A battery-charging base for a portable information device, which is provided so as to easily connect and disconnect, to and from a battery-charging plug connector, a battery-charging slot for a portable information terminal, is a battery-charging base that is capable of holding one of a plurality of types of portable information terminals that are different in length and width sizes and positions of battery-charging slots provided at lower ends thereof, and charging the held one of the plurality of types of portable information terminals by inserting the battery-charging plug connector into the battery-charging slot of the held one of the plurality of types of portable information terminals. The battery-charging base for a portable information terminal includes: a holding base main body for holding the one of the plurality of types of portable information terminals on a main mounting surface inclined with respect to a horizontal surface; and a battery-charging cover including a first housing section capable of housing the battery-charging plug connector while changing a housing position thereof, the battery-charging cover being fixed to a lower end of the main mounting surface in a freely removable manner. The battery-charging cover is configured to support the lower end of the one of the plurality of types of portable information terminals to be held on the main mounting surface, and is rotatable about a first rotation axis provided at a lower end portion thereof.

Nowadays, various portable information terminals such as a tablet terminal (multifunction portable terminal) and a smartphone (highly functional mobile phone) are put on the market. iPad (trademark) is known as a typical example of the tablet terminal (multifunction portable terminal), and iPhone (trademark) is known as a typical example of the smartphone (highly functional mobile phone). Those various portable information terminals are different in length and width sizes and positions of battery-charging slots (battery-charging receptacle connectors) each provided at a lower end thereof
As is well known, a battery charger is provided to each portable information terminal as an auxiliary part. The battery charger comprises a battery-charging plug connector, which is fixed to one end portion of a power supply cable, and an adapter with a plug, which is fixed to the other end portion of the power supply cable. To charge the portable information terminal, the plug of the adapter with a plug is generally inserted into a power outlet socket, and the battery-charging plug connector is inserted into the battery-charging slot (battery-charging receptacle connector) of the portable information terminal Thus, a secondary battery (such as a lithium ion battery) built into the portable information terminal can be charged.
Hitherto, on the other hand, various holding bases (battery-charging bases), which are capable of charging such portable information terminals while holding thereon those portable information terminals, have been proposed.
For example, WO 2009/078062 A (Patent Literature 1) discloses a holding base for holding a mobile phone in a removable manner. The holding base disclosed in Patent Literature 1 includes a bottom receiving section for supporting a bottom portion of the mobile phone, a back receiving section for supporting a back portion of the mobile phone, and arm sections for sandwiching and supporting both side surface portions of the mobile phone. In the mobile phone, battery-charging electrodes are provided at the bottom portion. The battery-charging electrodes are brought into contact with and electrically connected to power supply terminals of the holding base. A connector (battery-charging receptacle connector) is provided on a wall surface of a back surface portion of a holding base body, and this connector (battery-charging receptacle connector) is connected to the power supply terminals via a switch. When the mobile phone is mounted on the bottom receiving section, the switch is turned ON via a dog piece. When the switch is turned ON, electric power is supplied from the outside to the battery-charging power supply terminals via the connector (battery-charging receptacle connector). When a battery-charging power supply device (adapter) is connected to the connector (battery-charging receptacle connector) through a battery-charging cord (battery-charging plug connector with a power supply cable), electric power is supplied to the mobile phone, thereby being capable of charging the mobile phone.
Further, JP-A-H11-348677 (Patent Literature 2) discloses a mobile phone holder capable of holding mobile phones of various sizes and also connecting each of the mobile phones to a connector at the same time. The mobile phone holder disclosed in Patent Literature 2 includes a case, and a holder provided so as to be slidable on the case. A connector device and a case cover are provided on the case. Two sliders capable of sandwiching a phone and a holder cover for covering the sliders are provided on the holder. The case comprises a lower case section and an upper case section. A pair of guide members is provided on the case. A stopper that allows the phone to abut thereagainst and the pair of sliders for holding the phone are provided on the holder. The sliders include cams having inclined surfaces so that the sliders may be brought close to and away from each other by the guide members when the holder is slid. When the phone is mounted on the holder and brought into abutment against the stopper, and when the holder is slid, the sliders are brought close to each other due to actions of the cams and the guide members, thereby being capable of holding the phone and of fitting the connector (battery-charging receptacle connector) of the phone to the connector (battery-charging plug connector) of the connector device provided on the case.
Further, in Patent Literature 2, the connector device comprises a connector housing and a connector main body (battery-charging plug connector). The connector main body (battery-charging plug connector) is movable with respect to the connector housing by predetermined dimensions in an up-and-down direction and a right-and-left direction. The connector device is mounted to connector device support bars of the upper case section, and fixed thereto with screws. The connector device is covered with the case cover.
On the other hand, JP-A-2006-172371 (Patent Literature 3) discloses an electronic device having a removable unit accommodating structure for easily mounting and removing a removable unit, though the device is not a holding base (battery-charging base). In Patent Literature 3, an HDD accommodating section is provided in a main body of a notebook computer (electronic device). An HDD serving as the removable unit is removably accommodated in the HDD accommodating section. A connector section and a connector fixed to the connector section are provided in the HDD accommodating section. Rotation shafts are provided on both side portions of the connector section, and the connector section is rotatable about the rotation shafts between an upright position and an accommodation position. The connector section and the connector are freely rotatable between the upright position and the accommodation position.

Battery-charging base for mobile information terminals


A tape cassette having a feed reel and a takeup reel with tape on the reels and a mounting cassette casing for enclosing the feed reel, the takeup reel and the tape. The mounting cassette casing having an exterior perimeter with a permanently removable nonreattachable blocking physical structure affixed to and protruding beyond the exterior perimeter of the mounting cassette casing to break upon insertion in a tape cassette apparatus unable to receive the permanently removable nonreattachable blocking physical structure revealing an altered appearance.

A prior art search of:
United States Patent Office Class 242, subcasses 613 and 613.1, and United States Patent Office Class 96.1 and 96.5.
While no relevant prior art was located, the sole patent found of interest is Stumpfi U.S. Pat. No. 4,515,331 issued May 7, 1985 having alternate rigid teeth and depressable spring-biased teeth depressable radially outwardly from any extended state inward position mountable on a small spindle to a depressed state mountable on a larger spindle that also is mountable by the remaining alternate teeth. That patent has no discernible bearing on nor relevance to the present invention.
This invention arose from potential problems that could be confronted by the lack of judicial evidentiary integrity being retained for recorded events embodied on audio and/or video tapes taken typically by the present inventor's patent patented subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,185 issued Mar. 21, 1995 entitled Evidence Recorder and method of securing, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,129 issued Aug. 13, 1996, former U.S. Ser. No. 08/489,380 filed Jun. 12, 1995. The invention of aforenoted U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/740,390 and the present invention are each directed to avoiding such potential problems that could preclude admission of such recorded tapes as admissible evidence in judicial proceedings.
Apart from the preceding problems with the taking of any evidence by an audio and/or video cassette(s), is the fact that heretofore the tape could be reversed to utilize the second (opposite direction of winding) unrecorded side or edge of the tape. Such permissive practice invites disaster, when for example typically a police officer is preoccupied with impending or already present pressures of following and/or apprehending or investigating an already impending matter, that he will inadvertently load-up the tape for recording backward as to accidentally record-over the other side--the officer having forgotten and/or unaware of another officer having already once before reversed the cassette. Likewise, the police officer inadvertently might think that he has already reversed a tape for the purpose of recording on the opposite side, and based on that mistaken thought, he thereafter attempts to further record on the same fully recorded side--only to subsequently disasterously discover that the latest evidence did "not" get recorded at all.
The present invention accordingly includes as part of its objects, the creation of audio reel-tape(s) and/or video-audio combination tape(s) avoid the possibility of occurance of aforenoted problems, and of the creation of novel casing(s) and/or recorders preclude such problems. Moreover an object are to alter one or more of the tape recorder and of the cassette casing(s) such that there would be precluded the possibility of intentional seruptitious tampering with or accidentally wiping-out or mutilating recorded evidence from a tape, initially and/or originally recorded data on such reel-mounted tapes.
Another object is to avoid substitution use of cassette tapes devoid of the protection(s) afforded by this invention, to require audio and/or video cassette recorder and/or player to embody structure that precludes insertion and/or operation of any cassette recorder and/or player reel-containing casings that do not embody such protection(s).

Cassette casing with a permanently removable nonreattachable physical structure


The invention relates to a device for the time-controlled intravenous administering of the anesthetic propofol by means of a method used for determining an adequate dosage profile and adequately controlling an infusion pump as a metering apparatus.

