses written onto ID sections of a recording medium, for example, from five, tracks of the plurality of tracks read out simultaneously, to execute demodulation and error correction. In case where the addresses are multiple-written onto the ID sections, the optical spot judges the track address of the desired track on the basis of the plurality of read-out track addresses until the optical spot passes through the remaining track address. Further, in case where there is only a single one of the track addresses written on said ID sections, the track addresses are read out one by one, are demodulated and are error-corrected. The track address of the desired track is judged on the basis of the plurality of read-out track addresses, prior to the fact that the optical spot enters an information recording area.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for judging track addresses of a desired track, in an optical information recording and reproducing (playback) apparatus which simultaneously executes at least one of recording and reproducing of information with respect to a plurality of tracks.
2. Description of the Related Art and Prior Art Statement
A recording medium such as an optical card, an optical disc or the like has a plurality of tracks extending in parallel relation to each other, or extending in concentric relation to each other. On the other hand, an optical information recording and reproducing apparatus comprises an optical head for optically recording/reproducing information with respect to the recording medium. The arrangement is such that the recording medium and the optical head are reciprocated or rotatively moved in a track direction of the recording medium and in a direction perpendicular thereto, to execute recording/reproducing of the information.
In a conventional optical information recording and reproducing apparatus, an apparatus is generally known which is of single-track reading-out type in which a single light beam from an optical head is irradiated onto a single track, and reading-out of the information is executed by a unit of a single track.
In this method, however, a reproducing rate or speed of the information recorded on the track is determined depending on a relative speed between the optical head and the recording medium, and it has been impossible to further raise the reproducing speed. In order to solve this problem, an apparatus has been derived in which an outgoing light from the optical head is irradiated to a plurality of tracks, and reading-out of the information is simultaneously executed from the plurality of tracks. That is, the apparatus is an optical information recording and reproducing apparatus of a type which reads out a plurality of tracks. As an example, the applicant of the present invention has proposed an apparatus in which an attempt is made to reduce a number of PLL (Phase-Locked Loop) circuits and a demodulation circuit, to small-scale a data processing system, by a number of tracks read out, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-141932/1990.
The recording medium will be described, for example, as an optical card. As shown in FIG. 6, a plurality of tracks 32 extend in an optical card 30. One of the tracks 32 is arranged by a single sector, or, as shown in FIG. 7, a plurality of sectors. The single track has an information recording area (DATA) 35 onto which writing of the information is at least executed, and a pair of ID sections 34a and 34b arranged at both ends of the information recording area 35, in which track address information and the like are recorded. In FIG. 7, the left-hand ID section 34a is used in case where the information recording area 35 is accessed from the left. On the other hand, the right-hand ID section 34b is used in case where the information recording area 35 is accessed from the right.
In connection with the above, the information recording area 35 illustrated in FIG. 7 is divided into N sectors. The sectors are so arranged as to clamp or nip therebetween buffering areas on which nothing is recorded, called a gap (GAP), in order to absorb unevenness or irregularity of a transporting or carrying speed of the optical card 30. Gaps are also provided respectively between the sectors and the ID sections.
A method of judging a track address recorded on the ID 34a or 34b will next be described with reference to FIG. 1, as an example of an optical-card recording and reproducing apparatus of single track reading-out type. The optical-card recording and reproducing apparatus reads out any one of the ID sections provided on the both ends of the track 32, and judges the track addresses on the basis of the results of the reading-out, and recording or reproducing of the information is executed with respect to the information recording area.
As shown in FIG. 1, each of the ID sections 34a and 34b has five IDs (ID.sub.0 to ID.sub.4), for example. Each of the IDs includes the same track address information, and is normally coded in error revision or correction. That is, a plurality of track addresses are written onto the ID section of the single track, that is, so-called multiple writing is executed.
In the optical information recording and reproducing apparatus, erroneous recognition of the track addresses causes the information already recorded to be broken, and erroneous information is read out. Accordingly, it is necessary to reduce the probability of the erroneous recognition of the track addresses as much as possible. For this purpose, there are five IDs. The probability of erroneous recognition is lowered by the fact that the track addresses are judged on the basis of the reading results of the five IDs.
Further, although the track addresses within each of the IDs are coded in error correction, erroneous correction may also occur. Accordingly, there are many cases where judgment of the track addresses is executed taking coincidence or agreement of the track addresses within the five IDs. For example, in a case where access is executed from the left in FIG. 1, an optical head successively scans, by the optical beam, ID.sub.0 to ID.sub.4 of the track on which there is the optical card 32 and reads out the same, and the demodulated track addresses are stored in a memory or the like. In this case, since the five IDs are completed for the first time at a time the optical beam passes through the ID.sub.4 judgment of the track addresses starts from time of the completion, as illustrated in FIG. 1.
The conventional optical information recording and reproducing apparatus of type of reading out the plurality of tracks is also so arranged as to execute judgment of the track addresses by the similar processing.
In connection with the above, it is needless to say that the apparatus of type of reading out the plurality of tracks can also be used as an apparatus for reading out a single track.
Now, as mentioned previously, in the conventional optical information recording and reproducing apparatuses of type of reading out the single track or type of reading out the plurality of tracks, judgment of the track addresses is the same in both the apparatuses. That is, judgment of the track addresses has been executed after the optical beam outgone by the optical head has passed through all the areas of the ID sections on which the track addresses are multiple-written.
In case where recording and reproducing of the information are executed with respect to the information recording areas, the above-mentioned apparatus judges whether or not the track address is a desired track address. After having judged the desired track, the apparatus recognizes a sector starting position, and must command to start recording operation or reproducing operation with respect to a recording circuit or a reproducing circuit. For this reason, judgment of the track addresses must be executed and completed within a period of time an optical spot passes through the gap portions in FIG. 7. If the judgment is not completed within the period of time, the optical spot reaches the sector starting position before starting of recognition of the sector starting position. Accordingly, it is necessary to execute the judgment of the track addresses quickly. In this connection, the fact that the optical spot reaches the sector starting position prior to the judgment means that recording/reproducing of information cannot be executed.
On the other hand, it is required for the recording medium such as an optical card that each of the gap portions is limited or narrowed as far as possible, in order to increase the memory capacity. Accordingly, there is a further need to execute the judgment of the track addresses quickly.
Execution of the judgment of the track address quickly has the following disadvantages. That is, required are the use of a high-speed CPU and accompanying speed-up of peripheral circuits, or addition of a hardware for judgment of the track addresses in the apparatus of a type for reading out the plurality of tracks. Thus, this raises the cost of the apparatus.
Furthermore, as previously described, the recording medium has been arranged such that, in order to suppress or restrain an erroneous ratio or rate of track-address recognition low as far as possible, the track addresses are multiple-written onto the single ID section within the single track. This has been the same in recording medium used for any of apparatuses of type of reading out a single track or a plurality of tracks.
However, the multiple writing has an advantage that the erroneous recognition rate of the address is lowered or reduced to improve the reliability of recording/reproducing of the information, while the multiple writing has a disadvantage that the storing or memory capacity of the information recording area of the recording medium is restricted or limited and is reduced.


