This patent application describes equipment used to play a contact or semi-contact game that is played on a field. The object of the game's for athletics to battle against one another to gain access into the equipment that is a mound and the device atop the mound called a horizontal, in order to follow expressed language of the horizontal that will allow a runner to quickly lift and flick a bar with their wrist, allowing an opportunity to score or to complete an after point scoring attempt. Taken together the actions precipitate the translocation of a ball that's necessary for scoring in other contact and semi-contact sports.

The invention is equipment used to play a sports game. The game is entitled Dictionary Dazzle nicknamed Dazzle. The field of endeavor to which Dazzle pertains are the contact and semi-contact sporting arenas. Sporting events have evolved along with man's evolutionary process and helped to play a vital part in the developing, as well as the maintaining of newly acquired physical and social knowledge. Although sporting events no longer flourish with the use of weapons, athletics still apply themselves daily, to be the best through mastery of the games and by breaking records.
Today the more popular sporting events named baseball, hockey, basketball, football, rugby and soccer are found in the contact and semi-contact field of sports. In each of the areas their focal piece of equipment used for playing the sport is usually called a ball. Dazzle a contact or semi-contact sporting game does not utilize a traditional inflatable, hard core or semi hard core type ball that's found in the aforementioned events. Dazzle's novelty is in the fact that it is a contact sport that is played without a projectile. The sport is played from a stationary piece of equipment which initiates action just as exciting as you'll find in other contact or semi contact sports. Uniquely the equipment's main section which provides a means for the anchoring mechanism, is made from very flimsy materials. Padded linen cloth or even form rubber is adequate. The main section is that portion of the mound which players inadvertently collide with during play. It is anchored to a standpipe called the upright or when the standpipe is omitted, is anchored through simply extending the flimsy material and is fastened through the flap(s) where the material terminates. Because the main section lies in a plane, it makes it more accessible to be reached into by the player, seeking a chance to launch its impel able device. The main section that is made up mostly of flimsy material is more than sturdy enough to withstand players banging up against it as they struggle to move the impel able called a horizontal, attached, atop the mound. And that is the objective of this game, to fight your way in to the horizontal and move it a full revolution.
This sport has never been played before. A projectile like object is normally used to spur players to action, but is no longer required for exciting, stiff competition to take place. When players vie to impel the horizontal (a movable object in a stationary position), their attempts to do so creates an immense amount of contact between the players. This new spirit of competition that is played I have termed an Impelled Stationary Device Action Game or ISDAG. The novelty of this invention is in the equipment just mentioned as well as the planar surface it is played on, that is different than other contact and semi-contact games.
In modern sports, Dazzle is similar to football if played outdoor. But unlike anything you have ever seen before, is its method of scoring. When played outside, points are given upon the completion of a series of steps. A>B>C and after C then you can score. Interesting concept wouldn't you say. As I mentioned earlier a mound is the apparatus action focuses on in a contest of Dazzle. The horizontal atop the mound believe it or not ignites the action, as if it were a ball. And it gets more interesting. In football, its competitive action takes place when an attempt is made to move the football towards an opponent's end zone; in soccer, the competitive action takes place when an attempt is made to move the soccer ball towards an opponent's goal net and in basketball, its competitive action takes place when an attempt is made to shot the basketball through an opponents net. Repeatedly the objective that has defined competitive sports action has been found in projectiles and balls. In football, the translocation of a ball crossing the goal line to produce a score defines the action; in basketball, the translocation of a ball passing through a hoop also defines the action; and the same is true for soccer. Our games have given us balls for fun and excitement. Dazzle is a change from that routine. Like for instance one that does not have its objectives nestled in the translocation of a ball.
Since their incision in the field of non combat competition, competitive games have been generally played outdoors, except for basketball and hockey. Of which hockey uses a puck instead of ball. But the objective to which they have been played has never been changed. It has remained just the science of the translocation of an object, for the expressed object purpose, that has found scoring, being done by a projectile. But the tenet of Dazzle is different. First, in focal equipment translocation and Second, through scoring. In Dazzle the projectile is not a ball given a projected path when launched by the player, but a movable device, when impelled will follow, a predetermined path after launch. And then its motion is always circular. But rest assured, scoring is not as simple as the translocation of an object or moving a ball from Point A to Point B. Even more interesting is the number of formats available for playing ISDAGs. In the original format discussed here in this application, scoring results from A> when players impel the horizontal at least one revolution around the mound B occurs; B> player has won the privilege of attempting to run way up the field and if without being knocked down or held they reach the connecting zone, the player then request the official to add additional weight to a Bar, they will attempt to lift in order to increase their team's score when C occurs; C> after the player reach the connecting zone, the player then must run from the connecting zone pass the follow through into the safe zone. If successful, only then is that player allowed an opportunity to lift the Bar. It must be in one continuous flick of their wrist with their arm extended If they succeed, then their team's score shall increase by the mutable of a number listed below the spot on the mound where the horizontal stopped, for each particle of weight, they successfully lifted. However, once any weight is placed upon the Bar, it stays there unless special conditions, due occur. Interesting? Yes, I would say its very interesting. Dazzle makes for a most exciting contest but yet, Otherwise the traditional teachings which have given grace to athletic competition are very much still fundamental. In short, the mound is a fresh new idea in an old world of contact and semi-contact athletic competition, which has its objective in wrist snaps.

Abstract: This patent application further discloses methods of playing a game two to five teams play on lined rectangular surfaces with side and end boundaries in or outdoors which expressed language printed below the horizontal or rotatable that's mounted atop the mound which mound is anchored at the center of the inside circle, surrounded by an outer circle, found to the middle of the rectangle if indoors and found towards the end of rectangle if outdoors players vie to spin. Each spin is for a score or a chance to complete a score through the use of a Bar that is specifically made for lifting various weight, through a quick snapping motion by a player, with their wrist. This game is further characterized by blocks, tossing maneuvers of other players, bumping, holding, jettisoning, (tackling and running maneuvers if outside) by the players, to get their team in a position to make either the horizontal rotate or make a run up field into the safe zone.


An application (App)-BOT, scans a context of a user of an application and obtains current scanned user data. The App BOT determines a set of user information entities from the scanned user data containing current information about the user. In a negotiation phase, the App BOT a data access request offer from a mixed reality data (MRD)-BOT. A privacy leak score is estimated that represents a user value attributed to the permission to access the labelled user information entity based on the data access request offer. Responsive to determining that the privacy leak score exceeds a privacy leak score threshold, an acceptance of the data access request offer is sent to the MRD BOT and providing access requested by the data access request. Otherwise, a counteroffer is sent to the offer to the MRD BOT.

Disclosed herein is a system and related method for performing privacy negotiations in a mixed reality environment.
Mixed reality (MR), sometimes referred to as hybrid reality or augmented reality, is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time. Mixed reality takes place not only in the physical world or the virtual world, but is a mix of reality and virtual reality, encompassing both augmented reality and augmented virtuality. When mixed reality is provided to users, the provider of MR data (MRD) may want to acquire as much information as possible from the users.

Privacy negotiations in a mixed reality environment

International Business Machines Corporation


A clamp mechanism for actively coupling an in-well seismic station to the casing of a well is disclosed. The clamp mechanism is capable of associating a sensor to production tubing for deployment in the well and is capable of actively coupling the sensor to the casing of the well. The clamp mechanism includes a body capable of being coupled to the deployment member. A carrier mechanism is attached to the sensor and positions adjacent the body. A release mechanism releases the carrier mechanism when subjected to a predetermined pressure in the well or when subjected to fluid in the well for a predetermined amount of time. A biasing mechanism is disposed between the body and the carrier mechanism and displaces the carrier mechanism with attached sensor towards the surface of the casing when released. A guiding mechanism guides the displacement of the carrier mechanism towards the surface of the casing.