The invention relates to a device for the time-controlled administration of the anesthetic propofol by means of a procedure for the determination of an appropriate dose profile and corresponding control of an infusion pump acting as a metering unit.
Many medical interventions, particularly invasive surgical interventions, can only be carried out under general anesthesia. Exact time-controlled administration of the anesthetic is crucial to the safety of the patient and the success of the treatment. Ideally, the course of anesthesia should have a rectangular profile, i.e. anesthesia should be induced rapidly at an exactly defined time, then remain approximately constant over a certain period and, after completion of the intervention, be terminated just as quickly. An anesthetic must be administered at an appropriate infusion rate, which varies over time. To this end, medicine uses electronically controlled infusion pumps, which permit programming of the infusion rate. However, this is complicated by the fact that the time/effect profile of the anesthetic, which determines the course of anesthesia, is influenced both by the infusion rate and by a series of patient-related anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and genetic factors. As soon as the anesthetic enters the patient's systemic circulation the substance undergoes distribution in the body. The anesthetic is transported in the bloodstream to various organs, where it finally passes into the cells. These organ distribution kinetics are determined e.g. by the individual blood flow rates in the different organs, which can be substantially different from typical healthy adults in certain subpopulations (e.g. children, the elderly, diseased patients, pregnant women). In addition, the clearance, that is the rate of metabolism in the excretory organ (mostly the liver, in part other organs such as the intestine or kidney as well), determines the elimination kinetics, which are of central significance to the maintenance and termination of the anesthesia. This clearance is also highly dependent on individual factors in the patients concerned, e.g. age, sex, level of expression of metabolizing enzymes and rate of blood flow through the eliminating organ.
From a pharmacodynamic viewpoint, it is the time course of the concentration of the anesthetic at its site of action, the brain, which is of particular interest, as this determines the course of anesthesia.
Computer-controlled infusion pumps with input functions determined using a pharmacokinetic model are known from the prior art and are commercially available under the term "TCI" (=target controlled infusion). The main application of TCI is the control of intravenous administration of the anesthetic propofol.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,609,575 describes a TCI system in which the dose-concentration routine uses the body weight index as the only patient parameter in the system and only achieves a rough simulation of the concentration. There is a commercial system for the control of infusion pumps for the anesthetic propofol, marketed as Diprifusor™ from AstraZeneca—product information "Diprifusor™: Target Controlled Infusion (TCI) in anaesthetic practice", AstraZeneca Anaesthesia, New Edition (1998). Another infusion system specifically for use in children is in development (Paedfusor, Munoz H R, Cortinez L I, Ibacache M E, Altmann C. Estimation of the plasma effect site equilibration rate constant (ke0) of propofol in children using the time to peak effect. Anesthesiology 2004; 101:1269-74). In the prior art, the pharmacokinetic profile of propofol, i.e. its spread and distribution as a function of time after administration, is described by an open three-compartment model (Gepts E, Camu F, Cockshott I D, Douglas E J. Disposition of propofol administered as constant rate intravenous infusions in humans. Anesth Analg 1987; 66(12):1256-63; Munoz H R, Cortinez L I, Ibacache M E, Altmann C. Estimation of the plasma effect site equilibration rate constant (ke0) of propofol in children using the time to peak effect. Anesthesiology 2004; 101:1269-74). The central compartment in this three compartment model represents the blood pool, one peripheral compartment is the so-called "effect compartment" which describes the time course of the concentration of the anesthetic at its site of action, and the third compartment represents organs with low blood perfusion, which cause slow redistribution of the anesthetic, which affects its elimination. Patient-related input parameters in this system are the age, body weight and a target concentration in the patient's blood. The infusion rate to be used is calculated from these on the basis of an open three-compartment model fitted to experimental data. The parameters in this three-compartment model (volumes of the compartments, mass-transfer rates, and elimination rates) are age and/or body-weight dependent. Of central significance to the entire system is the transport rate between the central (blood) compartment and the effect compartment (ke0), which ultimately regulates the time course of propofol at its site of action and thus the course of anesthesia. Several such parameter sets for propofol have been published in the literature (Kazama T, Ikeda K, Morita K, Kikura M, Ikeda T, Kurita T et al. Investigation of effective anesthesia induction doses using a wide range of infusion rates with undiluted and diluted propofol. Anesthesiology 2000; 92(4):1017-28; Munoz H R, Cortinez L I, Ibacache M E, Altmann C. Estimation of the plasma effect site equilibration rate constant (ke0) of propofol in children using the time to peak effect. Anesthesiology 2004; 101:1269-74). The underlying three-compartment model can be found on the internet and is publicly accessible (TIVA-Trainer, available under www.eurosiva.org).
The disadvantage of this known device is that these fitted model parameters are only average values representing the patients in the underlying experimental study. Although these models can take into account the dependency of the parameters on body weight and, in part, age as well, there is no possibility of more extensive individualization and adjustment of the pharmacokinetic model parameters to specific patients. Thus, the open three-compartment models described are unable to allow for the physiological peculiarities of specific patient groups, e.g. children or the elderly or diseased patients. An example of this is the nonlinear age-dependency of blood flow in the brain (the target organ of propofol) in children. The body-weight-normalized blood flow rate in a two-year-old child is twice as high as in a five-year-old child (Wintermark M, Lepori D, Cotting J, Roulet E, van M G, Meuli R et al. Brain perfusion in children: evolution with age assessed by quantitative perfusion computed tomography. Pediatrics 2004; 113(6):1642-52), a fact which cannot be described by an age-independent mass-transfer rate in the effect compartment (Ke0). Equally, age-related differences in the composition of the body (in respect of its relative proportions of water, fat, and protein) very substantially influence the volume of distribution, and thus the kinetics, of propofol. Similarly, the pharmacokinetics of propofol in obese patients does not just depend on the body weight, but rather the proportion of fat. In the elderly and in diseased patients—but also in children—differences in the metabolic rate decisively influence the propofol level in the blood and brain. The volume of the central compartment is similar in obese and normal-weight people, which can be explained by the comparatively low variability of the volume of well-perfused tissue between such individuals. On the other hand, the peripheral compartments, in particular that which represents poorly perfused tissue, are distinctly different, which leads to a larger volume of distribution in the obese. As a result, the times for the induction of general anesthesia are similar, but recovery is faster in obese patients (Servin F, Farinotti R, Haberer J, Desmonts J. Propofol infusion for maintenance of anesthesia in morbidly obese patients receiving nitrous oxide. Anesthesiology 2005; 78:657-65). Behavior similar to that in the obese has been observed in neonates, in whom the volume of the peripheral compartment is also relatively larger than that in adults, which can be explained by the relatively high proportion of body fat in neonates. Neonates also wake more quickly from general anesthesia after the end of propofol infusion, but they recover only relatively slowly from the sequelae, which can be attributed to a reduced systemic clearance (Rigby-Jones A E, Nolan J A, Priston M J, Wright P, Sneyd R, Wolf A R. Pharmacokinetics of propofol infusions in critically ill neonates, infants, and children in an intensive care unit. Anesthesiology 2002; 97:1393-400).
The influence of such physiological, anatomical, and biochemical or genetic peculiarities on the course of anesthesia is only inadequately described with the device known from the prior art. The use of an open three-compartment model limits the flexibility to take into account different conditions of the patient such as age-dependent differences in body composition, blood flow rates and the metabolic rate, obesity, or pregnancy, etc.
Lewitt et al. describe a physiology-based pharmacokinetic model for the simulation of plasma pharmacokinetics of propofol after intravenous administration (Levitt D G, Schnider T W., Human physiologically based pharmacokinetic model for propofol. BMC Anesthesiol. 2005 Apr. 22; 5(1):4). The model provides a good description of the concentration/time course of propofol in the plasma of adult patients, but does not describe the extent to which the concentrations in the brain calculated using the model reflect the actual time course of the effect of propofol. The usefulness of this model is further limited by the fact that only the fat content of the patient based on an empirical correlation equation and the propofol clearance are included as individual parameters. More extensive patient-individual parameterization is not performed. In particular, individual differences in the blood flow rates to peripheral organs, which have a substantial influence on the entire distribution kinetics of substances with rapid distribution such as propofol, are not taken into account. Simulation of the propofol pharmacokinetics in children using the model published by Levitt et al. is not possible either, as the model only describes average physiological parameters for adults. Furthermore, Lewitt et al. only describe a model for the simulation of plasma pharmacokinetics of propofol, not a device for the time-controlled administration of propofol.
The purpose of the invention is to develop an improved device, starting from the prior art described, which would permit exact time-controlled administration of propofol taking into account individual physiological, anatomical, biochemical, and genetic factors of the patient.

