The proposed prediction of trends is based on history values of an observable. In more detail, a mathematical model is fitted on history values of an observable, said mathematical model having a ratio factor defined as a ratio between a number of history values used for calculation of a given observable value and a number of observable values modelled simultaneously. Information defining a minimum forecast horizon and a maximum forecast horizon together with respective ratio factor values is received, together with information defining a desired forecast horizon. A desired ratio factor value corresponding to the desired forecast horizon is determined based at least on said desired forecast horizon and said minimum and maximum forecast horizons together with said respective ratio factor values. The desired ratio factor value is used in fitting said mathematical model on said history values of said observable.

In the following, prediction of trends is discussed in connection with predicting future performance of a database management system. The challenges and problems discussed here in connection with database management system apply also to other data processing systems. Some examples of such data processing systems are batch and interactive data processing systems, Client/Server systems, parallel systems and World Wide Web systems. Characterization of a computer systems workload is discussed, for example, by S. Elnaffar and P. Martin in Technical Report 2002-461 of the School of Computing, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Various kinds of database systems have been in use since the early days of electronic computing. In order to store and retrieve data from the database, a database management system (DBMS) is used. The database management system is a set of software programs that are linked to one or more database. As electronic commerce has gained prevalence, organizations have become increasingly dependent on database management systems for processing ever larger volumes and more critical nature of electronic data. A failure of these database management systems can potentially result in a huge loss of money. Moreover, loss of such data may lead to dissatisfaction of customers and depreciate the market value of the organization. Hence, it is critically important to ensure high reliability of such database management systems.
The challenge faced by the operators and system administrators of such database management systems is how to detect and diagnose performance problems with the database management system in a timely manner, before the problem reaches a critical stage and results in a system failure. Upon pre-detection of the future performance problems, the operator can be warned and a possible failure of the database management system can be averted.
The performance of the database management system depends on various operating parameters such as memory usage, CPU time, and caching. The operating parameters govern effective usage of the database management system. One approach to address the aforementioned problem is to convert historical data of the operating parameters into meaningful recommendations and warnings of the future performance of the database management system. For being able to predict the future performance of a database management system, there is need to predict the long-term trend of at least one of the key performance indicators of the database management system. Prediction of trends may be done by modelling the earlier performance of the data base management system. The mathematical model can then be used for making a prediction about the future performance of the database management system.
In other connections, analysis of time series using autoregressive models has been studied. An autoregressive model uses a number of earlier observation values for determining a current observation value. One example of an autoregressive model is a linear autoregressive model, where
            x      n        =                            a          1                                  x                      n            -            1                              +                        a          2                                  x                      n            -            2                              +                        a          3                                  x                      n            -            3                              +      …      +                        a          dW                                  x                      n            -            dW                              +              ɛ        1                        x              n        -        1              =                            a          1                                  x                      n            -            2                              +                        a          2                                  x                      n            -            3                              +                        a          3                                  x                      n            -            4                              +      …      +                        a          dW                                  x                      n            -            dW            -            1                              +              ɛ        2                  ⋮                          ⋮                          ⋮              x              n        -        dL        +        1              =                                                                      a                1                                                          x                                  n                  -                  dL                                                      +                                          a                2                                                          x                                  n                  -                  dL                  -                  1                                                      +                                          a                3                                                          x                                  n                  -                  dL                  -                  2                                                      +            …            +                                                                                a                dW                                                          x                                  n                  -                  dW                  -                  dL                                                      +                          ɛ              dL
In this equation group, the number of equations is dL and the number of coefficients a is dW. For being able to determine the coefficient values a1 to adW, one needs to process simultaneously a number of equations. By choosing a different number dL, the values of the coefficients a1 to adW typically change. There are various approaches for selecting the number of equations and/or the number of coefficients for autoregressive models for the stationary situation. As some examples, consider criteria like the "Akaike Information Criterion", "Hannan-Quinn Criterion" or "Minimum Description length".
Using an autoregressive model, which fits well the existing time series points, it is possible to predict future behaviour under the assumption that the situation remains stationary. Under the stationary constraint, the known criteria for selecting the number of coefficients and the number of equations also applies. However, in many data processing systems the workload changes and the configuration of the data processing systems may also change. The stationary assumption is thus not valid in many situations. Stationary optimisation methods, which use the existing time series data for checking the quality of the autoregressive model, typically do not work well when the situation to be predicted is non-stationary.
There is currently no method available for determining the number of coefficients and the number of equations for a mathematical model used for prediction of trends in a non-stationary situation. Using a fixed number of coefficients and equations is typically not a feasible solution, as the operator of a database management system (or other data processing system) typically wishes to have prediction of trends for different time horizons. Any fixed values that may be suitable for a shorter forecast horizon, may not work well for a longer forecast horizon.
There is thus need for determining details of mathematical model is used for predicting the long-term trends in data processing system under non-stationary conditions. Thereafter the determined mathematical model can be fitted to history values of at least one observable for obtaining a prediction of a trend in the data processing system. The present invention addresses such a need.

Prediction of trends based on history values of an observable

International Business Machines Corporation


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for selecting, from among a collection of videos, a set of candidate videos that (i) are identified as being associated with a particular song, and (ii) are classified as a cappella video recordings; extracting, from each of the candidate videos of the set, a monophonic melody line from an audio channel of the candidate video; selecting, from among the set of candidate videos, a subset of the candidate videos based on a similarity of the monophonic melody line of the candidate videos of the subset with each other; and providing, to a recognizer that recognizes songs from sounds produced by a human voice, (i) an identifier of the particular song, and (ii) one or more of the monophonic melody lines of the candidate videos of the subset.

An individual may hear a song on the radio or in a public establishment, or may hear a person singing a song, and may want to later acquire the song by purchasing the song from an online music distribution service. However, without having textual information associated with the song, the individual generally has no good way of finding the song to purchase.


A value of shape data is calculated from moment of inertia and weight data of a tool, a relational expression between shape data and tool moment of inertia in a predetermined tool shape model, and a relational expression between the shape data and tool weight in the tool shape model to estimate a shape of the tool, and a gravity center position of the tool is calculated based on the estimated tool shape.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tool gravity center position estimation device that estimates a gravity center position of a tool and a machine tool using the estimated tool gravity center position.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known a machine tool having a function of changing an operating speed of a tool changer according to a weight of an attached tool. Such a machine tool uses this function to operate the tool changer at an optimum speed, which allows the machine tool to be driven at a sufficient speed while suppressing an impact on the machine or heat generation from a motor.
Further, there is known a machine tool having a function of estimating moment of inertia of a spindle upon attachment of a tool from acceleration of the spindle upon rotation thereof. The function of estimating moment of inertia of a spindle of such a machine tool allows operation of the spindle to be controlled appropriately according to the moment of inertia of the tool.
JP 11-188557 A discloses a changing arm type tool changer capable of shortening tool change time by detecting a drive torque required to rotate a changing arm that holds a tool, estimating a weight of the tool from the detected drive torque, and automatically setting an operating speed of the changing arm based on the estimated tool weight.
JP 05-138502 A discloses a numeric-control machine tool that detects, when a constant power is supplied to a spindle rotating motor, a time required for a spindle rotating speed to reach a certain set value to calculate moment of inertia of a spindle and compares the calculated moment of inertia with a spindle rotating speed command value to determine whether or not the spindle can be rotated as instructed.
JP 2013-186545 A discloses a spindle positioning device that estimates moment of inertia of a spindle from a magnetic flux density command to be issued to a motor and a magnetic flux density estimation value, and a motor speed, and changes an output command value to be issued to the motor according to the estimated moment of inertia.
A device that changes an operating speed of a machine according to a tool weight, like the tool changer disclosed in JP 11-188557 A, can be driven while suppressing an impact on the machine or heat generation from a motor; however, sometimes the impact on the machine or a load on the motor cannot be estimated accurately only with information of the tool weight.
Further, the devices disclosed in respective JP 05-138502 A and JP 2013-186545 A can control the operating speed of a motor for the spindle by calculating the moment of inertia of the spindle; however, also in this configuration, sometimes the impact on the machine or a load on the motor cannot be estimated accurately only with information of the moment of inertia of the spindle.
In order to estimate the impact on the machine or load on the motor more accurately, it is preferable to use not only the tool weight or moment of inertia, but also information of a gravity center position of the tool. However, it is troublesome for a user to measure or calculate the gravity center position of each tool in advance, which may make it difficult to use the gravity center position information of the tool so as to perform appropriate operation setting of the machine tool.

Tool gravity center position estimation device and machine tool


There is provided a control unit for controlling the operation of a nebulizer, the nebulizer comprising a reservoir chamber for storing a liquid to be nebulised, an actuator, and a nebulizing element comprising a plurality of nozzles arranged to nebulize the liquid upon operation of the actuator; wherein the control unit is configured to obtain an indication of the size of the nozzles in the nebulizing element; and control the operation of the actuator based on the obtained indication to provide nebulised liquid at a required output rate and/or with droplets of a required size.