Seismic surveying is a standard tool for the exploration of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Vertical seismic profiling (VSP) is one method employed in the art of seismic surveying. VSP can be used within a single well or can be used in multiple wells, i.e., in a cross-well arrangement, which are well known techniques. VSP uses a plurality of sensors arranged within the well. Various types of acoustic and/or pressure sensors known in the art are used in seismology. A seismic generator arranged at the surface or in another well transmits waves, which are reflected by the geologic formations or transmitted through them. The sensors then receive these waves.
It is generally preferred to permanently position the sensors within the well, and further preferred that such sensing not substantially interfere with normal production operation of the well. Various techniques exist in the art to mechanically couple sensors to a borehole structure, such as the production tube, the well casing, or a production packer. In the art, the sensors are typically arranged outside the casing and are surrounded by cement injected into the annular space between the casing and the borehole of the well. Embedding the sensors in this manner is beneficial in that acoustic waves used in the seismic analysis can easily travel to the sensors without attenuation. In addition, different types of acoustic waves (e.g., shear waves) can be sensed using this method. Unfortunately, mechanically coupling the sensors to the casing can be generally difficult and costly to perform. Furthermore, the sensors are not recoverable.
According to other approaches of vertical seismology in the art, sensors are only temporarily located within the well. During temporary placement, the sensors are used to take readings and then retrieved from the well. In addition, the position of the sensors can be changed within the well to take into account alterations of the earth strata under analysis, resulting from production of effluents. Moreover, deployment or retrieval of temporary sensors disrupts production from the well, which can be particularly costly if measurements are periodically made to assess strata conditions over a given time period. Furthermore, preparing the sensors for insertion into the well, properly positioning the sensors, and retrieving the sensors can require tedious preparation and execution.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the problems set forth above.

Clamp mechanism for in-well seismic station


Detecting a network worm is disclosed. Network traffic between a plurality of network nodes is monitored to determine if the traffic exhibits a characteristic associated with worm propagation. Responsive action is taken if it is determined that a portion of the network traffic does exhibit the characteristic associated with worm propagation. The characteristic associated with worm propagation comprises a data communication or a variant thereof arriving at a first node and propagating from the first node to a second node within a prescribed interval after arriving at the first node.

A worm is a malicious self-replicating program that inserts itself into other systems in the same or slightly modified form to consume resources across a network. Once a host computer has been infected with a worm, it may be a matter of minutes before all of the vulnerable computers on the network are compromised. Some experts have even predicted this infection saturation time to reach mere seconds. Hence the loss in productivity and the resources required for worm cleanup can be astronomical if instant action is not taken after an infection. As network worms are becoming an even greater nuisance and a danger to the functionality and stability of the Internet, there exists a growing need to detect the presence of a worm in a network with speed and accuracy.
Current worm detection technologies center around detecting the actions of a single worm or a group of worms. For example, an exploit or vulnerability signature compiled from a list of worms known to exist can be used in anti-virus-like-software on the system level and in Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) on the network level to discover possible worm infections. Other techniques attempt to recognize worms by observing macro network behavior such as network saturation or anomalous device communications, e.g., by detecting a spike in traffic generally or of a particular type.
Though each of these techniques can be effective, they have significant drawbacks. The exploit and vulnerability signature approach requires some triggering foreknowledge that makes it hard to detect previously undiscovered worms that might have different exploit signatures or take advantage of new weaknesses not characterized by the vulnerability signatures. In addition, the growth in network bandwidth and traffic load in recent years has and continues to outstrip the processing capacity of a typical anti-virus and/or IPS systems and processes, with the result that typically not all network traffic can be examined as fully as may be required to reliably detected and/or block a worm, even in cases where a signature or other identifying data are known. While macro behavior observations are independent of specific worm signatures, such techniques typically do not provide the sort of specific, actionable, and timely information required to take quick real-time responsive action (e.g., to quarantine an infected system, network, or sub-network or timely isolate a critical system, network, or sub-network from potential sources of infection) since the observations only trigger alerts after a possible worm becomes a large enough problem to cause an anomaly in network behavior that is significant enough to be observed and trigger an alert. Unfortunately even after observing the anomaly, the user cannot know with certainty whether a particular system and/or network or portion thereof is or may be infected since a benign new program or system on the network could have easily altered network traffic patterns and even if a worm were present specific information about the worm such as may be needed to protect effectively against it typically is not available, at least initially. Additionally for both the signature and macro behavior approaches, the data analysis required for detection could be very computationally expensive. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a better way to identify the existence of a worm in a computer network.


An example method for passive compaction of a cache includes determining first metadata associated with first data and second metadata associated with second data. The first metadata includes a first retrieval time, and the second metadata includes a second retrieval time. The example method further includes obtaining a first metadata key including a first unique identifier and obtaining a second metadata key including a second unique identifier. The example method also includes generating a first data key and generating a second data key. The example method further includes writing, at a client device, the first and second data to the cache. Each of the first and second data occupy one or more contiguous blocks of physical memory in the cache, and the first and second data are stored in the cache in an order based on the relative values of the first and second retrieval times.

1. Field
This disclosure generally relates to caching data and in particular to writing data received over a network to a cache.
2. Background
A client application may request data over a network and write the data to a local cache. In an example, the client application may stream data over a high-speed network connection and display the data to a user. Writing data to a cache may enable the client application to quickly retrieve the data from the local cache rather than download the data again over the network. Further, the user may access and use the client application even when the high-speed network connection is unavailable or impractical because the client application may retrieve the data from the cache rather than over the network.
The data may be inserted into the cache, and the older data in the cache may be removed after a maximum amount of data has been stored in the cache to make room for new data. Deleting the old data may leave holes in the cache, and it may be desirable to compact the cache. Cache compaction, however, may be time consuming and cause glitches in the application. For example, the application may not have access to the cache while it is being compacted. Accordingly, the user may experience a time delay when waiting for the application to respond. This may degrade the user's experience.

Technique for passive cache compaction using a least recently used cache algorithm


A photographic device includes an image sensor in which a plurality of pixels are arrayed. A vertical scan circuit selects horizontal drive lines of the image sensor in order. And a horizontal scan circuit reads out in order voltages due to electric charges from the pixels in the horizontal row which is selected by the vertical scan circuit. A plurality of optical lenses are arranged in a direction parallel to the vertical drive lines, and these optical lenses form images of the same photographic regions upon respective pixel regions which face them. The voltages due to electric charges are read out in order from the pixels, and a plurality of images are acquired with some time difference between them. The emission of light by a light source is controlled, so that photography in each of the pixel regions is performed in different photographic conditions.

The present invention relates to a photographic device which photographs an image of a photographic region using an image sensor such as a CMOS image sensor or the like.
There is a per se known type of prior art photographic device which creates a synthesized image in which the width of the dynamic range has been expanded.
With this type of device, a plurality of images of the same photographic region are photographed based upon different photographic conditions. And, with this device, from this plurality of images which have been obtained by this photography, a synthesized image in which the width of the dynamic range has been expanded is created.
With the device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2003-309766, a plurality of images of the same photographic region are photographed with different light emission amounts from a light source. And, with this photographic device, a synthesized image in which the width of the dynamic range has been expanded is created using image data which has been photographed based upon a large light emission amount in relation to portions of the photographic region which are dark, and using image data which has been photographed based upon a small light emission amount in relation to portions of the photographic region which are bright.
Furthermore, with the device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication H05-176233, a plurality of images are obtained under different photographic conditions by changing the exposure time period for each image.
With the devices described above, the same photographic region is photographed a plurality of times based upon different photographic conditions. Accordingly, it has been necessary to perform reading in of the accumulated electric charge from each pixel, and photographic frame processing, a plurality of times. However, a predetermined time period (such as a vertical retrace period and the like) has been required for performing this photographic frame processing a plurality of times. Accordingly, with such prior art type photographic devices which create a synthesized image in which the width of the dynamic range has been expanded by synthesizing together images whose photographic conditions are different; there has been a limit to shortening of the processing time. Moreover, with these types of photographic devices, a complicated structure and complicated signal processing have been necessary.
Thus, the object of the present invention is to provide a photographic device which, in a short processing time period, and furthermore with a simple structure, can create a synthesized image in which the width of the dynamic range has been expanded by synthesizing together images whose photographic conditions are different.

Photographic device for obtaining a plurality of images at a time by rolling shutter method


A power amplifier receives an input signal and generates an amplified output signal. A switching converter generates a regulated voltage and performs power control for the power amplifier. A linear amplifier performs modulation envelope control for the power amplifier. The switching converter may be coupled in series with the linear amplifier, and this circuit may operate in one of multiple modes. For example, the linear amplifier may output a tracked voltage to the power amplifier in GSM/polar EDGE mode, and the switching converter may output the regulated voltage to the power amplifier in WCDMA/UMTS mode. The linear amplifier could also output the tracked voltage in both modes, and a selector could select the appropriate feedback voltage for the switcher. The switching converter could also provide the regulated voltage directly to the power amplifier, and the linear converter could adjust a bias of the power amplifier to provide envelope tracking.

