In order to reduce the amount of synthetic fungicides used in the storage of potatoes, a method of repelling fungi in potatoes as effectively as possible has been looked for. What has also been looked for is an agent that is effective both for repelling fungi and for inhibiting sprouting in the storage of potatoes. It has been found that a combination of carvone and one or more fungicides leads to a synergistic effect both for repelling fungi and for inhibiting sprouting.

This invention relates to a sprout inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition for potatoes.
Sprouting, also referred to as shooting, Is a problem in the storage of potatoes. It leads to a potato quality loss as a result of lose of weight. Further, the turgor of the potatoes lessens (the potatoes become softer), and toxic products may be formed in the sprouts.
Sprouting can be inhibited by storing the potatoes at a temperature of 2.degree. C., but at such a low temperature reducing sugars are formed which give the potatoes, when (deep)fried, a brown color and cause them to taste sweet (Maillard reaction). For this reason the potatoes are typically stored at a temperature between 5 and 8.degree. C. At such a temperature the problem of the formation of reducing sugars is absent or considerably smaller, but upon prolonged storage sprouting is not entirely prevented.
Therefore, sprout inhibiting agents are necessary to maintain potato quality during storage, both in potatoes intended for direct consumption and in potatoes to be processed into potato products. Such sprouting inhibitors are used to inhibit sprouting over prolonged storage periods at lower temperatures, i.e., below 10.degree. C.
For over two decades now, chemical sprouting inhibitors have been successfully utilized to prevent sprouting or shooting during the storage of potatoes. Propham (IPC) and chlorpropham (CIPC), which were originally developed as herbicides, are utilized as sprout inhibitors on a large scale in Europe, while in America also maleic acid anhydride is used. In England, tecnazene is still being used as a sprout inhibitor.
These last two agents are probably going to be forbidden in the near future. The use of IPC will no longer be permitted in the EU as of April 1997. Also, the market for ecologically grown potatoes, that is, untreated potatoes or potatoes treated with as little chemical agent as possible, is rapidly expanding.
In international patent application WO-A-95/09536 it is proposed inter alia to control potato sprouting with a mixture of menthol and carvone. Carvone is a compound which is present in the essential oil of the seeds of the caraway plant (Carum carvi). This compound is of interest because it is registered as a food additive and has the so-called "GRAS" status (Generally Recognized As Safe). Moreover, it is possible to grow caraway on a commercial scale. This is already happening on a large scale in various countries both inside and outside Europe.
Sprouting, however, is not the only problem in the storage of potatoes. Attack of the potatoes by fungi is also an important obstacle. Fungi primarily lead to loss of potato quality inter alia in that the taste is affected. In a later stage, diseases, such as silver scurf, and even decay of the potatoes may occur. An the potatoes constitute an excellent nutrient medium for the fungi, theme reproduce rapidly, Thus a complete stock of potatoes may be lost through a minor attack of only a few potatoes. As the process involved here is irreversible, it is of great importance that fungi be repelled from the very outset.
For repelling fungi in potatoes, at present a wide range of synthetic control agents are used. These, however, must be applied in considerable amounts in order to accomplish an adequate effect. The necessity of such large amounts of synthetic fungicides not only entails substantial costs, but is also undesirable in view of the associated environmental effects.
What has accordingly been searched for is a method of repelling fungi in potatoes in a manner as effective as possible, while the amount of required synthetic agents is considerably reduced. What has also been searched for is an agent that is effective both in repelling fungi and in inhibiting potato sprouting.
Surprisingly, it has now been found that a combination of carvone and one or more fungicides leads to a synergistic effect both for repelling fungi and for inhibiting sprouting. It has been found that when potatoes are treated with a combination of carvone and one or more fungicides, fungi are more effectively repelled.
The sprout inhibiting and/or anti-fungal agent consisting of a combination of carvone and one or more fungicides is suitable for use in ware and starch potatoes. The agent according to the invention can also be used in the storage of seed potatoes, so that sprouting is temporarily inhibited and the development of fungi is counteracted.
The carvone used can be D(S(+))-carvone, but also L(R(-))-carvone or a mixture of D- and L-carvone, and can be of vegetable origin or semivegetable through preparation by chemical conversion from, for instance, citrus waste. D-carvone and L-carvone, when used separately, exhibit an equal amount of action and both can therefore be effectively used, separately as well as in a mixture.
The nature of the fungicides that are used in the composition according to the Invention is not critical and in principle a variety of fungicides can be used. It is preferred, however, to use as fungicide one or more compounds from the classes that are active against Helminthosporium spp., inter alia Helminthosporium solani, Phoma spp., inter alia Phoma exigua var. exigua and/or Phoma exigua var. foveata, Fusarium spp., inter alia Fusarium sulphureum, Fusarium solani and/or Fusarium solani var. ooeruleum, and/or Phytophthora spp., inter alia Phytophthora erythroseptica, as these are the fungi that cause most problems in potatoes. Highly suitable examples of compounds from these classes are imidazoles, such as imazalil and prochloraz, and benzimidazole's, such as carbendazim and thiabendazole, which are known to have a very good action against the fungi and microorganisms mentioned and others occurring in potatoes.
The mutual weight ratio of fungicide to carvone in the composition according to the invention is preferably in the range of 1:1 to 1:10, more preferably in the range of 1;2 to 1;5. The most preferred composition according to the invention contains 50 to 250 grams of imazalil and 400 to 600 grams of carvone per liter.
The composition can be used dry an a powder or granulate which is imparted to the potatoes as the storage space is being filled with them (this is the so-called basic treatment).
Instead of being used as a powder or granulate, the composition according to the invention can also be misted over the potatoes while they are being stored in the storehouse, as a liquid, emulsion, suspension or suspoemulsion, directly or mixed with a small amount of water.
Further, the sprout inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition can also be contacted with the potatoes at a later stage during the storage period by misting or spraying in the storage space, with the support of fans in that space.
In that case, depending on the desired mode of application, the present composition can also comprise a suitable carrier, suitable solvents, fillers or other agents conventionally present.
Suitable powdered or granular carriers and fillers are starch and starch derivatives, clay, talcum and other silicas, sand, diatomaceous earth, calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate (gypsum) and the various (co)polymers which can be used as carriers.
For making a granulate, an inert carrier can be impregnated with a solution of carvone and fungicide(s).
Further, granules can be sprayed with a mixture of one or more fungicides and carvone.
Suitable for the application of the sprout-inhibiting and/or anti-fungal agent in a liquid form are solvents of mineral origin, including aliphatic or aromatic solvents or mixtures thereof, which may or may not be chlorinated. Examples of these solvents are xylene, dichloromethane, ketones, aldehydes, alcohols such as glycerols (for instance polyethylene glycol), or derivatives or mixtures thereof. It is also possible to use solvents of animal or vegetable origin, such as linseed oil, soy bean oil or derivatives thereof. It is also possible to use mixtures of such solvents of animal, vegetable and mineral origin.
It is further possible to use a paste. Pastes can be formed by adding thickeners, such as, for instance, synthetic or natural polymeric thickeners, to solutions and emulsions of the composition in the above-mentioned solvents.
It is also possible to use the composition in emulsion form. For preparing an emulsion, carvone and fungicides can be mixed in the desired ratio, whereafter an emulsifier and optionally water or a different solvent is added. Another possibility is that water or a solvent is provided with an emulsifier and is then mixed with a mixture of carvone and fungicide (s).
Suitable emulsifying agents for preparing an emulsion are cationic, anionic and non-ionic surface-active substances of animal, vegetable and mineral origin. Examples are Ca-dodecyl benzene sulfonates, nonyl phenol polyglycol ethers, ethoxylated fatty acid alcohols or amines or derivatives or combinations thereof.
The emulsifier or the mixture of emulsifiers is preferably present in an amount of 2-20% by weight, preferably 10-15% by weight, in the total mixture. The eventual emulsion preferably contains between 20 and 50% by weight of sprout inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition.
The invention further relates to a method for inhibiting sprouting in potatoes and/or repelling fungi, in which potatoes are treated with carvone and one or tore fungicides.
Obviously, in a preferred method the above-discussed sprout inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition is used. It should be noted, however, that it is also possible, in accordance with the invention, to treat potatoes separately with carvone and one or more fungicides shortly after each other, which, surprisingly, yields the same synergistic effect.
According to a variant, potatoes are first treated with one or more fungicides or a composition of carvone and one or more fungicides and the potatoes are subsequently treated with carvone a few more times. When after a first treatment with fungicide, optionally in combination with carvone, the potatoes are treated with carvone two or more times after successive periods of six weeks, sprouting is found to be controlled particularly efficiently. In a particularly favorable embodiment the potatoes, after the first treatment, are treated with a mixture of carvone and menthol, as is described in International patent application WO-A-95/09536.
It in customary to store potatoes in bulk or in large bins in the storage space, which is mostly insulated. By means of fans, cooler outside air can be passed through the potatoes. Optionally, the (outside) air, before being passed through the potato mass, can additionally be cooled further by means of cooling systems.
Storage outside in a pit, heap or wall, or in a clamp silo is used for starch potatoes at present, but a variant of this can also be used to store ware potatoes, This last, however, is less common.
For the storage of the potatoes, use can also be made of cells or boxes with a volume corresponding to the ventilation capacity.
The bulk potatoes are preferably dried first, stored for a few days at about 15.degree. C. and then cooled in about two weeks to the desired storage temperature to ensure proper wound healing of damaged potatoes. This period of wound healing is necessary to limit microbial attack and weight losses during storage. The wound healing period of the lot takes about 14 days. After the wound healing period, the potatoes are stored at the desired storage temperature, the temperature being regulated through outside air cooling or mechanical cooling.
The desired storage temperature is 2-4.degree. C. for seed-potatoes, 4-6.degree. C. for ware potatoes, 5-8.degree. C. for French fries and dry industry, and 7-10.degree. C. for chips.
After a sprouting dormancy of a few months after harvest, the potato (depending on variety, history and storage method) begins to exhibit an inclination to sprout. In the course of time, this inclination to sprout grows increasingly stronger.
If cooling takes place in a mechanical manner (so that the desired storage temperature can be reached rapidly), the chances of early sprouting are limited already. To inhibit sprouting in optimum manner., subsequently the sprout-inhibiting and/or anti-fungal mixture according to the present invention is applied.
As the risk of infection with fungi in immediate from the start, it is preferred to treat the potatoes with fungicides or the composition of fungicides and carvone already at the time of storing the potatoes in a storehouse or pit.
The so-called basic treatment consists of imparting the sprout-inhibiting and/or anti-fungal agent (in the form of, for instance, powder or granules), for instance on a conveyor which convoys the potatoes to the storage space. It is also possible to spray or atomize the sprout-inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition over the potatoes (above the conveyor).
It is further possible to pass the composition according to the invention to the storage space via the air ventilation system. For this mode of application, the composition can for instance be atomized or sprayed into the air. For this purpose it is possible to combine a mixture of carvone and one or more fungicides with a gaseous carrier so as to facilitate introduction into the air stream.
The two treatments can also be combined or be performed one after the other.
In all cases, the sprout-inhibiting and/or anti-fungal agents will evaporate to a greater or lesser extent and so all potatoes to be treated will come into contact with the agent.
The application of the sprout-inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition according to the invention preferably takes place in a manner such that the concentration of carvone and fungicide together in the air of the storage space is between about 2 and 20 .mu.g/l air and more particularly between about 5 and 10 .mu.g/l air. At values lower than about 5 .mu.g/l air, sprouting inhibition will not be guaranteed to a sufficient extent. Higher values than about 20 .mu.g/l air do not lead to longer sprout inhibition and therefore lead only to unduly large amounts of the composition being used.