Nebulizers, or atomizers as they are sometimes called, are devices that generate a fine spray or aerosol from a liquid. A particularly useful application for nebulizers is to provide a fine spray containing a dissolved or a suspended particulate drug for administration to a patient by inhalation.
Piezo-mesh based nebulizers are commonly used to generate aerosols in such drug delivery apparatus, whereby for instance a piezoelectric element vibrates a nozzle plate (otherwise referred to as a mesh) to produce the fine aerosol spray. In some nebulizers the piezoelectric element is bonded to a nozzle plate element, whereas in other nebulizers the nozzle plate element is separate from (i.e. not in contact with) the piezoelectric element (sometimes referred to as piezo-cavity-mesh based nebulizers). An advantage of having the nozzle plate element separate from the piezoelectric element is that the nozzle plate element can be removed from the nebulizer and cleaned or entirely replaced after a certain amount of use.
In order for a particular medicine to be therapeutically effective when inhaled, the aerosol droplet size of the medicine must be within a narrow therapeutic range. As the generation of droplets is accomplished by pressing the liquid through the holes (nozzles) in the nozzle plate, and the size of the droplets is determined, in part, by the size of the nozzles in the nozzle plate, ideally each nozzle in the nozzle plate should be of the required size. Typically, it is desirable for the nozzles to have a diameter of 2.5 μm with a tolerance of +/−0.25 μm. There can be of the order of 5000 nozzles in a typical nozzle plate.
Due to limitations in the process of manufacturing nozzle plates, it is difficult to consistently produce nozzle plates with nozzles at the desired size (or within the required tolerance) and with the nozzles having a consistent size across each plate, and thus the production yield of the manufacturing process is quite low, sometimes around 10%.
Furthermore, it has been found that even a small variation in nozzle size (for example within the normally accepted tolerance range for nozzle size of +/−0.25 μm) leads to a large variation in the output rate (flow rate) of the nebulizer. Since the dosage regime for a particular medicine may need to be precisely controlled, this variation in flow rate is unacceptable. In particular, to achieve a variation in flow rate of just 25% from a desired flow rate, it has been found that the maximum permissible variation in nozzle size from the desired size is +/−0.05 μm. However, applying this smaller tolerance range to the conventional manufacturing process would further reduce the production yield. As the nozzle plate is a consumable element of the nebulizer (i.e. it can often be replaced), this is highly undesirable.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved way of operating a nebulizer to achieve a desired flow rate and/or droplet size, despite the variation in nozzle size across different nozzle plates that could be used in the nebulizer.

Nebulizer, a control unit for controlling the same, a nebulizing element and a method of operating a nebulizer


A system and method for contacting the origin server from a user comprises the steps of generating a minimal user profile for the user that is stored at a node associated with the user, said minimal user profile containing user designated CPI. A connection is established from the node to an origin server using the minimal user profile, and a determination is made if the privacy profile of the origin server meets the privacy preferences of the user. If so, a second user profile containing a more detailed CPI is provided to the origin server.

Recent advances in wireless telecommunications have enabled the mobile Internet to grow by leaps and bounds. The mobile Internet provides users access to Internet services and other service based applications using mobile devices such as mobile telephones, portable computers, pagers, personal digital assistants, etc., and makes new services such as location based and context aware applications available to users of the mobile Internet. Presently, wireless application protocol (WAP), iMode, and standard HTML over modified TCP/IP (used in most Personal Digital Assistants) are the most frequently used protocols on the mobile Internet.
Along with the greater uses provided by mobile web services have also arisen greater privacy risks due to the ability of third parties to track the position, capability, preferences information, and other data pertaining to users of the mobile Internet. This raises the issue of appropriate data protection and privacy safeguards for Mobile Internet users who desire to be protected from being under permanent surveillance due to their use of wireless technology without resorting to protecting their privacy by not using mobile Internet services at all.
Existing recommendations with respect to the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) specifies a protocol that provides an automated way for users to gain control over the use of personal data on web sites they visit. The proposal enables web sites to express their privacy practices in a machine readable XML format that can be automatically retrieved and compared with a user's privacy preferences. Using this information, a user can make informed decisions on whether or not to submit a certain piece of personal information to a web site.
In order to protect a user's right for informational self-determination, users should have control over their CPI (Capabilities and Preferences Information), represented by means of a profile, and determine how far and to what extent to communicate profile information to other web sites. The proposed protocol can enhance the user's privacy by transmitting the CPI only if there is an informed consent by the user about the origin server's site data collection and use practices.
However, the existing exchange protocol CC/PP (Composite Capability/Preferences Profile) uses a modified WSP or HTTP GET request already containing the profile information or profile difference. The proposed P3P standard requires a first check as to whether there is sufficient match between the user's privacy preferences and the remote server's privacy policy before any personal data is transmitted. Thus, some manner for overcoming this conflict is necessary.

Method for limiting conveyance information of user profile within mobile Internet transactions


Disclosed are an apparatus and a method for generating a virtual lane, which correct or estimate an undetected lane depending on detection of a lane at each side and a system for controlling lane keeping of a vehicle with the apparatus. The apparatus for generating a virtual lane according to the present invention includes: a lane detection judging unit configured to judge whether both lanes of a front road are normally detected based on a front image; a lane correction unit configured to generate a virtual lane by correcting one lane based on the other lane when it is judged that the one lane of both lanes is not normally detected; and a lane estimation unit configured to generate the virtual lane by estimating both lanes based on previously detected lane information when it is judged that either lane is not normally detected.

A lane keeping assistance system (LKAS) is a system that detects a lane through a sensor and prevents a vehicle from deviating from the lane by changing positional information of the detected lane to a torque value.
The LKAS is significantly influenced by accuracy of a camera when assisting the vehicle not to deviate from the lane by using road information measured through the camera.
A case frequently occurs, in which the camera nonrecognizes or misrecognizes the lane due to environmental factors such as a guardrail, a brake impression, a dual lane, snow, rain, and the like while a vehicle is driven on the road, and when the LKAS control malfunctions due to nonrecognition and misrecognition of the lane, a driver may feel a sense of difference and a dangerous situation may be caused.
Korean Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-0126820 discloses a lane recognizing apparatus. However, since the apparatus predicts the lane by using reliability of a camera signal, the apparatus has no solution for a case in which either lane is not detected. Therefore, the apparatus cannot solve the aforementioned problem.

Apparatus and method for generating virtual lane, and system for controlling lane keeping of vehicle with the apparatus


An odor eliminating system utilizes an air pump to remove odors from a bowl of a toilet to a trap of the toilet. By moving the odors to the trap, the odors cannot escape back to the bowl and can only proceed out of the toilet to the sewer. The system can be adapted to existing toilets by drilling a channel to the trap or the system can be incorporated into new toilets.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to systems utilizing an air pump to evacuate odors from a toilet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most contemporary toilets share common features. A commode is an integrated body (i.e., a cast single piece) with a bowl and a rim. Water, either from a reservoir or a pipe, is piped through the integrated body to outlets beneath the rim when the toilet is flushed. A drain pipe is formed in the integrated body and leads from the bowl to a sewer line. To prevent sewer gases from escaping the sewer line through the drain of the toilet, the drain includes a trap. The trap is formed by a U-shaped section of piping followed by an inverted-U-shaped section of piping. The U-shaped section of pipe remains filled with water, even between flushes. The water in the U-shaped section of pipe blocks the passage of sewer gas.
A problem with the common toilet is that odors accumulate before the toilet can be flushed. Many attempts have been made to provide means for removing these odors.
One set of proposed solutions involves using filter systems to remove odors from the bowl of the toilet and scrub them with a filter before releasing the air back into the room. Any use of filters involves the costs of buying and replacing or regenerating filters. Furthermore, if the filter is spent, the system will pump unfiltered odor-filled air into the room.
Another set of proposed solutions involve using a pump system for removing odors from a toilet bowl to outside of the lavatory. Typically, the odors are pumped to the exterior of the building. This solution requires architectural improvements to be made to the building to allow for passages through which to pump the odor-filled gas. Another shortcoming is that the odors are merely being displaced, not treated or completely removed.
Another set of proposed solutions teach customized toilets that have integrated odor removing systems. The cost of such systems is significantly higher than a system that can be retrofitted to an existing toilet. Furthermore, homeowners will be limited as to the selection of styles and brand of toilets if an integrated system is used.