Device for the time-controlled intravenous administering of the anesthetic propofol


A radiation image read out from a radiation image sensor, which stores electric charges corresponding to the amount of radiation exposed onto the radiation image sensor upon exposure of radiation carrying thereon a radiation image and stores the radiation image, by causing the radiation image sensor to output an electric signal corresponding to the stored electric charges and by amplifying the output electric signal by a reading amplifier. A part of the stored electric charges are read before reading the radiation image and, the gain of the reading amplifier is changed on the basis of the amount of electric charges of the part of the stored electric charges which has been read before reading the radiation image.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of and apparatus for reading a radiation image from a radiation image sensor which stores a radiation image upon exposure to radiation bearing thereon the radiation image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, for instance, in the medical field, various radiation image sensors on which a radiation image of an object is recorded upon exposure to radiation passing through the object and which outputs electric signals representing the recorded radiation image have been proposed and put into practice.
As the radiation image sensor, there has been known those employing semiconductor material which generates electric charges upon exposure to radiation. As such radiation image sensors, there have been proposed those of so-called an optical-reading system and a TFT system.
As the radiation image sensor of the optical-reading system, a radiation image sensor comprising a first electrode layer permeable to radiation, a recording photoconductive layer which generates electric charges upon exposure to radiation, a charge transfer layer which behaves like a substantially insulating material to the electric charge in the same polarity as a latent image and behaves like a substantially conductive material to the electric charge in the polarity opposite to that of the latent image, a reading photoconductive layer which generates electric charges upon exposure to reading light, and a second electrode layer in which a plurality of linear electrodes permeable to the reading light are arranged in parallel to each other, the layers being superposed one on another in this order, has been proposed.
In the radiation image sensor, radiation carrying thereon a radiation image is exposed from the first electrode layer side and electric charges generated in the recording photoconductive layer are stored on the interface between the recording photoconductive layer and the charge transfer layer, thereby recording a radiation image. When a linear reading light beam scans the radiation image sensor in the longitudinal direction of the linear electrodes, electric charges are generated in the reading photoconductive layer and a part of the electric charges of one polarity is combined with the stored electric charges while the other part of the electric charges of the other polarity flows into the linear electrodes. The electric signal flowing into the linear electrodes are amplified by a reading amplifier connected to the linear electrodes, whereby an image signal is obtained and the radiation image is read out.
In the TFT system, the electric charges stored in the radiation image sensor is read out by selectively turning on and off tow-dimensionally arranged TFT switches.
The electric signal output from the radiation image sensor is digitized by an A/D converter and is obtained as the image signal.
The radiation image sensors described above are disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-224095.
However, when the electric signal is digitized by an A/D converter, the range of the magnitude of the charge signal stored in the radiation image sensor is sometimes narrower than the conversion range of the A/D converter. In this case, the bit resolution by the A/D converter deteriorates and especially in an electric signal corresponding to a small amount of radiation, quantizing noise is conspicuous since the magnitude of the signal is weak. Though such a problem can be avoided if an A/D converter of high resolution is employed, this approach adds to the cost.

Method of and apparatus for reading out radiation image


A fuel dispensing nozzle includes a body, a handle connected to the body, a handle guard connected to the body and generally surrounding the handle, and a spout extending from the body. Parts of the nozzle are made of, or covered in, static dissipative materials. Additionally, a method for reducing static discharge in existing nozzle installations includes the application of static dissipative material to existing nozzles to address certain static discharge risks.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to safety devices in a combustible environment and more particularly to static discharge reduction between a nozzle and a static-electrical charged object.
2. Description of Related Art
Fuel dispensing nozzles are well-known in the art for dispensing fuel from a fuel supply into a container. A typical example would be the fuel dispensing nozzle at a retail gasoline station wherein the dispensing nozzle is at the end of a hose connected to a dispenser which is connected to an underground storage tank. The nozzle will typically contain a valve that is actuated by the customer to dispense fuel from the underground storage tank through the dispenser, through the hose, through the nozzle and into the customer's vehicle or gasoline can.
It is understood in the industry that dispensing volatile fuel may present a fire hazard if an ignition source is present near the dispensing nozzle. The danger is created by the fuel vapor emanating from the nozzle container interface. Therefore, it is common for fuel stations to have signs which require users to turn off their vehicles and not light cigarettes in the area of fuel dispensing to prevent such fires. Unfortunately, customers are injured from fires started by static discharge in the area immediately surrounding the nozzle.
While each case is different, two patterns have developed where static discharge is a factor. One pattern involves fuel dispensed into a gasoline can and not the fuel tank of a vehicle. In this scenario, the can is placed on a surface that is electrically insulative, as opposed to conductive, and as the fuel is discharged from the nozzle into the can, static electricity builds up in the can. Then, as the nozzle is withdrawn from the can, the metallic highly electrically conductive nozzle spout may pass in close enough proximity to a statically-charged portion of the can to cause a static discharge between the can and the spout, which under the right conditions, can ignite the vapor in the immediate area causing a fire which can damage property and cause personal injury.
A second scenario which has proven to cause fires in the gasoline dispensing station involves a customer locking the nozzle open while fuel is being dispensed into the vehicle fuel tank and either returning to their seat in the vehicle or going into the convenience store. The act of sliding in and out of a vehicle, or walking across a carpeted floor, can cause static electricity to build up in the customer's body. After a static charge has built up within the customer's body, a static discharge can occur between the customer and the nozzle body or other portion of the nozzle when the customer reaches down to grasp the nozzle. In such a situation, flammable vapor or fumes may have built up in the area of the nozzle such that a fire or explosion may be ignited that is capable of causing damage to property and personal injury.
Attempts to prevent sparks in this environment include the addition of grounding straps to fuel tank filler pipes and other surfaces to prevent the build up of static electricity while filling the vehicle. Unfortunately, these grounding straps do not address the build-up of static electricity in the customer's body as they are moving across the seat of their vehicle or walking on the carpet in the convenience store, nor do they address the build-up of static discharge in a gasoline can that is placed on an insulative surface, such as a bed liner of a pickup truck. In order to address these risks, it has been known to instruct users to place gasoline cans on the ground and have users touch conductive surfaces distant from the nozzle prior to touching the nozzle end to discharge any static electricity in the customer's body.
To the extent users do not follow the directions clearly labeled on the dispenser, the above methods do not effectively reduce the static discharge occurrence in and around the nozzle area. A system is required that would effectively eliminate static discharge in and around the nozzle area without requiring specific actions by the customer.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Static dissipative fuel dispensing nozzle


A control system of the present invention includes at least one device, a network interconnecting the at least one device, a control network portal coupled between the network and the Internet, and a master controller coupled to the network and operable to control the operations of the Internet and the at least one device, the Internet is controllable as a device coupled to the network.

In a fully automated environment, appliances that change the various parameters of the environment can be inked to a control area network (CAN) and a controller. The appliances may include heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, lighting systems, audio-visual systems, telecommunications systems, security systems, surveillance systems, and fire protection systems, for example. One or more easy-to-use user interface, such as a touch panel, may be electronically linked to the control area network to accept user input and display current system status. Panja, Inc. of Dallas, Tex. designs and manufactures such networked appliance control systems.


Techniques are described herein for efficient set operation execution. According to some embodiments, a request is received to perform a set operation with respect to a first data set and a second data set. The request may identify the first data set, the second data set, and a type of set operation to perform. In response to receiving the request, a hash table is generated in memory from a first set of records in the first data set, and a second set of records from the second data set is probed against the hash table. Based on probing the hash table and the type of set operation identified in the request, records that satisfy the set operation are identified and output from the hash table.

SQL SET operations are used in queries to find differences (minus), commonalities (intersect), and combinations (union) between multisets of database records. With the minus SET operation, for example, the result set includes unique database records returned by a first SQL SELECT statement that are not returned in a second SQL SELECT statement. Thus, the SQL statement illustrated in Table 1 below outputs records that have a unique product_id in t1 that is not included in t2.
TABLE 1Example query with MINUS operatorSELECT product_id FROM t1MINUSSELECT product_id FROM t2By contrast, the intersect SET operation generates a result set including unique database records returned by both the first SQL SELECT statement and the second SQL SELECT statement. Thus, the SQL statement illustrated in Table 2 below outputs records that have a product_id that is included in both t1 and t2.
TABLE 2Example query with INTERSECT operatorSELECT product_id FROM t1INTERSECTSELECT product_id FROM t2
One approach for evaluating set operations involves using a "unique" operator in the first phase followed by a "combine" operator in the second phase. The "unique" operator sorts and compares records within a data set to identify and remove duplicates. The "combine" operator then performs the MINUS, INTERSECT, or UNION operation. In the queries depicted in Table 1 and Table 2, for example, the first phase would involve performing a "unique" operation on t1 and performing a "unique" operation on t2. The second phase for the queries depicted in Table 1 and Table 2 would involve performing a MINUS and INTERSECT operation, respectively, on the results from the first phase. This approach provides a simple and straightforward way to evaluate set operations. However, this approach may involve multiple resource-intensive steps, with each phase sorting and/or comparing records from potentially large data sets.
Another approach for evaluating set operations comprises performing a "join" of the multisets, followed with the "unique" operation. For the MINUS operation depicted in Table 1, an anti-join is performed to join t1 and t2 to generate a table that includes only those records from t1 for which there is no record in t2 that has an equal product_id value. For the INTERSECT operation depicted in Table 2, a semi-join is performed to generate a table that includes only those records from t1 for which there is a record in t2 that has a matching product_id value. The "unique" operation is then performed to remove duplicate records from the result set generated by the "join" operation. This approach may reduce resources consumed by the "unique" operator if the result set of the "join" operation is small. However, when the "join" operation produces a large data set, this approach may be more resource-intensive than performing the "unique" operation on each individual data set. For example, removing duplicates from a large table generated by the join operation may, in some cases, involve more comparisons than removing duplicates from each individual table before the join, especially when there are a large number of duplicates. In addition, the "join" operator and the "unique" operators are also relatively expensive in terms of CPU and memory usage, with each phase sorting and/or comparing records from potentially large data sets.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Efficient set operation execution using a single group-by operation