Many circuits often employ power amplifiers, such as RF power amplifiers in handheld communication devices and other wireless devices. Power amplifiers are often controlled by adjusting a supply voltage VCC provided to the power amplifiers. A low drop out (LDO) linear amplifier is routinely used to generate the supply voltage VCC for a power amplifier.
Linear amplifiers can be very efficient when used to generate the supply voltage VCC for a power amplifier. For example, when the supply voltage VCC is very close to the power supply of a linear amplifier (often a battery voltage VBATT), the linear amplifier is typically very efficient. However, when the supply voltage VCC is far below the battery voltage VBATT, the linear amplifier may be very inefficient.
Linear amplifiers can also be designed to have extremely low noise and very high bandwidth. The low noise property is often important because there can be strict linearity requirements placed on power amplifiers, and any noise in the supply voltage VCC can translate into power amplifier output noise. The high bandwidth property is also often important because there can be spectral mask and time mask requirements in different communication systems, such as when the supply voltage VCC needs to be fully ramped up or down rapidly (such as within 10 μs) and when the supply voltage VCC needs to maintain its modulation dynamics.
Switching converters can provide high efficiency, but they typically have limited bandwidth. This may be due to several reasons, such as high switching losses at high switching frequencies, low resonant frequencies of external inductor-capacitor (LC) components, and control difficulties. Also, switching converters typically produce switching noise at the desired switching frequencies. As a result, typical switching converters are inappropriate for use in generating a supply voltage VCC requiring envelope tracking or short time masks for a power amplifier.

Circuit and method for RF power amplifier power regulation and modulation envelope tracking


A system and apparatus for installing a central tire inflation (CTI) valve containing member into the hub bore opening of a wheel so as to be in communication with an air passageway hub port in the vehicle hub. Preferably, the CTI valve containing member includes a CTI valve sealed to a hub bore manifold with the hub bore manifold being mounted to the wheel disc and/or the vehicle hub. The hub bore manifold seals against the vehicle hub and the wheel hub bore surface (and/or the front face of the wheel disc). An air passageway in the manifold runs from the vehicle hub port to the CTI valve, and other air passageway(s) connect the CTI valve to the tire interior, such that air can travels from the vehicle hub to and from the tire cavity by way of the manifold and CTI valve.

This invention is a system and apparatus for installing a central tire inflation (CTI) valve in a wheel hub bore.
FIG. 1 provides an example of a one-piece wheel assembly 1 with a hose fitting 2 mounted to the vehicle hub (not shown) in accordance with the teachings of prior art. The one-piece wheel assembly 1 includes a wheel 3 with tire 4. Parts of wheel 3 include rim portion 5, transverse wall or "disc" portion 6, drop center area 7, an air duct formed by airway 8, and a central opening, hub bore area 9. Hose fitting 2 connects to an air hose 10; the air hose 10 connects to the wheel 3 via another hose fitting 11. The tire 4 and rim 5 form a tire chamber 12 that contains a pressurized fluid (usually air).
Similarly, FIG. 2 shows a section of a two-piece wheel assembly 13 configured for an externally mounted CTI valve 15 and a quick release valve 14 mounted on a two-piece wheel 16 in accordance with prior art. The two-piece wheel assembly 13 includes the two-piece wheel 16 and tire 4. Parts of wheel 16 include rim portion 5, disc portion 6, rim flat area 17, and a central opening (hub bore area 9). The tire 4 and rim 5 form a tire air chamber 12 that contains a pressurized fluid (usually air). Two-piece wheels 16 are usually used when a bead lock 18 or run flat device (not shown) are utilized in the two-piece wheel assembly 13. Two-piece wheels 16 consist of two major parts, the inner rim half 19 and outer rim half 20. The two rim halves 19 and 20 are sealed with an o-ring 21 to prevent air from escaping out of tire air chamber 12. Bolts 22 and nuts 23 hold the two rim halves 19 and 20 together.
Finally, FIG. 3 shows a section of another two-piece wheel assembly 24 configured for an integrated CTI valve 25 attached to the wheel. The configuration shown is the same as in FIG. 2, except the CTI valve 25 uses an airway 26 from the vehicle hub (not shown) to the CTI valve 25 and an air duct formed by airway 27 from the CTI valve 25 to the tire cavity 12. (The CTI arrangement and internal passageways 26 and 27 are patented under U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,383 and European Patent EP 1 262 340 A2).
As the preceding figures illustrate, current CTI valve technology may employ any one of several air passageway configurations. Thus, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a hose fitting 2 mounted on the vehicle hub (not shown) can bring air through a hose 10 to a hose fitting on the wheel 11. Alternatively, as illustrated in FIG. 2, a hose fitting 28 on the vehicle hub (not shown) can bring air through a CTI air hose 29 to a quick release valve 14 mounted on the wheel 16. Another CTI air hose 30 channels air from the quick release valve 14 to the external CTI valve 15, while CTI air hose 31 brings air from the external CTI valve 15 to a sealed hose fitting 32 on the wheel 16. Finally, as illustrated in FIG. 3, an integrated CTI valve 25 can be mounted on the wheel 16. An airway 26 in the wheel brings air from a port on the vehicle hub (not shown) to the integrated CTI valve 25. A second airway 27 in the wheel brings air from the integrated CTI valve 25 to the tire cavity 12. (Cf., U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,383 and European Patent EP 1 262 340 A2). In all of these examples, the systems described allow the tire cavity 12 to be inflated or deflated via a control system in the vehicle as necessary to facilitate and optimize vehicle operation and performance.
However, all of the aforesaid methods and apparatus have disadvantages. These disadvantages include the fact that: (a) rocks, curbs, or brush can damage externally mounted valve configurations with hoses during vehicle operations; (b) rocks, curbs, or brush can damage integrated CTI valves mounted on the face of the wheel during vehicle operations; (c) both externally mounted and integrated CTI valves are "bulky" and take up a lot of space on the wheel face; (d) both externally mounted and integrated CTI vales require the airway in the wheel to be aligned with the airway in the vehicle hub; (e) externally mounted CTI valves with hoses and fittings typically contain a high number of components; (f) externally mounted CTI valves with hoses and fittings are complex and difficult to assemble; (g) externally mounted CTI valves and hoses result in excessive weight and increased wheel imbalance; (h) externally mounted CTI valves are highly visible and are more susceptible to damage from hostile fire (on military wheels) or sabotage by cutting the external tubing; (i) externally mounted CTI valves contain a higher number of components resulting in an increased number of leakage points; (j) externally mounted CTI valves contain a higher number of components results in increased cost; (k) externally mounted CTI valves contain a higher number of components resulting in increased time required to assemble and disassemble; (l) hose fittings can be easily stripped or damaged during assembly/disassembly; (m) integrated CTI valves mounted towards the rim portion of the wheel result in significant wheel imbalance and increased weight due to the counter balance weight required; and (n) as illustrated in FIG. 4, some CTI valves require heavy covers 33 for protection, further exacerbating several of the problems previously described.

Hub bore mounted central tire inflation valve system


An air electrode as a component of a solid electrolyte fuel cell. The air electrode is composed of a first layer and a second layer. The first layer has an open porosity of 25% to 57%, pore diameters of 2.5 .mu.m to 12 .mu.m and a resistivity of less than 0.22 .OMEGA.cm. The second layer has an open porosity of 8% to 24%, pore diameters of 0.2 .mu.m to 3 .mu.m, and a ratio of the thickness of the second layer to the thickness of the air electrode is 2% to 28%. The sum of the thicknesses of the first and second layers is 0.7 mm to 3.0 mm. The materials of the first and second layers have perovskite structures selected from the group consisting of lanthanum manganate, calcium manganate, lanthanum nickelate, lanthanum cobalate and lanthanum chromate. A solid electrolyte fuel cell includes the air electrode as described above, a solid electrolyte film formed on the surface of the second layer of the air electrode and a fuel electrode film formed on the surface of the solid electrolyte film.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an air electrode for a solid electrolyte fuel cell and more particularly to a solid electrolyte fuel cell which uses the air electrode.
2. Related Art Statement
Recently, fuel cells have been recognized as power generating devices. The fuel cell is a device capable of directly converting chemical energy of fuel to electric energy. As the fuel cell is free from limitation of Carnot's cycle, the cell is a very promising technique owing to its inherently high energy conversion efficiency, wide latitude of fuels to be used (naphtha, natural gas, methanol, coal reformed gas, heavy oil and the like), less public nuisance, and high electric power generating efficiency without being affected by the scale of installations.
Particularly, as the solid electrolyte fuel cell (referred to as "SOFC" hereinafter) operates at high temperatures such as 1,000.degree. C., activity of electrodes is very high. Moreover, the SOFC has low polarization and relatively high output voltage without requiring any catalyst of an expensive noble metal such as platinum so that energy conversion efficiency is much higher than that of other fuel cells. Furthermore, the SOFC is stable and has long service life because all the constituent materials of the SOFC are solid.
In the SOFC, as the constituent components are solid, fuel cells of various structures have been proposed. Moreover, conductive perovskite type oxides of La(Sr)MnO.sub.3 group, La(Sr)CoO.sub.3 group and the like are expected as promising materials for the air electrode. Particularly, materials of La(Sr)MnO.sub.3 group tend to match zirconia solid electrolyte films both in reactivity and thermal expansion coefficient.
However, the materials of the air electrodes described above are higher in electric resistance than materials of the fuel electrodes, which is the reason why output of the electric cells is comparatively low. Moreover, electric current flows along thin air electrode films or air electrode substrates and in parallel therewith, and thus the electric resistance and voltage losses become great as a whole.
In order to avoid this, it is conceivable to make the air electrode as thick as possible to reduce the electric resistance. With a thick air electrode, however, gas diffusion resistance in the air electrode becomes very high, with consequent considerable decrease of oxide agent supply amount to three-phase interfaces where the air electrode, the solid electrolyte film and the oxide agent contact one another. As a result, the output of the unit cell lowers contrary to the expectation.
In order to reduce the gas diffusion resistance in the air electrode to improve the permeability to the oxide agent, it is conceivable to make large the open porosity and pore diameters of the air electrode. However, such a countermeasure will reduce the number and areas of the three-phase interfaces where the air electrode, the solid electrolyte film and the oxide agent contact one another. Moreover, the larger the open porosity, the higher the resistance of the electrode itself so that the output of the single cell lowers likewise.