Odor eliminating system for a toilet, toilet including the odor eliminating system, and toilet seat assembly


A method and system for interacting with devices having different capabilities is described. Intelligent server-side objects (referred to as adapters) are used to translate information and commands to and from various formats depending on the requirements and capabilities of the target device. Using an interface to the adapters, a software developer may create a form without knowing the exact details or features of the device upon which the form will be displayed. Adapters are logically grouped together in adapter sets wherein a set of adapters may be used to transform information to and from a set of devices with common capabilities. An adapter may inherit attributes and methods from another adapter in the same or another adapter set. An adapter set may inherit adapter associations, i.e., which server objects should be mapped to which adapters, from another adapter set. To make a new or existing device compatible with existing server applications, a device developer may relatively quickly create one or more adapters.

With the increasing number and variety of consumer electronics, it is becoming more difficult to write computer applications that can interact with each device without being modified to account for variations between the capabilities of devices. For example, a cell phone may display a list of menu options by placing each option and a number on each display line. Placing a number next to each option facilitates the selection of an option as a cell phone typically includes a numeric keypad. A POCKET PC, on the other hand, usually uses a stylus for inputting user choices and data. The menu options displayed on a POCKET PC may therefore be optimized for selection by a stylus and not include numbers as such a device typically does not have a keypad.
Furthermore, a cell phone display may have a relatively small area in which to display information. As a consequence, menus displayed on a cell phone may be unable to fit on one display screen. Thus, to display a longer menu on a cell phone may require scrolling through information. Conversely, a POCKET PC may have a relatively large area in which to display information. The same menu that required multiple pages for the cell phone to display may only require one page for the POCKET PC to display.
Two different devices may have widely disparate ways of presenting a menu and receiving user input. One device may display the menu using text and receive input through a keypad while another device may "display" the menu through audio and receive input through voice commands.
Writing a program that automatically adapts itself for each device with which it interacts places an undue burden on a programmer. One approach to solving this problem uses an extensible style sheet language (XSL). XSL may be used to transform one extensible markup language (XML) schema to another XML schema. By transforming one schema to another, XSL may be used to translate the commands a program generates for displaying information on a device into commands the display device requires.
Using XSL, however, has several disadvantages. One disadvantage is the number of style sheets required. A new application typically requires one or more new XML schemas specific to that application. Each new XML schema requires at least one new XSL style sheet for each device supported. Thus, to add one application that could be translated to N devices would require N times the number of XML schemas specific to the application. Furthermore, when a new device is created, to provide universal support from all existing applications, new style sheets for each application would be required. This causes a large up-front cost of creating such documents and a lingering cost of maintaining the documents as device features are updated or change.
Another disadvantage of using style sheets is that XSL is not well-suited for two-way interaction with a device. That is, while XSL might be used to translate a particular form onto the display of a device, other mechanisms would be required (and one or more additional style sheets) to translate responses from the device back into information the application could utilize.
Yet another disadvantage of using style sheets relates to maintaining state information regarding a display operation. In the cell phone example above in which a menu requires multiple pages and scrolling to be displayed, XSL is ill-suited for maintaining state information about which page the cell phone is currently on and which page should be sent next to the cell phone.
Thus, there is a need in the art of a method and system for interacting with devices having different capabilities.

Method and system for interacting with devices having different capabilities


In one aspect of the disclosure, an MRI-based system includes an MRI scanner having a first axis and a first plane perpendicular to the first axis, a pulse sequence module configured to provide a 3D pulse sequence to the MRI scanner, and a control module configured to instruct the MRI scanner to conduct radial k-space samples having N second planes that each are perpendicular to the first plane and through which the first axis passes, N being an integer greater than 1. The 3D pulse sequence instructs the MRI scanner to a radio-frequency (RF) pulse, conduct a gradient readout in the first plane, and conduct a gradient readout in one of the N second planes.

The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
When a substance such as human tissue is subjected to a uniform magnetic field (polarizing field B0), the individual magnetic moments of the spins in the tissue attempt to align with this polarizing field, but precess about it in random order at their characteristic Larmor frequency. If the substance, or tissue, is subjected to a magnetic field (excitation field B1) which is in the x-y plane and which is near the Larmor frequency, the net aligned moment, Mz, may be rotated, or "tipped", into the x-y plane to produce a net transverse magnetic moment Mt. A signal is emitted by the excited spins after the excitation signal B1 is terminated, this signal may be received and processed to form an image.
When utilizing these signals to produce images, magnetic field gradients (Gx, Gy and Gz) are employed. Typically, the region to be imaged is scanned by a sequence of measurement cycles in which these gradients vary according to the particular localization method being used. The resulting set of received NMR signals are digitized and processed to reconstruct the image using one of many well known reconstruction techniques.
Perfusion as related to tissue refers to the exchange of oxygen, water and nutrients between blood and tissue. The measurement of tissue perfusion is important for the functional assessment of organ health. Perfusion weighted images (PWI) show the degree to which tissues are perfused by the change in their brightness as a bolus of contrast agent washes through the vasculature, and can be used to assess the health of brain tissues that have been damaged by a stroke. A number of methods have been used to produce perfusion images using magnetic resonance imaging techniques. One technique, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,295,465, is to determine the wash-in or wash-out kinetics of contrast agents such as chelated gadolinium. From the acquired NMR data, images are produced which indicate cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral blood volume (CBV), and mean transit time (MTT) at each voxel. Each of these perfusion indication measurements provides information that is useful in diagnosing tissue health.
Bolus tracking cerebral perfusion has expansive use in the clinical setting for imaging a variety of diseases including cerebrovascular occlusive disease, stroke, central nervous system tumors, and Alzheimer's disease. Parametric images of cerebral perfusion are calculated by analyzing the tracer kinetics of a known contrast agent, whether it is radio-labeled water in positron emission tomography (PET), an iodinated contrast agent in computed tomography (CT), spin-labeled water in arterial spin labeling MRI, or a paramagnetic contrast agent in dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) MRI. While the standard for quantification of cerebral perfusion still remains radio-labeled PET imaging, the requirement of a cyclotron for production of the radio-labeled tracer limits the availability of the technique. CT has the potential to quantify perfusion; however, iodinated contrast agents and large doses of radiation are required in this imaging method. This is problematic for frequent follow-up scan session as well as the use of the method in certain patient populations, such as young children.
MR-based perfusion imaging methods produce parametric images that only convey information relating to relative, and not quantitative, cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and cerebral blood volume (rCBV). Current methods for creating quantitative measurements of perfusion from MR imaging data rely on assuming population averaged values of normal appearing white matter (WM) and by setting the CBF values in this tissue to a preset value. This method has a poor correlation to PET imaging standards. Instead, a method which determines the quantitative CBF and CBV (qCBF and qCBV, respectively) on a subject-by-subject basis would be preferred.
Ischemic stroke is the third leading cause of death and disability in the industrialized world. In the US alone, between 500,000 and 750,000 people are affected by stroke each year. In an ischemic stroke, blood flow to parts of the brain is reduced below the metabolic needs and neuronal cell death ensues. Intracranial atherosclerosis is considered the leading cause of stroke worldwide. Intracranial atherosclerosis is caused by the accumulation of cholesterol plaque in the wall of an artery, causing progressive narrowing (stenosis) or complete blockage. Early detection and treatment of an intracranial stenosis has the potential to prevent a stroke. There is high rate of stroke in cases of stenosis greater that 70% despite maximal medical therapy. Conversely, many patients develop adequate collateral circulation to compensate for even severe stenosis without the need for intervention.
There is currently no robust way to evaluate the degree to which individuals are able to compensate for the presence of an intracranial stenosis, an extra-cranial stenosis, trauma, vascular malformations, etc. Angioplasty and stenting of stenosis may help patients with insufficient collateral flow, but the procedure carries a significant risk indicating the need for a more definitive method of identifying patients who will benefit from it.
Therefore, an objective measurement of the adequacy of cerebral perfusion downstream to the lesion should be central to treatment decision making Studies of relative perfusion with a stress challenge (i.e. Acetezolemide) are well known but are subjective and limited by the high likelihood of contralateral disease.
The viability of the brain parenchyma depends on the ability of the blood supply to adequately perfuse the tissue. In an ischemic stroke, blood flow to parts of the brain is reduced below the metabolic needs and neuronal cell death ensues. Atherosclerosis caused by the accumulation of cholesterol plaque in the wall of an artery in the arteries of the neck and head, is considered the leading cause of stroke worldwide. There is a high rate of stroke in cases of progressive narrowing (stenosis) of the arteries of the head and neck greater that 70% despite maximal medical therapy. Conversely, many patients develop adequate collateral circulation to compensate for even severe stenosis or complete blockage (occlusion) without the need for intervention. In a setting of vascular disease the ability to compensate for vascular disease is reduced although symptoms of the decrease symptoms are not observable. In patients with cerebrovascular disease, a higher risk of stroke is associated with inability to regular cerebral blood flow quantified by Cerebro-vascular Reserve (CVR).
The progression of cerebrovascular disease can be characterized in terms of three stages of hemodynamic failure. The three stages reflect the ability of the arteries of the head to compensate to the presence of a flow limiting stenosis in the head/neck. In this model the severity of compromise, i.e. the stage is reflected in changes in the cerebral blood volume, cerebral blood flow and oxygen extraction of the affected brain. In patients in the final stages of hemodynamic failure (stage III), it is found that Oxygen Extraction Fraction (OEF) was increased by as much has 50% relative to Stage I or Stage II failure. The increases of OEF values were measured with positron emission tomography scans and were able to predict which patients were likely to have a stroke. In other words, determining the stage of hemodynamic failure will likely provide a tool by which more aggressive management of atherosclerosis can help prevent a stroke. Although very useful, the need for an on-site cyclotron for the production of the specific radioactive tracer has limited this approach to a handful of research hospitals.
There have been a number of imaging approached to quantify CVR with a ACZ challenge. Compute tomography (CT) perfusion using Xe has been studied for over 20 years in evaluating cerebral perfusion. Xe-CT requires the presence of an anesthetist due to the pharmacologic and side effects of Xe inhalation which include headache, vomiting, decrease respiratory rate and convulsion. Xe-CT is not currently approved for use by the US FDA.
A more recent approach to CT perfusion involves tracking a bolus of contrast agent as if flows through the head. CT perfusion exposed the patient to high doses of radiation and quantitative values have not been shown to be robust. In the prevention of stroke, where two scans and periodic follow up may be required, the cumulative radiation dose should be minimized.
A recognized reference standard for quantitative cerebral perfusion is positron emission tomography (PET). Unlike standard FDG-PET scans, PET perfusion and OEF measurements require an on-site cyclotron to produce the short half life (122.24 s) radioactive tracer. The need for the cyclotron has limited PET perfusion to use at a fewer than 10 research sites in the US.
While technically not an imaging modality, it is possible measure global (i.e. hemispheric) changes in CVR measures with ACZ via transcranial Doppler ultrasonography of the middle cerebral artery. It may be less sensitive to detect compromised CVR than direct measurement of cerebral perfusion by Xe/CT (useful but single hemisphere).
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