A discharge lamp lighting control device (100) having a DC power converter, a power factor improving power converter (1), a polarity reversing circuit (2), a starter circuit (3), and a controller (4). The power factor improving power converter 1 includes a switching device S, a power factor improver, and a power converter. The power factor improver operates to smooth a rectified voltage by storing energy in a first inductive device L1 and by discharging energy from a second inductive device L2, in which the first and second inductive devices are magnetically coupled together. The storing and discharging is performed by turning ON and OFF the switching device S. A predetermined DC voltage is converted by energy stored and discharged by a third inductive device L3 in response to the turning ON and OFF of the switching device S.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a high intensity discharge (HID) lamp driving circuit, and in particular, to a power factor improving power converter (PFIPC) for use with the HID lamp driving circuit.
2. Discussion of Background and Other Information
Electronic lighting control devices for use with HID lamps are known in the art. Examples of such devices include, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,942,859 (corresponding to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Nos. HEI 10-294188 and HEI 10-294191); U.S. Pat. No. 5,962,981 (corresponding to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Nos. HEI 10-294186 and HEI 10-294189); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,932,976. Such prior art lighting control devices require many large size components, which makes it difficult to minimize manufacturing costs and minimize the size of the device.
Another problem associated with such prior art lighting control devices relate to an in-rush current that results when a capacitor associated with a boost converter is initially connected to an electrical power source. Specifically, when a discharged capacitor is initially connected to a power source, the capacitor behaves like a short-circuit. Thus, a large flow of current (e.g., the in-rush current) occurs, which can damage electrical components. In order to reduce the occurrence of this in-rush current, such prior art devices typically employ an in-rush current protection device (such as, for example, a soft start switch) that limits, for a predetermined period of time, the amount of current that is passed when the electrical power is initially connected to the lighting control device. Unfortunately, the inclusion of the in-rush current protection device further increases the complexity of the circuit design, and further increases the cost of manufacture and size of the lighting control device.
A still further problem associated with the prior art light control devices pertain to a switching loss associated with the employed switching elements. Switching elements that are turned ON/OFF at a high frequency rate lose a significant amount of power for switching, in addition to a conduction loss. The switching loss can be calculated by multiplying the applied current and applied voltage in a transient state (e.g., when the switching element is turned ON/OFF). The switching loss becomes larger as the switching frequency becomes higher. Prior art devices employ a plurality of switching elements that are turned ON/OFF at a high frequency (e.g., several 10's kHz) rate in the lighting state. Because each switching element exhibits a switching loss, the total amount of the switching loss associated with the prior art devices are equal to the sum of the switching loss of each switching element, which becomes fairly large. Due to the large power loss and resultant low circuit efficiency, the prior art devices are unable to operate with a high efficiency, which is necessary to achieve a compact lighting device.
It is noted that in the prior art lighting control devices, such as, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,426,597, switching elements associated with a polarity reversing circuit are turned ON and OFF at a high frequency rate in both the non-lighting (e.g., ignition) state and the lighting state. As noted above, switching losses are related to the frequency rate at which the switching elements are operated.
This large switching loss results in a further disadvantage of the prior art lighting control devices. Namely, the large switching loss associated with the prior art switching elements is converted into heat. The temperature of each component of the lighting control device must be maintained below some predetermined critical temperature level. However, when the switching loss is large, the power loss is large. The lost power (which is discharged as heat), increases (raises) the temperature of the components in the lighting control device. While a heat sink may be installed to dissipate the heat, the inclusion of heat sinks further raises manufacturing costs and increases the physical size of the device.

Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties, Inc.


A wireless communication system includes a plurality of terminals connected to at least one wireless network on the basis of authority of security configuration parameters shared by the plurality of terminals. Each of the plurality of terminals revokes security configuration parameters of the terminal itself or security configuration parameters of another terminal in accordance with an agreement with said another terminal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to a wireless communication system that authenticates the authority of access to a wireless network by using security configuration parameters, such as an attribute certificate, a terminal used in the wireless communication system, a method for reporting the status of the terminal, and a program for causing a computer to execute the method for reporting the status of the terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to miniaturization and improvement in performance of electronic apparatuses, it has become easier to carry and use such electronic apparatuses. Thus, an environment that allows a terminal to be connected to a network and to achieve communication at any place necessary has been desired. In such a situation, wireless communication systems utilizing wireless communication are adopted.
In wireless communication systems, in order to prevent access from a terminal that does not have an authority of connection with a certain network resource, authorization control utilizing attribute certificates (ACs) is performed. Attribute certificates were newly defined by the X.509 version 3 in March 2000, and the contents of data fields contained in attribute certificates were collectively defined as Standards-Track Request for Comments (RFC) in April 2002. The use of an attribute certificate as an access pass to a network resource enables confirmation of the authority of connection with the network resource, and connection permission can be granted only to a terminal holding a connection license.
In order to forcibly revoke an issued attribute certificate, an attribute-certificate revocation list has been used. For example, a system utilizing an attribute-certificate revocation list including an entry, which is a pair of an attribute certificate identifier and a revocation time, has been suggested, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-260803 (FIG. 1).

Wireless communication system, terminal, method for reporting status of terminal, and program


A hand laundry detergent and composition includes a surfactant mixture containing a base soap and one or more fatty acid methyl ester sulfonates (MES) having the formula: ##STR1## wherein R is a fatty alkyl chain having 6-20 carbon atoms, M+ is a monovalent or divalent salt. A method for cleaning soiled fabrics and/or laundry which includes treating the laundry and/or fabrics with this detergent composition is also provided.

The present invention relates to detergent compositions, and in particular, hand laundry compositions containing methylester sulfonate surfactants. In one preferred embodiment, the present invention relates to laundry bar compositions which possess excellent cleaning, whitening/anti-redeposition, foaming properties, and are mild to the skin.
Detergent compositions are well recognized in the art and can vary greatly in composition depending on end use. However, such compositions typically include anionic sulfate or sulfonate surfactants, and in particular linear alkyl benzene sulfonates (LAS).
Hand laundry detergent compositions, such as laundry soap bars, are used for hand laundering clothes at ambient temperatures. It has been found that soap employed for laundry purposes should be a little stronger than that soap used for cosmetic and/or hand use in order to effectively remove soils from fabrics. Moreover, hand laundering compositions are required to have a relatively high degree of foaming. This is in contrast to machine wash compositions where little or no foam is desired.
Hand laundering compositions are also very cost sensitive. In view of the fact that they are typically employed in emerging world economies, cost becomes a significant consideration in formulating these detergent compositions. Most producers of such compositions typically include soap at a 60% level since it is a relatively low cost surfactant. Thus, hand laundering compositions need to provide a suitable combination of performance, foam and cost.
The art has also looked to the improvement of these compositions through the inclusion of additional surfactants such as alkylbenzone sulfonates and in particular, LAS. In making improvements in laundry soap formulations, e.g., through the use of LAS or other alkyl benzene sulfonates, the surfactants are chosen for both their performance and their cost.
In this regard, methyl ester sulfonates have been employed in certain detergent compositions. However, methyl ester sulfonates have normally been employed only in combination with another primary surfactant such as LAS, e.g. in detergent granules and certain liquid detergent products. They have not been found in hand laundry compositions.
Perhaps most significantly, MES as the sole surfactant has failed to meet the cost-foam-performance requirements in soft water environments, and from the performance side, compositions containing both LAS & MES have not provided significant improvements in soft water environments. Thus, MES certainly has not been viewed as a replacement for LAS.
Since one typically expects harder water will lead to poorer foaming and performance, particularly with low cost laundry soap bars, the art has not contemplated the use of MES in detergent compositions for such environments.
In other words, while MES has been employed as an additive in combination with, e.g., LAS, it has not found use as a replacement for LAS. In fact, its relatively poor performance in combination with LAS, has led the art in other directions.

Laundry detergent bar containing soap, and methylester sulfonate surfactants


An apparatus for generating an output signal having a particular frequency includes an oscillator, a first tuning module, and a second tuning module. The oscillator generates an output signal associated with an output frequency. When coupled to the oscillator, the first tuning module is capable of inducing, within a first amount of time, a change in the output frequency of a particular magnitude. When coupled to the oscillator, the second tuning module is capable of inducing, within a second amount of time, a change in the output frequency of the same magnitude. The second amount of time is greater than the first amount of time. The selector couples a selected one of the first tuning module and the second tuning module to the oscillator based on a difference between a frequency-divided version of the output signal and a reference signal.