A load driving device includes a power storage device, a first power converter, a ring-shaped filter, a first output-side power line, and a first input-side power line. The first output-side power line extends through an opening so that a first output-side common mode current caused by switching the first switching element flows inside the opening through the first output-side power line in a first output-side flow direction. The first input-side power line extends through the opening so that a first input-side common mode current caused by switching the first switching element flows inside the opening through the first input-side power line in a first input-side flow direction same as the first output-side flow direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a load driving device.
2. Discussion of the Background
In the related art, there is a technology such as that disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-268890 (FIG. 1, [0020]), by which in a power conversion system for supplying power from a power source to a load via a power converter, common mode noise is reduced on the input-side and output side of the power converter in such a manner that an input-side power line and an input-side common mode return line of the power converter, and an output-side power line and an output-side common mode return line of the power converter are wound over respective magnetic cores (hereinafter simply referred to as cores) in order to remove common mode noise.


The invention relates, in part, to compounds, compositions, and methods to assess characteristics of mitochondrial antiviral-signaling (MAVS) polypeptides and also to methods of modulating MAVS polypeptide characteristics. In addition, the invention relates, in part, to assays to assess characteristics of polypeptides.

Mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein (MAVS), also known as VISA (virus-induced signaling adapter), IPS-1 (interferon-beta promoter stimulator 1), is a 54 kDa protein that is tethered via a simple transmembrane domain to the outer mitochondrial membrane of virtually all mammalian organisms. MAVS has been reported to form oligomers in a prion-like manner (F. Hou et al., (2011) Cell 146, 448-461; H. Xu et al., (2014) eLife 3, e01489) and have been identified as involved with the early immune response to viral infections.

Mitochondrial antiviral-signaling (MAVS) polypeptides and detection and use thereof

University of Vermont and State Agricultural College


A patient's body temperature is regulated by using an enclosure to enclose a portion of the patient's body in an isolated environment. In accordance with one embodiment, the patient's entire body below his head is enclosed. Once enclosed, the patient is surrounded by heated vapor that is injected into the enclosure. The heated vapor condenses on the patient's skin to warm the patient quickly, efficiently and safely. This embodiment is well suited for the treatment of hypothermia patients. In accordance with alternative embodiments, only a portion of the patient's head is enclosed. In these embodiments, an enclosure is placed on the patient's head, and heated vapor is fed into the enclosure. Excess air and vapor are preferably dissipated by vents in the cap, whereas excess condensate is preferably absorbed by an absorbent layer provided in the cap. These embodiments are well suited for regulating a patient's body temperature in a surgical setting. Tympanic temperature is monitored and thus vapor dew point temperature is controlled to less than 47.degree. C. but greater than tympanic temperature.

Adjusting and maintaining a person's body temperature using external means has proven to be a difficult task in many instances. One means of adjusting and maintaining body temperatures is to submerge the patient into a bath of water. The water temperature in the bath is chosen to properly adjust the patient's temperature. Although this technique has proven to be quite useful in many applications it is not particularly appropriate in many instances.
For example, this approach often does not fare well with hypothermia patients. In such cases, the patient is typically submerged in a very warm bath to raise the body temperature of the patient. The use of a water bath is, however, frequently impractical, for it requires the use of a bath tub of sufficient size to completely submerge a patient, and it also requires close regulation of water temperature. Furthermore, this approach is time consuming because time must be spent preparing the warm bath. In cases such as at sea when a person has fallen overboard, these impracticalities can prove to be quite costly.
Another situation where the use of a water bath is impractical for regulating body temperature is in a surgical environment. Operating rooms are most often maintained at fairly cold temperatures to aid in the comfort of the surgical personnel. Unfortunately, it is not typically desirable for the patient to be exposed to such cool temperatures. In colder temperatures, patients tend to bleed more profusely and many patients may become uncomfortably chilled by the cold. Thus, it is generally desirable to employ a means for keeping the patient warm in this chilled environment. The previously described approach of submerging the patient into a heated bath is highly impractical for warming patients in the surgical environment. Thus, there is a need for a more practical approach to maintaining the patient's body temperature at a satisfactory level during surgical procedures.

Method and apparatus for regulating body temperature