Imaging-based diagnostic apparatus and methods for quantifying cerebral vascular reserve


An extensible control design framework is utilized to declaratively define a control (both visual and non-visual) and other components. The functionality of a control may be expanded by declaratively adding behaviors and semantics via an object called an action. The control does not become unduly complex by the addition of the behaviors and semantics. The action object encapsulates well-defined functionality and is associated with an existing control. The action object is also associated with an event or trigger such that the functionality is automatically executed when the event is raised. The functionality may be packaged in an independent application component such that a user who is not familiar with programming code may easily define logic and functionality for an application in a design environment.

Computer software applications are increasingly being developed in a declarative manner to simplify the development process. In user interface and application development frameworks, logic and non-user interface behavior is built into user interface components to expand control properties associated with the user interface components. Non-user interface behavior may be built into compositions of user interface components. Composite controls may be quite large with many different properties that are difficult for users to modify to accommodate different needs. The large number of properties complicates customization of the control because the user may not be familiar with all of the associated properties. The object model becomes bloated such that when the control is included in a form, users may be overwhelmed by the functionality offered by the control.


In the handover of a radio extension of an ATM network there are used markers that are located at fixed locations in the ATM cell stream in order to indicate the ending of an uplink and downlink cell stream, so that the switching of cell streams can be carried out in a synchronised fashion, and cells are not lost and their relative order does not change. If a downlink data transmission via the old access point succeeds, the old access point attaches to the last forwarded information field a notice of closing the traffic, in which case the mobile terminal transfers the information of successful transmission to the new access point. In another case, the old access point sends the unforwarded cells to the new access point and terminates the transaction with the same marker that generally indicates the end of a downlink cell stream.

The invention relates generally to operations aiming at the mobility of a wireless terminal in a data transmission network, where data is transmitted in packets, i.e. cells. The invention particularly relates to a method, the application whereof reduces interference in data transmission in a situation where the wireless terminal of an ATM network performs a handover.
The ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network is a data transmission system where data is transferred in digital form as 53-byte cells from one terminal to another through switches and rapid transfer connections therebetween. Each cell contains a 48-byte payload and a 5-byte header. In order to save space, the header information of each cell does not include complete address information describing the used data transfer route from the transmitting to the receiving device, but only information of the virtual path and channel where said data transfer connection is being carried. The switches or nodes of the network contain necessary routing information, on the basis whereof said identifiers of the virtual path and channel are interpreted as references to the respective node in succession.
It is to be expected that in the future the ATM network, which has so far been based mainly on cable connections, will also serve wireless terminals that are in contact with the network via radio base stations, i.e. access points. These mobile terminals may move with respect to the base stations and their coverage area, in which case the system must be able to execute a handover when necessary. A specific feature of each ATM connection is the contract between the terminal and the network as to the quality of service (QoS) required by the connection. This contract particularly covers the maximum length of the delays allowed in the connection and the capacity needed by the connection, which capacity is measured in units of transfer rate (for instance cells/s). The agreed quality of service for the connection and its upkeep are important factors when making decisions as for the point of time of the handover and the new base station to be assigned for a given mobile terminal.
FIG. 1 illustrates a simple radio extension of an ATM system comprising a mobile terminal 1, three base stations, henceforth called access points (AP) 2, 3 and 4, as well as a switch 5 transmitting connections between the access points and the rest of the network. At first the connection between the mobile terminal 1 and the ATM network proceeds via the access point 2. During connection, the mobile terminal may also have information of the existence of access points 3 and 4 as recorded in a (given register of alternative access points. When the connection to the access point 2 weakens the mobile terminal 1 hands the connection over to the access point 3 or 4. The mobile terminal 1 may also have several simultaneous ATM connections with cell streams that are independent of each other.
It is typical of the ATM system that cells of a given cell stream must not be lost; neither are the cells allowed to double or to change their relative order at the different stages of the connection, which would cause difficult synchronisation demands in the handover. A loss of cells or a confusion in their relative order generally results in that on some higher protocol layer, there is detected an incorrect check sum or other indicator, in which case a certain multi-cell data structure PDU (Protocol Data Unit) is discarded and selected to be retransmitted. This is uneconomical from the point of view of utilising the network capacity.
The handing over of access points in a wireless ATM network has been discussed in prior art publications, but they have usually not dealt with problems connected to the quality of service nor suggested a method for preventing the loss, doubling or disorganisation of ATM cells. In the patent publication EP 426,269 (British Telecommunications) there is known a method where base stations are grouped into groups of several stations. In order to help and speed up the handover, all cells directed to a mobile terminal located in the coverage area of a given base station are transmitted, by the data transmission network, to all base stations of the same group. Said publication introduces a system where the old base station transmits all cells that it has received, whereafter a new base station starts transmitting cells that are transferred therethrough. The publication also introduces a predictor mechanism to be connected to the base station control unit or to the switch controlling the base stations, the task of said predictor being to observe the movements of the mobile terminal from one coverage area to another and to estimate to which area the mobile terminal will move next. The purpose of this system is to reduce the number of cells that are transmitted in vain to the more distant base stations in the group. This application is not, however, capable of maintaining the order of the cells nor preventing the loss of certain cells, because the old and the new base station cannot know exactly which cells were transmitted and received correctly immediately before and/or after the handover.
From the patent publication EP 366,342 (AT & T) there is known a system where data is transmitted in a cellular radio network as cells, and the header of each cell contains an unchanging part which remains the same irrespective of chances in the routing, plus a changing part, the content whereof changes in connection with the handover or some other change in the routing. The publication suggests that the handover can be made easier by means of said system, but only as regards the definition of the routing. A similar system is described in the EP patent publication 577,959 (Roke Manor Research Ltd.), where the focus is particularly an ATM network. Now the unchanging part of the cell header is a so-called VCI (Virtual Channel Identifier) field, and the changing part is a so-called VPI (Virtual Path Identifier) field. Neither of said publications describes a method that could guarantee the maintenance of the order of the cells and/or prevent their loss during a handover.
From the EP patent publication 577,960 (Roke Manor Research Ltd.) there is known an application where at least one of the base stations of the cellular network is, via the ATM network, connected to at least two switches, which in said application also serve as gateway equipment for the ATM network and the cable-transmitted telephone network. The idea is to arrange the route-defining VPI and VCI codes of the ATM network so that although a given mobile terminal moves over to an area covered by another switch (or another mobile phone exchange), the routing is taken care of by linkage through the original switch. This arrangement has certain advantages in order to reduce connections to be switched in the network, but it does not affect possible loss and/or delay of cells taking place in between access points and the mobile terminal during a handover.
The article "BAHAMA: A Broadband Ad-Hoc Wireless ATM Local-Area Network", Proc. ICC '95, 18-22 Jun. 1995, Seattle, by K. Y. Eng et al, describes an arrangement where the GFC field included in the header part of the ATM cells is used for realising a sequential numbering on a per-cell basis. The purpose is to enhance the synchronisation and combining of cell streams arriving via two parallel routes to a given merging point. A particular aim of the numbering of cells is that they could be unambiguously identified, so that the cells would not be doubled or lost when combining cell streams, and that their order would remain unchanged. A new problem could now be that by means of the maximum four bits of the GFC field, only numbers from 0 to 15 can be represented, in which case the numbering cycle becomes so short that successive cells with similar numbers can be confused.
From the Finnish patent application FI 955,812, "Maintaining the composition of transferred data during handover", applicant Nokia Mobile Phones Oy, which is not yet public when the present application is being filed, there is known a method where ATM cells can be referred to with an accuracy of at least a given amount of cells, in which case the base stations can exchange information as to which cells were transmitted and/or received successfully in connection with the handover. In said method, the old base station sends to the ATM switch and/or to the new base station information as to which cells were successfully transferred therefrom to the new base station, in which case the transferring of cells is continued between the new access point and the mobile terminal starting from the first cell which was not successfully transmitted via the old access point. Moreover, the application introduces an acknowledgement system, whereby a given access point and mobile terminal both control which cells were successfully transferred over the radio connection. This method does not take into account the general control of the handover nor the quality of service agreed for the different connections.