Many radio-frequency (RF) communication systems transmit information within multiple frequency ranges, or "channels," of the RF spectrum simultaneously. Because such RF communication systems transmit information by modulating RF carrier signals with the information to be transmitted, devices receiving the modulated RF signals will often need to downconvert such signals so that the original information can be processed as part of a baseband signal. Mixers and/or similar components are used in many communication systems to perform this downconversion.
Mixers typically downconvert RF signals by mixing the RF signal with a tuning signal having a frequency equal to the frequency of the RF carrier signal on which the information was transmitted. As a result, RF receivers often include frequency synthesizers capable of generating tuning signals having frequencies of the same magnitude as the carrier signals which the RF receiver will be receiving. Because many RF communication systems utilize several different carrier frequencies to transmit information, RF receivers in such systems must be able to generate tuning signals of varying frequencies.

System and method for tuning a frequency synthesizer


An optical coupling device for connecting hollow core optical fiber coils in a fiber optic gyro system. An example fiber optic gyro system includes a recirculator or an integrated optics chip, a fiber coil of hollow core optical fiber with first and second ends, and a coupling device that holds an end of the hollow core optical fiber in an enclosed cavity at some predefined distance from the recirculator or integrated optics chip. The coupling device includes a housing for rigidly holding the fiber end in position. The housing includes a cavity that receives the fiber end.

Gyros have been used to measure rotation rates or changes in angular velocity about an axis of rotation. A basic conventional fiber optic gyro (FOG) includes a light source, a beam generating device, and a coil of optical fiber coupled to the beam generating device that encircles an area. The beam generating device transmits light beams into the coil that propagate in a clockwise (CW) direction and a counter-clockwise (CCW) direction along the core of the optical fiber. Many FOGs utilize glass-based optical fibers that conduct light along a solid glass core of the fiber. The two counter-propagating (e.g., CW and CCW) beams may experience different pathlengths while propagating around a rotating closed optical path, and the difference in the two pathlengths is proportional to the rotational rate.
In a resonator fiber optic gyro (RFOG), the counter-propagating light beams are desirably monochromatic (e.g., in a single frequency) and circulate through multiple turns of the fiber optic coil and for multiple passes through the coil using a device, such as a fiber coupler, that redirects light that has passed through the coil back into the coil again (i.e., circulates the light). The beam generating device modulates and/or shifts the frequencies of each of the counter-propagating light beams so that the resonance frequencies of the resonant coil may be observed. The resonance frequencies for each of the CW and CCW paths through the coil are based on a constructive interference condition such that all light-waves having traversed the coil a different number of times interfere constructively at any point in the coil. As a result of this constructive interference, an optical wave having a wavelength λ is referred to as "on resonance" when the round trip resonator optical pathlength is equal to an integral number of wavelengths. A rotation of the coil produces a different optical pathlength for clockwise and counterclockwise propagation, thus producing a shift between the respective resonance frequencies of the resonator, and the frequency difference, such as may be measured by tuning the difference in the CW beam and CCW beam frequencies to match the resonance frequency shift of the closed optical path due to rotation, indicates the rotation rate.
Frequency shifters and phase modulators have been used with the beam generating device (e.g., a laser light source) to modulate and shift the frequencies of each of the counter-propagating light beams so that the resonance frequencies of the resonant coil may be observed. The frequency shifters and phase modulators may be difficult to economically implement particularly for smaller scale applications or implementations of the resonator gyro. Alternatively, tunable lasers may be used for introducing the counter-propagating light beams and for resonance detection without the use of frequency shifters and phase modulators. However, when using two or more tunable lasers for resonance detection, the relative frequency noise between such lasers is typically the greatest contributor to angle random walk (ARW) which decreases the rotation rate accuracy of detected by the resonator gyro.
In the RFOG, the glass material of the optical fiber may give rise to effects that shift the resonance frequencies of the CW and CCW paths and thus produce a false indication of rotation or inaccurate measurement of rotation rate. Anomalies stemming from the glass medium that decrease the accuracy of the measurement of the rotational rate may be generated from a non-linear Kerr effect, stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), polarization errors, and Rayleigh backscatter errors. These error mechanisms are also sensitive to the environment which, for example, gives rise to unwanted temperature sensitivity. A reflective mirror may be used to circulate the counter-propagating light beams in the coil multiple times but this typically reduces the signal-to-noise ratio.
The non-linear Kerr effect occurs when high monochromatic light power inside the RFOG alters the index of refraction of the glass in the optical fiber. A mismatch of intensities of the CW and CCW beams may induce a bias on the observed frequency shifts on the order of several degrees/hour. SBS occurs when a high intensity associated with a high finesse in the fiber resonator causes lasing or stimulated emission in the glass fiber, and this generally promotes large instabilities in the measurement of the resonance frequencies. Polarization-induced errors may result from fiber couplers that incidentally couple light into a second polarization mode, either from one optical fiber to an adjacent optical fiber or within the same fiber. The second polarization mode may resonate producing an asymmetry in the resonance lineshape of the polarization mode used to measure a rotation. Even though the frequency of the second polarization mode is the same for the CW and CCW beams, the amplitude may be different, thus causing different observations, beyond the affect of rotation, of the resonance frequencies of the CW and CCW beams. Polarization-induced errors may severely limit the accuracy of the RFOG because determination of the resonance centers for each of the resonance frequencies of the CW and CCW beams directly affects the rotational rate measurement. Rayleigh backscatter errors may be a source of drift rate in a resonator gyro. Backscattered light from the glass within the fiber or from imperfections with the fiber can interfere with the circulating light beams and cause significant drift rate errors.
Using hollow core fibers in RFOGs is of great interest for alleviating the aforementioned errors due to light propagation in glass within conventional fibers in RFOGs. In this case light is guided, via the optical band-gap effect down the center of an optical fiber with a hollow core so that the vast majority of light is traveling in free-space (vacuum or air, for instance), greatly reducing the rotation-equivalent error terms that stem from light propagation in a glass core fiber. However, one drawback that this invention addresses is that the fiber end is open to contamination of gases and particulates that may effect optical loss and optical properties of the fiber over time.

Reliable low loss hollow core fiber resonator


A method includes providing a channel region and growing an oxide layer on the channel region. Growing the oxide layer includes introducing a first source gas providing oxygen and introducing a second source gas providing hydrogen. The second source gas being different than the first source gas. The growing the oxide layer is grown by bonding the oxygen to a semiconductor element of the channel region to form the oxide layer and bonding the hydrogen to the semiconductor element of the channel region to form a semiconductor hydride byproduct. A gate dielectric layer and electrode can be formed over the oxide layer.

The integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced exponential growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs, where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs.
Such scaling down has also increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed. For example, as fin-like field effect transistor (FinFET) technologies progress towards smaller feature sizes, different type FinFETs are configured with different fin materials to further enhance performance. The different materials can be used to provide a suitable channel region in the fin of the FinFET based on desired device performance. When forming a gate over this channel region of the fin, it has been observed that an interface layer formed over the fin element and an overlying layer may be used. Providing this interface layer suitable for differently configured fins can raise challenges. In particular, as feature sizes shrink, fabricating gate stacks with quality layers of appropriate thickness can raise challenges.

Semiconductor device including interface layer and method of fabricating thereof

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.


A high security tamper evident package for the shipping and storing of a variety of highly proprietary electronic components. The package has a lid and a multi-compartmented base which are threaded together to actively engage an automatic locking system enabled by breakaway tabs on the wall of the base sliding over and engaging behind ramps protruding from the inner surface of the lid. Upon unscrewing the base from the lid, the tabs break off as pressure is applied by movement against the back of the ramps, leaving permanent evidence of the package having been opened. A textured grip on the bottom of the package provides ease of handling and fits snugly onto a raised ring on the top of another package to allow for easy stacking and efficient storage.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to tamper evident packaging, and more particularly to a self-locking container for small parts which, although it can be reclosed for storage, once accessed provides visual evidence of its opening and cannot be relocked. Unauthorized opening of the container can thereby easily be detected.
Various applications for this type of container are contemplated. In Government, industry, and public use, electronic parts, memory chips, security keys, and other small devices must often be shipped and stored securely, and be easily identifiable. These parts often contain information which, if disclosed to unauthorized persons, could be harmful to national or corporate security. Many times the danger lies not in access to the device itself, but in the possibility that if access remains undetected, adversaries can exploit information from the equipments in which these electronics ultimately reside. With knowledge of the technology and codes contained within the electronics, or by simply having undetected access to an ordinary house key, would-be criminals can continue unnoticed. Thus, there is a need for a storage system which will enable detection of unauthorized access, is inexpensive to manufacture, and provides sophisticated protection for delicate electronic components.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many tamper evident packages are known in the prior art. Many of these packages are designed to protect food or drugs from unnoticed contamination, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,711,363, 4,474,305, 4,934,557, and 4,658,980, using an external tear off strip or tab. This type of container provides a level of protection sufficient for the unsophisticated tamperer, but the external nature of the locking mechanism provides direct access so that with the proper tools, such devices can be opened and resealed without obvious visible signs of pilfering. Such containers may not be self locking, so sealing might be impractical for users of a relatively small number of such containers, or for those who will be packing items at remote locations. Further, these inventions do not provide for protective packaging of small, delicate parts.
Magley's U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,963 discloses a "Tamper-Evident Buttress Plug Closure" which is designed for sealing closed a plastic 55-gallon drum. As the plug is threadedly advanced onto the outlet neck of the drum, it first engages the threads, then the ratchet on the neck. Frangible elements connect the ratchet ring to the outlet neck. In order to remove the plug, the frangible elements must be broken to disengage the ratchet mechanism, using a separate tool. In addition to being designed for different materials for different purposes, the present invention requires no separate ratchet ring, nor a preparatory action to disengage the closure, rather the lid ramps function both as ratchet teeth and as the tool to break off frangible elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,923 to Zinnbauer describes a "Tamper Evidencing Cap" designed to allow liquid to dispense from a bottle. The device includes a removable part connected to the exterior of the cap by frangible elements which are broken by unscrewing the cap thereby allowing liquid to pour through the opening. The Zinnbauer device provides external access to the tamper indicating mechanism and does not provide for protection of delicate solid material objects.
Although Towns and Brown provide internal tamper evidencing means in their U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,504, the closure relies on a cap liner membrane which is torn with the cap opening movement. The liner is made of a separate materials and requires relatively complex manufacturing processes.
More similar in its nature is the "Self-Locking Pilfer Proof Tamper Evident Container" as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,433 to Sideri and Del Brocco. The design of the Sideri, et al. container provides a physical barrier against opening of the container using interlocking tabs. Once engaged, the tabs cannot be separated. Once locked, access to the package requires substantial physical force, which could damage delicate electronic components. The Sideri, et al. package is destroyed upon opening, and cannot be used for storage after one use. The invention contemplated here utilizes a twisting motion of tabs against a barrier via the unscrewing of the two parts of the device. This provides an obvious stress pattern on the broken tabs and protects against a sophisticated adversary replacing the tab to hide evidence of tampering. After its first use, the instant invention can be reassembled for storage, and fitted with a high security tape which will provide a lower level of security during storage.
Although the prior art contains many patents which provide some level of protection against casual physical tampering, none has incorporated design features to provide separate, fitted partitions to hold delicate, or oddly shaped items while protecting against adversaries seeking electronic information from the items stored within them.

The United States of America as represented by the Director of the National Security Agency


A first optical transmission device 1 is connected to a second optical transmission device 2, and the second optical transmission device 2 is connected to a third optical transmission device 3, via a plurality of optical transmission lines. Transfer data and a clock signal synchronous with the transfer data are transferred in parallel from the first optical transmission device 1 to the second optical transmission device 2 through the plurality of optical transmission lines. Transfer data and a clock signal synchronous with the transfer data are transferred in parallel from the second optical transmission device 2 to the third optical transmission device 3 through the plurality of optical transmission lines. The second optical transmission device 2 stops outputting data to the third optical transmission device 3 when the clock signal transferred from the first optical transmission device 1 cannot be detected.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical transmission system for simultaneously transmitting transfer data and its clock signal, or transfer data and its control signal, and more specifically to a parallel optical transmission system connected via a plurality of optical cables between boards and between devices in an information processing system and information transmission switch system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently in an information communications network, there are increasing requests for the transfer of image data in addition to voice and data communications.
In response to these requests, various services are provided at different transmission speeds. When files are transferred in a LAN, etc., data may be transferred in data bursts. ATM systems have become popular as an effective system for practically realizing such services using a single communications system.
In an ATM system, transmission data are divided into 48-byte fixed-length payloads. A 5-byte header indicating routing information, etc. is added to each payload to form a cell. Thus, data are transferred at an optional speed by controlling the number of cells to be transmitted.
In the ATM system, cell data are processed in parallel to enhance the efficiency of a switching process. At this time, the cell data are transmitted in parallel between devices forming a switch system. Since an ATM system is normally large in scale, the devices are connected to each other via metal cables such as coaxial cables, twisted pair lines, etc. provided in parallel. The cell data are transmitted via the cables.
Recently, for services in which data such as video-on-demand data, that is, animation reproducing data, etc, are transferred, the data should be exchanged and transferred at a higher speed. Therefore, in a switch system where data are concentrated, a data transfer speed of several gigabits/second is required between the devices. With the increasing size of the switch system, the distance between the devices becomes longer. Thus, it is required to transfer data at a high speed between the devices distant to each other in the switch system.
Based on the above described background, an optical fiber has been applied to a parallel transmission line for connection between devices in a switch system. At this time, each of the devices in the switch system is connected in parallel via a plurality of optical fibers. For example, the cell data are transferred in parallel in 8-bit or 16-bit units in the switch system. A clock signal and control information about the cell data are transferred simultaneously with the cell data.
Also in a transmission system other than the ATM system, data to be transferred are transmitted in parallel through a plurality of optical fibers, and a control signal is also transferred simultaneously with the data.
The prior technologies relating to the parallel optical transmission are, for example, Tokukaihei 5-183526, Tokukaihei 5-227243, Tokukaihei 6-120743, Tokukaihei 5-29688, etc.
If a fault occurs in the above described optical transmission line, the fault is fundamentally detected on the receiving side. That is, a device on the receiving side detects the presence or absence of significant data by determining an arriving cell to be significant or insignificant (idle cells). If no cells arrive at the receiving side from the transmitting side (for example, at the switching module from the subscriber interface device), the device detects that the level of the optical signal received by the device on the receiving side indicates a value smaller than a predetermined value. Thus, the device determines a disconnection, etc. Otherwise, the physical form of the optical connector for connecting the optical transmission apparatus to the optical fiber is designed such that the connection/disconnection of the optical connector allows failure to be successfully detected.
However, the conventional systems are not provided with the capabilities of controlling the optical output when the above described failure occurs. Therefore, if no cells arrive at the receiving side from the transmitting side, the optical output from the device on the transmitting side is not stopped, but the data containing significant data are continuously output. Thus, the data output from the device on the transmitting side are lost before arriving at the device on the receiving side. Especially, with the increasing data transfer speed in transmitting data in parallel transmission lines, the amount of lost data also increases. Since the device on the transmitting side continues outputting optical signals, a light is output from a connector of the optical fiber in the device on the receiving side when the connector is removed in the device on the receiving side. This is not desired in consideration of safety if the light level is high.
When the system is restored from the state in which no signals arrive from the transmission side to the normal state, an effective method of reactivating the system is earnestly demanded, but has not been successfully developed yet.
The above listed problems are not only caused in the ATM system, but also caused in normal optical transmission systems.

Parallel optical transmission system and optical transmission apparatus


A one-piece frame for a refrigerator shelf is produced from a planar blank having first and second side members that extend at an angle from a central cross member. The side members are folded along bend zones located between each of the first and second side members and the cross member such that, once folded, the first and second side members extend outward from the cross member forming a three-sided frame. At this point, edge portions of the first and second side members are folded along additional bend zones to form upper flanges. Preferably, an upper edge portion of the cross member is folded along still another bend zone to form a hook element. The hook element is designed to engage with a shelf support member provided in the refrigerated compartment such that the shelf frame is supported in a cantilevered manner.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of refrigerators and, more particularly, to a method of forming a one-piece frame for a cantilevered refrigerator shelf.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Cantilevered shelves, i.e., a shelf that is suspended from only one edge, have been employed for some time in the art of refrigerators. A traditional cantilevered shelf generally includes a frame having one or more hooks that are inserted into slots formed in a support bracket to functionally mount the shelf in a refrigerated compartment. Such shelves generally include steel frames, which present certain challenges during a manufacturing process. Often times, the manufacturing process requires joining, through a welding process, individual pieces to form a shelf frame. Welding processes are generally costly, create structural weak points and produce a product having unsightly or uneven edges and seams that require additional finishing steps.
It is also known to construct shelving from a single sheet of bendable material, such as hot rolled steel. However, in a typical refrigerated appliance, the shelving is not formed entirely from steel but, at best, includes a steel frame to which is often times fitted a glass top. Thus, despite the existence of cantilevered shelves in the prior art, there still exists a need for a method of forming a shelf frame for a cantilevered shelf for use in refrigerators. More specifically, there exists a need for a method of forming a cantilevered refrigerator shelf frame by folding a single member into a three sided frame structure that is subsequently fitted with a shelf element.

Method of forming a one-piece frame for a cantilevered refrigerator shelf


A spacecraft ground loop controller (GLC), located on the Earth, interfaces with a satellite ground station receiving spacecraft telemetry from the downlink baseband equipment and automatically sending spacecraft commands through the command uplink baseband equipment to control the attitude of an orbiting spacecraft and achieve partial orbit control using commanded thruster firings and magnetic torquer polarity and magnitude. A cooperative approach of using all available thrusters, of both the primary and redundant strings, provides greater fuel savings.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Earth-orbiting spacecraft or satellite control systems and more particularly to a ground-based control system which interfaces with a satellite's ground station to automatically continue attitude control of a spacecraft in the event of the failure of the momentum wheel or reaction wheel system.
2. Prior Art Problem to be Solved
Various systems are known for the control of Earth-orbiting spacecraft or satellites involving the use of hardware and software for executing complex control algorithms that utilize on-board attitude control equipment such as momentum wheels, gyros, magnetic torquers, and thrusters to maintain and alter the satellite's orientation and orbit. However, problems are posed with such systems when there are failures in the proper operation of an on-board control device. In such event, the equipment and algorithms must be quickly adjusted to deal with the changed situation and maintain the satellite in its desired attitude and orbit. As the on-board control equipment and fuel are self-contained, the required adjustments should be efficient in execution.
One example of a system of this type is the ground loop automatic control system (GLACS) of Telestar of Canada. Pertinent features of the GLACS syst em involve using a combination of on-board roll/pitch sensing and ground-based yaw sensing, and ground-commanded magnetic torquer actuations/thruster firings to perform day-to-day attitude control. In Yaw sensing the incoming signal is aligned 45.degree. to the nominal polarization and t he detector uses two probe s positioned 90.degree. apart to sense two components that are amplified by the system separately, and which components are then compared to produce the Yaw signal. Two basic modes of operation a re provided, namely: normal mode, for day-to-day operations, and acquisition mode, to deal with higher rate situations (post stationkeeping or attitude re-acquisition). The features of these modes are listed in the following Tables I and II.
TABLE I ______________________________________ Normal Mode POSITION RATE ACTUATOR ______________________________________ Yaw APK & EDM RF Derived from Roll torquer yaw sensors position coil with thruster backup Roll ESA/ASP 32 Derived from Yaw torquer coil sample roll position with thruster error telemetry backup Pitch ESA/ASP 2 Derived from Subset of sample pitch position thrusters, 6, 8N, error telemetry 8S, 9N, 9S, 11 ______________________________________
TABLE II ______________________________________ Acquisition Mode POSITION RATE ACTUATOR ______________________________________ Yaw APK & EDM RF Derived from North face yaw sensors integrated thrusters, yaw RMA east/west face angle thruster backup Roll ESA/ASP 32 Derived from North face sample roll integrated thrusters, error telemetry RMA roll east/west face angle or thruster backup roll rate Pitch ESA/ASP 2 Derived from Subset of sample pitch position or thrusters 6, 8N, error telemetry pitch RMA 8S, 9N, 9S, 11 rate ______________________________________
Also, stationkeeping maneuvers are performed by existing on-board processes.
The GLACS system is made feasible by the availability of small thrusters on the spacecraft with which it has been implemented. Many other spacecraft that use larger thrusters and consequently produce larger torques would make the implementation of the GLACS system thereon significantly less fuel efficient. In addition, the GLACS system uses a means of yaw sensing as described above which in many other spacecraft systems would be readily available or easily available. Thus, the GLACS system has limited usefulness for spacecraft in general.
3. Objects
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a more generally applicable system that enables the continued attitude control and simultaneous partial orbit control of a spacecraft in the event of momentum wheel failure with the novel and efficient use of thrusters, magnetic torquers and on-board gyroscopes.

Earth based spacecraft orbit and attitude control using a look-ahead thruster selection logic and magnetic torquers


A method and system for performing automated biological identification. The system including a preprocessing module with a histogram transform for locally and globally enhancing biological data such as fingerprints. An enhancement module with a fast smoothing and enhancement function. A feature extraction module with a fingerprint oriented thinning function. A matching module with a resolution-enhanced Hough transform function for fingerprint registration and matching score function.

1 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved method for characterizing, matching, and identifying biologically unique features such as fingerprints and irises. More specifically, it relates to methods for enhancement of digital images, fast directional convolution and fingerprint-oriented ridge thinning, matching and identification of fingerprints.
2. Description of Related Art
As our society is increasingly electronically-connected, automated personal authentication becomes more important than ever. Traditional techniques, such as those using personal identification numbers (PIN) or passwords, will not satisfy demanding security requirements as they are incapable of differentiating between an authorized person and an impostor. In fact, these techniques can only verify the correctness of the PIN input by a person, but not authenticate the true identity of the authorized person.
To overcome this shortcoming in personal authentication, a number of biometric techniques have been investigated. Biometric authentication capitalizes on some unique bodily features or characteristics of a person, such as fingerprint, voice, hand geometry, face, palm, and iris pattern. Among these biometric features, automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) has provided the most popular and successful solution, mainly due to the uniqueness of fingerprints and the historical legal aspect of fingerprinting for law enforcement.
A robust and efficient AFIS however, comes with many challenges. The AFIS must be able to differentiate two different fingerprints that may be seemingly identical to the untrained eye. The uniqueness of a fingerprint is characterized by the finely embedded details (called minutiae) of the print, and its overall ridge pattern and density. From a legal standpoint, under Singapore's criminal laws, two fingerprints that contain 16 or more reliably matching minutiae are registered as originating from the same finger of the same person. As a result, a successful AFIS must have strong discrimination power, robustness to certain degrees of deformation in the fingerprint, and fast (or even real-time) processing performance.
Typically, AFIS includes features such as fingerprint image pre-enhancement, orientation filtering, ridge thinning, fingerprint registration and weighted matching score computation. The need for fingerprint image pre-enhancement arises because regardless of the acquisition method and, device (either from fingerprint cards, or from fingerprint readers such as optical sensors, or more recently, semiconductor sensors) fingerprints are susceptible to various forms of distortion and noise, including blotches caused by the input environment, skin disease (cuts, and peeling skin), and skin condition (either too wet among younger people, or too dry among elder people). As a result, fingerprint image enhancement is needed to suppress noise, improve contrast, and accentuate the predominant orientation information of the fingerprint.
Orientational filters are generally used for image enhancement according to the local directions of fingerprint ridges, which are obtained from the orientation field of the fingerprint image. Prior art for pre-enhancing includes finding an accurate estimation of the orientation field using some advanced but complicated models and employing a global enhancement technique (e.g., M. Kass et al., "Analyzing Oriented Patterns", Comput. Vis. Graphics Image Process, 37, 362–385, 1987. N. Ratha et al., "Adaptive Flow Orientation Based Feature Extraction in Fingerprint Images", Pattern Recognition, 28 (11), 1657–1672, 1995. Vizcaya et al., "A Nonlinear Orientation Model for Global Description of Fingerprints", Pattern Recognition, 29 (7), 1221–1231, 1996.). Nevertheless,: these techniques are usually computationally expensive, and hence less suitable for most AFIS solutions that require, real-time, processing. Another class of pre-enhancement techniques first accentuates the orientation information and then estimates the orientation field. The most famous technique being the NIST's FFT-based method (e.g., G. T. Candela, et al., "PCASYS-A Pattern-Level Classification Automation System For Fingerprints", National Institute of Standards and Technology, Visual Image Processing Group, August 1995.), and also some other variants of the FFT-based method (e.g., Sherlock et al., "Fingerprint Enhancement by Directional Fourier Filtering, Proc." IEE Visual Image Signal Processing vol. 141 (2), 87–94, April 1994).
After the pre-enhancement, orientation filtering is also commonly used to further enhance an input fingerprint image. Many filters have been designed for fingerprint image enhancement (e.g. Gorman et al., "An Approach To Fingerprint Filter Design", Pattern Recognition, Vol. 22 (1), 29–38, 1989; B. M. Mehtre, Fingerprint image analysis for automatic identification, Machine Vision and Applications, 6, 124–139, 1993; Kamei et al., "Image Filter Design For Fingerprint Enhancement", Proc. International Symposium on Computer Vision, 109–114, 1995; and Maio et al., "Direct Gray-Scale Minutiae Detection In Fingerprints", IEEE Transactions on PAMI, Vol. 19, No. 1, 27–40, January 1997), adopted a method to filter the image using a class of orientation filters, and then derive the fingerprint minutiae from the gray-scale image directly. Such a method required intensive computations (e.g., Kasaei et al., "Fingerprint Feature Enhancement Using Block-Direction On Reconstructed Images", TENCON '97. IEEE Region 10 Annual Conference, Speech and Image Technologies for Computing and Telecommunications, Proceedings of IEEE, vol. 1, 303–306, 1997 attempted to avoid the use of a large class of filters.) To do so, the original image is first rotated to a particular direction to perform the orientation filtering, and then rotated back to the original direction. This rotation process introduces loss of accuracy due to the quantization noise of rotating a discrete image, which may subsequently result in the detection of false minutiae.
Regarding ridge thinning, the prior art has consistently shown that the most effective and robust approach for fingerprint feature extraction is probably using binarization. With this approach, the fingerprint ridges are thinned into binary lines of width of only one pixel before the minutiae are extracted. Some prior art avoids binarization by performing the feature extraction process directly on the grayscale image (e.g., Maio et al., "Direct Gray-Scale Minutiae Detection In Fingerprints", IEEE Transactions on PAMI, Vol. 19, No. 1, 27–40, January 1997). Such an approach, however, has the drawbacks of missing minutiae and inaccurate minutiae position and direction. Further, many powerful thinning algorithms have been developed for Chinese character recognitions but they are generally not applicable for thinning ridges in fingerprint images (e.g. Chen et al., "A Modified Fast Parallel Algorithm For Thinning Digital Patterns", Pattern Recognition Letters, 7, 99–106, 1988; R. W. Zhou, "A Novel Single-Pass Thinning Algorithm And An Effective Set Of Performance Criteria", Pattern Recognition Letters, 16, 1267–1275, 1995; and Zhang, "Redundancy Of Parallel Thinning", Pattern Recognition Letters, Vol. 18, 27–35, 1997).
The conventional art includes many methods of fingerprint registration. Among them, minutia-based methods are the most popular approaches (e.g. Ratha et al., "A Real-Time Matching System For Large Fingerprint Databases", IEEE Trans. PAMI, 18 (8), 799–813, August, 1996). Such methods make use of the positional and orientational information of each minutia (e.g. Ratha et al., "A Real-Time Matching System For Large Fingerprint Databases", IEEE Trans. PAMI, 18 (8), 799–813, August, 1996; Hrechak et al., "Automated Fingerprint Recognition Using Structural Matching", Pattern Recognition, 23(8), 893–904, 1990; Wahab et al., "Novel Approach To Automated Fingerprint Recognition", Proc. IEE Visual Image Signal Processing, 145(3), 160–166, 1998; and Chang et al., "Fast Algorithm For Point Pattern Matching: Invariant To Translations, Rotations And Scale Changes", Pattern Recognition, 30(2) 311–320, 1997), or possibly together with a segment of ridge associated with the minutia (e.g. Jain et al., "An Identity-Authentication System Using Fingerprint", Proc. IEEE, 85(9), 1365–1388, 1997). Some minutia-based methods implement registration based on only a few minutiae. These methods are usually simple and fast in computation. However, since these methods depend mainly on the local information of a fingerprint, they cannot handle well the influence of fingerprint deformation and may provide an unsatisfied registration.
To overcome this problem, some other methods that exploit the global features of the prints have been developed. A typical example of such methods is to use the generalized Hough transform (Ratha et al., "A Real-Time Matching System For Large Fingerprint Databases", IEEE Trans. PAMI, 18 (8), 799–813, August, 1996) to perform the registration. This approach allows consideration of the contribution of all the detected minutiae in the prints, and is efficient in computation.
In the weighted matching score computation, the matching score is the final numerical figure that determines if the input print belongs to an authorized person by comparing the score against a predetermined security threshold value. Conventionally, the most used formula for matching score computation is given by the ratio of the number of matched minutiae to the product of the numbers of the input and template minutiae. For example, suppose that D minutiae are found to be matching for prints P and Q. A matching score is then determined using the equation
      S    =                            D          2                MN              ,where M and N are the number of the detected minutiae of P and Q respectively. This way of computing the matching score is simple and has been accepted as reasonably accurate.
However, such a matching score may be unreliable and inconsistent with respect to a predetermined threshold. There are situations where two non-matching prints can have a relatively high count of matching minutia, as compared with a pair of matching prints. This results in relatively close matching scores, which also means that the discrimination power to separate between matching and non-matching prints can be poor for a chosen security threshold value.
Therefore a demand exists to provide a method or a, system for characterizing, matching and identifying fingerprints or other biologically unique features, which improves on the above mentioned problems of AFIS regarding image data pre-enhancement, orientation filtering, ridge thinning, fingerprint registration and weighted matching score computation.

Wavelet-enhanced automated fingerprint identification system


Database interaction is facilitated by graphically presenting database objects in groups that are not necessarily dictated by object types of the database objects. In an example implementation, database navigation is facilitated by determining object dependency groups for a database in which each object dependency group corresponds to a database source object and includes at least those database objects that depend directly or indirectly from the corresponding database source object. When these data source object-based dependency groups are graphically displayed, selecting a database object thereof provides access thereto. In another example implementation, a user can designate an attribute associated with database objects by which the database objects are to be grouped. Thus, the database objects are grouped by various values that the user-designated associated attribute takes. These designated attribute-based value-driven groups may also be graphically displayed to enable navigation of and access to the different database objects assigned to them.

Databases are used by businesses, individuals, educational institutions, etc. to store data for subsequent accessing and/or manipulation. A database may be considered an amalgamation of data that is arranged for ease and speed of search and retrieval. Databases are usually associated with a program to enter, update, query, retrieve, etc. the data of the databases.
Generally, databases can be divided into data sources, data consumers, actionables, and so forth. More specifically, each database may have one or more large structured sets of persistent data. These structured sets of persistent data are usually termed data sources. A data source is thus a type of object for a database. Data consumers are other types of database objects; examples of data consumers are data processing objects, data formatting objects, data input objects, and so forth. Data sources actually store the data of a given database, and the data consuming object types provide some kind of view on or of the stored data.
Example descriptions of four of the above-mentioned database object types are provided below. First, data sources are sets of like data that can be described by one schema. More specifically, a data source is usually a set of similar records. Second, data processing objects represent a search on stored data. More specifically, a data processing object is usually a set of rules for retrieving data from one or more data sources. Third, data formatting objects present data from a data source or a data processing object in a formatted fashion. More specifically, a data formatting object is usually a set of rules for formatting retrieved data. Fourth, data input objects provide a simplified mechanism for inputting data into at least one data source. More specifically, a data input object is usually a document or similar displayable file that provides a relatively quick and easy mechanism to modify and/or insert records into a database using an intuitive, graphical environment. Data input objects can also be used to filter and/or view data of a database.
Some desktop database programs with integrated user interface (UI) packages enable a user to access any of the four types of database objects identified above. A user first decides which type of object is desired. Secondly, the user selects this desired object type from a menu or similar input interface mechanism. Thirdly, the user is empowered to access an object of the selected type. Unfortunately, this scheme is not particularly intuitive or helpful from a usability perspective. For example, if a user is trying to find a particular data formatting object in a data formatting object section of the database program, the user must intrinsically know and personally remember which data formatting object pertains to the data subject matter of interest.
Accordingly, there is a need for schemes, mechanisms, techniques, etc. that can facilitate database interaction by providing a user some level of data subject matter context for objects of a database.


A sheet processing apparatus of the invention includes a post-processing unit that applies post-processing to sheets conveyed from an image forming apparatus, a vertical aligning unit that conveys the sheets to the post-processing unit and brings an edge of the sheets into contact with a movable stopper arranged in a conveying path for the sheets to align the sheets in a conveying direction, and a horizontal aligning unit that holds the sheets with a pair of movable aligning plates from both sides along the conveying direction to align the sheets in a direction orthogonal to the conveying direction. The sheet processing apparatus further includes a control unit that switches a position of the stopper according to a size of the sheets and controls the aligning plates to be located on both sides close to the center of the sheets when the sheets are brought into contact with the stopper. The post-processing unit applies the post-processing to the sheets aligned.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet processing apparatus and a sheet processing method for performing post-processing for sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer, or a multifunction peripheral (MFP).
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, among image forming apparatuses, there is an image forming apparatus in which a sheet post-processing apparatus is provided adjacent to an image forming apparatus main body in order to perform post-processing such as processing for sorting sheets after image formation and processing for applying staple processing to the sheets.
In JP-A-2003-118928, a sheet post-processing apparatus is described. In this example, a structure that makes it possible to move an alignment position and a stapler according to a sheet size is extremely complicated.
The present invention provides a sheet processing apparatus that can appropriately align sheets to be subjected to post-processing according to a size of the sheets.

Sheet processing apparatus and sheet processing method


When a surgery and a remote control room in a remote location are connected through a communication circuit to perform an endoscope operation, image information is not encrypted and is sent as it is. Patient data including identification information, a name and so on relating to a patient is encrypted in an encrypting portion and then is sent. In the remote control room side receiving the patient data through the communication circuit, the patient data is decrypted by a decrypting portion when it is determined, based on the header portion, that the received data includes the patient data. Thus, the patient data is restructured and a structure, which can be displayed in a display device, including the image information can be obtained. As a result, the privacy of the patient data can be reserved, and the fast transmission can be achieved at low costs.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote medical supporting system, which can transmit medical images and so on remotely.
In general, an operation is performed on a patient by an operator in a surgery. However, if the operator in the surgery is required to perform an operation for which he/she does not have much experience in past, a supporting system may be considered. The supporting system provides the operator with a connection to a supporting operator in a remote place (remote supporting operator) who is familiar with the operation over a network. Then, during the operation, the remote supporting operator can give instructions and so on regarding a part to be resected. Then, the proper operation can be performed on the patient in the surgery.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of the medical information transmission systems of the related art, which supports an operation remotely as such is Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-270318.
According to the related art, not only endoscope images but also an operating condition of a surgery tool and personal information (identification information) of the patient are transmitted to the remote operation supporter. Yet, the security for the transmission is not disclosed. However, in order to encrypt a large amount of moving images in real-time, the cost is increased and the real time characteristic is prevented.