A method of translating an input sentence in a source language to an output sentence in a target language uses a store comprising a plurality of example sentences. A base example sentence is chosen from the store based on a comparison of the input sentence with a plurality of example sentences, and its paired translation is used as a translation basis. A portion of the input sentence differing from a corresponding portion of the base example sentence is identified. A portion of the translation basis aligned with the base example unmatched is located. The input unmatched portion is used to select a set of subsidiary example sentences from the store. A choice of possible translations corresponding to the input unmatched portion is determined from the set of subsidiary example sentences. A translation is selected from the choice based on a predetermined selection algorithm.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for translating an input sequence of data items in a first format to an output sequence of data items in a second format. In particular, but not exclusively, the present invention relates to the translation of a sentence in a source language to a sentence in a target language.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various techniques are known within the field of Machine Translation, or Machine Aided Translation, that use a repository of existing translated material to assist or automate the production of translations. A Translation Memory (TM) system has a repository of source language sentences each paired with its associated target language sentence, and operates by locating in the repository a sentence that is very close in structure and content to an input sentence, with the associated target language sentence being presented to a translator for manual post-editing. An Example-Based Machine Translation (EBMT) system attempts fully automatic translation and operates by decomposing an input sentence into fragments, finding a translation for each fragment in the repository and then combining these fragmentary translations into a target sentence.
Translation memory systems are highly accurate but tend to have limited coverage. Differences between the input sentence and the retrieved sentences are typically limited to slight variations in word order, morphological form or spelling. Often no changes are made to the target side of the example pair; it is simply presented to the translator as the best matching sentence.
In more sophisticated TM systems, certain elements in the target example may be replaced by their 'translations'. However, such elements are limited to "placeables", as discussed in WO 99/57651. In this context, a placeable is an element such as a name or a number which does not require translation but can be copied or whose format can be simply adjusted to meet target language or locality standards.
EBMT systems have much wider coverage, but lower accuracy. This is because, like other techniques for fully-automatic translation, they depend on the incorporation in the system of large quantities of linguistic or statistical knowledge, and this is difficult to collect and encode in an exhaustive manner. Such knowledge is necessary in an EBMT system to enable the decomposition of an input sentence into coherent fragments and the subsequent combination of the translated fragments into a sentence which is well-formed according to the grammar of the target language.
The Machine Aided Translation systems mentioned above make use of well known techniques for indexing and matching of source language inputs against the source language side of examples in the repository, and alignment of the words between source and target language sides of examples.
Techniques for matching are disclosed in GR 1002453 "Intelligent device for retrieving multilingual texts", which describes the use of edit distance, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,083 "Example-based translation method and system which calculates word similarity degrees, a priori probability, and transformation probability to determine the best example for translation". The references: "Example-Based Machine Translation in the Pangloss System", Brown, R. D., Proceedings of the 16th Coling, Copenhagen, 1996; U.S. 2003/0125928 "Method for retrieving similar sentence in translation aid system"; and U.S. 2004/0002849 "System and method for automatic retrieval of example sentences based upon weighted editing distance" describe the use of two-stage schemes, in which a first stage based on standard information retrieval techniques determines a small set of examples which are then subject, in a second stage, to a more expensive similarity computation based on edit-distance or similar. Other indexing techniques are disclosed in: U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,593 "Machine assisted translation tools", which describes the use of character n-grams for indexing; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,473,729 "Word phrase translation using a phrase index".
When one or more matching examples have been found, it is then necessary to determine their possible translations. If a complete example is matched, its translation is just its paired target language string. But if matching is only partial then it is necessary to determine which portions of the source language string are aligned with which portions of the target language string, with each matched portion in one language completely matching a corresponding matched portion in the other language, and each unmatched portion in one language not matching any portion in the other language at all.
Techniques for alignment of words and/or phrases in bilingual sentence pairs are widely described in the literature. U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,765 "Machine Translation System" describes an interface to allow a user to specify such alignments. U.S. Pat. No. 5,907,821 "Method of computer-based automatic extraction of translation pairs of words from a bilingual text" describes a statistical method based on co-occurrence frequencies. U.S. Pat. No. 6,345,244 "System, method, and product for dynamically aligning translations in a translation-memory system" describes a method based on features shared between words in translations. U.S. Pat. No. 6,598,015 "Context based computer-assisted language translation" describes the use of common format information between the pair. U.S. Pat. No. 6,535,842 "Automatic bilingual translation memory system" describes a hierarchical combination of alignments to produce alignments for phrases of all sizes. Alignment may take place during the processing of a given input sentence, or off-line, prior to the processing, as is usually the case. Alignment may also be a two-stage process with an off-line word alignment and on-line alignment of larger phrases as described in US 2004/0002848 "Example based machine translation system".
EBMT systems are disclosed in: Sato and Nagao, "Towards Memory-Based Translation" in Proceedings of 13th Coling, Helsinki (1990); Maruyama and Watanabe, "Tree Cover Search Algorithm for EBMT" in Proceedings of 4th TMI, Montreal (1992); U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,083 "Example-based translation method and system which calculates word similarity degrees, a priori probability, and transformation probability to determine the best example for translation"; Brown, R. D., "Example-Based Machine Translation in the Pangloss System" in Proceedings of the 16th Coling, Copenhagen, (1996); and US 2004/0002848, amongst others. These systems all use a matching phase and an alignment phase and in distinction to TM systems may determine several examples each of which matches only a fragment of the input. They disclose various approaches to the problems of breaking a sentence into fragments, choosing a best translation of each fragment, and combining the translations of the fragments into a coherent target language text.
There are two main approaches to the determining and combining of fragments. Generally speaking, in the prior art that is concerned with EBMT between structurally dissimilar languages (i.e. with very different word orders) such as English and Japanese (see Sato and Nagao referenced above; and Maruyama and Watanabe, U.S. Pat. No. 6,161,083) fragmentation and combination is based on a full syntax analysis and tree-structured alignments between source and target sides of an example. In EBMT between languages with similar word order such as English and French (see the R. D. Brown paper referenced above) or English and Chinese (see US 2004/0002848), the translations of fragments may be combined according to the order in the source language.
As regards choosing the best translation of each fragment, this is normally assumed to be the alignment in the example that best matches that fragment. In Sato and Nagao (referenced above) and US 2004/0002848, the best example is determined on the basis of similarity between the input and the entire example containing the fragment. The paper by R. D. Brown (reference above) discloses a method in which "the translation probability is simply the proportion of times each distinct alternative translation was encountered out of all successful alignments for a particular source-language phrase".
It is desirable to improve the coverage of a Translation Memory system by extending the range of types of element that may differ between an input sentence and a stored example. It is desirable to allow an input sentence and a stored sentence to differ by any elements which may be substituted one for the other without changing the well-formedness of the sentences involved. If it is necessary to translate substitutable elements then it is desirable to provide a method of choosing between the alternative translations that such elements may have in different contexts. It is also desirable to provide a method in which the contextually correct translation of arbitrary substitutable elements may be determined without the need for extensive linguistic knowledge or deep linguistic analysis.

Method and apparatus for translation based on a repository of existing translations


Systems and methods are provided for planning demand of a product, such as a configurable product. In one embodiment, a method is provided for planning demand for a configurable product in a managed supply chain. In another embodiment, a demand planner is provided for planning demand for a configurable product in a managed supply chain. The method may comprise the steps of: providing a data storage system to store data relating to a plurality of configurable products in terms of their respective product dependent characteristics; inputting a selection to be represented for a plurality of products in terms of percentage values for a particular product dependent characteristic, wherein the percentage values relate to respective components or qualities of the particular product dependent characteristic; in response to the inputting step, loading data for the plurality of products from the data storage system on at least the product level; copying the percentage values for the respective components or qualities to the product level; and performing the percentage calculation on the loaded data at the product level to obtain absolute values on the product level.

I. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computerized planning systems and methods, and to such systems and methods for planning demand for products, such as configurable products. More particularly, the invention relates to planning systems and methods for planning demand for a configurable product in a managed supply chain.
II. Background Information
Demand planning is used to forecast the demand for products, such as configurable products. A configurable product is a product having one or more product dependent characteristics. In demand planning, it is known to carry out aggregation and disaggregation calculations. Aggregation is a function by which key figure values on the lowest level of detail are automatically summed at run time and displayed on a high level. For example, if a forecasted demand is displayed for a region in an interactive planning screen, the forecasted demand for all of the different sales channels, product families, brands, products, and/or customers in that region is shown. This provides a consistent planning approach throughout an organization. Key figure values can be stored at the lowest level of detail. If aggregates are used, then the data may also be saved on the aggregate levels.
On the other hand, disaggregation is a function by which a key figure value on a high level is automatically broken down to the detailed level. For example, if demand is forecast in a particular region, the system instantly splits up this number among the different sales channels, product families, brands, products, customers, and so on, in this region. This function, as with aggregation, provides a consistent planning approach throughout an organization. As with aggregation, key figure values can be stored at the lowest level of detail. If aggregates are also used, then the data may also be stored on the aggregate levels.
With both the aggregation and disaggregation functions, a demand plan can be carried out on the basis of a percentage representation. It has been found, however, that conventional demand planning incorporating the aggregation and disaggregation functions suffers from one or more drawbacks. One problem is that with the aggregation and disaggregation calculation for the percentage representation implemented in the demand planning, it is not possible to work with an aggregate of more than one product in the same way as working with the aggregate of one product. It has been found that this is because the calculation logic is the same for the percentage representation and the absolute value representation. It has also been found that this problem occurs because in a planning scenario where the components of configurable products are planned, a different calculation logic has been found to be required in the percentage representation in order to work with a group of products in a desired way. In conventional demand planners until now it has been necessary to work only with a single product at a time and copy the data to each product. This is very time consuming and error-prone manual work.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to address these and other problems encountered in conventional demand planning incorporating a percentage representation.

Systems and methods for planning demand for configurable products


The invention provides an article of manufacture comprising a substantially non-immunogenic heart valve xenograft for implantation into humans. The invention further provides methods for preparing a heart valve xenograft by removing at least a portion of a soft tissue from a non-human animal to provide a xenograft; washing the xenograft in saline and alcohol; subjecting the xenograft to cellular disruption treatment; treating the xenograft with crosslinking agents, and digesting the xenograft with a proteoglycan-depleting factor and/or glycosidase. The invention also provides an article of manufacture produced by the above-identified method of the invention. The invention further provides a heart valve xenograft for implantation into a human including a portion of a heart valve from a non-human animal, wherein the portion has extracellular components and substantially only dead cells. The extracellular components have reduced proteoglycan molecules. Each of the xenografts of the invention are substantially non-immunogenic and have substantially the same mechanical properties as a corresponding native heart valve.

Heart valves are composed of fibrochondrocytes and an extracellular matrix of collagen and elastic fibers, as well as a variety of proteoglycans. Various synthetic and tissue based materials (the latter either from the recipient organism or from a different organism within the same species) have been used for forming heart valve replacements. Each have their advantages and disadvantages.
In the case of synthetic heart valves, it may be possible to modify advantageously the properties of the heart valves by altering the monomers and/or the reaction conditions of the synthetic polymers. Synthetic heart valves may be associated with thromboembolism and mechanical failure, however. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,593.
Tissue based heart valves may demonstrate superior blood contacting properties relative to their synthetic counterparts. Tissue based heart valves also may be associated with inferior in vivo stability, however. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,593.
Pericardial xenograft tissue valves have been introduced as alternatives to the synthetic and the tissue based valves described above. See Ionescu, M. I. et al., Heart Valve Replacement With The Ionescu-Shiley Pericardial Xenograft, J. Thorac. Cardiovas. Surg. 73; 31-42 (1977). Such valves may continue to have calcification and durability problems, however. See Morse, D, ed. Guide To Prosthetic Heart Valves, Springer-Verlag, New York, 225-232 (1985).
Accordingly, there is a need for mechanically durable, flexible heart valves replacements which are capable of contacting the blood and are stable in vivo.
Much of the structure and many of the properties of original heart valves may be retained in transplants through use of heterograft or xenograft materials, that is, heart valve from a different species than the graft recipient. For example, tendons or ligaments from cows or other animals are covered with a synthetic mesh and transplanted into a heterologous host in U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,833. Flat tissues such as pig pericardia are also disclosed as being suitable for heterologous transplantation in U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,833. Bovine peritoneum fabricated into a biomaterial suitable for prosthetic heart valves, vascular grafts, burn and other wound dressings is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,593. Bovine, ovine, or porcine blood vessel xenografts are disclosed in WO 84/03036. However, none of these disclosures describe the use of a xenograft for heart valve replacement.
Once implanted in an individual, a xenograft provokes immunogenic reactions such as chronic and hyperacute rejection of the xenograft. The term "chronic rejection", as used herein, refers to an immunological reaction in an individual against a xenograft being implanted into the individual. Typically, chronic rejection is mediated by the interaction of IgG natural antibodies in the serum of the individual receiving the xenograft and carbohydrate moieties expressed on cells, and/or cellular matrices and/or extracellular components of the xenograft. For example, transplantation of heart valve xenografts from nonprimate mammals (e.g., porcine or bovine origin) into humans is primarily prevented by the interaction between the IgG natural anti-Gal antibody present in the serum of humans with the carbohydrate structure Galα1-3Galβ1-4GlcNAc-R (α-galactosyl or α-gal epitope) expressed in the xenograft. K. R. Stone et al., Porcine and bovine cartilage transplants in cynomolgus monkey: I. A model for chronic xenograft rejection, 63 Transplantation 640-645 (1997); U. Galili et al., Porcine and bovine cartilage transplants in cynomolgus monkey: II. Changes in anti-Gal response during chronic rejection, 63 Transplantation 646-651 (1997). In chronic rejection, the immune system typically responds within one to two weeks of implantation of the xenograft.
In contrast with "chronic rejection", "hyperacute rejection" as used herein, refers to the immunological reaction in an individual against a xenograft being implanted into the individual, where the rejection is typically mediated by the interaction of IgM natural antibodies in the serum of the individual receiving the xenograft and carbohydrate moieties expressed on cells. This interaction activates the complement system, causing lysis of the vascular bed and stoppage of blood flow in the receiving individual within minutes to two to three hours.
The term "extracellular components", as used herein, refers to any extracellular water, collagen and elastic fibers, proteoglycans, fibronectin, elastin, and other glycoproteins, which are present in heart valve.
Xenograft materials may be chemically treated to reduce immunogenicity prior to implantation into a recipient. For example, glutaraldehyde is used to cross-link or "tan" xenograft tissue in order to reduce its antigenicity, as described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,593. Other agents such as aliphatic and aromatic diamine compounds may provide additional crosslinking through the side chain carboxyl groups of aspartic and glutamic acid residues of the collagen polypeptide. Glutaraldehyde and diamine tanning also increases the stability of the xenograft tissue.
Xenograft tissues may also be subjected to various physical treatments in preparation for implantation. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,593 discloses subjecting xenograft tissue to mechanical strain by stretching to produce a thinner and stiffer biomaterial for grafting. Tissue for allograft transplantation is commonly cryopreserved to optimize cell viability during storage, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,071,741; 5,131,850; 5,160,313; and 5,171,660. U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,741 discloses that freezing tissues causes mechanical injuries to cells therein because of extracellular or intracellular ice crystal formation and osmotic dehydration.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A rechargeable battery is disclosed. In one aspect, the battery includes an electrode assembly comprising a positive electrode and a negative electrode, a case accommodating the electrode assembly and a terminal electrically connected to the electrode assembly and exposed from the case. The battery further includes a protective circuit module comprising a connecting member electrically connected to the terminal and an insulating member interposed between the terminal and the connecting member, wherein a plurality of openings are formed in the insulating member.

1. Field
The described technology generally relates to a rechargeable battery and a battery module.
2. Description of the Related Technology
A rechargeable battery is a battery that can be repeatedly charged and discharged, unlike a primary battery. A small rechargeable battery is used as a power supply for small electronic devices such as cellular phones, notebook computers, and camcorders, while a medium or large rechargeable battery is used as a power supply for driving motors in hybrid vehicles and the like.
A large capacity high power rechargeable battery using a non-aqueous electrolyte with high energy density has been recently developed. The large capacity high power rechargeable battery is constructed with a high power battery module having a plurality of rechargeable cells coupled to each other in series or in parallel such that it can be used in electric vehicles requiring high power. Multiple cell batteries are often referred to as battery packs.
Furthermore, a high power rechargeable battery may have a cylindrical shape or a square shape.


A load carrier foot is intended to secure, on a vehicle roof (9), a load carrier strut, and has a support portion (7) which supports the foot on the vehicle. The load carrier foot is further provided with a clamping portion (12) which, under the action of a clamping mechanism (18, 22, 24), is urgeable against a bead (10) on the vehicle in order thereby to secure the load carrier foot. The clamping portion (12) is provided, in its central region, with a rockable or tiltable anchorage (13) in the body (1) of the load carrier foot so that a clamping member (14) located at its one end is movable into and out of engagement with the bead (10). The opposite end (15) of the clamping portion (12) is actuable by means of the one end (20) of a lever (18) pivotally secured in the body (1) and whose other end (21) is actuable by a cam section (24) on a pivotal operating handle (22).