Sprout inhibiting and/or anti-fungal composition for potatoes


A device, method, and system for generating electric power and desalinating seawater, combining concentrated solar energy with one-or-more cogeneration alternatives; utilizing seawater as a working fluid. An inclined Fresnel-mirror-system of east-west primary axis, and site-latitude justification, is utilized to reflect the sun's incidental irradiance to a central receiving tube, and raising temperature of working-fluid therein, producing dry saturated, or wet steam, whereby resultant energy turns a rotary-screw-expander engine, providing mechanical power, thence turning a generator; producing electric power. Heat recovered in the working-fluid is utilized in seawater desalination using a Multi-Effect-Distillation system, whereby, during non-solar-dependent productive hours, a molten-salts Single-Temperature-Thermal-Energy storage system is utilized as a battery. Waste heat from industry, renewable, and conventional power systems, is recycled to generate electrical power utilizing an organ fluid in a rotary-screw-expander engine arrangement, within an Organic Rankine-Cycle process, and desalinate seawater, accordingly.

In the arid and semi-arid regions of the Developed-World, and Third-World nations, lack of sustainable energy programs and potable water resources for human consumption and agricultural sustenance is at a critical state, which consequences affecting human health, agriculture production, economic independence, wildlife habitats, and political stability, are a major detriment to survival of economically stable, and natural-resource-poor nations, and respective infrastructures therein. In fact, the lack of, and access to, fresh water safe for human consumptions is the leading cause of famine and conflict in today's world. These situations are entirely preventable, as is presented and discussed in these essays. A sustainable energy plan based on combining, and harnessing of the vast potential of hydropower from Earth's oceans and seas, as well as the power of the sun, combined with the utilization of conventional and other renewable energy sources, form the core arguments for these inventions.
In two widely-separated geographic regions of interest, selected on the premises of commonality of: latitude on earth, arid- and semi-arid vegetation zones, similar topographies, proximity to a nearby ocean/sea, or gulf, and a substantial natural sink below sea-level, and regional conflicts and social instability, the author presents sustainable solutions using current technologies, in the energy and water resources sector, to avoid conflict and promote economic growth, habitat and wildlife restoration, and social stability faced in the Middle East (Levant Nations) and Southwest United States—Northern Mexico. The basis for these investigations are preceding studies compiled by same author entitled MEECAPP Part 1 (Middle-East-Economic-Cooperative-Action-Plan-(for)-Peace 1: (Levant) and MEECAPP Part 2 (Macro-Energy-(and)-Economic-Cooperative-Action-Plan-(for)-Peace 2: (USA—Mexico).
Resulting from, and in combination with these initial two studies, the author undertakes a plan: MEECAPP Part 3: A Polar-Linear Fresnel Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power and Desalination Plant, which attributes of seawater-based-hydropower-systems combined with solar energy are examined, and which consequences are applicable to scores of nations world-wide, or regions with similar climates, and geography.
In MEECAPP Part 1 and MEECAPP Part 2, gravity-flow and pumped-storage hydropower by utilizing seawater media, wherein engineering of and boring of large-diameter tunnels through which said media is pumped from nearby ocean to "battery-storage" in coastal ranges, wherein large pumped-storage-capacity-(PSH) reservoirs, constructed for the function of electric power production during peak-demand cycles, are analyzed as a means of providing clean, safe energy and facilitate agricultural/mariculture development in the Middle East (Israel, Jordan, Egypt, the Free Palestinian State, Lebanon, Syria), and in Southern California to Baja, Mexico (Salton Sea and Laguna Salada), respectively, and restore wildlife habitat in the respective regions. In the final 'equation' of gravity-fed or pumped-storage hydropower, yet another problem needs to be addressed: how to apply the surplus potential energy from the reservoirs that will invariably be in place due to known quantities (expected weather patterns, mechanical availability, off-peak power demands) and unplanned events (weather extremes, labor strikes, regional political issues, major mechanical rebuilds, powerline or waterline repairs, etc.).
The principle innovation is a 'once-through" Polar Fresnel Linear Concentrating (PLFC) solar-thermal power plant that is designed to generate electric power and provide energy to desalinate seawater. The PLFC concept initially conceived is an auxiliary power/desalination plant operating at arid localities below sea level; the Arava & Dead Sea (0 m to −400 m MSL) whereby seawater from the Mediterranean and associated storage capacity dams in the Arava, are gravity-fed and/or pumped into solar-thermal plants, thereby augmenting hydropower production whilst producing freshwater by multi-effect-distillation (MED) method.