Air electrode and solid electrolyte fuel cell having the same


When telecommunications systems with analog and digital circuit technology are interconnected, the two-wire/four-wire transitions are achieved with hybrid circuits in which mismatches cannot be avoided. They result in signal reflections in the form of interfering echoes which can considerably reduce speech intelligibility. The known methods of echo compensation for hands-free facilities are not suitable for compensating line echoes, since the signal level and the delay times of lines can be very different. A compander (3.7) is used to suppress the effect of line echoes, whose transmission characteristic, in addition to being controlled by a coupling factor between the transmit path and the receive path, and by a control signal determined by the noise level, is also controlled in the invention with the speech level that is received from the distant subscriber. Furthermore, the amplification in the linear starting range of the compander characteristic is made dependent on the ratio or comparison between the speech level and the noise level on the transmit path. The invention can be used in conjunction with hands-free facilities in communications terminals, in addition it can be spatially assigned to the hybrid circuits, or it can find central applications in base stations of radio exchange systems or in switching centers.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a method of and a circuit arrangement for improving the transmission properties of an echo-affected transmission link in a telecommunications network, which comprises for example interconnecting the analog and digital circuits of telecommunication systems. This interconnection creates problems with the transition of two-wire transmission lines, such as are typical for the subscriber connection lines in analog telecommunications networks, to four-wire transmission lines in digital telecommunications networks. These two-wire/four-wire transitions are provided for by a hybrid circuit, where mismatches in the balancing line with respect to the current line properties can never be fully avoided, creating signal reflections in the form of interfering echoes which can considerably reduce speech intelligibility between the subscribers, or which can significantly increase the error rate during data transmission.
2. Description of Related Art
It is basically known to eliminate the effect of echoes with echo compensators, see R. Wehrmann et. al: "Signal processing method for improving speech communication via hands-free facilities", The Telecommunications Engineer, 40th. year, October 1994, pages 27-28. This essay describes how the transmit function of the real system can be fairly accurately simulated with an echo compensator. The signal arriving at the subscriber then passes through both the real system as well as the one simulated by the echo compensator, and after that the output signal of the echo compensator is subtracted from the echo-affected signal of the real system, thus compensating for most of the echo. In a real system, for example loudspeaker-room-microphone, such an echo compensator can considerably reduce the so-called local echo which is created by the acoustic coupling between the loudspeaker and the microphone.
Mismatched hybrid circuits in telecommunications networks with two-wire/four-wire transitions create an electrical coupling between the transmit path 1.3 and the receive path 1.5, and a portion of the transmitted signal is reflected back to the subscriber on the receive path as a so-called line echo. Echoes of different intensities and duration, which can be roughly divided into near and distant echoes, are a function of the distance between the subscriber and the hybrid circuit along the transmit path, and different transmission means and transmission devices such as for example satellite links, submarine links, encoding devices or highly compressed audio-video-codecs. A line transmission system with a transmit path and a receive path therefore differs significantly from a loudspeaker-room-microphone, particularly with regard to different echo delay times and different line attenuations.
Adaptive digital filters are preferably used as echo compensators, whose filter coefficients can be determined and adjusted for example in accordance with the Normalized Least Mean Square Algorithm, briefly called NLMS algorithm, see T. Huhn, H.-J. Jentschel: "Combination of noise reduction and echo compensation during hands-free operation", Communications Electronics, Berlin 43 (1993), pages 274-280. The filter coefficients must be constantly updated in accordance with the changing echo signal. The required filter length is determined by the sampling frequency and the longest echo delay time. The delay time from distant echoes is very different and can be over 250 ms, so that either the number of filter coefficients to be calculated becomes very large, or a method to determine the individual echo delay times must be used, for example a correlation analysis which requires a large computation effort, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,394. From this patent it is known to perform a correlation measurement between the received echo signal and the transmitted signal to ascertain the precise instant for determining the echo delay times and the filter coefficients. However any practical application of this solution fails because its cost is too high.
It is known to use companders to reduce the effects of local echoes during hands-free operation, whereby transmit signals above a reference value are compressed to a uniform signal level, they are then amplified if they have the same reference value, and are attenuated if they are below the reference value. In this way a circuit arrangement for the dynamic control of a terminal is known from the specification U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,837, whereby a controllable compander adapts the degree of amplification of the signal voltages produced by a microphone to the reference value, for the purpose of hands-free operation. The result is that fluctuations in the microphone signal, which are created by moderate variations in the talking distance and the individual speech volume, are compressed to a more uniform loudness level at the reproduction end.
Furthermore a method of improving the transmission properties of an electro-acoustical facility is known, whereby the position of the compander characteristic transfer function is automatically controlled, see EPO Publication 0 600 164 A1 and its German parent having Application No. DE 42 29 912 A1. The method detects whether the transmitted signal is generated by speech or by noise. The magnitude of the control signal for shifting the position of the compander characteristic, which is produced with the speech and noise detection, achieves the result that the speech being transmitted is sent at a constant level, that the background noise level is lowered for the transmission, and that the volume of the received reproduction is increased with increasing ambient noise.
The use of the previously described compander arrangement to suppress local echoes in hands-free facilities is known. However this compander arrangement is not suitable for suppressing line echoes, because with lines it must be taken into consideration that the signal level in the lines of telecommunication networks, particularly in dialing lines, can vary from one connection to another in the range of greater than 20 dB, and that the signal delay times can vary for example within the range of 10 ms to 10 s as a function of the number of satellite links between the connection points, or the kind of signal processing systems, for example by compression.

Method of and circuit arrangement for improving the transmission properties of an echo affected transmission link in a telecommunications network

Alcatel Alsthom Compagnie Generale d'Electricite


A method and a system for providing undo/redo capabilities in mixed model editors. More specifically, the method and system relate to undoing modifications made in a first edit context such that the result can correctly be displayed in a second edit context. Further, the modifications made may be tracked in the multiple contexts and organized such that the modifications are undone and redone correctly.