A multiplicity of variations of load carrier feet of the type mentioned by way of introduction are previously known in the art. These load carrier feet are often intended for mounting on such vehicles as display longitudinally directed, depressed gutters extending along the vehicle roof and provided with an anchorage bead upstanding from the bottom of the gutter. In one version of such a prior art load carrier foot, the support portion is of twin design and is intended to stand one piece in front of the other in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle on one side of the anchorage bead and support against the bottom of the gutter. Correspondingly, the clamping portions are also of twin design and are urgeable against the support portions by means of screws, one per clamping portion.
A load carrier foot of this prior art type may, on many occasions, function satisfactorily, but is difficult to mount in place and dismount from the vehicle roof, since the screws in question are difficult to get at. In one such load carrier foot, it is also difficult to guarantee a suitable clamping force, since every user must individually assess how large the tightening torque employed should be. The risk of loose mounting, or in the case of overtightened screws, the risk of damage to the load carrier foot and/or the vehicle itself cannot be discounted. Furthermore, some type of lockable protective hood is necessary which covers the screws so as to prevent unauthorised removal of the load carrier foot.


This invention provides an integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining adapted to store and reuse the know how of skilled machine operators and improve the quality of sheet metal products and the rate of operation of machine tools by shifting the arrangement operation from the actual machining phase to the design phase. An integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining according to the invention is adapted to collect actual machining information obtained during the actual machining process on the machining site and site-specific attribute information that provide the basis for actual machining data and feed back the collected actual machining information and the site-specific attribute information to a sheet metal machining data storing means containing machining information for controlling the machine tools and machining support information relating to the machining information. An integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining according to the invention verifies the profile of the product to be machined and/or the machining sequence in advance on the design site and stores the sheet metal machining information obtained by the verification in the sheet metal machining data storing means.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining. More particularly, it relates to a sheet metal machining information system adapted to centrally collecting, and reutilizing sheet metal machining data fed back from the shop floor in order to efficiently accumulate and exploit the know-how of skilled operators and simultaneously to shift the operation of arrangements from the actual machining phase to the design phase to improve the quality of sheet metal products and the rate of operation of machine tools.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, the sheet metal machining is a two-phased process including a design phase that utilizes CAE (computer aided engineering) in the office and an actual machining phase on the shop floor. The office is provided with CAE equipment (also referred to as automatic programming unit) having CAD/CAM functions, whereas the shop floor is equipped with various machine tools for producing sheet metal products including those for punching, laser machining and bending objects to be machined (hereinafter xe2x80x9cworksxe2x80x9d). The machine tools are controlled by NC data, (i.e., machining programs for controlling the machine tools) prepared in the office by means of the CAE equipment. The CAE equipment and the control terminals of the machine tools are connected with each other by way of private lines.
Now, the conventional procedure of sheet metal machining will be summarily discussed below.
Firstly, the design phase procedure in a manner as described below in terms of reception of a new order.
To begin with, in the design phase, a three faces design drawing is prepared for the ordered product. And the data on the three faces design drawing (FIG. 1(A)) and machining are entered to the CAD equipment. As a result, a development elevation (FIG. 1(B)) is produced to provide reference data for actual machining operations.
More specifically, for preparing a development elevation, the CAD operator has to perform various operations including checking the flanges and other components for interferences, determining the attribute values relating to different machining operations including bending and judging if each of the operations is feasible or not, with confirming the values of the important dimensions in the three face design drawing and with imagining a three-dimensional form of the product on the basis of the drawing. The operation of preparing a development elevation is often referred to as brain development for good reason. Then, pictures will be synthetically produced for the different faces of the product, employing the brain development.
Attribute values will be determined for various different machining operations including bending operations in the synthesizing process. Of the attribute values for the machining operations, the stretch of the work due to a bending operation is typically determined by referring to a table of stretch data stored in the office or the data provided by skilled operators. The bending-related attributes may include the stretch and the angle, the lines and the profiles of the ridges and recesses produced at and around each of the bends of the work.
Then, the CAM apparatus (also referred to as automatic programming unit) assigns arrangement data for producing the product to the development elevation prepared in CAD equipment including data for allocating machine tools and outputs NC data including G codes for controlling the allocated machine tools in the form of perforated tapes. Thus, the NC data prepared in the design phase are selected and finalized on the basis of predetermined standard data and by referring to the data provided by skilled operators. Then comes the machining phase.
Only the NC data including the three faces design drawing and the tapes prepared in the design phase for the sheet metal product are provided for the machining phase along with an letter of machining instruction because the data on the development elevation produced in the design phase are poorly accurate and reliable. Thus, the data on the development elevation are not utilized in the machining phase, so that its not provided for machining site.
In the machining phase, a punching and laser machining step comes first. Arrangements have to be made for the machining phase before actual machining operation. The operation of making arrangements is divided into two major stages. In the first stage of arrangement, the NC tapes are entered and dies are selected and arranged in position, while clamps are aligned and other operations necessary for starting the machining process are performed, the first stage of arrangement is setting operation. In the second stage of arrangement, the NC data produced by the design phase are checked for verification and, if necessary, some of them may have to be modified to meet the requirements specific to the shop floor.
The operation of checking and verifying the NC data is conventionally conducted in an NCT (numerically controlled turret punch press) step (for punching and laser machining operations as an arrangement). And it is necessary to preliminarily perform a test punching and laser machining operation for the verification stage because no data on the development elevation are provided.
After the test punching and laser machining operation, a skilled operator typically performs a series of operations for verifying the NC data including laying a blank (produced by cutting a sheet or a rod of the material to given dimensions so that it may be used for the subsequent operations including bending) on a base sheet (work sheet) and testing if the three faces design drawing can be used to successfully produce a development elevation, using the three faces design drawing and the blank, by way of brain development as in the case of the design phase. Data including the stretch of the work due to a three-dimensional bending operation may have to be appropriately taken into consideration to precisely specify the right spots for piercing. Thus, the provided data have to beverified for the NCT/laser machining step. In other words, with a conventional system, the operation of verifying the data on the development elevation has to be repeated in the machining phase in order to prevent defective development (i.e., a situation where a final product having a desired profile is not obtained).
It is also necessary to make arrangements for a bending operation. More specifically, a skilled operator typically performs a series of operations for verifying the data on the development elevation again by way of brain development, referring to the three faces design drawing on the basis of a three-dimensional image he or she has in the brain and taking the bending sequence into consideration. The arrangements will be finalized by the skilled operator for the bending order (i.e. , bending sequence), the selection of the die to be used for bending and other bending-related operations according to the result of the brain development.
A set of bending-related attributes such as stretch will also have be determined as part of arrangement information. The stretch of a work has to be determined by carefully taking complex factors into consideration, including the wear, the warp and the rate of spring back of the dies on the shop floor. Thus, the bending-related attributes have conventionally been determined on the basis of the know-how of the skilled operators on the shop floor. Then, the parameters such as the L-value and the D-value of the NC data to be used for bending operations are modified, if necessary, to define data for the positional relationship between each die and the work to be machined on the basis of the bending-related attributes and the arrangement data. As used herein, the L-value refers to the distance to be moved for abutment from the center of the die and the D-value refers to the displacement of the die necessary for the bending the work after the work and the die are brought to contact with each other.
The operators on the shop floor then carry out a bending test and other operations and input corrective data through the control terminal of the bending machine to correct the NC data provided by the design site. The corrected NC data are used for actual machining operations on the floor.
As pointed out above, the arrangement data including the selection of dies and the bending order and the bending-related attributes including the stretch of the works are determined on the shop floor on the basis of not only the standard and general attribute values used for the design phase but also the values of the attributes relating to the machine tools and the dies to be used for machining on the floor and other attributes on the site that are specific to the environment of the floor. Then, these values are used to finalize the NC data.
Particularly, in the case of bending a work, the necessary level of precision of punch bending and other bending operations cannot be secured simply by relying on the attribute values (including those for bending) used in the design phase.
Differently stated, the level of machining precision has been maintained and improved by relying on the know-how of skilled operators who are well versed in the conditions of the machine tools and other elements of the shop floor. And the NC data provided by the design phase are modified and finalized by the know-how of skilled operators.
Additionally, the brain development on the shop floor requires the machine tools on the floor to temporarily become down. In other words, the brain development is referred to as intra-operation arrangement and takes a major part of the down time of the machine tools on the shop floor.
At the same time, since the brain development relies solely on human resources, it is inevitably accompanied by potential human errors (e.g., careless errors). Therefore the brain development causes defective development (defective NC machining data and a resultant situation where a final product having a desired profile is not obtained).
Furthermore, the modified and corrected NC machining data are used only for the current machining operations and no means have been provided to store the data. Therefore, if there is an order for a product identical with a past product (hereinafter referred to as repeater), the NC machining data used for the past product are no longer available. The same brain development procedures have to be followed to produce the repeater.
Thus, in short, the above described conventional procedures for sheet metal machining are accompanied by the problems as summarized below.
As pointed out above, the quality of the sheet metal product obtained by sheet metal machining heavily depends on the condition of the machine tools, the environment of the machining operations and other factors on the shop floor especially in sheet metal machining. In other words, reliable data for precision machining cannot be obtained solely from standard attribute values and predicted attribute values acquired by simulation. This is particularly remarkable in the case of bending. Thus, it is absolutely necessary to take the attributes specific to the site of machining including those of the environment into consideration in addition to the standardized attribute values.
Conventionally, however, the site-specific attributes exist only in the brain of skilled operators as a know-how and are used only for correcting the NC machining data in order to adapt the data to the specific requirements of each machining assignment on the shop floor. In other words, the know-how of skilled operators is utilized only on an ad hoc basis not fed back to the design phase and hence the data used to correct the NC machining data fed from the design phase for the specific machining assignment are simply discarded.
Therefore, the data including the development elevation, the various attribute data and the arrangement data (on the bending sequence and the selection of dies) obtained in the design phase remain as standardized data. Differently stated, the data obtained in the design phase shows discrepancies with the corresponding data obtained on the machining site particularly in terms of the site-specific attributes and hence are poorly reliable.
Machining data (NC data) are prepared in the design phase exclusively on the basis of standardized attributes values and fine adjustments necessary for actual machining operations are carried out solely on the machining site.
What is worse, the shop floor responsible for such adjustments are not provided with data obtained in the design phase. As pointed out above, while a development elevation and other data are prepared in the design phase, they are not at all supplied to the shop floor and hence not available on the shop floor.
The only data the shop floor are provided with are NC data that are raw data for controlling the machine tools on the floor, which are scarce in any sense of the word from the viewpoint of accurately and rigorously controlling the machine tools to produce an intended product. Thus, the stretch and the bending-related attributes are finalized by totally relying on the know-how of skilled operators. The development elevation data and the three-dimensional profile of the product are verified on the shop floor by referring to the three faces design drawing fed from the design phase and the outcome of the machining test conducted on the shop floor only to repeatedly follow the verification procedure used for the brain development in the design phase. Additionally, arrangement information for the bending procedure and the selection of dies has to be finalized, taking the site-specific attributes into consideration.
These verification and arrangement operations on the shop floor requires the machine tools on the floor to temporarily halt (become down). In other words, these operations takes a major part of the intra-operation arrangement time which requires the machine tools on the shop floor to halt, so as to reduce the productivity of sheet metal machining.
Finally, the environment of the sheet metal industry will be briefly summarized below. In recent years, orders comes for an increased number of different products to be supplied in small lots and this tendency raises the time spent for the intra-operation arrangement and the inspection to reduce the efficiency of machining. Additionally, as ISO becomes prevalent, more and more rigorous requirements are posed on the quality to further reduce the efficiency. This means that the above described verification and arrangement operation operate as bottle neck for the improvement of the efficiency of sheet metal machining.
In the CAE environment of conventional sheet metal machining, only the NC data obtained in the design phase are provided from the design office to the shop floor for the machine tools there. On the contrary, the operators on the shop floor are alienated from the flow of information. In other words, the design side (office side) and the machining side (shop floor side) are not coordinated in terms of effectively sharing and exploiting machining and machining-related information.
As summarized above, the first problem of the prior art is that the various operations of brain development solely rely on the know-how of few skilled operators on the shop floor and hence the time spent for the brain development and other intra-operation arrangement takes an increasing part in the total machining time on the shop floor and therefore the down time of the machine tools.
The second problem of the prior art is that the site-specific attributes are not fed back to the design phase for the operation of design and verification, which is therefore conducted solely relying on the brain development based on the predicted data obtained by computation. As a result, various shortcomings arise from the brain development particularly in terms of machining and designing (e.g., defects in the development elevation).
The third problem of the prior art lies in that the know-how of skilled operators on the shop floor is not accumulated and stored for utilization so that same NC machining data may have to be prepared for a number of times to increase the cycle time.
These and other problems operate negatively in terms of the rate of operation of machine tools and the quality of produced sheet metal.
This invention is intended to solve the above problems that the various steps of sheet metal machining rely on the know-how of few skilled operators and the intra-operation arrangement time has increased as a result of the increase in the work load of the skilled operators and that the know how of skilled operators are used only on an ad hoc basis and not utilized systematically to make it difficult to maintain and improve the quality of machined sheet metal products.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system for feeding the data obtained on the machining phase back to the design phase to accumulate them and inductively improve the accuracy of the sheet metal machining information by means of the know how of skilled operators on the floor.
Another object of the invention is to provide a system for reducing the work load of skilled operators on the floor and improve the rate of operation of machine tools by shifting the operation of making arrangements from the machining side (the shop floor) to the design side (the office).
Still another object of the invention is to provide a network system adapted to establish and grow a database for storing sheet metal machining information including machining support data so that the stored information may be controlled centrally. Such a system is also adapted to incorporate general purpose machines into the network system so that the data relating to each of the machines in the network system may easily be retrieved by and displayed for the machine operators of the system to support the human on the shop floor as well as the operation of precision design (automatic programming).
The inventor of the present invention has focused his research efforts on realizing a system for accumulating and storing the know how of skilled operators on the shop floor relating to site-specific attributes in order to solve the above problems. In other words, the present invention is intended to provide a system for collecting, accumulating, centrally managing and reutilizing pieces of sheet metal machining information (machining data and machining support data) fed back from the shop floor as site-specific machining data and attribute data in order to minimize the discrepancies between the standard attributes applicable to an ideal environment and the site-specific attributes and also minimize the perception gap between the office and the shop floor to realize a two-way communication between them.
According to a first characteristic aspect of the invention, the above objects are achieved by inductively extracting and generating machining data and machining support data from the attributes specific to the actual machining operations on the shop floor, which data are then fed back to the design side.
More specifically (as shown in FIG. 2), according to the first aspect of the invention, there is provided an integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining by controlling sheet metal machining data including machining data for controlling machine tools and machining support data relating to the machining data, said system comprising:
component 600 that collects actual machining data for the actual machining process on the shop floor and/or site-specific attribute data on which the actual machining data are based and feeds back as sheet metal machining data; and
component 700 that stores said sheet metal machining data.
The component 600 (actual machining data collecting section) collects and stores NC data modified and added in the course of actual machining process and site-specific attribute data as they are input by floor operators through control terminals.
The component 600 uses the data obtained in the course of actual machining process to affect the component 700 (sheet metal machining data storing means) in terms of modification or addition.
The information obtained in the course of actual machining process preferably refers to corrected final values.
The component 600 may be so arranged that it automatically reads and collects actual machining data 720 and site-specific attribute data 753 obtained in the course of machining a test piece prior to the actual machining process.
With such an configuration, corrective information can be obtained to modify the machining data to reflect the actual shop floor environment.
As shown in FIG. 2, the component 700 (sheet metal machining information storing means) stores machining data (NC data) 720 for controlling the machine tools and machining support data 750 necessary for generating and verifying machining the data.
The machining support data 750 include graphic data 752 and attribute data 753 and may additionally include multimedia data containing image data and sound data.
As shown in FIG. 3, the attribute data 753 include two regions of a standard attribute section 758 for standard and general attributes and a site-specific attribute section 759 obtained on each shop floor.
These regions store attribute data of five different categories necessary and sufficient for sheet metal machining.
Attribute data of five different categories include material attribute data relating to the works to be machined, machine attribute data relating to the machine tools to be used for machining, die attribute data relating to the dies to be used for machining, machining attribute data relating to the actual machining process and environment attribute data relating environmental factors that can affect the machining operations.
With the above configuration, the know-how of skilled sheet metal machining operators that has been used on an ad hoc basis and not exploited for reutilization is collected as actual machining parameters and site-specific attribute values, which are then fed back to the sheet metal machining information storing means 700.
According to a second characteristic aspect of the invention, the sheet metal machining process is simulated to verify the machining data and the machining support data in advance before the actual machining process on the shop floor.
According to the second aspect of the invention, as shown in FIG. 2 there is provided an integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining comprising:
a design portion A for generating sheet metal machining data 700 including machining data 720 for controlling machine tools and machining support data 750 relating to the machining data; and
machining portion B for performing actual machining operations on the basis of the generated sheet metal machining information 700;
said design portion A including:
component 200 that verifies the profile of the product to be produced by machining and/or the machining sequence on the design site according to the design data and the machining parameters input for the sheet metal product to be produced by machining; wherein said machining data are generated after said verification.
The component 200 (machining simulation component) verifies the profiles of the product to be produced by machining by verifying the input design data and the data on the finished. products (e.g., three-dimensional figure) generated from the design data.
Additionally, the component 200 virtually verifies the machining sequence by forwardly and/or reversely following the actual machining sequence on the CAE equipment, using the data for the finished product.
Such a virtual simulation is preferably conducted by using the attribute data 753 stored in the sheet metal machining information storing means 700.
The method and techniques to be used for the simulation is not limited to the above description.
Preferably, the data on the profile of the product and the data for the finished product include corresponding attribute data added thereto.
With the above configuration, it is possible to provide the shop floor with highly accurate and reliable machining data 720 with related graphic data 752 and attribute data 753.
According to a third characteristic aspect of the invention, an information network is formed to interconnect the machine tools on the shop floor and the design CAE equipment and organize the machine tools of different machining steps by means of the network to make the machining support data available to all of them.
According to the third aspect of the invention, as shown in FIG. 5 there is provided an integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining comprising:
CAE equipment on the design site;
machine tools 70, 80 on the machining site: and
terminal units 30, 40, 50, 60 connected to the respective machine tools; said terminal units 30, 40, 50, 60 and said CAE equipment 10 being interconnected by the network so as to communicate with each other.
The terminal units 30, 40, 50, 60 and the CAE equipment 10 locally or remotely connected to the network can access to the data storing in the sheet metal machining information storing means 700 by way of a server unit 20. The accessible data include machining data 720 and machining support data 750. The machining support data 750 include graphic data 752 and attribute data 753 and may additionally include multimedia data containing image data and sound data.
With the above configuration, it is possible for the machine tools to carry out high precision machining operations by cross referencing the machining support data 750 (e.g., stretch) including machining data 720 and attribute data 753 relating to the respective machine tools.
The above configuration may be adapted to retrieve data from the sheet metal machining information database 700 generated and accumulated on the design site and edit them instantaneously in a manner of easy input method (e.g., bar code reader on the site).
Thus, with the above configuration, the corrected final values produced on the machining site can be fed back on a real time bases so that the design site and the machining site can enjoy two-way communication.
Various further and more specific objects, features and advantages of the invention will appear from the description give below, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings illustrating by way of example a preferred embodiment of the invention.

Integrated support system for supporting sheet metal machining


A hybrid micro-grid system for providing power to a load connected to a common bus. The system includes at least one renewable power source, at least one genset, at least one energy storage unit, and an asset management controller operatively coupled to the power sources supply power to the common bus. The AMC is configured to determine a renewable cost function, a genset cost function, and a storage cost function, then assigns a priority of each power source based on the corresponding cost function. The AMC determines a cascade of the power sources based on the determined priority and selectively distributes a power demand of the load between each power source based on the determined cascade.

For off-grid application sites, such as remote villages, islands, remote mining sites, remote military installations, on-board ships, and the like, reliable power supplies are needed. Hybrid systems containing combustion engine-driven generator setups (gensets) and battery banks are usually used to provide a continuous power supply. However, in these hybrid systems, refueling and maintenance costs become significant over time. In order to reduce such costs, renewable power sources, such as photovoltaic power or wind power, may be used as the primary power sources, while diesel gensets may be used as secondary power sources. Excess energy generated by the primary or secondary power sources (i.e., energy not consumed by a load) may be used to charge a battery bank configured to store electric energy for backup use. Typically, it is preferred that a high percentage of energy is generated by the renewable power sources. Since renewable power sources tend to be unreliable due to environmental conditions, e.g. lack of wind or solar, it is important to supplement the system with secondary sources during times of low renewable sources. However, to maintain peak efficiency and lower overall operating cost during the lifetime of the equipment, it is not enough just to monitor the load and distribute the load according to rated operating conditions.
An attempt to improve micro-grid efficiencies has been proposed in U.S. 2016/0118799 A1 by Seww Energy Inc. (hereinafter "Seww"). Seww proposes a microgrid system that provides reliable hybrid power from solar, wind, battery sources as well as diesel fuel generators to stabilize the power quality to reduce risk of damaging sensitive medical equipment. Seww also proposes that the diesel generators can be turned off periodically to conserve fuel. Seww goes on the propose a Microgrid Assessment Tool (MAT) that may be used to capture granular load profiles to generate a feasibility report. The Seww microgrid system relies on the generator's minimum loading ratio (MLR) to benchmark the system's operating efficiency. However, Seww doesn't incorporate other monitoring other metrics of the renewable resource, the batteries, or the generators which can reduce operating costs, improve fuel efficiency, and also extend the overall useable lifetime of the equipment.
The disclosed method and system for a hybrid micro-grid system is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.

System and method for diverse multi-source energy management


When both a left rear wheel and a right rear wheel are driven by first and second electric motors, and acceleration slippage occurs at either the left wheel or the right wheel, the acceleration slippage is reduced by decreasing the command motor torque (power drive torque) of the first or second electric motor connected to the wheel at which acceleration slippage was generated. The command motor torque of the first or second electric motor connected to the other wheel (wheel on the other side) on the right or left side that is opposite the wheel at which slippage occurred is increased, thereby making it possible to supplement the decrease in the driving torque of the wheel at which slippage occurred.

The present disclosure pertains to a vehicle drive device.
In one known system, a drive controller for an electric vehicle is provided with a slip detection apparatus that calculates the acceleration of the vehicle wheels from the rotation speed of a drive motor, and determines the presence of wheel slippage from the wheel acceleration. The acceleration of the vehicle body based on the torque command value of the drive motor is then determined. A torque control apparatus reduces the torque of the torque command value sent to the drive motor when the presence of wheel slippage is determined by the slip detection apparatus. The torque control apparatus also implements control such that the torque command value sent to the drive motor becomes a normal running command value according to the operation amount of the accelerator pedal when slippage of the wheels is not detected by the slip detection apparatus. Thereby, smooth running is targeted on a road having low frictional resistance.
Incidentally, it is also known that a transaxle containing a speed reducer and a differential gear is connected to the drive motor mounted in the electric vehicle. The driving force of the drive motor that is input into the transaxle is distributed to the left front wheel and the right front wheel via left and right front wheel axles. Accordingly, on split-μ roads having different road surface friction on the left and right sides of a vehicle, and the like, when the presence of slippage of the left front wheel or the right front wheel is detected by the slip detection apparatus, the drive controller reduces the torque of the torque command value sent to the drive motor. Therefore, both the torque distributed to the left front wheel and the torque distributed to the right front wheel are reduced. In other words, the total drive torque of the front wheels is reduced, and ample drive torque appropriate for the demands of the driver cannot be transmitted to the road surface.
The present disclosure takes into consideration the above problem, and seeks to provide a vehicle drive device that can thoroughly transmit ample driving torque and braking torque to the road surface appropriate for the demands of the driver even on split-μ roads having different road surface friction on the left and right sides of a vehicle.


Storyboard processing in a movie during production, including: creating a proxy shot for an imported shot; displaying the proxy shot; receiving a completion signal for the imported shot; reloading related metadata for the imported shot; and displaying the newly imported shot. Keywords include proxy shot and imported shot.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storyboard processing, and more specifically, to processing and generating multiple shots in the storyboarding process of content production.
2. Background
In the process of making a movie, a storyboard is a pre-production process that is used to visualize scenes in detail. The storyboard expresses an image to be delivered as an illustration according to a sequence, illustrates a motion of camera and/or subject for each scene by visualizing the image to be presented to an audience and a customer. For example, the storyboarding process involves many panels of images drawn by a story artist, and presented in order for the purpose of visualizing sections of a motion picture prior to production. Typically, a completed storyboard includes the information that all staff, such as a producer, a director, and an art director may use to understand how to construct the corresponding story.

Generating multiple shots in storyboarding


A termite protection system (10) for a wooden foundation structure (12) is disclosed having a plurality of perimeter pipe sections (34) which include integral nozzles orifices (66), and a plurality of interior pipes (38) with non-integral nozzles (44), for distributing a delivering termite control fluids. The pipes (34) and (38) each have a plurality of male ends (50) which can be permanently inserted into a female end (48) of another pipe (34) or (38) or accessory fittings such as "T" fittings (40) and elbow fittings (32). Longitudinal ridges (56) and (58) within each of the male ends (50) fit into receiver grooves (62) in each of the female ends (48) as an aid to orientation of the (34) and (38) and other components. The female ends (48) have interior locking teeth (64) for locking into ridge indentations (60) on the male sections (50) such that components snap together and cannot be easily disassembled. Fluids are introduced into the termite control system (10) through a service access unit (26) having a front plate (106) which has thereon data obtained from an initial system calibration such that service personnel will be informed as to the quantity of fluid and delivery pressure required to adequately protect the structure from termite infestation.

The problem of damage caused to wooden structures by termites is not a new one. Quite a bit of research has gone into the development of effective and safe chemical products to combat the pests. However, no significant progress has been made regarding means for delivering these chemicals to the areas of structures where they are most needed. Currently, a pest control technician usually uses a hand carried sprayer to deposit the chemicals around the perimeter of the structure and onto those areas underneath the structure that can be reached by means of crawl spaces and the like. However, all too frequently, large areas under the structure cannot be reached by this means at all. More importantly, such areas are often some of most prone to termite infestation due to the fact that they are particularly dark, damp, and secluded. Not only is this method ineffective because it does not reach some of the most needed locations, it is expensive. The time and effort required to accomplish this job is significant. Because of the expense involved, and because termite damage is one of those things that is far too easy to ignore until it is too late, many home owners either neglect the task of termite control entirely or else they may attend to it all too infrequently. Of course, this only compounds the problem regarding the ineffectiveness of present methods.
An alternative method of termite control is to "tent" an entire structure and then to fumigate within the tent. Of course, the disadvantages in inconvenience to the residents of this extreme measure are obvious. Furthermore, this method is intended primarily to kill existing infestations, and is not very effective as a measure to provide long term protection. Certainly, it would be better to prevent the termite infestation which necessitates the need for this drastic sort of remedial action by regularly treating foundation areas of the structure with termite pesticides.
Clearly, a means to quickly, easily, and inexpensively treat the foundation areas of wooden structures, including interior portions, with termite control sprays would provide a significant improvement over any presently known method for termite spray delivery.
All of the prior art termite spray delivery methods within the inventor's knowledge have required a service technician to attempt to get into the most inaccessible areas underneath structures in an effort to be as complete as possible with coverage.
No prior art termite spray delivery method to the inventor's knowledge has successfully reached all of the most inaccessible areas under a structure with the spray. All successful applications to date have required that one expend a great deal of time and energy in an effort to be as thorough as possible in the delivery of termite control sprays.


An electronic device may include a display. The display includes display driver circuitry for driving data lines routed across the display. The electronic device may have a recessed device housing region, where at least some of the data lines are routed around the recessed region. The data lines being routed around the recessed region may be formed in at least two different metal routing layers. The electronic device may further include additional display driver circuitry for driving data lines from another peripheral housing edge to obviate the need to route around the recessed region. The data lines from the two display driver circuitries can be disconnected at random locations or can be interlaced to achieve spatial interleaving. The display driver circuitry may include demultiplexing circuitry having smaller switches coupled in parallel with larger demultiplexer routing switches to reduce voltage kick and charge injection.

This relates generally to electronic devices and, more particularly, to electronic devices with displays.
Electronic devices often include displays. Displays are typically driven using a display driver circuit and a gate driver circuit. The display driver circuit provides data signals to corresponding display pixels via data lines, whereas the gate driver circuit provides control signals via gate lines to selectively load the data signals into a subset of the display pixels. Displays oftentimes have a rectangular outline. The design of a display with a rectangular outline is generally straightforward since the data lines and gate lines can be routed in a regular grid-like pattern across the display.
Some displays, however, deviate from the rectangular footprint and have a locally narrowed portion that is bowed inwards. It may be challenging to route the data lines and gate lines in such types of displays with an irregular peripheral edge. If care is not taken, the display border near the locally narrowed portion may be overly congested.

Electronic devices with narrow border displays


Disclosed is a modular voice amplification system for a protective mask that allows connection of a single amplifier assembly to masks of varying configurations through minimal adjustment of the system. Adapter plates in the form of mounting brackets are provided, each of which is configured for attachment to the single amplifier assembly, but is individually configured for attachment to protective masks of varying configurations through differing attachment mechanisms provided on each adapter plate.

Emergency personnel, persons tasked with working in hazardous environments, soldiers deployed in potentially hazardous contaminated environments, and the like are often supplied protective masks, such as gas masks, that provide a safe breathing environment for the operator in the adverse environment. Allowing such personnel to communicate can be critical to success of the mission in which they are operating. However, the protection afforded by typical protective masks can make such communication difficult, as the user's mouth is covered by the mask to prevent them from inhaling dangerous contaminants. Systems have therefore been provided to allow users wearing such protective masks to amplify their voice through an amplification device attached to the mask.
Unfortunately, however, masks can readily become damaged and require replacement given the harsh environments in which they are typically used. Moreover, as there are a variety of protective masks available to consumers of such products, there are likewise a wide variety of amplifiers available which are typically customized for a particular mask. In the event that a need arises to replace a mask that is equipped with a voice amplifier, the user must typically replace with the exact same mask model, or replace both the mask and the amplifier.
Moreover, while voice amplification systems have been provided that are mounted on the protective mask, such amplifiers can be large and bulky, heavy for the user, and impair the user's field of view through the protective mask.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide an amplifier that is of a more simplified, compact, and light-weight construction than previously available amplifiers so as to reduce both costs and burden that must be carried by the user, that is modular and compatible for use on masks of differing configurations, and that has a smaller physical footprint and is generally more easily worn and carried than previously available amplifiers.

Modular voice amplification system for protective mask


A pressure relief assembly (24) includes an aircraft engine cowl (26) having radially outer and inner skins (28,30) having an opening. A door frame (32) is joined around the perimeter of the opening and defines a door seat (34) surrounding a central portal (36). A pressure relief door (38) is joined to the cowl (26) to cover the portal (36). The door (38) has inner and outer surfaces (40,42) terminating in a perimeter rim (44), with the inner surface (40) of the rim (44) overlapping the door seat (34) to define a primary seal (46) with the door stowed closed. A fireproof secondary seal (48) bridges the door inner surface (40) and frame (32) around the inner perimeter of the primary seal (46) to pre-seal flow to the primary seal (46).

The present invention relates generally to aircraft engines, and more specifically to pressure relief doors in the nacelles thereof.
An aircraft engine is mounted to an aircraft inside an aerodynamically smooth nacelle. The typical turbofan gas turbine engine includes a front-mounted fan generating propulsion thrust channeled aft through an annular bypass duct surrounding the core engine.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States certifies aircraft for flight, and promulgates various regulations and rules, including those related to engine fires during operation or flight.
The typical aircraft includes fire control features designed to meet FAA regulations for detecting, controlling, and automatically extinguishing fires by specialized designs. Further regulations define fire zones for the engine, and require suitable fireproofing therein.
For example, 14 CFR 25.1193 regulates fireproofing for the nacelles and cowls surrounding the engine, with different fireproof requirements for different features. Fireproof skins are required in areas subject to fire or flames, and suitable provisions must be provided so that no fire originating in any fire zone can enter, either through openings or by burning through external skin, any other zone or region where it would create additional hazards.
The engine nacelle typically includes a pressure relief door (PRD) which is sealed closed during normal engine operation, but is designed to open when excess pressure builds inside the nacelle, for example, from a failure of the pneumatic or bleed air systems of the engine.
Pressure relief doors are commercially available in various configurations, and typically include a perimeter rim with a flat inner surface which mates with the flat outer surface seat of the door land or frame surrounding the vent portal through the nacelle. The door rim simply overlaps the frame seat to effect a tight contact lap-joint seal therewith.
Excess pressure, for example 3 to 5 p.s.i.g., will exert a pressure load across the exposed inside surface area of the PRD which will force open the PRD to vent the excess pressure. The PRD is hinged for movement between stowed and deployed positions, and a pressure relief latch normally locks closed the PRD.
The PRD latch typically includes a spring that biases closed a latch hook that locks closed the PRD on its frame mating seat. Excess pressure loads exerted on the PRD allow the latch hook to release at a predetermined release load to avoid premature deployment of the PRD, while ensuring suitable venting of the nacelle when required. The release load can have very small or precise tolerances due to the simple lap-joint seal between the PRD rim and its mating frame seat.
Recent studies for a new aircraft under development have shown that exposure of the PRD to fire can cause thermal distortions of the PRD, including distortion of the lap-joint door seal resulting in small gaps therein distributed around the circumference thereof. These small gaps will vent flow from the nacelle, and might affect overall ventilation flow pattern inside the nacelle and the distribution of fire extinguishing agents.
The PRD is provided in an aircraft engine nacelle for the sole purpose of automatically venting excess internal pressure when required during engine operation, especially during aircraft flight, to prevent undesired pressure damage. In the unlikely event of engine fire, normal operation of the PRD must still be retained to allow automatic venting at the desired release load.
Since the pressure relief doors are closed during normal engine operation, no flow is vented, and no additional fire control features therefor have been required in the past. In this regard, the FAA has issued Equivalent Level Of Safety (ELOS) memos for exemplary PRD designs allowing use thereof in commercial service.
However, in the continuing development of the new aircraft mentioned above, it is desired to provide additional fire control features for the otherwise conventional PRD design being developed, without adversely affecting normal operation of the PRD, including the fundamental requirement for maintaining the small tolerance on the predetermined release load in the latching of the door.
In the event of fire, additional fire protection is desired to reduce thermal distortion and damage to the PRD and prevent or minimize fire venting through the stowed PRD while still retaining PRD relief functionality in the further event of excess pressure operation.
One fire protection feature considered during development efforts was the introduction of a conventional fireproof rope seal between the PRD rim and its mating door seat. Such a rope seal requires compression to fill the gap between the rim and seat and might be effective in accommodating some thermal distortion during a fire.
However, compression of the rope seal requires additional compressive forces which could vary significantly depending on minor variations in actual compression distance applied thereto. Such variable compressive forces in turn affect the actual release loads reacted through the pressure relief latch.
Since the latch is designed to a small variation release load, it might therefore release prematurely before a suitable excess pressure is exerted on the PRD, or might release late after the desired excess pressure is applied to the PRD. Early opening would lead to unnecessary maintenance actions, while excess pressure would be unacceptable during an aircraft engine bleed failure event.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide an improved pressure relief door assembly maintaining original performance of the release latch, while introducing additional fireproofing features.


A system and method is provided for providing a deadband switching time delay. One embodiment of the present invention includes a switching regulator system. The switching regulator system includes a control circuit configured to alternately activate a high-side power switch and a low-side power switch of the switching regulator system. The switching regulator system also includes a switching delay element configured to provide a switching deadband associated with a logic state transition delay of at least one of the high-side power switch and the low-side power switch, the delay element comprising a programmable coarse delay element to provide a course delay amount and a programmable fine delay element to provide a fine delay amount.

There is an ever increasing demand for power conversion and regulation circuitry to operate with increased efficiency and reduced power to accommodate the continuous reduction in size of electronic portable devices. Many times these devices are battery powered, and it is desirable to utilize as little power as possible to operate these devices so that the battery life is extended. Voltage regulators have been implemented as an efficient mechanism for providing a regulated output in power supplies. One such type of regulator is known as a switching regulator or switching power supply, which controls the flow of power to a load through pulse-width modulation (PWM), such as can occur by controlling the on and off duty-cycle of one or more switches coupled to the load. Many different classes of switching regulators exist today.
One type of switching regulator is known as a synchronous switching regulator. In a synchronous switching regulator, an inductor is used to maintain current flow that is switched from two separate sources. The two sources can include a high-side switch, such as a high-side field-effect transistor (FET), and a low-side switch, such as a low-side FET and a freewheeling diode. Once the high-side FET is turned off, magnetic power stored in the inductor dissipates to force current through the inductor by changing the voltage of the inductor source node to negative relative to ground. The freewheeling diode thus conducts current from ground to the inductor after the high-side has been turned off and before the low-side FET has been turned on. In this way, current continuously flows through the inductor in the times between activation of the high-side and the low-side switches.
In a synchronous switching regulator, the activation of the high-side switch and the low-side switch is kept mutually exclusive to avoid shoot-through, which is a short circuit of a positive supply voltage to a negative supply voltage (e.g., ground) that can occur through simultaneous activation of both the high-side switch and the low-side switch. As such, a time delay known as a deadband time can be introduced into the PWM control, such that a rising-edge and/or a falling-edge can be delayed to prevent simultaneous activation of the high-side and the low-side switches. Typically, the amount of deadband time delay can be based on a system clock. However, such deadband time delays are typically configured for a conservative amount of time because a system clock may not be able to provide sufficient resolution for optimum switching efficiency.

System and method for implementing high-resolution delay


Improvements in an expandable musical instrument stand where the components of the stand are constructed with tubular sections. The tubular section telescope with an extension mechanism placed between the tubular members to assist in adjusting the playing height of the musical instrument. The expandable construction allows the musical stand to be broken down into smaller sections to make it easier to transport and simple to erect. The expandable section is ideally used with the center tube with a three or four leg stand where the legs can be collapsible on the center tube or the legs can be constructed with the same or similar construction as the center tube where they can be stacked and clamped with a collar.

1 Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an expandable musical instrument stand stands, and more particularly the expandable music stand has a gas strut or similar self expanding device that can be stopped by a user at various amounts of extension to place an instrument on the stand at the desired height.
2 Description of Related Art including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98:
Today many tripod and or other types of stands are configured to be collapsible or extendable. One of the major benefits of making stands collapsible or extendable is that that stands can be transported and stored in a smaller size. Most of these stands are desirable for supporting various articles and instruments since they provide selective height adjustment and a stable support. They are particularly useful is supporting such things as cameras, video equipment, telescopes, surveying instruments, and musical instruments. Tripod stands for drums, however, raise special problems when used on steps or stairs of an auditorium or stadium.
There are several patents that describe various adjustable tripod stand devices. Bureau U.S. Pat. No. 1,517,825 shows a tripod support for a table having adjustable legs.
Some patents describe tubular construction where tubes nest inside at least a portion of each other to extend the length of the tubular structure, examples of this type of extendable construction are found in Cantwell et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,958, Tiballi U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,873, Tidwell U.S. Pat. No. 6,038,802 and Burris U.S. Pat. No. 6,857,607. While these each disclose stacking tubular sections upon each other to form a longer tubular section, they all require the joining to be formed with members that engage within each other.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,643,966 issued to Schmitt is formed with rectangular tubes and an internal member is placed between each tubular section to join the tubes together. A pin or other similar hardware is placed through the tubular sections to retain them in place. While these each disclose stacking tubular sections upon each other to form a longer tubular section, they all require the joining to be formed with members that engage completely within each other.
Boehm, U.S. Pat. No. 3,570,130 discloses a holding device for surveying instruments which includes a channel-like mounting bracket with a pair of instrument gripping clamps and a pair of adjustable legs thereon which cooperate with the instrument to form a tripod type support for supporting the instrument in a reference position.
This invention is an improvement over May U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,910. It is distinguished over the prior art in general, and these patents in particular by an adjustable tripod stand with independently adjustable legs which comprises a longitudinal extensible upright portion of telescoping tubular members, a plurality of collar members slidably mounted on the upright portion which are longitudinally adjustable relative to one another and to the upright portion for selective positioning thereon, and a plurality of movable leg members are operatively connected to upper and lower collar members for selective independent longitudinal positioning and radial extension relative to the upright portion and to one another. One leg of the tripod is adjustable in length, a sufficient amount, to permit support on two different stairs or steps of an auditorium or stadium.
What is needed is an adjustable extension mechanism to assist in lifting a musical instrument. The ideal system would allow a performer to expedite raise and lower a musical instrument mounted on an instrument stand with minimal effort where the extension mechanism offsets the weight of the musical instrument and a securing mechanism on the stand maintains the adjusted height. The proposed musical instrument stand with assisted extension satisfies these needs.

Musical instrument stand with assisted extension


A dual lamp coupling system is provided using a single equilateral 60 degree triangle prism in front of the integrator rod to homogenize the focused light from two lamps, with increased projection brightness. According to one embodiment, the equilateral 60 degree triangular prism is integrated into the end of the rod.

Optical integrator rods are well known components used primarily in illumination systems for electronic projectors. An optical integrator rod is a hollow or solid internally reflective "light pipe" that uses multiple reflections of a focused light source to obtain homogenization of round or irregular patterns of illumination and convert them into a uniform rectangular pattern. This pattern can be imaged onto a panel such as an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or DMD (Digital Micromirror Device) by a relay lens system, and then projected to a screen. Thus, the optical integrator rod is used to improve uniformity and efficiently match the aspect ratio of the illumination source to the panel.
There are two basic types of reflective integrators: a "tunnel" type made of four mirrors, and a solid glass integrator or "solid rod integrator". This latter type is more efficient than the former since it works on lossless multiple reflections using TIR (the Total Internal Reflection) of the glass rod.
Traditionally, for a dual lamp projection system separate integrators have been used for each lamp. Light from each lamp is focused orthogonally onto the input face of the associated integrator rod, and collected at the output face thereof for transmission to the relay lens. Examples of prior systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,196,699 (Stanton), U.S. Pat. No. 6,341,876 (Moss et al), U.S. Pat. No. 6,527,420 (Chuang), U.S. Pat. No. 6,857,761 (Chang), U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,379 (Kane).
The inventor has recognized the desirability of replacing separate integrator rods for each lamp with a single rod, in order to benefit from advantages such as simple mounting, simple alignment, less coupling loss, lower cost since there is no need to provide a mirror coating (only AR coating is required), and eliminated risk of high power damage on the mirror coating.


A direct mounting connector includes: six independent busbars for connecting the apparatus to two auxiliary machines for three-phase alternating current; two U-pole first terminal parts, two V-pole first terminal parts and two W-pole first terminal parts The six first terminal parts are connected to the apparatus at first ends of the respective six busbars, the two first terminal parts of the same pole are arranged adjacently to each other; and two sets, each set of which consists of a second U-pole terminal part, a second V-pole terminal part and a second W-pole terminal part The six second terminal parts are connected to the two auxiliary machines at second ends of the respective six busbars, the two sets arranged adjacently to each other having a distance therebetween. Busbar parts extend between the two sets of the second terminal parts.

FIGS. 11 and 12 show an example of a conventional direct mounting connector (for example, see Patent Publication 1).
A direct mounting connector 61 is provided on a case (64) of an inverter (apparatus) 64 to which three-phase alternating current motors 62, 63 (see FIG. 13) for an electric vehicle are connected. The direct mounting connector 61 includes: three busbar terminals 68-70 corresponding to triple-pole circuits 65-67 (see FIG. 14) of UVW of the apparatus side; electric wires 73 each having a terminal for connecting each of busbar terminals 68-70 by a bolt 71; housings 74 each made of electrically insulating resin for receiving each terminal 72; and a shield shell 75 made of electrically conductive metal for covering the outside of the housings 74.
The triple-pole circuits 65-67 (FIG. 14) within the apparatus are connected to the respective busbar terminals 68-70 by means of bolting. The electric wire 73 having the terminal is sealed with a waterproof plug 76 and the upper part of the housing 74 is sealed a cap 77 of the shield shell. The upper part of the housing 74 is provided with a terminal 78 of a safety circuit which cuts a power source when the cap 77 is opened. The shield shell 75 is fixed on a wall made of electrically conductive metal of the apparatus 64 by a bolt.
FIG. 13 shows a connecting structure of the direct mounting connector 61 and the three-phase alternating current motors 62, 63 for an electric vehicle, wherein the two motors (for example, a motor for driving a right wheel and a motor for driving a left wheel) 62, 63 are electrically connected to the apparatus (an inverter, i.e. direct current-alternating current converter) 64 through three electric wires 79.
In the example shown in the figures, one motor 62 is connected to the apparatus 64 through the direct mounting connector 61 shown in FIG. 11, while the other motor 63 is connected to the apparatus 64 through respective small connectors 61′ per respective electric wires. Each direct mounting connector 61, 61′ is provided on a different wall of a case of the apparatus. Both motors 62, 63 may be connected to the apparatus 64 through the two direct mounting connectors 61 shown in FIG. 11. The apparatus 64 is connected to a direct current battery (not shown in the figure) by two electric wires 80. In FIG. 14, a reference numeral 64a denotes a main body of the apparatus.
A direct current from the battery is converted to an alternating current by the apparatus (inverter) 64 so as to drive the respective motors 62, 63. Each motor acts as a generator by regeneration braking action thereof. An alternating current generated in each motor 62, 63 is converted to a direct current by the apparatus 64 and the battery is charged with the converted direct current.
As another prior art, a busbar structure shown in FIG. 15 is described in Patent Publication 2.
A busbar structure 110 is received, for example, in a casing of a cable terminus junction box (not shown in the figure) which connects a transformer to an accessory apparatus for power distribution in a power plant. Ends 115-117 of the respective busbars 112-114 that construct the busbar structure 110 are connected to corresponding connecting terminals (not shown in the figure) existing in a socket through connecting conductors (not shown in the figure). The other ends 118-120 of the respective busbars 112-114 are connected to corresponding cable (not shown in the figure) through connecting plates (not shown in the figure).
Each of the ends 115-117 of the respective busbars 112-114 is joined with another corresponding end in the plate width direction of the busbar and arranged in a line in a sequence of UVW poles from the right. Each middle portion of the busbars 112-114 is bent in a desired shape on a condition being laminated in the plate thickness direction of the busbar. Each of the other ends 118-120 of the respective busbars 112-114 is separated up and down and arranged in parallel from the left in a sequence of UVW poles. Both ends of the respective busbars 112-114 are connected and fixed to connecting conductors or connecting plates by bolting through respective joint plates (not shown in the figure).
Patent Publication 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-126661 (pages 2-3, FIGS. 1 and 4)
Patent Publication 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-126182 (pages 3-4, FIG. 1)


The present invention provides isolated human or humanized antibodies or antigen-binding fragments thereof which specifically bind to Growth and Differentiation Factor-8 (GDF8) and block GDF8 activity. The antibodies and antibody fragments of the present invention may be used in therapeutic methods for treating conditions or disorders which are ameliorated or improved by inhibition of GDF8.

Growth and Differentiation Factor-8 (GDF8), also known as myostatin, is a member of the TGF-β superfamily of growth factors. GDF8 is a negative regulator of skeletal muscle mass, highly expressed in the developing and adult skeletal muscle.
GDF8 is highly conserved across species, and the amino acid sequences of murine and human GDF8 are identical (human GDF8 nucleic acid sequence and amino acid sequence shown in SEQ ID NO:338-339) (McPherron et al. 1977 Nature 387:83-90).
A number of human diseases are associated with loss or impairment of muscle tissue, for example, muscular dystrophy, muscle atrophy, muscle wasting syndrome, sarcopenia and cachexia, and inhibitors of GDF8 are applicable to treating these diseases or disorders.
Antibodies to GDF8 and therapeutic methods are disclosed in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,096,506, U.S. Pat. No. 7,320,789, U.S. Pat. No. 7,807,159, WO 2007/047112, WO 2005/094446, US 2007/0087000, U.S. Pat. No. 7,261,893, and WO 2010/070094.


A computer implemented method for object detection includes the following steps carried out by computer hardware components: acquiring an image; determining a pixel of the image as a base pixel; determining coordinates of a plurality of sets of target pixels, each set of target pixels including a plurality of pixels in a respective pre-determined relationship to the base pixel; for each of the sets of target pixels, determining information representing values of the pixels in the respective set of target pixels; and determining whether a pre-determined object is shown in the image based on the determined information.

The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for object detection, in particular for headlight recognition or for traffic sign recognition.
Digital imaging devices, such as digital cameras, are used in various automotive applications. One such application is adaptive headlight control to switch between low beam and high beam. Headlight control is relevant to the safety of the vehicles because high beam light may dazzle a driver from an oncoming or a preceding vehicle by an excessive glare. Adaptive headlight control may be carried out based on headlight detection.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide devices and methods for reliable headlight detection.

Methods and systems for object detection


A developing unit for transferring toner onto a latent image on an image carrier so as to develop the latent image includes a toner carrier, an electric field generator and a separating force applicator. The toner carrier including a plurality of electrodes disposed along the surface thereof and insulated from each other transports the toner to a developing area facing the image carrier. The electric field generator applies a periodic voltage to the plurality of electrodes of the toner carrier so that an electric field is generated on the toner carrier surface to cause the toner charged to a given polarity and borne on the surface of the toner carrier to hop. The separating force applicator applies a separating force to separate the toner on the toner carrier from the surface thereof outside the developing area. The separating force applicator is disposed separately from the electric field generator.

1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary aspects of the present invention relate to a developing unit and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to a developing unit for developing a latent image on an image carrier with toner and an image forming apparatus including the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to related arts, it is known that a developing unit transports toner to a developing area along with a rotary motion of a toner carrier while an electric field curtain generator provided on the toner carrier generates an electric field curtain which causes toner carried on a surface of the toner carrier to hop.
In such a related art developing unit, a spare charging roller is provided in a manner such that it abuts the toner carrier surface so that the electric field curtain effect stably acts upon the toner carried on the toner carrier surface.
The spare charging roller performs frictional charging on the toner between the spare charging roller and the toner carrier. Thereby, sufficiently charged toner having received the effect of electric field curtain is stably transported to the developing area.
Furthermore, it has been proposed that in a developing apparatus, toner is transferred from a developer carrier to one end surface of a transportation substrate (toner carrier) including a plurality of electrodes. The plurality of electrodes generates an electric field for transporting the toner by causing toner to hop by an electrostatic force. Such a developing apparatus transports the toner, which is transferred from the developer carrier, to the developing area across from a latent image carrier by the electrostatic force while causing the toner to hop on the transportation substrate.
Related art developers cause toner to hop by generating an electric field on a surface of a toner carrier. In order to cause the toner to hop, a weak adherence between the toner carrier surface and the toner may be important. It may also be important to generate an appropriate electric field on the toner carrier surface.
However, in the related art developing apparatuses, there is such a problem that toner may be adsorbed to the toner carrier surface. Consequently, toner may not be able to stably hop in the electric field generated on the toner carrier surface.
The main cause of this problem may be that some kind of external force acts on toner, thereby increasing the adhesion of toner relative to the toner carrier surface beyond the level of an electrostatic force from the electric field.
When the spare charging roller performs the frictional charging on the toner on the toner carrier surface, the toner is pressed against the toner carrier surface causing the adherence of the toner relative to the toner carrier surface to increase. Consequently, there may be such a problem that toner may not be able to stably hop.
Furthermore, when the external force continues to act on the toner carrier surface, the toner may be firmly fixed to the toner carrier surface. In such a case, the adhered toner may disrupt the electric field. Consequently, toner may not be able to stably hop.
When the electric field generated on the toner carrier surface is increased, the adherence of toner to the toner carrier surface may increase, thereby making it possible to cause the toner to hop. However, in such a case, when the toner affected by the increased electric field may be easily separated from the toner carrier surface. Consequently, stable toner hopping may not be able to achieve.

Developing unit and image forming apparatus