Polar-linear-fresnel-concentrating solar-thermal power and desalination plant


Footwear is disclosed having an upper secured to a sole and defining at least a front portion. An apron portion having first and second lateral portions and a lower end, each of the first and second lateral portions including a free lateral outer edge can be attached at the lower end to the front portion. A first fastener for releasably connecting the first and second lateral portions together is also provided, the first fastener being configurable between a fastened position in which the first and second lateral portions are held adjacent one another, and an unfastened position in which at least an upper portion of each of the first and second lateral portions, respectively, can be readily separated.

Enclosed-style footwear such as moccasins typically comprise an upper that defines an opening to receive a wearer's foot in use. The size of the opening however, is oftentimes only just large enough to receive the wearer's foot. In addition, the uppers in moccasins are oftentimes fitted with a fastening means such as, for example, a hook and loop fastening means (such as VELCRO™), laces, a buckle, or a zip, that can be used to secure the moccasin to the wearer's foot in use. When the fastening means is in an unfastened position, the opening in the upper can be widened to enable the wearer to remove their foot from the moccasin. However, even when the fastening means is unfastened, the opening can still be too small, thereby making it difficult for certain groups of persons such as infants, disabled or elderly persons to put on or remove such footwear. This is particularly noticeable for enclosed-style footwear having uppers made from materials with limited flexibility.
It is to be understood that, if any prior art information is referred to herein, such reference does not constitute an admission that the information forms part of the common general knowledge in the art, in Australia or any other country.


A ball check valve includes a mounting base, a valve cage and a valve ball. The valve cage is mounted on the mounting base and includes a base, multiple holding fingers and a filtering and regulating device. The holding fingers are formed on the base and are arranged to form a valve chamber. The filtering and regulating device is mounted on the holding fingers, includes multiple curved ribs respectively mounted on a pair of corresponding holding fingers and are arranged in parallel with the base of the valve cage to filter impurities in and regulate fluid flow through the ball check valve. The valve ball is movably mounted in the valve chamber to selectively open and close the check valve. Consequently, the ball check valve can not only service as a check valve, but also service as a filter and regulator for the fluid flow.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a check valve, and more particularly to a ball check valve that has features of filtering impurities and regulating simultaneously from a fluid flow through the check valve.
2. Description of Related Art
Check valves are generally employed to plumber systems when it is necessary to limit fluid flow in only one direction. Ball check valves use a ball as the valve member, which provides a precision and long lasting part at low cost.
With reference to FIG. 3, a conventional ball check valve 50 is suitable for being mounted in a conduit 60 and comprises a valve ball 51 and a valve cage 52 or retainer. The valve ball 51 is movably mounted and held in the valve cage 52.
The valve cage 52 is mounted in the conduit 60 and has a cage base 53 with multiple holding fingers 54. The cage base 53 is annular and has a top, a bottom and a central hole 55. The central hole 55 is defined completely through the cage base 53 and has a top inclined edge. The top inclined edge services as a valve seat 56 on which the valve ball 51 is abutted to close the check valve 50.
The holding fingers 54 are formed integrally from the top of the cage base 53 and are arranged in parallel with respect to each other. Each holding finger 54 has a distal end with an inward stop surface 57. Each inward stop surface 57 is inclined so that the valve ball 51 will be limited and held in the valve cage 53 when the check valve 50 is open.
However, the conventional ball check valve 50 only has one feature of limiting the fluid flow in the conduit 60 in one direction. The conventional ball check valve 50 does not have any feature of filtering and regulating the fluid flow. Therefore, the practical usage of the conventional ball check valve 50 is restrictive.
Furthermore, because the valve seat 56 is an inclined surface, a contact relationship between the valve ball 51 and the valve seat 56 is approximate to a surface contact when the valve ball 51 seats on the valve seat 56. The surface of the valve seat 56 is large and is easy to be contaminated by the impurities in the fluid flow. At such a state, the check valve 50 cannot be completely closed because the valve ball 51 cannot exactly contact with the valve seat 56. Leakage will occur between the valve ball 51 and the valve seat 56 through the central hole 55.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides an improved ball check valve to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.


A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes treating a surface of an insulating film formed on a substrate by supplying a first precursor including a predetermined element and a halogen group to the substrate, and forming a thin film including the predetermined element on the treated surface of the insulating film by performing a cycle a predetermined number of times. The cycle includes supplying a second precursor including the predetermined element and the halogen group to the substrate, and supplying a third precursor to the substrate.

A process of manufacturing a semiconductor device may include a process of forming a thin film on a substrate by supplying a precursor to the substrate.
However, if an insulating film is formed on a surface of a substrate that is a base of film formation, in some cases, step coverage of a thin film may decrease, or a discontinuous film having a pinhole (breakpoint) or the like may be formed. In particular, such phenomenon occurs remarkably, when a film thickness of a thin film to be formed is set to fall within, for example, a so-called thin film range of 5 Å to 100 Å, or when trenches having a high aspect ratio are formed in a surface of the substrate. The use of the discontinuous thin film, for example, in a channel of a transistor device or the like may deteriorate electrical characteristics of the device. Furthermore, the use of the discontinuous thin film as an etching stopper of an etching process using hydrogen fluoride (HF) or the like in the manufacturing process of the device may partially damage a substrate surface of a base, i.e., an insulating film formed on the substrate surface, resulting in deterioration of characteristics of the device or a production yield.
Furthermore, when an insulating film is formed on the surface of the substrate, even if a supply of a precursor to the substrate is started, in some cases, formation of a thin film on the substrate is not easily started, resulting in an increase in an incubation time. As a result, the productivity of the device decreases, and the manufacturing cost increases.

Film forming method and recording medium for performing the method


The drum brake has two shoes (12, 14), each presenting a web (16) and a rim (18) whose face facing the drum receives a friction lining (20). The drum brake is arranged on a support plate (10), and the web (16) of each shoe (12, 14) possesses a notch cooperating with a strut (40) determining the separation of the shoes (12, 14). The strut (40) bears in the neighborhood of one of its ends (50) a pivot (52) on which is articulated an actuating lever (46) extending substantially perpendicular to the support plate (10) through an opening (54) made in the latter in hinged and capable of cooperating with one of the shoes. The actuation of the drum brake is obtained by a simultaneous action and reaction on the actuating lever (46) and on the strut (40).