Method for executing handover in a radio extension of an ATM network


A dampening system has at least one dampening ductor or roller; a dampening agent bin or trough, which holds a dampening agent, a feeding device, and a return device. The feeding device includes at least one dampening agent distributing pipe that has a number of spaced openings. A number of these dampening agent distributing pipes are assigned to the dampening ductor or roller.

Dampening systems are used in offset printing presses and in other printing systems. A dampening system consists of, for example, a dampening ductor, which may also be called a water tank roller, a dampening agent tank, and devices for supplying and returning dampening agent to and from the dampening agent tank. The dampening ductor or roller is typically partially immersed in the dampening agent contained in the dampening agent tank, picks up the dampening agent by a rotating movement, and transfers the dampening agent to further rollers of the printing group. To prevent interferences with the printing operation, it is important that the dampening agent taken up by the dampening ductor or roller has identical physical and chemical properties over the entire length of the roller.
A dampening system in an offset printing press is described in DE 198 53 362 C1. A supply system for dampening agent, which has a plurality of spray nozzles over the roller length, is assigned to the dampening ductor in the axial direction of the ductor.
A dampening system is known from DE 196 16 198 A1, which system has at least one dampening agent pickup roller. A dampening agent supply line is arranged above the dampening agent pickup roller, parallel with this roller, and extends over the roller's full length. On its underside, the supply line is provided with outlet openings, by the use of which a water curtain is formed when the supply line is charged with dampening agent.
For use in removing deposits, such as ink particles, for example, from a dampening ductor or roller, DD 247 414 A1 proposes to press a stripping element against the surface of the roller with a pressure which is equal over the entire length of the roller.
A dampening agent recirculating system for offset printing presses is described in EP 0 638 417 A1. In this case, a dampening agent supply line, with hole-shaped cutouts, and a dampening agent catch rod, which is situated at a defined small distance from the dampening ductor, are positioned parallel to the dampening ductor or roller.
DE 94 20 343 U1 shows a dampening system, whose dampening agent tank has an inflow line with several openings. A return conduit, having a weir, extends over the entire length of the dampening agent tank.
DE 199 09 262 A1 describes a dampening agent tank with a dam for limiting the return flow of the dampening agent. A filter has been installed between this dam and a return flow line.
DE 38 31 741 A1 discloses a dampening agent tank with several inflow lines and with several return flow lines.
DE 17 61 908 A discloses an adjustable dampening supply device.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Dampening systems having a dampening agent feeding and return device


Implementations include a compartmentalized plug-in load center having connector receptacles for load circuit wiring connection to the load center and a plug-in back plate to connect the plug-in load center to a vertical power busway within a utility wall panel of a building, and a method for installing the load center in a building with a vertical power busway.

Installing conventional load centers in a multi-story, multi-unit building and connecting individual unit load circuits to respective load centers within the building requires substantial labor by one or more licensed electricians and, in some areas, an inspection by a city, state, local, or federal government electrical inspector. In addition to the labor required to install and connect convention load centers and load circuits wiring, conventional techniques of a centralized service area (e.g., a meter stack and main breakers) with "feeders" to individual units can require significant materials (e.g., wiring and conduit) and space (e.g., in a service run or raceway) for the feeders to run throughout the building. In a conventional electrical system for a multi-story building, a feeder may need to be run from the centralized service area to each unit. These feeders may extend from a first floor or basement service area up to the floor that a unit is located on, or from a centralized service area on a floor to the units on that floor. In either case, extensive wiring may be needed for the feeder lines. Moreover, multiple feeders passing vertically and/or horizontally require significant amounts of space. The space required depends on the number of feeders running in each area of the building.
Further, some conventional multi-unit building electrical systems includes wiring and horizontal busways that are constructed on site by electricians. The labor requirements for such site-built electrical systems in terms of both man-hours and overall time to complete can be significant. Site built electrical systems cannot leverage any of the efficiencies and quality control practices that have long been associated with the manufacturing industries, which have resulted in reliable and economical products.
Further, site-built electrical systems may require more extensive inspections and testing prior to occupancy due to the nature of site-built construction. These conventional electrical systems may also be prone to errors such as shorts or opens in the wiring and/or connections.
Some implementations were conceived in light of the above-mentioned problems and limitations, among other things.
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.


It is judged whether the reference data is the latest and if not the latest, the data is updated to the latest in a short time. A program in which data creation procedure is pre-defined creates requested secondary data according to primary data. The primary data, the secondary data, and data update information including the primary data update time and the secondary data update time are stored in a storage device. When the relationship between data update information on the primary data and the secondary data used for creating the requested secondary data when generation of the secondary data is requested and the data update information on the requested secondary data does not satisfy a predetermined condition, a program for creating the requested secondary data is executed. Furthermore, the primary data and the secondary data are outputted to the output unit while correlating them to each other.

The present invention relates to a data processing technique for processing primary data such as input information so as to generate secondary data.
In an inventory control system in a franchise chain or the like, information such as the number of articles sold is inputted from a terminal at each store. The primary data such as the sales number inputted is collected to a data center or the like and totaled. The collected primary data is converted into secondary data which can easily be used by a user for article inventory control.
When each store is connected to the data center online and the primary data is transmitted in real time, there is a danger to increase the network traffic. Moreover, there is a case that realization of online itself is desirable.
To cope with this, such a method can be considered that the primary data is temporarily accumulated and batch processing is performed periodically to generate secondary data. However, such a batch processing has a problem that there is a time difference between the timing of input of the primary data and the timing of generation of the secondary data. It is preferable to prevent generation of a difference between the stock amount registered by the system and the actual stock amount which may cause lack of articles or an excessive stock.
In order to solve these problems, there is considered a method for generating data in accordance with necessity when referencing the secondary data. However, when it is necessary to use an enormous amount of primary data for generating secondary data, the processing requires a plenty of time. Moreover, even when only a part of the primary data is updated, all the programs necessary for generation of the secondary data should be executed.
For this, JP-A-2001-331354 discloses a technique for deriving a relationship between the primary data, the secondary data, and a program required for generation of the secondary data.

Method and system for data processing with data distribution managing


In order to remove organic constituents from an aqueous stream, the aqueous stream is combined with an adsorbent consisting of small particles to produce a dispersion in order to bind the contamination by adsorption on the small particles. The dispersion is concentrated to produce a slurry and the adsorbent is then regenerated by oxidation. The particles of the adsorbent are smaller than 200 .mu.m and the oxidation can take place as partial oxidation at a temperature of between 25 and 130.degree. C. and a pressure of between 1 and 3 bars. A reduction in volume of at least 90% is achieved on concentration to produce a slurry and the method is carried out continuously.