An editor is a computer application that allows a user to alter the contents of a file. Typically, editors operate on plain text files, which only include ASCII characters, and provide functionality that facilitate in the altering of the contents of the plain text files. One such functionality is the undo/redo capability included in most editors. In its simplest form, an undo/redo tool allows the user to undo a single change and then, if requested, redo that single change.
More sophisticated editors track a large number of modifications in a history and allow the user to undo and redo any of the modifications in the history. Further, most editors group certain modifications together, such as continuous typing, so that the group can be undone in a single transaction.
Specialized editors also exist that are targeted at a specific type of plain text file such as source code, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), or Extensible Markup Language (XML). Due to the structure and/or restricted grammar of these plain text files, specialized editors can provide tools such as syntax highlighting and auto-completion. Further, markup languages like HTML and XML store additional information in the form of tags as well as text. In the case of HTML, the extra information contained in the tags can be used to render the text into a graphical presentation format. In the case of XML, the extra information contained in the tags can be used to render the text into a hierarchical presentation format. Some HTML and XML editors allow altering of the underlying text in a plain text file through both a standard text interface showing the text and an interface that shows the alternative presentation format (i.e., graphical presentation format or hierarchical presentation format).
Editors that allow modifications to be made in multiple presentation formats can be described as mixed model editors. Mixed model editors, like standard text editors, provide undo/redo capabilities; however, mixed model editors face an additional hurdle in that modifications must be tracked in multiple models. Further, modifications made in a first model (e.g., a text model) may not correspond to a valid modification in a second model (e.g., a graphical model). For example, modifying the text in an HTML file may result in malformed HTML that cannot be rendered in the graphical presentation format, resulting in a broken model.
In general, one of two approaches is used in mixed model editors to deal with broken models. The first approach is to delete any stored modifications whenever the editor switches from a first model to a second model. The second approach is to display a message stating that the model is broken until the user manually makes modifications resulting in valid text that can be parsed by the second model.

Compound undo/redo manager for mixed model edits


The invention is directed to Pd-based metallic glass alloys useful in biomedical applications having no Ni or Cu. Exemplary metallic glass alloys are represented by AaBb{(Si)100-c(D)c}d, where A may be selected from Pd, and combinations of Pd and Pt, B may be selected from Ag, Au, Co, Fe, and combinations thereof, and D may be selected from P, Ge, B, S. Also, a, b, c and d are atomic percentages, and a ranges from about 60 to about 90, b ranges from about 2 to about 18, d ranges from about 5 to about 25, and c is greater than 0 and less than 100.

Metallic glasses, unlike conventional crystalline alloys, have amorphous or disordered atomic-scale structures that give rise to unique chemical, mechanical, and rheological properties. Owing to their atomic structure, metallic glasses generally exhibit better corrosion resistance than typical crystalline alloys, higher hardness, strength, and elasticity, and are able to soften and flow when relaxed above their glass transition temperatures (Tg), a characteristic that allows for considerable processing capability. Previously, metallic glasses were only capable of being produced in sub-millimeter dimensions (thin ribbons, sheets, wires, or powders) due to the need for rapid cooling from the liquid state to avoid crystallization. However, recent developments in bulk glass-forming alloys have enabled the production of metallic systems with very sluggish crystallization kinetics able to form glasses in dimensions as large as several centimeters. These developments have permitted the introduction of metallic glasses in many engineering applications where their unique chemical and mechanical properties, including good corrosion resistance, high strength and hardness, and large elastic elongation, are desirable.
The most robust glass-forming metallic system to date is a Pd—Ni—Cu—P alloy, which is capable of forming amorphous parts with thicknesses as large as seven centimeters. The ability to produce metallic glass ingots of such increased thickness has aroused interest in many applications. However, due to the prohibitively high cost of Pd (a noble metal) most of these applications remain out of reach. Applications for which the high cost of noble metals (such as Pd) is not considered as prohibitive include jewelry and biomedical applications (such as orthopedic and dental/orthodontic applications). Interestingly, the noble-metal character of Pd makes Pd-based glasses particularly attractive for such applications. However, the only Pd-based metallic glasses known to achieve dimensions of a few millimeters or more contain either or both Ni and Cu in the alloy composition. Indeed, the glass-forming ability of metals in general is widely known and recognized to be heavily dependent on the inclusion of Ni and/or Cu in the alloy, and it is the inclusion of these metals that enabled the development of such robust metallic glass formers. As such, the inclusion of Ni and Cu is widely accepted as necessary to the formation of glass-forming alloys, and skilled artisans in the field would have no expectation of success in creating a good glass-forming alloy without including at least one of these metals.
While the inclusion of Ni and Cu in metallic glasses is generally suitable and acceptable when the glasses are used for engineering applications, these metals are highly cytotoxic, making metallic glasses including these metals ill suited for biomedical applications. In particular, Ni and Cu are highly electronegative, allowing them to exist as free radicals in the blood stream. Such free radicals are notorious triggers for severe adverse biological reactions in the body. Consequently, Ni and Cu are widely understood and regarded as non-biocompatible, and any metallic glasses including these metals are similarly understood to be non-biocompatible. As the glass-forming ability of amorphous metal alloys is strongly dependent on the inclusion of Ni and/or Cu, development of Pd-based metallic glasses suitable for use in biomedical applications has proved extremely challenging, and no suitable such metallic glass has yet been achieved.

Ni and Cu free Pd-based metallic glasses


A flow path groove is formed in the surface of at least one of two resin substrates; the two resin substrates are joined with the surface in which the flow path groove is formed facing inward; a through-hole having a substantially round cross section is formed in either one of the two resin substrates such that the through-hole connects with the flow path groove from the surface opposite the surface where the two resin substrates join; protruding parts, which protrude in the direction of thickness of the resin substrates and are disposed enclosing the through-hole, are formed in the surface on the opposite side; a space, which has a substantially round cross-sectional shape concentric with the through-hole and has depth in the same direction as the direction of thickness of the resin substrates, is formed in the joined surfaces when the protruding parts are projected from the direction substantially perpendicular to the joined surfaces; and the correlation of fc>fa is satisfied when the edges on the base end side of the through-hole are projected onto the joined surfaces from a substantially perpendicular direction, where the diameter on the base end side of the through-hole is fa and the diameter on the end edge side of the space touching the joined surfaces is fc.

There have been brought into practical use devices referred to as microanalysis chips or μ-TAS's (Micro Total Analysis Systems), in which using microfabrication technology, a micro-flow channel and a circuit are formed in silicone or a glass substrate to carry out chemical reaction, separation, or analysis of a liquid sample such as nucleic acid, protein, or blood in a micro space. It is conceivable that these microchips have such advantages that the used amount of a sample or a reagent or the discharge amount of waste liquid is reduced, and small-foot print, portable, and inexpensive systems are realized.
Microchips are produced in such a manner that two members, in which at least one member thereof having been subjected to microfabrication, are bonded together. Conventionally, for microchips, glass substrates are used and various microfabrication methods have been proposed. However, such glass substrates are unsuitable for mass production and exhibit extremely high cost. Therefore, the development of resin microchips, which are inexpensive and disposable, has been desired.
To produce a resin microchip, a resin substrate having a flow channel groove in the surface and a resin substrate to cover the flow channel groove are joined. Such a resin substrate having a flow channel groove is produce by a method such as an injection molding method, a press molding method, or a mechanical working method. Then, a resin substrate having a flow channel groove in the surface and a resin substrate for covering are joined together in which the flow channel groove is placed inward. Via this joining, the resin substrate for covering functions as the lid (the cover) of the flow channel groove and then a micro-flow channel is formed by the flow channel groove. Thereby, a microchip having such a micro-flow channel groove in the interior is produced. In joining of resin substrates together, there are listed a welding method to pressure-join resin substrates by heating using a heating plate, hot air, a heating roll, ultrasound, vibration, or a laser, an adhesion method to join resin substrates using an adhesive or a solvent; a joining method utilizing adhesion properties of resin substrates themselves; and a method to join substrates themselves via surface treatment such as plasma treatment for the resin substrates.
Further, in a resin substrate having a flow channel groove, a through-hole, which penetrates in the thickness direction of the resin substrate, is formed. This through-hole is connected to the flow channel groove. Still further, a resin substrate having a flow channel groove is provided with a cylindrical protrusion surrounding a through-hole in the surface of the opposite side to the surface where the flow channel groove is formed (for example, Patent Document 1). This protrusion is fitted with a tube or a nozzle to introduce a liquid sample into the flow channel groove or to discharge the liquid sample from the flow channel groove.
As shown in FIG. 7, when two resin substrates 100 and 200 (hereinafter, referred to as "substrates") are joined using any of the above methods, a jig D to nip the 2 substrates 100 and 200 is used. Two substrates 100 and 200 nipped by a jig D is shown in FIG. 7a. When such 2 substrates 100 and 200 are joined, the entire surface of the substrates 100 and 200 to be brought into contact with a jig D needs to make contact with the jig D uniformly.


A centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating apparatus for spherically granulating and coating pharmaceuticals, foods and the like. The apparatus is constructed such that an annular outer portion 5b of a rotary disc 5 is formed to provide an inclined portion which is inclined downwardly toward the center, the size (P) of the outer portion 5b in the horizontal direction is within the range of P.gtoreq.0.25D to the diameter (D) and preferably 0.4D.gtoreq.P.gtoreq.0.25D, and the height (H) is within the range of 0.1D.ltoreq.H.ltoreq.0.33D and preferably 0.1D.ltoreq.H.ltoreq.0.25D.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating apparatus, method of granulating and coating a powder or granular material by use of the apparatus, and more particularly to a technique of a centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating, in which spherical granulating of pharmaceuticals, foods and the like or coating on spherical granules is performed.
2. Related Art Statement
A centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating apparatus (hereinafter referred to a "CF apparatus") , in which a powder or granular material is centrifugally tumbled to produce spherical granules or is applied as a coating to spherical granules, is represented, for example, by "a centrifugal fluidized coating-granulating apparatus--CF-GRANULATOR" manufactured by Freund Industrial Co., Ltd., which is broadly sold on the market, and the construction thereof is shown in FIG. 5. In a CF apparatus 67 as shown in FIG. 5, a peripheral edge portion of a rotary disc 64 is positioned close to a side wall thereof through a small radius of curvature, whereby the powder or granular material tumbled with a centrifugal force increases friction loss in energy when it is tumbled in the vertical direction, and the tumbling action of the powder or granular material at a fixed wall is decreased, so that the upper limit of a charge amount is suppressed.
Now, from the beginning, the CF apparatus was developed to be mainly used for coating tablets and the like. However, recently, the CF apparatus is mainly used for spherically granulating or making coating layers of medicine and the like on the surfaces of spherical granules.
In these uses, it is required that spherical granules of good sphericalness are manufactured with high yield so as to be included within a predetermined range of grain size, and uniform coating layers are provided on the spherical granules. Then, in order to meet the above-described requirements, various proposals have heretofore been made for the construction and shape of the CF apparatus.
Namely, as an effective CF apparatus for coating the tablets and the like, in "a method and a apparatus for coating" as shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 22544/1971 for example, there is described a rotary disc 24 rotatable horizontally is provided in the central portion, a curved speed reducing portion 25 provided around the rotary disc 24 and a coating pan 27 formed of a cylindrical portion 26 connected to the curved speed reducing portion 25 as shown in FIG. 6. Furthermore, in "a method and a apparatus for coating" as shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 10878/1971, there is described a coating pan 37 including a rotary disc 34 rotatable horizontally and a curved fixed wall 35 surrounding the rotary disc 34 as shown in FIG. 7.
Further, as a CF apparatus effective for spherical granulation and the like, in "a apparatus for automatically coating particles" as shown in Japanese Patent Publication Publication No. 992/1979, there is described a apparatus for automatically coating powder 47, in which moisture in the coating apparatus is measured by a moisture detector to control feed rates of binding solution and drying hot air as shown in FIG. 8. Furthermore, in a thesis for a degree "compression molding and granulation of drugs" submitted by Mr. Yoshiro Funakoshi in Tohoku University, there is described a centrifugal tumbling type coating apparatus 57, in which a fixed wall 55 is curved inwardly, as shown in FIG. 9.
A throughput capacity for the powder or granular material, which is considered as a standard in CF apparatuses sold on the market at present is 30-50 kg on the product finishing base in a machine type, in which the diameter of the rotary disc is 1000 mm for example. In a case where an amount more than this is charged, the powder or granular material cannot be centrifugally tumbled satisfactorily, so that particles satisfactory in sphericalness cannot be produced. Then, the limit of the throughput capacity in these CF apparatuses has been accepted as one unavoidable, which is characteristic of CF apparatuses.
On the other hand, in recent years, the batch capacity has been increased due to the large-sized apparatuses for manufacturing pharmaceuticals and the like, and necessity for increasing the batch capacity of the CF apparatuses has been voiced by the market. Here, unless the specification of the CF apparatuses sold on the market is not freed from restraint, in order to meet this requirement, a further large-sized CF apparatus should be provided.
However, in the CF apparatus, in order to prevent the powder or granular material on the rotary disc from falling, it is required that a slit for ventilation provided between the side wall and the rotary disc is kept narrow and uniform width, so that it is very difficult to make the apparatus large-sized from the viewpoint of precision in working. Then, at present, the above-described requirement is met by providing a multiplicity of CF apparatuses while putting up with the increase in costs and areas of installation. And, the above-described limit of the throughput capacity cannot be dissolved by the above-described various proposals.
We analysed the conventional CF apparatuses from the viewpoint that whether the above-described limit of the throughput capacity can be cleared or not by effectively acting the centrifugal force for tumbling the powder or granular materials onto the individual particles. As a result, we knew that the configuration of the CF apparatus which has been known heretofore cannot satisfactorily utilize the action of the centrifugal force, and, in order to improve this, proposed a centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating apparatus 71 as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 232049/1995 (FIG. 10).
The centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating apparatus 71 as shown in the aforesaid Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 232049/1995 is constructed such that a rotary disc 75 has a peripheral edge portion 75b curved upwardly from a plain bottom surface portion 75a in a circularly arcuate shape in a vertical cross-section, so that the throughput capacity can be improved greatly. However, in this apparatus, since the radius of curvature R of the peripheral edge portion is as small as less than 0.25 of a diameter D of the rotary disc 75 as shown in FIG. 10, there has been found a problem that the treated powder or granular material is adhered to this portion and accumulated thereon.
This peripheral edge portion 75b is suitable for effectively acting the centrifugal force onto the powder or granular material when the powder or granular material to be treated is centrifugally tumbled, and it has been cleared by us that it is necessary to determine the shape of the rotary disc 75 to be free from adhesion and accumulation of the powder or granular material.

Centrifugal tumbling granulating-coating apparatus, method of granulating and coating powder or granular material by use of the apparatus


An elongated barbless upside down hook, physically returns a fish back to the bottom, naturally recompressing the trapped air, oxygenating the fish on the way down and releasing it unharmed. The hook uses a weight attached at the end of the shank to descend the device and a retrieval line attached at the bend (bight) to withdraw the hook from the fish and bring the hook back to the surface. This device avoids any moving parts or triggers and is capable of returning any size fish or multiple fish at the same time.

Fishermen often catch fish that are too small, out of season, not editable or they just do not want to keep. When these fish are reeled up from depth, the changes in pressure cause the internal organs and swim bladder to expand and the fish can not return back to its habitat if released. It will become a "floater" and die. This bloating condition is referred to as barotrauma.
There are currently several methods of treating barotrauma and returning fish to their habitat. One device is a venting tool that requires inserting a hollow needle into the fish's side, hitting the swim bladder to release the trapped air. The fish is then thrown back into the water to swim back to the bottom on its own. Venting is not always successful and incorrect venting can injure the fish causing it to die. There are several other devices that clamp on to the fish's mouth. These devices require a jerk on the line or the device has to hit the bottom to activate a release mechanism and free the fish. These devices can only return a single fish at a time. They depend upon a relatively complex clamping and release mechanism, which is not only costly to manufacture, but cumbersome to operate and somewhat unreliable, especially after repeated use.
The invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems and solving one or more of the needs as set forth above.

Barbless weighted releasable fish descending hook


An electrophotographic image forming apparatus is provided. The electrophotographic image forming apparatus includes a main body having an opening; a developing cartridge, detachably installed in the main body through the opening in a first direction, which includes a photosensitive drum and a cleaning member for removing a toner remaining in the photosensitive drum; and a toner recycle unit, detachably installed in the developing cartridge through the opening in the first direction, which recovers the toner removed by the cleaning member, filters the recovered toner, and supplies the toner again to the developing cartridge.

1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to a developing device that collects a toner remaining in a photoconductor after transferring and reuses the collected toner, and an electrophotographic image forming apparatus including the developing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrophotographic image forming apparatuses supply a toner to a latent electrostatic image formed in a photoconductor to forms a visible toner image on the photoconductor, transfers the toner image to a recording medium, and then fixes the transferred toner image to the recording medium to thereby print an image in the recording medium.
Such image forming apparatuses may be provided with a cleaning member for removing the toner remaining on the photoconductor after transferring, and a waste toner storage unit for storing the toner removed by the cleaning member. In order to reuse the toner stored in the waste toner storage unit, a filter for filtering a toner may be provided.

Developing device and electrophotographic image forming apparatus having the same


An internal combustion engine (1) provided with a valve mechanism (VM) able to change a valve opening characteristic of at least one of an intake valve (Vi) and exhaust valve (Ve), a cylinder pressure sensor (15) for detecting a cylinder pressure in a combustion chamber (3), and an ECU (20), wherein the ECU (20) calculates the amount of air sucked into the combustion chamber (3) based on an intake air pressure during valve overlap between the intake valve (Vi) and the exhaust valve (Ve), the exhaust gas pressure during valve overlap, a cylinder pressure during the compression stroke detected by a cylinder sensor (15), and a gas passage effective area during valve overlap.