The present invention concerns mechanically controlled drum brakes, this mechanical control being able to constitute the principal actuating means of this drum brake, or an auxiliary actuating means in the case of a drum brake already possessing a principal brake motor. In the latter case, the mechanical control may constitute a parking brake, also known as a handbrake or an emergency brake.
In a known manner, drum brakes are constituted by two shoes each presenting a web and a rim whose face facing the drum receives a friction lining, the drum brake being arranged on a support plate fixed to the stub axle of the wheel with which it is associated, the drum being firmly attached to the wheel to be braked.
Generally, a mechanical control lever is provided, articulated at one of its ends on the web of one of the shoes and possessing, at an intermediate point, near to this articulation, a notch provided to cooperate with a strut allowing the shoes to be stressed apart under the action of a control cable hooked to the other end of the lever.
Such drum brakes are well known to a person skilled in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,084 describes, for example, a mechanical control lever for such a brake. However, according to the teaching of this document, the control cable of the lever has to be mounted on the brake during the final phase of assembly of the latter while it is not yet covered by the drum. It is then usual to make one or more loops with the cable to prevent the latter, in its free state, being an inconvenience during fitting of the brake to the chassis of the vehicle. However, such loops remain a handicap for the manufacturer, and it is desirable that the installation of the cable can be deferred until all the parts of the chassis of the vehicle are assembled, including the brake with its drum, and that the cable may only thereafter be connected to the brake.
It has thus been proposed, for example by the documents GB-A-1,314,230 or U.S. Pat. No. 2,945,564, to articulate the actuating lever on the strut itself, the lever, on which the control cable is fitted, passing through an opening in the support plate. In this way, the control cable may be fixed to the brake after the latter has been fitted to the chassis of the vehicle.
Such devices however possess numerous disadvantages: the actuating lever being articulated on the strut, which is essentially a moving part, it is necessary to find a bearing point for the operation of the lever. According to the aforementioned documents, the fixed bearing point is provided by the reference surface constituted by the internal face of the support plate, on which the strut comes to rest. It then follows that the actuation of the lever causes high friction of the strut on the support plate, so increasing the force to be overcome to separate the shoes from each other, causing wear of the strut and of the support plate, and inducing extra stresses within the support plate.
In addition, these devices do not allow freeing of the brake to ease the installation of the brake drum, and they do not lend themselves well to automated installation of the control cable. Another disadvantage of these devices lies in the fact that, due to the absence of the automatic adjustment, the travel of the control cable increases with the wear of the friction linings.

Self adjusting drum brake actuator with lever and end stop


An alarm significance mapping method assigns the subset of parameters and their alarms considered to be of a safety-critical nature in an industrial control system and displays that subset on an apex screen display and other selected appropriate displays, such as a touch-responsive display in the form of alarm icons for presentation to the system operators. Each alarm icon on the `apex` display is coupled or concatenated to other displays through a display page hierarchy so that the operator, by selecting a particular alarm icon on the `apex` screen, can follow the alarm `thread` through the multi-level display page hierarchy to the ultimate condition or conditions that cause an alarm on the `apex` screen.

The present invention relates to the mapping and display of visual alarm indications in complex industrial applications and, more particularly, to the mapping and display of visual alarm indications as part of the control and monitoring of nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants are designed with multiple levels of instrumented redundancy in order to assure safe and reliable operation and to minimize the probability of a mishap. As part of the design philosophy, numerous parameters are continuously monitored, subjected to evaluation and analysis, and then displayed to the plant operators. Additionally, the measured parameters are subjected to limit testing to determine if a particular parameter is within normal bounds. In those cases where a parameter deviates from an accepted norm, an annunciator or alarm of some type is actuated.
In the earliest nuclear power plant control rooms, numerous instruments were displayed on the walls of the control room and on various consoles and display panels. The presence of an abnormal parameter would trigger one of several types of alarms, including audible alarms, visual alarms, and the like. In these earliest control room designs, the mounting of the instrument displays and their alarm annunciators on the typically large surface areas of the control room wall resulted in alarms that could be conceptually considered as residing in a two-dimensional plane. Alarms related to critical operational parameters could co-exit on the same `plane` with alarms of a non-critical Secondary or tertiary nature. Thus, an alarm related to an excessive and potentially non-safe pressure or temperature in the reactor core could co-exist on the same conceptual plane as an alarm indicating an out-of-limits condition on a tertiary system unrelated to operational safety. While the operators in the control room could easily identify and respond to alarms on a one-at-a-time basis, multiple alarms conditions for both primary safety-critical parameters and secondary or tertiary non-safety critical parameters could overload the ability of an operator or operators to prioritize the order in which alarms must be responded to in order to restore or maintain plant safety. While the safety significance of a visual alarm can be distinguished by providing visual indications of different colors, brightnesses, or `flash` rates, these additional distinguishing characteristics could also overload the perceptual ability of even the most well-trained operators.
In later control room designs, an effort was made to group safety-related displays and alarms together as a way of affecting the `topology` of the displayed parameters and alarms to affect the neural representation of the display in the minds of the operators. While this `grouping` concept provided subliminal assistance to the plant operators, the two-dimensional display concept still presented all the instrumentation and alarms on a common physical plane which could contribute to the difficulty an operator could have in distinguishing alarms of different safety significance.
The problem of the display of data and the related alarms can be traced to the philosophy of assuring that every alarm condition, regardless of criticality, is immediately available to the control room operator. While this philosophy is admirably rooted in a desire to reveal all alarm conditions immediately to the control room operators, it also can contribute to operator overload during multi-alarm conditions.
With the advent of computerized monitoring and control of nuclear power plants, the various parameters and alarms and the safety critical relationship between parameters and alarms can be algorithmically evaluated and presented on video display units within the control room while making all alarms immediately available to the operator regardless of criticality. Thus, a number of operator consoles with CRT displays can present various process parameters and also display alarm conditions. Concurrently, a large-area display (such as a rear-screen projector) in the control room would display all or a sub-portion of the screens of the various CRT'S. Since the amount of information that can be presented on the screen of a CRT is limited, it was not uncommon for information to be provided in a "paged" or "windowed" format. In this last schema, the alarms could be categorized by the supervising computer and displayed on the CRT's and large-area display; the operator could then page through a number of CRT menu screens to locate the source problem.
It is possible to conceptualize all the alarm conditions in a nuclear power plant as being required information in a hierarchy of display pages. Each alarm object has differing safety significance weights or factors depending upon its assignment to a display(s). Some alarm conditions have no affect, directly or indirectly, on operational safety while other alarms have a first-order relationship. Depending upon its display page context, an alarm may have a first-order relationship on one display and a supporting relationship on another display. Those alarms conditions that have safety significance can be thought of as occupying the `apex` of the display page hierarchy. These alarm objects are connected by relational threads to one or more display pages in the other levels of the display page hierarchy.


Data is automatically retrieved from a DataBase 2 (DB2) database using a DB2 scripter module that is configured to automatically log on to the DB2 database, to automatically perform a query of the DB2 database, and to automatically extract from the DB2 database a dataset that results from the query. A dataset processor module is configured to convert the dataset into a text file, and to deliver the text file to a delivery site, for retrieval by the user. The DB2 scripter module can extract the dataset by printing the dataset to a DB2 virtual printer and/or by exporting the dataset to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site.

Databases are widely used on computers to store and retrieve information. Enterprise database environments may be provided on enterprise data processing systems, to store and retrieve data using large enterprise databases, for use in transactional and/or real-time systems. One widely used legacy, enterprise database environment is International Business Machines Corporation's (IBM) DataBase 2 (DB2) database environment.
Although DB2 databases are widely used with enterprise data, it may be difficult for a typical user, who is not familiar with the DB2 database environment, to extract data needed by the user from the DB2 environment.

Systems, methods and computer program products for automating retrieval of data from a DB2 database

AT&T Delaware Intellectual Property, Inc.


Provided is a system, apparatus and methods of use for the safe and easy handling and disposing of light bulbs. The system provides a disposal tube comprising one or more layers of puncture resistant material and a means for absorbing metals or gasses that may be released when the light bulb is broken, such as by externally striking the disposal tube and the bulb contained therein. The invention also provides a method for using the disposal tube as a means to safely handle and store the light bulbs.

Light bulbs, such as fluorescent incandescent, halogen, etc., are utilized throughout the world as a means of illuminating an area. Unfortunately, light bulbs do not last forever, creating a need to dispose of the used light bulb and replacing it with a new one. Since light bulbs are generally filled with a gas or harmful metals, disposal of light bulbs can be dangerous and/or environmentally unsafe, if done without care. Shattering a light bulb is unsafe due to flying broken glass and, depending upon the type of light bulb being discarded, it may also potentially be unhealthy due to the exposure to the gas or heavy metal inside the light bulb.
Accordingly, there has existed a need to provide a safe and easy means for light bulb disposal.