Water for the production of drinking water and for the food and pharmaceutical industries must be essentially free from insecticides, herbicides, chlorinated hydrocarbons, phenols, colorants, aroma substances and flavourings and other substances harmful or disagreeable to man. Governments also frequently demand that harmful organic components are removed from industrial effluents.
Physical adsorption on active charcoal is the technology most widely used for the removal of the above mentioned constituents, although extraction, distillation, membrane separation processes and biological processes can also be used to remove organic components from water. Active charcoal is a broad-spectrum adsorbent which can be used to remove undesirable components (colorants, aroma substances and flavourings and foaming agents) and to recover dissolved components by concentration. Active charcoal is characterized by a high specific surface area of 300-2500 m.sup.2 per gram. There are two forms of active charcoal used as adsorbent in liquid phases: powdered charcoal and granular charcoal. The liquid to be treated is mixed with the charcoal particles, heated if necessary and, after a certain adsorption time, separated off by settling of the solid particles or by filtration. To an increasing extent powdered charcoal is being replaced by granular charcoal in connection with ease of handling, the absence of the need for filtration and the possibility of regenerating granular charcoal. The type of active charcoal chosen is determined by the desired physical and chemical properties. The most important physical parameters are specific surface area, pore size distribution, density, specific adsorption capacity, particle size, mechanical strength and resistance to attrition. The most important chemical properties are ash content, ash composition and pH. The customary procedure for regeneration of active charcoal is to heat the latter to a temperature of about 1000.degree. C. Alternatively, regeneration can take place by steam stripping, with which method steam is passed through a bed of charcoal granules and volatile constituents are removed with the steam, solvent regeneration, with which method use is made of a solvent to extract adsorbed components from the charcoal, and wet air oxidation, with which method organic and inorganic compounds are oxidized with oxygen at a temperature of between 150.degree. C. and 340.degree. C. and a pressure of between 7 and 200 bar.
The use of granular charcoal for the removal of constituents from aqueous streams is associated with a number of drawbacks. Granular charcoal is microporous, virtually all of the extracting surface being located within the porous charcoal particles. The diffusion to an adsorption site within the pores is the determining factor for the rate. This process can take from only ten minutes to many hours. The actual adsorption step can go to completion in much less time, for example a few seconds to a few minutes. The slow reaction kinetics as a consequence of mass transfer limitations constitues a serious disadvantage. Another drawback is the loss of binding capacity as a consequence of clogging of pores. This is because active charcoal has a heterogeneous pore system, specified in more detail by macro-, meso- and micropores. As a result of pores being closed off by large molecules, some of the available adsorption capacity becomes inaccessible, which results in a reduction in the adsorption capacity. Finally, active charcoal adsorption can be employed mainly for apolar components. The effect of adsorption on active charcoal is thus dependent on the polarity of the components. Apolar components are firmly bound, whereas more polar components will adsorb to a much lesser extent.
If the removal process is carried out in a column, one is also confronted with the drawbacks that the adsorption capacity is poorly utilized as a consequence of the occurrence of preferential flow in a packed bed, that there is a need for pretreatment of the stream in connection with clogging of the column bed and that there is a question of low volumetric capacity as a consequence of low liquid flow rates in the column.
The disadvantage of the poor utilization of the absorption capacity can be avoided by making use of a fluidized bed. Moreover, no pretreatment is necessary in this case.
A significant disadvantage of existing methods for removing organic constituents from a n aqueous stream with the aid of granular charcoal is that there are no suitable techniques for regeneration of the granular charcoal in situ, i.e. on-line with the adsorption step.
A method of the type indicated in the preamble of the description is disclosed in DE-A 2 743 683. The disclosed method relates specifically to the treatment of effluent originating from the ammoxidation process for the preparation of acrylonitrile or an oxidized liquid obtained by wet oxidation of this effluent. Adsorption is carried out in three mixer-settlers connected in counter-current with long adsorption times (3 times 15 minutes). The method used for regeneration is exclusively wet air oxidation at pressures of between 15 and 150 bar and temperatures of between 150 and 300.degree. C. The oxidation is very intensive and can lead to damage to the particles. As a matter of fact the adsorbent (at least 98% of the adsorbent) has a size lower than 0.04 .mu.m.

Method for removing organic constituents from an aqueous stream

Nederlandse Organisatie Voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO)


Compositions for eliciting an immune response against Gram-negative bacterial infections and methods of making such compositions are provided. The composition comprises glycosylated pilin, the pilin being glycosylated with the O-antigen of a target Gram-negative bacteria of interest. Methods of eliciting an immune response by administration of such compositions are also provided.

Bacterial sepsis and related septic shock are frequently lethal conditions caused by infection which can result from surgery, trauma, and immune suppression related to cancer, transplantation therapy or other diseases. Gram-negative bacterial infections comprise the most serious infectious disease problem seen in hospitals today, now counting for thousands of infections yearly with a high overall mortality.
In prior decades, most infectious diseases contracted in hospitals were attributable to acute Gram-positive bacterial pathogens such as Staphylococcus and Streptococcus. However, in the last thirty years the incidence of nosocomial infections with Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other Gram-negative bacteria has risen steadily. The increase has been attributed to advances in medical treatment, resulting in prolonged survival of immunologically impaired hosts and the increased prevalence of wide spread antibiotic use in the hospital environment.
In addition to individuals receiving anti-cancer chemotherapy or immunosuppressive treatments following organ or tissue transplants, other individuals significantly at risk for Gram-negative bacterial infections include those with cystic fibrosis (CF) and burn victims. More than 90% of mortality in CF patients is the result of P. aeruginosa infections. Infections in immuno-compromised hosts typically exhibit resistance to many antibiotics, or develop resistance over the long course of the infection, making conventional treatment difficult. Natural selection for drug resistant bacteria by the extensive use of antibiotics has contributed to a Gram-negative bacteria involving into pathogens of major clinical significance.
A variety of factors contribute to the pathogenicity of Gram-negative bacteria. As described above, many Gram-negative bacteria are highly resistant to antibiotics. Additionally, many Gram-negative bacteria synthesize cellular and extra-cellular products to ensure infection of their hosts. Cellular products include lipopolysacciaride (LPS), pili, and alginate (in P. aeruginosa), a mucoid polysaccharide that is thought to protect the bacteria from phagocytosis. LPS is produced in a variety of forms, is highly immunogenic, mediates entry into eukaryotic cells and protects the bacteria from host defensives.
The LPS of P. aeruginosa and other Gram-negative bacteria is made up of a conserved structure that is widely shared among diverse Gram-negative bacterial genera. The core structure is comprised of three regions: (1) an O-antigen (O-polysaccharide comprised of repeating units of 3–5 sugars); (2) an inner and outer core; and (3) a lipid A region. The O-antigen is attached to the lipid A via the core region, and the lipid A portion is imbedded into the outer membrane of the organism where it serves as an anchor for the LPS. P. aeruginosa usually expresses two distinct types of LPS on its outer membrane, A-band and B-band. B-band LPS is the immunodominant antigen and is used to divide the organism into serogroups and subgroups. This is also seen in some other Gram-negative bacteria having LPS.
The lipid A portion of the LPS consists of short phosphorylated lipids acylated to a glucosamine disaccharide backbone and is thought to be the most toxic portion of the LPS. Also known as endotoxin A, it can overinduce the inflammatory response of the immune system, resulting in septic shock or even death. Septic shock causes a decrease in blood pressure, which can cause harm to the kidneys, lungs and gastrointestinal tract.
Pili are also an important virulence factor. Pili are hair-like fibers that extend outward from the bacterial cell and allow the bacteria to interact with surfaces, and are believed to be responsible for initial attachment of the bacteria to host cells. Without the ability to attach to host cells, bacteria are much less virulent. For example, Woods et al. (1980) demonstrated that the use of homologous anti-pilus antisera prevented attachment to buccal epithelial cells in challenge assays.
It has been shown that P. aeruginosa pilus is glycosylated (Castric, 1995, Microbiology, 141: 1247–1254); other type IV pilin bacteria are thought to be glycosylated as well. Structural analysis (Castric, et al., Journal of Biological Chemistry, 276:26479–26485) has shown that the pilin glycan is a trisaccharide that is identical to the O-antigen repeating unit of this microbe, and originates from the O-antigen biosynthetic pathway (unpublished observations). The pilin glycan is a major B-cell epitope of the pilus. Subcutaneous immunization of mice with pure glycosylated P. aeruginosa 1244 pili produced glycan (O-antigen)-specific antibodies. These antibodies recognized LPS from P. aeruginosa 1244 as determined by ELISA and Western blot (unpublished results). In addition, intranasal immunization of mice with glycosylated pili stimulated production of LPS-specific IgA in bronchial lavage and protected the animals against challenge with P. aeruginosa 1244. These results indicate that the P. aeruginosa pilin glycan produces an anti-LPS response.
Attachment of the O-antigen repeating unit to the pilus requires a functioning pilO gene (Castric, 1995, Microbiology, 141:1247–1254); the pilO protein in P. aeruginosa 1244 has been found to be extremely non-specific as to O-antigen repeating unit. For example (and as described more fully in the examples below), the gene cluster that codes for synthesis of the Escherichia coli O157 O-antigen was cloned in a broad-host-range cosinid and produced O157 LPS in P. aeruginosa 1244. The pilin sub-units produced by this strain were glycosylated with either O157 antigen or the host cell repeating unit (demonstrated in the examples presented below). This same nonspecificity was seen with a cloned heterologous P. aeruginosa O-antigen gene cluster.
As identified in numerous studies, the O-antigen repeating unit of LPS is the principal target of the immune response. However, developing a heterologous vaccine to O-antigens from multiple strains has proven difficult. For example, a study on the immune response in mice to high molecular weight O-antigens was performed with P. aeruginosa serogroup O2 strains (O2a–O2f). homologous O-antigens were more immunogenic in low doses, and elicited highly protective opsonic antibodies (Hatano and Pier, 1998). When vaccination was given as heterologous O-antigens, antibodies were generated to all strains, but cross-reactive opsonic antibodies were decreased, rather than enhanced among the strains tested (Hatano and Pier, 1998).
The use of an LPS-based vaccine has serious drawbacks, as this type of vaccine includes the toxic part (lipid A) of the LPS molecule, as well as the drawbacks discussed above regarding multivalent vaccines. There is a continued need for the development of compositions for eliciting an immune response in a vertebrate animal to Gram-negative bacterial infections, to assist the native immune response in overcoming such infections.