In the past, a control system of an internal combustion engine provided with a means for calculating the amount of change of cylinder pressure between immediately after closing of the intake valve and immediately before ignition based on a cylinder pressure, crank angle, and throttle opening degree and a means for calculating the amount of intake air from the amount of change of the cylinder pressure and an engine speed has been known (for example, see Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2-40054). Further, in the past, an internal combustion engine able to set valve overlap for making an intake valve and exhaust valve simultaneously open for improving the output or efficiency and reducing emissions has been known in the past. Further, as this type of internal combustion engine, an engine provided with a control system able to calculate the amount of gas remaining in a combustion chamber (amount of internal EGR) due to the valve overlap between the intake valve and exhaust valve has been known (for example, see Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2004-108262).
The control system described in Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2004-108262 calculates the cylinder temperature and cylinder pressure based on signals from an exhaust temperature sensor, intake pressure sensor, and exhaust pressure sensor at the time of closing of the exhaust valve, calculates the gas constant of the exhaust gas in accordance with the burned air-fuel ratio, and calculates the amount of cylinder gas at the time of closing of the exhaust valve based on the cylinder temperature, cylinder pressure, and gas constant. Further, this control system calculates the amount of blowback gas during overlap between the intake valve and exhaust valve based on signals from a crank angle sensor, water temperature sensor, cam angle sensor, and accelerator opening degree sensor and calculates the amount of gas remaining in a combustion chamber (amount of internal EGR) due to the valve overlap based on the amount of cylinder gas and the amount of blowback gas.

Control system and control method of internal combustion engine


A sheet jam access assembly in combination with a finisher transport assembly having a main transport cover, is used with a digital printer. First and second axles with idler nip rollers are mounted on the transport assembly for movement away from the process path. First and second drive nip rollers are mounted for driven rotation on the transport assembly. A jam access cover pivots on the main transport cover from a closed to an open position. First and second hinges each have a first outer leaf on the jam access cover connected by a hinge pin to an inner leaf which translates transverse to the process direction. The hinge axis is spaced apart from the cover axis. A cam plate base portion translates parallel to the process direction. First and second ramps adjacent the axles extend away from the base portion at an angle to the process direction. A slot extends through the first inner leaf at an angle to the process direction. A transfer pin attached to the base portion engages the slot to move the cam plate ramps, which engage the axles to raise the nip rollers and release the jammed sheet. A leaf spring detent holds the jam access cover open.

The Finisher Transport Assembly (FTA) of a printing system typically employs nip rollers for driving the media sheet (paper) along the process path. Idler nip rollers oppose drive nip rollers for moving, guiding and controlling the paper. A paper jam in the FTA requires opening a large, heavy main cover to clear the jam. The idler nip rollers and shafts are mounted on the transport main cover and are raised up to free the paper as the main cover is lifted. The rollers and shafts and the structure to support them result in significant weight, requiring counter-balancing of the main cover with costly springs and mechanisms. In addition, failure of these counterbalancing systems could result in the main cover slamming down on the user. In some printers, there may not be room to open the entire FTA cover—for example, if the marking engine or scanner is disposed above the FTA. Secure, releasable latching of a large main cover can require an elaborate mechanism with added cost.
Further problems arise in aligning the idler rollers with their drive counterparts. An unfavorable tolerance buildup can occur from the drive rollers, through the base support structure, through the hinge, through the cover structure to the idler rollers. This can cause the idler rollers to be out of alignment with the drive rollers. Uniform nip force is also difficult to maintain. These conditions can result in skew registration error of the paper. Hence, raising the entire main cover requires a design having more locating features and tighter tolerances, incurring increased cost, to ensure proper paper control. Not lifting the idler rollers would make jam removal difficult while the paper is clamped in the nips. On some machines, it becomes necessary to reach deep into the mechanism, grasp a jammed sheet sight unseen, and pull the sheet from the grasp of nip rollers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus capable of easy, one-handed access to a paper jam, while releasing the respective nips to aid in freeing the jam.

Finisher transport assembly jam access cover for digital printers


One or more rules for performing one or more network switch functions, the one or more rules conforming to an improved rule structure, are provided. The improved rule structure comprises a first specification defining one or more conditions to be met, the one or more conditions comprising or including one or more conditions to be met by one or more usage-derived packet statistics, and a second specification defining one or more actions to be taken by the network switch if the one or more specified conditions are met.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the fields of on-switch methods of performing various network functions, including detecting and mitigating network anomalies, performing packet filtering, enforcing network policies and the like, embodied in the form of rules such as Access Control Lists stored locally at the switch, and, more specifically, to improvements in the structure of such rules to allow more dynamic and flexible control and performance of the various network functions.
2. Related Art
In response to the onset of network attacks, viruses, and other network anomalies, network administrators presently utilize relatively static rules known as Access Control Lists (ACLs) to detect and mitigate the problem. These ACLs define a profile of potentially problematic network packets (typically in the form of an n-tuple specifying layer 2 source and destination addresses, layer 3 (IP) source and destination addresses, layer 4 protocol (TCP/UDP), and layer 4 source and destination ports), and one or more predetermined actions (such as denying or permitting packet access) to be taken by the network switch should a packet meeting this profile be encountered. Once defined, these ACLs are then compiled into executable form and executed within the network switch as packets are received or transmitted over the network. When a packet meeting the defined profile is received or transmitted over the network, the one or more predetermined actions defined by the rule are performed.
A problem with current ACLs is that, as the specified matching conditions are limited to conditions involving data in the packet or packet header, they are often insufficiently precise for the purpose of detecting or defending against network anomalies that are defined in other terms. Consider, for example, the following ACL, which always denies access to ICMP echo requests from a particular subnet (10.203.134.0/24), for the purpose of detecting and mitigating packet flooding of the network by this particular form of packet:
entry icmp {                IF {                    source-address 10.203.134.0/24;            protocol icmp;            icmp-type echo-request;                        } THEN {                    deny;                        }
}
As this ACL always denies access whenever an ICMP echo request from the particular subnet (10.203.134.0/24) is encountered, even when a flooding condition is not present, it will often result in the denial of valid packets.
A related problem is that, as the response defined by this ACL is static, it cannot dynamically respond to a change in network conditions. For example, assuming the foregoing ACL is initially (and correctly) triggered upon the onset of a packet flooding condition from this particular form of packet, the ACL continues to deny access to these packets even after the network flooding condition has abated.
A third problem is that the limited functions that are allowed should a match condition be detected, such as allowing or denying access to packets meeting the specified profile, or mirroring the packets to a network administrator, are often not effective for the purpose of mitigating the network anomaly.
Consider, for example, an ACL that mirrors potentially problematic packets to a network administrator who is charged with the responsibility of examining the packets and taking appropriate action, such as by applying one or more new ACLs to deny access to these packets. Because of the latency between the time the potentially problematic packets are detected and the time of a response, significant damage to the network may have already occurred by the time of the response.
Therefore, there is a need for a more precise, flexible and dynamic rule structure for the purpose of detecting and responding to network anomalies.

Rule structure for performing network switch functions


The present invention provides novel methods of treating pain comprising administering to a mammal in need of such treatment an effective analgesic amount of a peptide having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID. NO.: 1 or SEQ ID NO: 2. The invention further provides a purified peptide having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1. The peptides of SEQ ID NO.: 1 and SEQ ID NO.: 2 can also be used in methods for identifying compounds having analgesia-inducing activity.

Pain is one of the basic clinical symptoms seen by every physician and is usually categorized into three segments: mild, moderate and severe. The mild-to-moderate segment has multiple product entries including aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and other non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory (NSAID) products. Narcotic analgesics remain the mainstay of currently marketed products for the treatment of moderate-to-severe pain.
Cancer and the post-operative surgical period are two conditions most often associated with moderate-to-severe pain. Tumor infiltration of bone, nerve, soft tissue or viscera are the most common causes of cancer pain accounting for 65-75% of patients. Pain as a result of cancer treatment from surgery, chemotherapy or radiation accounts for 15-25% of patients, with the remaining 5 -10% reporting pain independent of their cancer or cancer therapy. Various factors influence the prevalence of cancer pain including the primary tumor type, stage and site of disease and patient variables, especially psychological variables. Similarly, patient response to post surgical pain is dependent upon location and extent of intervention as well as personal attributes. However, post surgical pain is distinguished from cancer pain by length of treatment period.
The major concern with narcotics, which constitute the largest segment of the U.S. market for treatment of moderate-to-severe pain, is the potential for addiction and loss of activity (i.e. tolerance) with continued use. Consequently, there is a need for other analgesics that can relieve pain, especially moderate-to-severe pain associated with cancer. In order to improve analgesic responsiveness and reduce side effects, research efforts have focused on both drug delivery strategies and novel drug entities. Newer drug delivery strategies include transdermal narcotics, PCA, intraspinal implantation of controlled release pumps and implantation of encapsulated living cells which release naturally-occurring endorphins or other analgesic peptides. New drug approaches reflect the varying pathways and causes of moderate-to severe pain. Classes of compounds in development for treating pain include serotonergics, noradrenergics, opioid partial agonists and kappa opioid agonists. Therapeutic targets with significant preclinical investigation include tachykinin/bradykinin antagonists and excitatory amino acid antagonists. Newer targets being exploited include growth factors, cytokines, nitride oxide regulators, etc. Natural sources including folk medicine remedies and frog venom extracts are also under investigation.
Investigations of spider venoms for identification of biological entities with commercial potential has focused primarily on the agrochemical sector. The ultimate goal of these activities has been the search for chemical constituents which interact selectively with invertebrate species to induce paralysis and/or death with minimal mammalian toxicological properties. However, in recent years, spider venoms have joined other predator-derived venoms being exploited for identification of compounds which identify mammalian targets and which assist the development of pharmaceuticals. The arachnid species Grammostola spatulata, commonly referred to as the Chilean pink tarantula spider, is a member of the Theraphosidae family and the Chelicerata order. Previous studies by Lampe et al. (1993) Molecular Pharmacology 4:451-460 showed that venom of Grammostola spatulata contains a peptide which interacts in a non-selective manner with voltage-sensitive calcium channels.

Analgesic peptides from venom of Grammostola spatulata and use thereof


In order to define movement of a particular key to be automatically operated, first-order trajectory data are generated, on the basis of performance information, which are indicative of variation over time of position, velocity and acceleration components of the particular key. Jerk component related to the movement of the particular key is calculated on the basis of the acceleration component in the first-order trajectory data, and second-order trajectory data are generated by modifying the first-order trajectory data with the calculated jerk component. Then, a drive device for driving the particular key is servo-controlled on the basis of the second-order trajectory data. In this way, nonconstant acceleration (or constant jerk) control, rather than constant acceleration control, can be performed to control driving of the key during a successive key depression, so as to allow the successively-depressed key to operate with an increased smoothness.

The present invention relates to an automatic piano for performing music through automatic driving of a keyboard and a method and program for automatically operating a key on a keyboard. More particularly, the present invention relates to a technique for improving the reproducibility of a music performance executed by successive key depression operation.
Generally, automatic pianos execute an automatic performance by selectively exciting solenoids, provided in corresponding relation to keys of an acoustic piano, on the basis of performance information, to thereby drive the corresponding keys so that hammers corresponding to the driven keys strike corresponding strings; in this way, an automatic performance of the automatic piano is executed. String striking intensity of the hammer corresponds to a driven velocity of the key that in turn corresponds to a level of a current supplied to the solenoid. In order to reproduce a performance executed through key depression operation by a human player on such an automatic piano, it is desirable to accurately reproduce trajectories of individual keys during the performance so as to expressively describe delicate nuances of the music piece and expression of tones. In this regard, some of the conventionally-known automatic piano are constructed to, on the basis of performance data to be reproduced, determine velocity information (i.e., reference velocities) at predetermined points (i.e., reference points) along a movement trajectory of each of the keys, generate trajectory data of the key corresponding to a desired trajectory type (linear, parabolic or the like), and then drive the corresponding solenoid in accordance with the trajectory data (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-7-175472). Further, among the conventionally-known automatic pianos of the above-mentioned type are one which is constructed to reproduce a so-called half-stroke performance where release operation of a key is started before the key is completely depressed to its lower end position or where depression operation of a next key is started during depression operation of a key. More specifically, this conventional automatic pianos calculates, along with trajectory data of linear trajectories (constant velocity trajectory) during depression and release operation of a key, a "shortcut (or shortened) trajectory" corresponding to a second-order curve representative of velocity variation of the key and drives the key, in accordance with the calculated shortcut trajectory, during a transition from the depression phase to the release phase of the key, so as to continuously vary the velocity of the key (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-9-81125).
However, in performance reproduction by the conventional automatic pianos, where an operating velocity of a key is to be varied rapidly, particularly where a key is to be depressed in rapid succession, to reproduce, for example, a half-stroke performance, the key tends to get out of control easily, and various inconveniences, such as an excessive increase in the string striking intensity of the hammer, would result. The No. HEI-9-81125 publication proposes avoiding these inconveniences by controlling a key, for example in a half-stroke performance, to move along the shortcut trajectory before the stroke position of the key reaches an intersection between the depressing trajectory and the releasing trajectory. However, if the key is driven in accordance with the shortcut trajectory as disclosed in the publication, the key stroke amplitude unavoidably decreases, which undesirably tends to key depression errors and insufficient successive-key-depression capability.

Automatic piano, and method and program for automatically operating a key


A balancing device for a drum type washing machine is attached to a spin basket of the washing machine. The balancing device includes annular-shaped races that house balls and oil. The balls are seated in each race, and oil is supplied to the inside of each race through a hole formed thereon. Then, the hole is sealed by a welding process.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method of making a balancing device for a drum washing machine. More particularly, it relates to a method of sealing a hole used for supplying oil that is held in a balancing device for a drum washing machine, for the purpose of making movable bodies in the balancing device move smoothly.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
A conventional drum clothes washing machine is an electronic appliance in which clothes are washed by the suds generated by the rotation of its drum-type spin basket. With the conventional drum washing machine, washing, rinsing and hydro-extracting tasks are automatically carried out according to a specific program. After the washing and rinsing steps, excess water is removed from the garment by centrifugal force created by the spin basket rotating at high speeds during the hydro-extracting step. Abnormal vibrations and noise may be produced by the uneven distribution of clothes in the spin basket during this step, so a balancing device is essential for the smooth operation of the appliance.
FIG. 9 is a perspective view of the overall construction of a conventional drum washing machine.
Referring to FIG. 9, the drum washing machine includes a housing 1, a tub 2 suspended by suspension springs 4a and shock-absorbing members 4b in the housing 1, and a spin basket 3 rotatably installed in the tub 2. The spin basket 3, which is rotated by an electric motor 5 installed on the bottom of the housing 1, includes a plurality of small holes 3a uniformly formed on its cylindrical surface, and a plurality of lifters 3b protruding inward. Water that is removed from clothes in the spin basket 3 by centrifugal force drains into the tub 2 through the small holes 3a, and the lifters 3b enhance the creation of suds as the spin basket 3 rotates.
In order to prevent the generation of vibrations during the washing/hydro-extracting process, counterweights, each of predetermined weight, are attached to the tub 2. An 11.4 kg front counterweight 6a is provided to the front of the tub 2, and a 12.2 kg upper counterweight 6b is mounted on the top surface of the tub 2. The counterweights 6a and 6b are made from cast iron and are joined to the tub 2 by bolts 7.
Rather than preventing the creation of vibrations by laundry unevenly distributed in the washing machine, such a conventional balancing device simply restrains the vibrations, and thus has inferior balancing characteristics.
Furthermore, the conventional balancing device does not restrain the unbalance in the initial stage because it reduces the vibrations after they have been already transmitted to the tub.

Method of making balancing device for a drum washing machine


A synchronization controller has a synchronization determiner for determining a synchronization deviation in a CPU, an abnormality sign related information obtainer for obtaining abnormality sign related information on the basis of transaction monitoring information, and an abnormality determiner, when there is a synchronization deviation, for determining the presence/absence of a sign of abnormality in the CPU on the basis of the abnormality sign related information.

There is an FT (Fault-Tolerant) information processing systems having a plurality of CPUs (Central Processing Units) and, when a synchronization deviation occurs among the CPUs, a CPU having a fault is separated from the system.
For example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Kokai Publication No. 2006-172390 discloses an FT system constructed by duplicated computer systems. The duplicated computer systems record repairable fault information and unrepairable fault information while operating. When a synchronization deviation occurs between CPUs, the duplicated computer systems are set to an active mode and a standby mode by using the recorded fault information.

Information processing apparatus detecting sign of abnormality, fault tolerant information processing system, method for detecting sign of abnormality in information processing apparatus and recording medium