A system for transmitting multiple adaptive bit rate (ABR) segment streams on a shared frequency may include an ABR segment generator and transmitter circuitry. The ABR segment generator may encode a content item based at least in part on different ABR profiles to generate encoded streams. The ABR profiles may indicate encoding parameters corresponding to the encoded streams, e.g., bit rates, resolutions, frame rates and/or codecs. The ABR segment generator may be further configured to segment the encoded streams to generate ABR segment streams. The transmitter circuitry may be configured to transmit the ABR segment streams on a shared frequency, such as by transmitting the segment streams over spatially separated antennas, or by applying different orbital angular momentums to the ABR segment streams. In one or more implementations, the system may further include a segment interleaver that is configured to interleave the ABR segment streams.

An adaptive bit rate (ABR) server in a content delivery network (CDN) encodes a content item into multiple streams of different bit rates, with each stream being divided into sequential segments of a given duration (e.g. 2-10 seconds). The ABR server may transmit a manifest file to user devices in a home via a gateway device, such as a home router. The manifest file lists the segments of the content item, the different bit rates at which each segment has been encoded, e.g. different adaptive bit rate profiles for the segment, and a network identifier for accessing each segment, e.g. a uniform resource locator (URL). A user device may request individual ABR segments from the ABR server at the bit rate that is appropriate for the user device, e.g. based on network bandwidth conditions and device capabilities that are determinable by the user device. However, there can be latency and bandwidth requirements associated with a user device requesting ABR segments of a different bit rate to be sent from the ABR server when conditions change.

Transmitting multiple adaptive bit rate (ABR) segment streams on a shared frequency


A semiconductor pressure sensor is not influenced by a charged object in a fluid to be measured or an electric field from the outside, so satisfactory sensitivity and accuracy can be ensured. The semiconductor pressure sensor is provided with a diaphragm 4 that responds to the pressure of the fluid to be measured. The diaphragm includes a silicon substrate with piezoresistive elements, which together constitute a bridge circuit, being embedded therein, and a shield film for electromagnetic shielding formed on a surface of the silicon substrate at a side thereof at which the fluid to be measured is in contact with the silicon substrate. The shield film is electrically connected to the silicon substrate so as to have the same potential as that of the silicon substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor pressure sensor equipped with a diaphragm that is moved in response to the pressure of a fluid to be measured for detecting a pressure such as, for example, the pressure in an intake manifold of an internal combustion engine, the internal pressure of a tank, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there has been known a semiconductor pressure sensor that has a diaphragm formed on one surface of a silicon substrate with a piezoresistive element formed on the diaphragm.
In this case, the diaphragm is caused to distort under the pressure of a fluid to be measured to change the resistance value of the piezoresistive element, whereby the pressure of the fluid to be measured can be detected by outputting an amount of change in the resistance value as an electric signal.
However, the fluid to be measured, which is an object for pressure measurement, generally has an electric charge whether it is a gas or a liquid, so when the fluid to be measured comes into contact with the diaphragm upon measurement of the pressure, the charged object is placed into contact with the diaphragm, too, whereby the resistance value of the piezoresistive element is caused to change under the influence of an electric field generated from this charged object, thus making an electric signal output from the piezoresistive element unstable.
To cope with such a problem, there has been known a semiconductor pressure sensor equipped with a diaphragm whose surface is covered with an insulating film (see a first patent document: Japanese patent application laid-open No. S63-250865 (FIG. 13)).
In this case, a distance between a piezoresistive element and a charged object is increased by the formation of the insulating film, whereby the influence on the piezoresistive element due to an electric field generated from the charged object can be reduced.
In addition, as another measure to deal with the above problem, there has also been known a semiconductor pressure sensor equipped with a diaphragm whose surface is covered with a grounded shield film (see a second patent document: Japanese patent application laid-open No. H11-281509 (FIG. 7)).
In this case, if electric charge is attached to the surface of the shield film on the diaphragm, the electric charge flows out to the outside due to the grounding of the shield film, so that the influence of an electric field from the charged object on the piezoresistive element can be prevented.
However, the above-mentioned first patent document involves the following problem. That is, in order to suppress the influence of the electric field due to the charged object to a low level, it is necessary to increase the thickness of the insulating film thereby to enlarge the distance between the piezoresistive element and the charged object. This increases the thickness of the diaphragm itself, so the amount of displacement of the diaphragm, which is caused to displace in accordance with the pressure of the fluid to be measured, becomes small, thus resulting in that a satisfactory level of sensitivity can not be obtained.
Also, in the case of the above-mentioned second patent document, there is the following problem. That is, when the silicon substrate has a reference potential, an electric field is necessarily generated between the shield film, which is zero potential, and the silicon substrate due to a potential difference therebetween, so the piezoresistive element is always subject to the electric field irrespective of the presence or absence of the charged object, as a result of which if the reference potential varies, the electric signal output from the piezoresistive element will also vary in accordance with the reference potential variation, thus making measured values unstable.


A process for object identification comprising extracting object shape features and object color features from digital images of an initial object and storing the extracted object shape features and object color features in a database where said extracted object shape features and object color features are associated with a unique identifier associated with said object and repeating the first step for a plurality of different objects. Then extracting object shape features and object color features from a digital image of an object whose identity is being sought and correlating the extracted object shape features and object color features of the object whose identity is being sought with the extracted object shape features and object color features previously stored in the database. If a first correlation of the extracted object shape features is better than a first threshold value for a given object associated with an identifier in the database and if a second correlation of the extracted object color features is better than a second threshold value for the given object, then making a determination that the object whose identity is being sought is said given object.

In recent years, real time object recognition in a dynamic environment is a challenging and important task that has been approached by many researchers in an attempt to provide solutions for the practical real world applications, e.g., NASA precision landing of spacecraft and many identification applications for Home Land Security.
The term Artificial Intelligence is usually associated with expert systems, which use a set of logical rules to classify data. Unfortunately, such rule-based systems break down if two rules are contradictory or if a set of rules creates an infinite recursion that idles the system. To fix this problem, systems were developed that use soft rules by not only computing answers such as "one" for "yes" and "zero" for "no", but also numbers between one and zero for "perhaps." Popular soft classifiers are artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems, Bayesian networks, and support vector machines.
For problems with rich data sources such as image recognition, computer vision, and speech recognition, the dimension of the input vector is typically larger than the number of input samples, which leads to overfitting of the data if no care is taken to achieve useful generalization. Furthermore, the computing power becomes rapidly insufficient to process the data within reasonable time. To avoid these problems, the data is typically preprocessed to get rid of redundant information. Support vector machines [1], learning by hints [2], Principal Component Analysis (PCA) [3] or Cellular Neural Networks (CNN) [4] reduce the dimension of the input vector set. Such data extraction has also the advantage to eliminate some irrelevant data, such as small amplitude noise, and to speed up the classification step. In Section B.1, we will focus on the friendly hardware algorithm, which has been developed at JPL to compute PCA in real time by using specialized parallel distributed hardware.
PCA has proven its preprocessing capabilities in various successful applications such as data compression, feature extraction for recognition, face recognition, source separation etc.
Data extraction methods and classifiers do not address the problems that are typical for time series. Time series are particularly hard to analyze since events that are reflected in past data may cause effects in current data. Furthermore, an agent has to choose an action without having access to future data.
Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a second order statistical approach, which has been used to extract the features of a data set or to perform data compression. Specially, when data set is Gaussian, redundant and overwhelmingly large, PCA is a very effective preprocessing step to extract data features for classification and/or to cluster data in the most compact energy vectors for data compression. Unfortunately, PCA requires that the basis vectors are orthogonal, which is typically an artificial assumption. To obtain the principal component vectors, traditionally the covariance or correlation matrix is calculated, then eigen values are obtained, and corresponding to each eigen value, a component (eigen) vector is found. This procedure is complicated and computationally intensive (O(N3) where N is dimension of the vector input), thus making it impracticable to use for rich data sources. Certain applications, such as classification, navigation, and tracking, only require a few principal component vectors, which is often a good compromise between computing speed, compact and/or low power device. In this case, the traditional technique for computing PCA becomes unnecessarily costly. Moreover, hardware implementations of the traditional PCA algorithm become even more challenging. To get over the hurdles from the traditional PCA technique, simple sequential PCA techniques have been introduced (see E. Oja and J. Karhunen, "On stochastic approximation of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the expectation of a random matrix." J. Math. Anal. Appl., vol. 106, pp. 69-84, 1985). These techniques are based on a learning approach that sequentially obtains principal component vectors. Some works in PCA are reported using Hebbian or anti-Hebbian learning and gradient-based learning or even fancier technique of natural gradient descent. Most of the work on PCA is using software-based approaches wherein the computation power is mainly based on the microprocessor, DSP, or FPGA. These techniques are power hungry and hard-to-miniaturized the system in the chip level. For VLSI hardware implementation approach, there are some PCA works reported by R. Konishi et al. "PCA-1: a fully asynchronous, self-reconfigurable LSI," Seventh International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems, 2001 (ASYNC 2001, pp. 54-61, 11-14 Mar. 2001 and H. Ito et al. "Dynamically reconfigurable logic LSI-PCA-1," Digest of Technical Papers of 2001 Symposium on VLSI Circuits, pp. 103-106, 14-16, 2001. For sequential PCA, the gradient descent (GED) technique is a more attractive approach for hardware implementation as a straight forward technique compared to others e.g. steepest decent, conjugate gradient, or Newton's second order method, but it exposes some difficulties in learning convergence when other principal component vectors are corresponding to smaller eigen values. In addition, this technique still requires some complicated hardware.
At Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., an optimal PCA learning technique has been developed by the present inventors which serves two purposes: 1) it simplified the required hardware implementation, specially in VLSI as System-On-A-Chip approach; 2) provided a fast and reliable convergence as compared with counterpart gradient descent (it is also a hardware-friendly approach). Furthermore, this new technique is theoretically proven to converge in the same attractor qualitatively as gradient-based technique, and it requires much less computation and optimized architecture to be more suitable for hardware implementation as a real time adaptive learning system.
We adapt the objective function below:
                              J                                (            w            )                          =                                            ∑                              i                =                1                            m                                                                                J                i                                                          (                                  w                  i                                )                                              =                                    ∑                              i                =                1                            m                                                                                ∑                                  t                  =                  1                                k                                                                                                                                            x                      t                                        -                                                                  w                        i                                                                                w                        i                        T                                                                                x                        i                                                                                                              2                                                                        (        1        )
where m is the number of principal components and k is the number of measurement vectors. tx is a measured vector at time t and wi is the ith principal vector (or eigen vector).
With
                                          J            i                                          (                          w              i                        )                          =                                            ∑                              t                =                1                            k                                                                                                                                            y                      i                      t                                        -                                                                  w                        i                                                                                w                        i                        T                                                                                y                        i                        t                                                                                                              2                                                                                And                                                                                y                i                t                                              =                                    x              t                        -                                          ∑                                  j                  =                  1                                                  i                  -                  1                                                                                w                  j                                                                  w                  j                  T                                                                  x                  t                                                                                (        2        )
a) PCA Learning Approach
From equation (2), the learning algorithm can be processed sequentially for each principal vector that is based on the gradient descent as follows:
                              Δ                                                                          w            ij                          =                              -                                          ∂                                  J                  i                                                            ∂                                  w                  ij                                                              =                      -                                          ∂                                  (                                                                                                                                    y                          i                          t                                                -                                                                              w                            i                                                                                w                            i                            T                                                                                y                            i                            t                                                                                                                        2                                    )                                                            ∂                                  w                  ij                                                                                (        3        )
From equation (3), only the dominant element (see T. A. Duong, V. A. Duong, "A New Learning Technique of Sequential Adaptive Principal Component Analysis for Fast Convergence and Simplified Hardware Implementation" submitted to IEEE. Trans. On. Neural Networks, currently unpublished—a copy of same is enclosed as Appendix A) is used; the weight update can be obtained as follows:
                                          w            ij            new                    =                                                    w                ij                old                            +                              ζΔ                                                                                w                  ij                                                      =                                          w                ij                old                            +                                                ζɛ                  ij                                                                  (                                                                                w                        i                        T                                                                                y                        i                        t                                                              +                                                                  w                        ij                                                                                y                        ij                        t                                                                              )                                                                                Where                                                                          ζ                    =                                                                      E                  0                                                  E                                      i                    -                    1                                                                                and                                                                                y                  ^                                i                t                                      =                                          w                i                                                          w                i                T                                                          y                i                t                                                                        (        4        )            E0 is the initial energy when the network starts learning and Ei-1 is the energy of the (i−1)th extracted principal.
b) Cell Learning Architecture
From equation (4), the learning architecture is realized as in FIG. 1. In FIG. 1, the input data yij (i is the index of the component vector and j is the index of a value in the component vector i) is defined in the equation (2). The Σ box provides the inner product between vectors y and wi. The result of the Σ box operation will, again, be summed with the previous multiplication of yijt and wij and its output will be multiplied with the learning rate ζ before updating to wij as described in equation (4). This single unit can be cascaded into n units to obtain a PCA learning vector and this learning vector can be cascaded to obtain many as parallel eigenvector extractors as needed for each application.
c) Applications
In a study at JPL (which is reported: T. A. Duong "Real Time On-Chip Sequential Adaptive Principal Component Analysis for Data Feature Extraction and Image Compression", GOMAC Tech-03, Vol. I, pp. 460-464, Tampa, Fla., 31 Mar.-3 Apr., 2003 (hereinafter "GOMAC"—and which is hereby incorporated herein by reference), we used two gray scale images: a woman and a tank as shown in FIGS. 3a and 4a of the aforementioned GOMAC publication. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how well our technique can extract the features of these images via principal components as opposed to the MATLAB technique and from the extracted features we can process for image compression. The woman image of FIG. 3a of the GOMAC publication consists of 256×256 gray pixel and each pixel has 8-bit quantization. FIG. 4a, from GOMAC, is 512×512 pixel image of a tank with 8-bit gray scale/pixel.
We used input vector as row data with 64 pixel/vector to construct the training vector set. When the training vector set is available, the algorithm as shown in equation (4) is applied to extract the principal vector. Our study has shown that the maximum number of iterations required is 150 of learning repetitions and the first 20 component vectors are extracted.
Feature Extraction
Feature extraction using PCA is a well known approach and is based on the most expressive features (eigen vectors with the largest eigenvalues). The first 10-component vector extracted from Elaine image using our technique is projected onto the first 10-component vector from MATLAB (inner product) and its results are shown in FIG. 2a.
As orthogonal characteristics between principal vectors, if the learning component vector and the component vector from MATLAB are the same sequential order and identical (or close to identical), the expected inner product should be close to +/−1; otherwise, it should be close to zero.
The first 10-component vector extracted from tank image using MATLAB and our approach and the projection between principal vectors are shown in FIG. 2b. As shown in FIGS. 2a and 2b, there are ten unit values (+/−1) and the rest of the values are close to zero from which our technique can extract the feature vector as identical as that with the MATLAB technique.
Compression
In the study, we extracted the first 20-component vector from full set of 64 component vectors. Since the full image is constructed from the first 20 component principal vectors extracted using technique in MATLAB shown in FIGS. 3b and 4b (these two figures are from the GOMAC publication) and we use the same components in our technique for FIGS. 3c and 4c (again these figures are from the GOMAC publication).
d) Discussion
The advantages of this approach are: less computation, fast convergence, and simplified hardware architecture as compared against other sequential PCA approaches and our approach may be the most suitable for hardware implementation. The orthogonal constraint in PCA may have the advantages for reconstruction for data compression; however, it may not be an optimal technique for feature data extraction or mixing source data. Perhaps, ICA may be more suitable for such applications.
Neural Networks
PCA and is considered as unsupervised learning technique, which extracts the transformation based on its data structure. For example, the principal vector is obtained based on its own data set, regardless of any influence by users or operator. In contrast with the unsupervised learning, the supervised learning technique requires the desired output as user or operator's desire to enforce the parameterized weight space as transformation based on the input data set. When done, the estimated output data by the input data set via the parameterized transformation will theoretically be in the neighborhood of the desired output.
Most supervised learning neural networks focus on a software-based approach, in which the learning trajectory with respect to the weight space is often smooth when the bit quantization of the weight components and update weights are 32 bit or 64 bit floating point numbers. When the weight component and the weight update are of 8-bit value (which is typically based upon hardware implementation constraints), learning convergence is difficult. In real time applications, algorithms with fast learning and adaptive capabilities are needed. In a published previous report by inventor Duong (T. A. Duong and Allen R. Stubberud, "Convergence Analysis Of Cascade Error Projection—An Efficient Learning Algorithm For Hardware Implementation", International Journal of Neural System, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 199-210, June 2000, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated hereby by reference) it was shown that the Cascade Error Projection (CEP) algorithm provides an excellent tool for hardware implementation. CEP is an improved learning algorithm for artificial neural networks that is reliable and well suited for implementation in VLSI circuitry. In comparison with other neural-network-learning algorithms, CEP involves a self-evolving structure, requires fewer iterations to converge, and is more tolerant to low resolution in the quantization of synaptic weights; thus, CEP learns relatively quickly and the circuitry needed to implement it is relatively simple, as taught by the aforementioned paper by inventor Duong.
CEP Algorithm Approach
The CEP neural network architecture is illustrated in FIG. 3. Shaded squares and circles indicate frozen weights; a square indicates calculated weights, and a circle indicates learned weights.
Mathematical Approach:
The energy function is defined as:
                              E                                (                          n              +              1                        )                          =                              ∑                          p              =              1                        P                                                                                {                                                                    f                    h                    p                                                                          (                                          n                      +                      1                                        )                                                  -                                                      1                    m                                                                                ∑                                              o                        =                        1                                            m                                                                                (                                                                        t                          o                          p                                                -                                                  o                          o                          p                                                                    )                                                                                }                        2
The weight update between the inputs (including previously added hidden units) and the newly added hidden unit is calculated as follows:
      Δ                                        w        ih        p                          (                  n          +          1                )              =            -      η                          ∂                  E                                (                          n              +              1                        )                                      ∂                              w            ih            p                                          (                          n              +              1                        )
and the weight update between hidden unit n+1 and the output unit o is
                                          w            ho                                          (                          n              +              1                        )                          =                                                                              ∑                                      p                    =                    1                                    P                                                                                ɛ                    o                    p                                                                          f                    o                                          ′                                                                                p                                                                                f                      h                      p                                                                                (                                              n                        +                        1                                            )                                                                                ∑                                      p                    =                    1                                    P                                                                                [                                                                  f                        o                                                  ′                                                                                p                                                                                f                          h                          p                                                                                (                                                      n                            +                            1                                                    )                                                                                ]                                    2                                                                                with                                                                                f                                            (                x                )                                              =                                    1              -                              ⅇ                                  -                  x                                                                    1              +                              ⅇ                                  -                  x                                                                                (        8        )
The notations used are defined as follows:
m is the number of outputs, P is the number of training patterns.
Error εop=top−oop(n); where oop(n) is the output element o of the actual output o(n) for training pattern p, and top is the target element o for training pattern p. n indicates the number of previously added hidden units.
ƒ′op(n)=ƒ′op denotes the output transfer function derivative with respect to its input.
ƒhp(n+1) denotes the transfer function of hidden unit n+1.
The CEP algorithm is processed in two steps:
(i) Single Perception learning which is governed by equation (7) to update the weight vector Wih(n+1)
(ii) When the single Perception learning is completed, the weight set Who(n+1) can be obtained by the calculation governed by equation (8).
Details of the CEP algorithm and convergence analysis can be found in the aforementioned paper by inventor Duong.
Applications
For NASA applications, precision and safe landing is the primary goal in any spacecraft landing mission. To-date, however, the landing of spacecraft has been accomplished "blind" through the pre-selection of a landing site, with no in-situ corrections to the landing sequence to account for possible changes in the terrain, or for previously unrecognized fine granularity of the topography. This lack of intelligent autonomy in the landing sequence means that a landing site must be chosen a priori based on the statistical probability of not encountering dangerous terrain elements anywhere within a many square-kilometer ballistic footprint. Current Entry Decent Landing (EDL) software methods are only near real time in that they are incapable of identifying the topographical granularity of the pre-selected landing site at a rate required for safe landing. This near real time approach excludes many scientifically interesting landing sites. It is therefore obvious that some form of real time color segmentation is required to adaptively correct the spacecraft descent. For this, knowledge of terrain color and color segmentation is first incorporated through learning from pictures obtained by the orbiter imaging system. During the descent stage, the knowledge of color segmentation will be updated adaptively in real time to capture the contrast, light intensity, and changes in resolution that occur. This allows for the determination of a safe and productive landing site, and guidance of the spacecraft to this site through appropriate corrective navigational feedback control.
This shortcoming points to the need for adaptation as a primary requirement for real time dynamic landing site determination. In this section, we discuss a real time adaptive color segmentation approach using hardware-friendly neural network named CEP as an enabling technology developed at JPL.
Adaptive Architecture Approach
The most challenging aspect in color segmentation is when the light intensity and resolution are dynamically changing. It is easily recognized that the initial knowledge used to train the network will have very little effect at a new location and therefore will need to be updated through learning of newly extracted data.
Briefly, the adaptation process that can aid in spacecraft guidance may be described as follows: When the network that has acquired current knowledge at time to is used to test the subsequent image at time to+Δt, segmentation results from the image at to+Δt will be used to extract the training set to update the previous knowledge of the network at time to. This process of repeatedly segmenting and updating is performed until the Lander reaches its destination.
While the process of segmenting and updating are desired characteristics of an adaptive processor, the issue that needs addressing is how often such updates are necessary. The frequency of updates has a direct impact on power consumption. More power is consumed if updates are performed between each sequential image. The problem with infrequent updates, however, is that the network may not interpolate easily based upon new images from which the newly segmented data may be insufficient for training. To find the optimal sampling rate, we realize Δt must be "sufficiently small" and will depend upon the landing velocity and other environmental changes. This issue will become significant in the actual design and development of a spacecraft landing system.
Training Data
To classify each pixel, we used a pixel to be classified and its immediate neighbors to form a 3×3 sub-window as the input training pattern (thus each input pattern has 27 elements from 3×3 of a RGB pixel). Based on a previous study, the 3×3 RGB input pattern was found to be the optimal size in comparison to using a single RGB input, a 5×5 RGB sub-window, or a 7×7 RGB sub-window. In this study, our objective was to segment the image into three groups: "Rock1", "Rock2", and "Sand". The topology of our network is a 27×5×3 cascading architecture neural network, having 27 inputs, 5 cascaded hidden units, and 3 output units.
In FIG. 4a herein, which depicts a 3:00 PM image, we sampled and collected 408 patterns for training data, 588 patterns for cross validation, and 1200 patterns for testing. With these sample sets, the learning is completed with 91% correct in training, 90% correct in validation, and 91% correct in testing.
After training was performed, the segmented output of the original image in FIG. 4a is shown in FIG. 4b herein.
With the knowledge acquired from the image of FIG. 4a herein, the network is tested with the image input shown in FIG. 5a, collected at 4:00 PM. The output result is shown in FIG. 5b (no intermediate adaptation step was performed). FIG. 5c is output result with the network acquired from the intermediate knowledge through adaptive learning.
In a similar manner, the original image shown in FIG. 6a was collected at 5 PM. FIG. 6b is the segmented image with the previous training set at 4 PM and FIG. 6c is the segmented image with intermediate adaptive step.
Based on the aforementioned results, we might conclude that the adaptive technique is needed to obtain better segmentation when the environment is changing rapidly.

Artificial intelligence systems for identifying objects


Activated lymphocytes are administered to a cancer patient at least five or more times within eight months after performing surgical and chemotherapeutic treatment or radiotherapy for treating cancer particularly liver cancer, so that recurrence of the cancer can be prevented over a long period of five or more years. The activated lymphocytes to be administered while performing treatment of cancer may be autologously derived from a cancer patient or collected from the other cancer patient at need. The activated lymphocytes can be cultivated for proliferating or activating lymphocyte cells collected in the presence of solid-phase anti-CD3 antigen and interleukin 2.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for preventing recurrence of carcinoma and cancer over a long term and preparations containing activated lymphocytes for preventing recurrence of carcinoma and cancer over a long term, and more particularly to a long-term prophylactic method and longterm prophylactic preparations capable of preventing recurrence of carcinoma and cancer over a span of at least five years or more.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The inventors of the present invention have already reported that lymphocytes can be proliferated with solid-phase anti-CD3 antigen and interleukin 2 so as to have an antitumor function. (Japanese Patent Application Public Disclosure HEI 3-80076(A))
The report makes it clear that the lymphocytes have the effectiveness of preventing recurrence of cancer and improving antitumor activation within about one to two years. However, even if the lymphocytes are solely used, recurrence of cancer cannot substantially be prevented with clinical significance over a long term of five years or more, on the basis of which an assessment of the therapeutic value of the lymphocytes is made.
Further, the report-indicates that use of the activated lymphocytes enables prevention of recurrence of cancer. However, a long-term prevention of recurrence of carcinoma cannot be guaranteed in the report.
There have been known medical techniques of proliferating lymphocytes derived from peripheral blood or the like with anti-CD3 antigen and interleukin 2 to be effective against pulmonary carcinoma in chemotherapy and freezing the lymphocytes so as to thaw and proliferate the frozen lymphocytes in use. S. A. Rosenberg reported that LAK cells activated with interleukin 2 has antitumor activity, but has not clarified on whether or not the LAK cells have a function of preventing recurrence of carcinoma.
However, the efficacy of preventing recurrence of carcinoma and the antitumor activity last only for a short period of about two years according to the conventional treatment using the activated lymphocytes as described above. Even by taking surgical or chemotherapeutic treatment or radiotherapy along with administration of the activated lymphocytes, the efficacy of preventing recurrence of carcinoma could not last to five or more years. Although chemotherapeutic agents or preparations, which have been widely used as most popular therapeutic measures effective against cancer, generally have an antitumor efficacy (function of diminishing cancer), they have little therapeutic value of preventing recurrence of carcinoma without producing harmful side effects.

Method and activated lymphocyte preparations for preventing recurrence of carcinoma


An apparatus and method for generating a graphical representation of an estimated time of completion of a content request and the current progress toward completion of the content request, taking into account the processes being performed to prepare the data for transfer to the requesting client device, are provided. With the apparatus and method, a table lookup in a request database is performed based on parameters included in a content request received from a client device. The closest matching entry in the request database is retrieved which includes an associated estimated time of completion of the request. This estimated time of completion of the request is then used along with current system conditions, to generate an estimated time of completion for the current content request. The estimated time of completion for the current content request is then forwarded to the requesting client device which generates a graphical and/or textual representation of the estimated time of completion.

1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for generating a graphical representation of an estimated time of completion of a server request taking into account server processing time.
2. Description of Related Art
The use of graphical progress bars to inform a user of the amount of progress in downloading a data file from a server is generally known in the art. These progress bars often provide a graphical indication of the percentage of a file that has been downloaded and the percentage left to be downloaded. Many times the graphical indication is accompanied by download rate information and an estimated remaining time to download the file.
These progress bars are limited in that the graphical indication of progress is only based on the size of the file being downloaded and the amount of the file already downloaded. The estimated remaining time to download the file is based only on the download rate and the remaining amount of data to be downloaded. These prior art progress bars only refer to the actual data transfer and do not provide any information regarding the actual preparation, on the backend server, of the data being downloaded.
Many times, dynamically created content, such as webpages and files, are bound to operationally intensive processes running on backend servers. The time required to perform these operationally intensive processes significantly impacts the time required to fulfill a content request from a client device. Because known progress bars do not account for this backend processing and preparation of the data to be downloaded, the known progress bars are inaccurate and provide a false indication to the user of the estimated time of completion of the content request.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have an apparatus and method for graphically depicting an accurate estimated time of completion of a content request as well as the progress toward completion of the content request. It would be beneficial for such a graphical depiction to account for operationally intensive processes being performed on the backend server to prepare the data for download to the requesting client device.

Apparatus and method for generating graphic presentation of estimated time of completion of a server request

International Business Machines Corporation


A rapid warm-up fuser belt (and fusers and marking machines that use such a fuser belt) comprised of a conductive substrate having a resistive heating layer on one side and a release layer on the other side. The fuser belt further enables an electrical contact to the conductive substrate. Electrical current passing through the conductive substrate and through the resistive heating layer, causes the resistive heating layer to heat. The fuser belt can either provide for a direct electrical connection to the resistive heating layer, or it can include a semiconductive layer on the resistive heating layer that improves the electrical connection to the resistive heating layer.

Electrophotographic marking is a well-known, commonly used method of copying or printing documents. Electrophotographic marking is performed by exposing a charged photoreceptor with a light image representation of a desired document. In response to that light image the photoreceptor discharges, creating an electrostatic latent image of the desired document on the photoreceptor's surface. Toner particles are then deposited onto that latent image, forming a toner image. That toner image is then transferred from the photoreceptor onto a substrate, such as a sheet of paper. The transferred toner image is then fused to the substrate, usually using heat and/or pressure, thereby creating a permanent image. The surface of the photoreceptor is then cleaned of residual developing material and recharged in preparation for the production of another image.
In order to fuse toner onto a substrate it is beneficial to heat the toner to a point where the toner coalesces and become tacky. To an extent this causes the toner to flow into the fibers or pores of the substrate. Adding pressure increases the toner flow. Then, as the toner cools it becomes permanently attached to the substrate.
Because both heat and pressure are beneficial when fusing, most fusers include a heated element and a pressure-inducing element that form a nip. When a toner bearing substrate passes through that nip, heat from the heated element and pressure within the nip fusers the toner with the substrate.
One type of fuser uses a heated belt and a nip-forming backup (or pressure) roller. Reference, U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,182 to Wayman et al. on Sep. 12, 1995 and entitled "Apparatus and Method for Fusing Toner Images on Transparent Substrate," and U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,950 to Badesha et al. on Jan. 13, 1998 and entitled "Transfuser." Fuser belts have been heated by incorporating a resistive heating element on one side of an electrical insulating main substrate and by passing an electrical current lengthwise through the resistive heating layer. Furthermore, at least when using the fusing belt for transfusing (wherein the toner layer is transferred onto the belt and then fused from the belt onto a substrate), fusing belts have also included a release layer to assist toner transfer.
While resistively heated fusing belts have successfully been used for fusing, they generally suffer from limited life. This is at least partially due to the thermal effects of expansion of the belt. Since the main substrate is typically a thermally and electrically insulating material such as polyimide, sufficient mechanical strength and sufficient thermal flow were difficult to simultaneously achieve. Much stronger metallic fusing belts could not be used because they would short out the resistive heating layer. Despite their limited life, resistively heated fusing belts are desirable because they have the distinct advantage of rapid heating. This allows for energy conservation by enabling the fuser to be heated only when needed.
Therefore, a resistively heated fuser belt having a robust metallic substrate would be beneficial.