Compositions and methods for eliciting an immune response to gram-negative bacterial infections


A system and method for tracing program code within a processor having an embedded cache memory. The non-invasive tracing technique minimizes the need for trace information to be broadcast externally. The tracing technique monitors changes in instruction flow from the normal execution stream of the code. The tracing technique monitors the updating of processor branch target register contents in order to monitor branch target flow of the code. Tracing of the program flow includes tracing instructions both before and after a trace triggering event. The implementation of periodic synchronizing events enables the tracing of instructions occurring before and after a triggering event.

The present invention addresses the need to acquire a real-time trace of program execution from a highly integrated microprocessor. Typically, users wish to obtain a "trace" or listing, of exactly what instructions execute during each clock cycle for a limited period of time during the execution of a program in order to debug or analyze the performance of the program. A "real-time" trace is one that can be acquired while the program runs at normal speed, in the actual system environment, and can be triggered by some system event recognized by the trace acquisition system. Note that since any buffer used to acquire a trace will have a finite number of entries that will likely be much smaller than the number of clocks consumed in the execution of the program, the trace acquisition system must be able to selectively retain only the information for the clock cycles of interest, i.e., those just before and just after the "trigger" event ("TE"). Further, the system must provide a means for synchronizing the TE with the contents of the trace buffer so that the user can tell exactly what instructions were executing during the clock cycle that the TE occurred. A "non-invasive" trace is one that can be acquired without disturbing the timing behavior of the program from its behavior while not being traced.
A difficulty in acquiring a trace from a highly integrated processor stems from the invisibility of most of the signals required to derive the trace. A typical approach to deriving an instruction trace requires one to determine the location of an instruction being executed on a particular clock cycle (ie., at the start of the trace), and then to determine for subsequent clock cycles how many instructions are executed, whether they are taken or not if they are branches, and the target addresses for the taken branches.
Because the processor has an integrated instruction cache, the instruction address bus is not accessible externally and hence, each instruction fetch cannot normally be seen. Also, the signals that indicate the number of instructions executed each cycle and the direction taken by conditional branches are not usually available externally to the integrated circuit ("IC"). Therefore, some information must normally be exported from the microprocessor in order to acquire the trace. This information should appear on the external pins of the IC; either on pins that are already used for other purposes such as external data and address buses, or on pins dedicated to the tracing function.
Multiplexing trace data onto existing pins has two potential problems. If the trace runs all the time, it will contend for system resources (e.g., bus bandwidth), degrading performance to support a feature that is only used during software debug operations. If the trace data is switched on only when acquiring a trace, it may affect the timing of the program by delaying the processor's normal access to the shared pins, and thus will be intrusive. Dedicated pins can alleviate this problem; however, to maintain low cost of the IC, the pin count must be kept as low as possible.
A previous invention, disclosed within the cross-referenced patent application, described a set of hardware additions made to a microprocessor to provide a non-intrusive, real-time trace capability with low additional cost to the processor IC. However, that solution had the following deficiencies:
(1) It could only trace forward from a TE. That is, once the TE was recognized, trace information was provided to reconstruct an instruction trace from the clock on which the TE occurred and some finite number of clock cycles (dictated by the depth of the external trace acquisition buffer) after the TE. When debugging, a software engineer may often wish to trigger the capture of the trace when some extraordinary error or event happens, and then to see a trace of the instructions that preceded the unexpected event, to determine what caused the event. For example, one might wish to acquire a trace whenever the processor vectors to an error exception handling routine. In order to determine the cause of the error, one must use the trace of instructions before the error was recognized. The instructions executed after the error occurs are just those of the exception handling routine, and tracing them will be of little use in determining the cause of the error. PA1 (2) It can only indicate a single TE on the output pins. The ability to indicate multiple TEs is useful if the user wants to count TEs and retain the trace information for the time period around the Nth TE. PA1 (3) The partitioning of the solution did not lend itself to reducing cost in a "CORE+ASIC" environment. In this type of design environment, a central processing unit ("CPU") is provided as a large "macro" or "mega-cell" to be used as an element of an Application Specific Integrated Circuit ("ASIC"). The CPU is a "hard macro"; that is, it is a physical design implementation that is placed onto the ASIC as a whole and is not subject to any type of changes or physical optimizations. Since some ASICs may need support for tracing and some may not, it is desirable to add as little hardware to the CPU as possible and allow for another macro block or some part of the ASIC logic to implement the bulk of the additional logic necessary to support trace operations. In this manner, one could easily remove the logic used to support tracing when it is not required on a particular ASIC. The previous solution described within the cross-referenced patent application used three registers in the CPU dedicated to the tracing function; removing them from the CPU is desirable. PA1 (4) The processor operation had to be stopped in order to read the dedicated registers. Stopping the processor operation may be inconvenient or impossible. For example, if it was desired to acquire several trace fragments over the time that the processor runs a relatively long task, the processor could not be stopped to retrieve the information from the dedicated registers without affecting the application that was being traced. PA1 (1) The present invention allows for trace acquisition both before as well as after a triggering event ("TE") is recognized by the system. PA1 (2) Multiple TEs can be indicated by the CPU and counted by the external trace gathering system. Former trace acquisition systems started broadcasting trace information when the first TE occurred, and only that one TE was indicated. Multiple TEs are useful, for example, if a user wishes to trace the Nth time through a certain section of code. PA1 (3) Some dedicated hardware is removed from the CPU and replaced with hardware that can be easily partitioned from the CPU, thus making the solution less costly for CORE+ASIC products that do not require the tracing capability. PA1 (4) Stopping of the processor to read the dedicated registers is not required. The trace pins can be examined and the information on these pins retrieved "on-the-fly". As a result, it is possible to acquire several trace fragments over the time that the processor runs a relatively long task, and the processor operation is not stopped, which alleviates the problem of affecting the application that is being traced.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved tracing operation for an integrated processor that addresses the above four issues.

System and method for tracing program execution within a processor before and after a triggering event

International Business Machines Corporation


A steering member has a rack portion and a screw portion. The steering member is in a steering housing and operatively connected to a tie rod. A pinion is operatively connected between the rack portion and a steering wheel. A ball nut is operatively connected to the screw portion. A power source is operatively connected to the ball nut. The power source drives the ball nut to effect linear movement of the steering member upon rotation of the steering wheel. A damper has a first connection to the tie rod and a second connection to a ground surface. The ground surface is fixed relative to the steering member. The damper is external to the ball nut.

This invention relates in general to power steering assemblies for vehicles and in particular to damping of such a power steering assembly.
An automotive vehicle typically includes a power steering assembly to assist in turning steerable wheels of the vehicle. The power steering assembly may include a rack and pinion assembly to convert rotational movement of a steering wheel of the vehicle into linear movement of a steering member. The linear movement of the steering member then turns the steerable wheels. A ball nut may be mounted on the steering member and operably connected to a power source. The power source and ball nut together assist in the linear movement of the steering member in response to rotation of the steering wheel.
Components of the power steering assembly experience internal lash, with the ball nut being a primary source of the lash. For example, the components of the power steering assembly may experience lash when a direction of steering changes from left to right or right to left. Certain frequencies of vibration from suspension components of the vehicle, or from other sources, can excite the power steering assembly into a resonance frequency because of the lash. As a result, undesirable noise, vibration, and harshness is produced by the power steering assembly.
There are known mechanical means for reducing the lash within the ball nut to reduce the resulting noise, vibration, and harshness. However, the mechanical means increase friction in the ball nut. The increased friction reduces performance of the power steering assembly. Additionally, known software control means are limited in how much lash they can reduce. Thus, it would be desirable to reduce noise, vibration, and harshness produced by the power steering assembly without increasing friction in the ball nut.

External damping of power steering for a vehicle


An image-capturing apparatus is provided having a storage control device, a writing speed measuring device, and a selecting device. The storage control device writes image data into memory devices. The writing speed measuring device measures the writing speed of the memory devices by writing dummy data into the memory devices. The selecting device compares the writing speeds of the memory devices, and selects the memory device having the fastest writing speed. The storage control device stores image data in the selected memory device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-capturing apparatus, in particular to the storage of an image file in a storage medium of the image-capturing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image-capturing apparatus, for example a digital camera, processes image data, and stores it in a memory device. Some digital cameras have memory devices, for example, a built-in flash memory and a detachable external memory medium. A detachable external memory medium can be a memory card, for example an SD CARD™, or optical disc, for example a CD-R.
In general, the amount of time required to store image data in a memory device is longer than the amount of time required for imaging and processing. An overly long storage time can cause the processed image data not to be stored. It increases the interval time until the next time that the camera is ready to photograph a photographic subject. In other words, the maximum number of photographs able to be taken per second depends on the writing speed of the memory device.
Some digital cameras are required to photograph a subject, continuously. Continuous photographing demands fast writing speed of the memory device. Fast writing speed increases the maximum number of photographs able to be taken per second.
The writing speed of a memory device is different for different types or generations of memory. Each memory device provided in a digital camera has an attribute, for example the writing speed. A digital camera which increases the number of photographs able to be taken per second by storing the image data in a memory device having an attribute of the fastest writing speed among memory devices is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (KOKAI) No. (HEI) 5-49000.
However, this attribute indicates the average writing speed of a memory device. The memory area of a memory device fragments into many small areas through the repetition of storing image data. This fragmentation interferes with storage of the image data in a continuous memory area, increases writing time, reduces writing speed, and increases the difference between the actual writing speed and the average writing speed. A digital camera storing image data into a memory device having a slow writing speed due to the average writing speed being different from the actual writing speed, cannot perform to show its potential.


The invention consists of a pressure transducer based air velocity sensor that has been optimized for use in metal ducts. The fluid flow velocity is determined by measuring the propagation delay of a direct path pressure wave signal transmitted through the fluid as a function of a frequency difference rather than as a phase delay measurement. This system electronically removes multi-path signals from the measured signal, thereby obviating the requirement for installation calibration.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an improved system for measuring the velocity of fluid streams utilizing a pressure transducer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
About 100 million bales of cotton are produced annually in the world of which 18-20 million are produced in the United States. After the harvesting operation, the seedcotton is taken to a cotton gin where one of the key processing steps is performed, the separation of the lint from the seeds and other contaminants. The predominant method of conveyance of the product through the cotton gin processing system is by pneumatic conveyance. Optimal operation of many of processing systems in the cotton gin can be improved through the monitoring of the air velocity.
Air velocity sensing in process control systems is predominantly performed by hot wire anemometry, however in some applications where the fluid lines are subjected to high levels of particulate contamination, the hot wire anemometer's calibration can be affected due to the build up of the contaminants on the hot wire sensor. A common alternative to the hot wire anemometer is to utilize a pressure sensor to determine the air velocity by measuring the time of flight of a pressure wave and thereby determine the velocity of the pressure wave. The velocity of the pressure wave provides a measure of both the speed of sound, a function of air temperature and density, as well as the velocity of the gas. In practice, the measurement is typically measured in both the upstream and downstream directions which allows for the quantification of the air velocity as well as the sonic velocity and thereby the molecular density of the fluid. As this also allows for the removal of the effects of the density from the measurement, this leads directly to a measure of the fluid velocity. This type of measurement is commonly referred to as a sonic flow meter.
A primary advantage of the sonic flow meter is that it doesn't require an invasion of the measurement space. As such, installation of a sonic flow system does not require a shutdown of the system being monitored nor does it require cutting into the fluid lines. Additionally, since the sonic flow meter does not require physical contact between the measuring apparatus and the liquid whose rate is being measured, there is no possibility that the sonic apparatus will alter the flow being measured or will be adversely affected by the chemical nature of the fluid being monitored. A number of different approaches have been taught in the art for sensing and measuring the motion of fluids utilizing principles of sonic velocity measurement.
One of the simplest techniques for measuring the fluid velocity utilizes a Doppler shift technique. In practice, the Doppler technique transmits a continuous stable frequency sinusoidal wave to an acoustic transducer that produces an acoustic pressure wave that is directed toward oncoming or outgoing particles that reflect the pressure wave back to the transducer. As the particles are moving relative to the stationary transducer, a Doppler frequency shift is imparted to this pressure wave. Upon reception of the returned wave, the frequency of the transmitted wave is compared to the received wave with the frequency difference providing a direct measure of the relative velocity between transducer and the particles. The disadvantage to the Doppler technique is that it only works in fluids with a significant amount of particulate contamination. Use of this system is also subject to errors when measuring streams having a mix of particulates of varying sizes. In such streams, the particulates of different sizes will impart different velocities onto the returned pulse due to the particulates traveling at different velocities due to the varying drag force, which is proportional to the wetted area of the particle. Thus, the mean particle size has a direct influence on the obtained measurement which affects the application's accuracy, as it is directly related to the uniformity and predictability of the suspended particles in the fluid stream. For use in cotton gins, this is an undesirable characteristic due to its inherent variability and unpredictability.
One of the most commonly practiced techniques for measuring fluid velocity utilizing pressure transducers is the direct time of flight measurement of either a single pulse or a burst of a successive set of pulses, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,060,506, 6,568,281, 4,515,021, 4,308,754, and 3,575,050 are primary examples disclosed in their entirety by reference herein. The primary disadvantage to this technique is that for the close distances that are typical in these transducers, the requirements to directly and accurately measure the time of flight of a pulse transmission, as varied by the fluid velocity, leads to the requirements of extraordinarily fast clocks in order to resolve the time of flight to a sufficient level of resolution. For instance, in the measurement of air velocity across a typical range utilized by cotton gins (9.144 m/s (30 ft/s) to 12.192 m/s (40 ft/s)); the delta time difference between the low speed versus the high speed leads to a time difference of 22.2 μs. Given we'd like some dynamic range with the measurement, in order to obtain a 10 bit accurate measurement the measurement needs to be resolved with a 5.4 ns clock. This situation becomes even more exacerbated when the fluid is a liquid as the sonic velocity is over 4 times this speed. Thus, the time base for a typical liquid application at 10 bit resolution would have to be increased to over 2.8 GHz. Thus, this technique doesn't lend itself to an accurate, low cost solution.
Other problems associated with the direct time of flight measurement lay in the difficulty in the detection of the arrival time of an ultrasonic pulse passing through a fluid as it is affected by turbulent flow conditions in high Reynolds number flows as well as turbulence cause by entrained particles as well as changes in fluid temperature, pressure, and composition which leads to a received pulse of varying amplitude as well as shape. Thus, an ultrasonic pressure wave propagating through a fluid can be subjected to a wide variety of different and rapidly varying amounts of attenuation. In order to overcome this difficulty, many patents have focused on the development of automatic gain amplifiers to compensate. While this works, it further complicates an already difficult measurement.
Another commonly practiced technique transmits a continuous wave (CW) single frequency signal to the receiving transducer. Upon reception at the receiving transducer, the received signal is compared to an internal reference that is used to drive the transmitting transducer. As the internal signal is transmitted electrically, there is very little delay compared to the signal that is transmitted through the fluid via the pressure transducers. By measuring the phase difference between the internal reference signal and the pressure transmitted signal, it is possible to accurately determine the fluid velocity. By utilizing a measurement of the phase difference between the transmitted signal and the receiving signal, a much more accurate measurement than that provided by the time of flight technique, is obtained. One of the original patents utilizing this technique was U.S. Pat. No. 3,861,211 by Dewan.
Unfortunately, one of the fundamental limitations of the phase determination method is due to the inability of a phase difference measurement to resolve phase differences greater than 360 degrees since a sine wave repeats itself every 360 degrees. This leads to a problem referred to as "phase ambiguity". Thus, this technique imposes limitations upon the span of the velocity as the total time delay measurement becomes a function of the transmitted frequency. When this is coupled with the fact that currently there are few low cost transducers available and they are frequency dependant with only a few frequency choices currently available, these issues to render this technique unusable in many applications.
Another primary problem with the phase difference measurement technique lays in it's inability to remove the effects of standing waves in a closed cavity. Thus, in practice, this technique is best utilized in open air structures where standing waves can be minimized. This need to avoid standing waves lays in the need to avoid receiving more than one signal that has taken different paths from the transmitter to the receiver as this leads to alterations in the direct path signal by the multi path signals. As the multipath signals are the same frequency as the direct path signal, the reception of the multipath signals in conjunction with the direct path signal alters both the amplitude as well as the phase of the original signal. Thus, despite the advances in the measurement of fluid velocity, there remains a critical need for production of a low cost sensor which can remove the effect of the multipath signals from the received direct path signal, while maintaining the accuracy of the direct time of flight methodology.

Pressure transducer based fluid velocity sensor

The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture