The present invention is intended to reduce the consumption of a battery while appropriately performing operation in the case where an AC power source is disconnected and power supply is switched to the battery. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus including: an AC adapter connection detecting section (13) that detects whether the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is electrically connected with the AC power source; and a display section (10), wherein, when the AC adapter connection detecting section (13) detects that the AC power source is disconnected, power supply is switched to power supply from the battery (11), and an operation screen for controlling an amount of the power supply in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is displayed on the display section (10).

Conventionally, ultrasonic diagnostic apparatuses have been used which operate with power supplied from a commercial AC power source. In recent years, however, ultrasonic diagnostic apparatuses which allow switching between a commercial AC power source and a rechargeable battery have been used in order to deal with various use modes of ultrasonic diagnostic apparatuses. PTL 1, for example, discloses a configuration in which a power source unit having a rechargeable battery is connected to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and this power source unit can switch between an AC power source and the battery. Specifically, in this configuration, when an input from the AC power source is detected, the power from the AC power source is supplied to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, and when no input is detected from the AC power source, the power from the battery is supplied to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and method of controlling ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus


In one embodiment, a Schottky diode structure comprises a Schottky barrier layer in contact with a semiconductor material through a Schottky contact opening. A conductive ring is formed adjacent the Schottky contact opening and is separated from the semiconductor material by a thin insulating layer. Another insulating layer is formed overlying the structure, and a contact opening is formed therein. The contact opening is wider than the Schottky contact opening and exposes portions of the conductive ring. A Schottky barrier metal is formed in contact with the semiconductor material through the Schottky contact opening, and is formed in further+contact with the conductive ring.

Metal-semiconductor barrier devices such Schottky diode devices are widely used. For example, Schottky diodes are often integrated into digital logic circuits as fast switches. Also, discrete Schottky diodes are used as power rectifiers because, among other things, they sustain high currents at lower voltage drops compared to diffused pn-junction diodes. Additionally, Schottky diodes are used as variable capacitors that can be operated efficiently, for example, at microwave frequencies.
The integration of Schottky diodes into integrated circuits is assisted by the fact that many such circuit utilize n-type semiconductor material and aluminum contacts in their manufacture. Aluminum forms a blocking contact with n-type silicon if the n-type doping is sufficiently low enough to prevent tunneling electrons from penetrating the barrier. By way of example, doping less than about 1017 atoms/cm3 is sufficient to provide a good barrier junction. Also, the barrier height of a Schottky barrier comprised of n-type silicon and aluminum is about 0.70 electron volts (eV), and such devices approximate theoretical device characteristics under forward bias quite well.
However, because of the planar structure of typical Schottky devices used today, the breakdown voltage under reverse bias typically is lower than what is desired. This is because the concentration of electric field lines increases near corners of the devices, which detrimentally impacts the abruptness of the reverse breakdown voltage. In addition, when aluminum is used to form the Schottky barrier contact, aluminum spikes are known to form at the edges of the active region because of an interaction between the aluminum, silicon and oxygen from adjacent passivating layers. The aluminum spikes can cause localized high concentrations of electric field lines, which also degrades reverse breakdown voltage.
One technique that manufacturers have used to counteract the effects described above includes diffused guard rings. One problem with the diffused guard ring approach is that they complicate device processing, and they are not suitable for higher forward voltage devices. It is also known to use extended metal flaps overlying thick dielectric regions to enhance reverse breakdown voltages of devices. However, this approach does not solve the aluminum or metal spiking problem described above, which degrades reverse breakdown voltage.
Accordingly, a need exists for a Schottky diode structure and method of manufacture that improves reverse breakdown voltage performance, that is simple to integrate into existing integrated circuit process flows, and that is cost effective.

Schottky diode structure with enhanced breakdown voltage and method of manufacture

Semiconductor Components Industries, L.L.C.


An antenna holder includes: an antenna attachment portion attached with a plurality of receiving antennas configured to receive wireless signals transmitted from a medical device introduced into a subject; and a fitting portion where the antenna attachment portion is detachably attached and that is fitted on the subject. The antenna attachment portion includes: a plurality of antenna fixing portions where at least one of positions of the plurality of receiving antennas is fixed; an interlinking portion configured to variably interlink relative positions of the plurality of antenna fixing portions; and a first attachment portion attached to the fitting portion. The fitting portion includes: a second attachment portion where the first attachment portion is detachably attached, the second attachment portion being configured to determine positions of the plurality of antenna fixing portions upon fitting of the plurality of antenna fixing portions on the subject, according to build of the subject.

The present disclosure relates to an antenna holder and an antenna attachment portion included in the antenna holder.
In the field of endoscopes, known is a capsule endoscope device having an imaging function, a wireless communication function, and the like, which are built in a capsule-shaped casing formed into a size introducible into a digestive tract of a subject, such as a patient. After being swallowed from the mouth of the subject, this capsule endoscope device sequentially captures images of the interior of the subject, generates image data, and sequentially transmits the image data wirelessly, while moving through the interior of the subject, such as the digestive tract, due to the peristaltic movement or the like.
The image data thus transmitted wirelessly by the capsule endoscope device are received by a receiving device via plural receiving antennas provided outside the subject. Each of these plural receiving antennas is inserted in an antenna holder, and fixed to a body surface of the subject. For example, a technique for fixing receiving antennas in a diagnostic jacket serving as an antenna holder is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-245938.

Antenna holder and antenna attachment portion


It is an object of the present invention to provide an engine control apparatus for detecting a voltage abnormality caused in a power supply thereof at low cost. An engine control apparatus for controlling an engine, includes: power supply voltage detecting unit for detecting a power supply voltage of a battery mounted on a vehicle as a power supply, which supplies the engine control apparatus with power; backup power supply voltage detecting unit for detecting a backup power supply voltage of a backup power supply, which supplies the engine control apparatus with power from the battery via a different path; voltage difference calculating unit for calculating a voltage difference between the power supply voltage and the backup power supply voltage; and power supply voltage abnormality determining unit for determining that there is an abnormality in the power supply voltage when the voltage difference is not within a predetermined range.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for controlling an engine, capable of detecting an abnormality in a power supply voltage supplied thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
An apparatus for controlling an engine is supplied with power from a battery. The battery is charged by a generator mounted on a vehicle. The generator generates power when a field coil is excited with a field current and a power generation current is caused to flow through an armature coil rotating through rotation of the engine. Power generation control of the generator is performed by feedback control. That is, a control transistor is operated to be turned on and off to excite the field coil so that the voltage of the battery charged by the generator is held at a target voltage, and a target amount of power for making a voltage difference into zero is generated. The battery is charged through the power generation current, and the voltage of the battery is held at the target voltage.
When the output voltage of the generator has risen above an abnormally high voltage value, the field current is shut off to forcedly stop the power generation. Thus, the generator is protected from being destroyed through overcharge.
In order to detect an abnormality in a power supply voltage of the engine control apparatus, there is proposed a method using an ammeter (e.g., see JP 2001-69681 A).
However, the aforementioned protection against overcharge has the following problem. For instance, the engine control apparatus may operate by being supplied with power via a detour from a certain load terminal connected thereto when a power supply terminal of the engine control apparatus is disconnected. In this state, the power supply voltage supplied via the detour becomes lower than a normal power supply voltage due to a voltage drop. Accordingly, power generation control is performed based on this lowered power supply voltage, so the output voltage of the generator rises. While power generation can be forcedly stopped when the power supply voltage supplied via the detour is higher than an abnormally high voltage value, feedback control of the generator is performed when the output voltage of the generator is higher than the abnormally high voltage value but the power supply voltage supplied via the detour is equal to or lower than the abnormally high voltage value. Since power generation is then continued with the voltage higher than the abnormally high voltage value, the generator is destroyed through overcharge.
Further, since the ammeter is used as a detection unit, there is also a problem of high cost.


A system for controlling and coordinating activities among entities in an information and process environment comprising a communications pathway for transmitting and receiving communications of the entities, and a shared memory connected to the communications pathway for maintaining a tuple space on which the entities post and receive messages synchronized to discrete time intervals.

Distributed information processing involves two or more processing entities under autonomous control or purpose which operate cooperatively to resolve a processing need. Such entities frequently operate within a system and are frequently subsets of larger systems tailored to address a specific processing aspect, but may originate remotely making demands on the local system. In complex systems, entities frequently compete and share resources within the environment and the operation of one entity may affect, degrade, inhibit, or even destabilize the operation of another. One of the problems in distributed information processing and computing is the coordination of activities among the various entities in the environment. While the coordination problem manifests itself in distributed environments, it also appears in other contexts such as integrated multi-component computing systems where coordination is required between multiple components which may reside within the same cabinet or in service environments where resources must be shared.
One example of this problem is the creation of features in telephone switching systems. Telephone switching systems are typically very large. They are implemented to provide many hundreds of features and consist of tens of millions of lines of code. These systems are not static. The developers of such systems are required by competitive pressures to add features on a regular basis. This presents the problem that the additional functions of new features interact with the functioning of features already present in the system. In the worst case, the newly added features can disable the functioning of an older feature, destabilize the system or create conditions which will confuse the user. Because of this problem, previous approaches have expended considerable effort during the development of new features to determine all possible interactions with all of the other features in the system. There have been many proposals to handle the problem of feature interaction in telephone systems. In one prior art system, Northern Telecom has developed a method in which models of call set up have been developed for the Intelligent Network and the Advanced Intelligent Network where features are constructed as separate state machines which interact by communication through a stack based mechanism to provide a degree of regularity in call processing.
A second example of the problem is the coordination and allocation of resources in the provisioning of a service, especially in real time environments where there are time and qualitative constraints. Where there are numerous applications that use a service, such as a printing service, and a number of print processes that serve requests, difficulty occurs in allocating resources to get the job done given the various priorities and quality requirements of each job and the current status and capability of each resource.
A third example of the problem is component coordination in multiple component systems. Component based hardware and software uses parts developed by different vendors. Vendors create components from parts developed by other vendors. When components are brought together, in some circumstances, they modify the behavior of other components. If the parts are static, with their behavior well known and not expected to change over the course of a component's lifetime, then it is possible to identify and resolve all possible component interactions at the time of the original system design. However, in this prior art approach, it is necessary to consider the behavior of any part in the presence of all the possible combinations of all other parts. When the number of parts becomes large, the task becomes enormous, and virtually impossible when components are not available and their behavior not known beforehand at design time, or the behavior can be changed or upgraded after the initial implementation.
The use of tuple spaces is also known in the art as a means of communication between entities. A tuple space is an instance of a blackboard architecture where there are knowledge sources or entities that invoke operations on the blackboard. In the prior art, knowledge sources communicate with the tuple space using a publish-subscribe mechanism. An entity in a prior art tuple space will publish the occurrence of its action or event such that other entities who subscribe become aware that the event has occurred. These prior art tuple spaces are event based and asynchronous. This means that the tuple space provides matching and processing of tuples on the occurrence of events. However, there are problems with prior art tuple spaces. The event based, asynchronous nature of prior art tuple spaces leads to complications in synchronization, maintaining of data integrity and potential dead-locks. There are no assurances that events will occur or means to communicate that the occurrence of an event is no longer relevant.

Processing by use of synchronized tuple spaces and assertions


This invention refers to a totally adjustable, low-friction bracket system which allows the programming of the prescription in an individualized fashion reducing the quantity of adjustments in the archwires, in order to bring the teeth into their suitable positions in orthodontic treatments.

At the beginning of the 20th century the need to have a tridimensional control of the tooth movement in orthodontic treatments was visualized. That is why the first brackets were developed. These were attached to the teeth by means of bands which in turn were bonded to the teeth; these first designs, in which the slot was perpendicular to the bracket base, assumed the inclination of the teeth; therefore, the clinicians had to bend the archwires in order to compensate the different inclinations presented by the slots, so the orthodontic treatments were totally craftsmanlike. In the early 1970's, the bracket fastening system to the teeth was changed, and a mesh was added to the base for the direct bonding to the enamel, thus eliminating the need to use bands. In the same decade the first system of preadjusted brackets was developed, these brackets already presented a prescription developed by measuring the inclination presented by the tooth labial (external) surface; from then on, the development of numerous preadjusted systems was started, each one with a different prescription, but with the same aim of placing the teeth in suitable positions without the need to perform bendings in the archwires, which nowadays is known to be wrong, because there are many aspects making persons different from each other. Nowadays clinicians are forced by this situation to make bends in the archwires in order to achieve the tooth positions suitable to each individual.
All of the preadjusted systems initially designed and still prevailing have control of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd order movements; the first order-movement control is achieved by modifying the bracket base thickness, the second order-movement control is achieved by inclining the bracket body in relation to the base in the mesio-distal sense, the third order movements are achieved in two ways: 1) inclining the base in relation to the body (torque in the base) and 2) by the inclination of the slot inside the bracket body (torque in the face). This should force the clinicians to have a very precise clinical view. That is why, and in order to avoid those drawbacks, we developed a novel totally adjustable bracket fitting to the dental characteristics of each individual.
The bracket: Among other alloys, it may be manufactured with stainless steel and consists of three separated parts (FIGS. 1, 2 and 3); a base (1), a body (2) and a self-ligating clasp (3) ready to be joined. Each part displays six surfaces: lingual, labial, mesial, distal, gingival and occlusal.
The base: On its lingual surface (FIG. 4) it displays a mesh for bonding to the enamel (4), the center of this surface shows a rectangular retentive depression designed to receive one of the welding machine points (5), the base lingual surface may be flat (FIG. 5) (6) or concave (FIG. 6) (7) depending on the tooth where it will be placed. The base labial surface (FIG. 7) shows a central concavity, designed to articulate and join to the lingual surface of the body (8); within the concavity silver solder may be added (9) to seal the joint when the base is attached to the body by electrical spot welding. On its mesial (10), distal (11) and gingival (12) ends the base has three indentations for identifying and for holding to the spot welding machine. The base width dimensions vary depending on the tooth where the base is going to be placed. In a mesiodistal view (FIG. 8) the base has an inclination representing the torque prescription in the base which is different for each tooth (13). The base thickness (FIG. 9) may vary depending on the tooth where it will be placed (14), modifying the tooth position in the labial-lingual sense.
The body: Its lingual surface has a convex shape (FIG. 10) (15) for articulating and joining to the concavity on the base labial surface (8); this allows to have ten degrees of rotation in the occluso-gingival sense (torque), ten degrees clockwise or counterclockwise (angulation), and five degrees of rotation in the mesio-distal sense (anti-rotation). On its labial surface the body has two pairs of retentive wings (FIG. 11) which may be used to place elastic chains or metallic ligatures. Each pair of wings is located on mesial (16) and distal (17) of the body, and the wings in each pair show an occlusal (18) and gingival disposition (19). On its labial portion each wing has a groove (20) for the insertion of the self-ligating clasp. Hooks for holding elastics may be added to the gingival wings (21), as well as an identifying mark on the distogingival wing (22). In the space between the wings of each pair, in the occlusogingival sense, there is a horizontal slot of rectangular shape spanning from mesial to distal of the body (23). The slot dimensions are 0.02235×0.028″, and it is used to insert principal archwires. In the space between the mesial and distal pairs of wings there is a vertical slot (24) deeper than the horizontal one, used for the insertion of one of the welding device points in order to join the bracket body with the base. The center of the vertical slot shows an identifying number in order to determine the tooth corresponding to the bracket (25). In a mesiodistal view (FIG. 12) the convex shape of the lingual surface is observed (15), as well as the retentive shape of the wings (16, 18, 19).
The self-ligating clasp: This moving element is inserted in the grooves that the wings have on their labial surface (20). The clasp is introduced in a gingivo-occlusal direction (FIGS. 13 and 14). This accessory shows a novel dual system which the clinician may place and remove at will. It is designed for use in low-friction mechanics, or for use in the traditional ligating system. The clasp is presented in three modalities: 1) low-friction clasp (FIG. 15), with two parallel arms (26) and a connector (27). The arms have indentations (28) on their mesial and distal surfaces aimed at holding the clasp on insertion and removal. In a mesiodistal view the arms display a groove (29) on their ends to prevent them from being dislodged (FIG. 16).
The connector (27) shows a thickening (30) serving as a stop when the clasp is inserted in the grooves, this clasp by being totally flat (31) allows the slot space to remain free. 2) Prescription-expression clasp (FIG. 17), showing three arms: two lateral arms (32), one inner arm (33) and a connector (34); the lateral arms display indentations (35) aimed at holding the clasp when it is inserted and removed. These arms have grooves on their ends (36) to avoid dislodgement. The inner arm has an irregular shape being wider in its free end (37); this provides more supporting surface to the arm. The center of these arms shows a curvature towards lingual (38) which forces the archwires to seat on the horizontal slot bottom (23). This feature allows the bracket prescription to be expressed by using full size archwires. In a mesiodistal view (FIG. 18), the connector (34) shows a thickening (39) which serves as a stop when the clasp is inserted in the grooves. In this view the curvature of the inner arm towards lingual is observed (38). 3) Esthetic clasp (FIG. 19), this clasp has the modality of a wider and flatter inner arm (4). The lateral arms (41) display indentations (42) serving as a hold for the clasp when it is inserted and removed. On their ends the lateral arms show a groove (43) to prevent them from being dislodged. The connector (44) joins the lateral arms to the inner one. In a mesiodistal view (FIG. 20) the connector (44) shows a thickening (45) serving as a stop when the clasp is inserted in the grooves. This clasp may be manufactured in materials allowing it to have different colors: ivory-colored for adult patients and in color for young patients
This totally adjustable bracket system works as follows: all of the brackets have a predetermined prescription of inclination, angulation and movement of first order which the clinician will be able to modify at will by means of the measuring and perspective prescription appliance, whose patent is being taken out. Once the inclination of the tooth labial surface is obtained, including molars, the information is carried to the brackets by means of the welding unit that permits joining the base to the body (FIG. 21a, b); when the base and the body are placed on the welding unit (FIG. 22a, b), the torque is adjusted having the possibility of incrementing or decreasing it up to ten degrees (FIG. 23a, b); following this the angulation is adjusted (FIG. 24a, b) having the possibility of increasing or decreasing it up to ten degrees; an anti-rotation movement of up to five degrees may be added (FIG. 25a, b); the adjustment for the first order movement is achieved by using different base thicknesses.
The brackets may be placed by means of indirect bonding once they have the individualized prescription; the self-ligating clasp modality allows their use in order to generate low friction during the tooth movement, or to use them with a different esthetic appearance, or when there is a need to allow the expression of the prescription by inserting full size archwires, it also allows to place metallic or elastic ligature.
The above-mentioned features eliminate the need to perform adjustments in the archwires, so the orthodontist really would be able to work with straight archwire systems; however, the most important thing of this invention is that it fits to the individual characteristics of the person.


In accordance with one embodiment, an information processing apparatus comprises an acquisition module configured to acquire an image of a commodity, a detection module configured to detect the commodity from the image acquired by the acquisition module, a recognition module configured to compare the feature amount of the commodity detected by the detection module with the feature amount of each reference commodity to recognize the reference commodity of which the similarity degree is greater than a threshold value as a commodity candidate, a commodity candidate display module configured to display the commodity candidates recognized before a given waiting time period elapses in the descending order of similarity degree, and then successively display the commodity candidates recognized after the waiting time period elapses in sequence, and a reception module configured to receive an operation of selecting one from the displayed commodity candidates.

Conventionally, there is a technology in which the feature amount of an object is extracted from image data obtained by photographing the object and the extracted feature amount is compared with the prepared data indicating the feature amount of a registered each reference object to recognize the category of the object. Moreover, a store system in which such technology is applied to the recognition (identification) of a commodity such as vegetables and fruits and the sales of the recognized commodity is registered is proposed. In such a store system, in a case in which there are a plurality of commodities (commodity candidates) serving as a recognized candidate for the commodity, the commodity candidates are displayed in the descending order of similarity degree with the commodity and a selection operation for the commodity candidates from an operator is received.
However, in the conventional constitution and operation stated above, the display order of the commodity candidates is interchanged in a case in which a commodity candidate having a similarity degree higher than that of the commodity candidate presently displayed is recognized even in a case in which one commodity is held over against a reading window because the commodity candidates are displayed in the descending order of similarity degree. In this case, if the display order of commodity candidates is suddenly interchanged at the timing an operator just selects a commodity candidate displayed, there is a possibility that the operator inadvertently selects a commodity candidate which is not desired. Thus, a technology is needed to avoid such an incorrect selection.

Information processing apparatus and information display method by the same


A system that executes a process for mapping cardiac fibrillation and optimizing ablation treatments. The process, in some embodiments, includes: positioning a two dimensional electrode array to several locations in a patient's heart and at each location, obtaining a conduction velocity and a cycle length measurement from at least two local signals in response to electrical activity in the cardiac tissue. In some embodiments, a regional wavelength is calculated by multiplying the local conduction velocity with the local minimum cycle length. The system can then create a wavelength distribution map that identifies the location of the drivers in the heart. In certain embodiments, the system uses variability of conduction velocity and cycle length in an area to determine the driver type. In some embodiments, the system calculates average distance of drivers to non-conductive tissue boundaries. The system then selects ablation placements that maximize treatment efficacy while minimizing tissue damage.

Atrial fibrillation, which accounts for almost one-third of all admissions to a hospital for a cardiac rhythm disturbance, is an uncontrolled twitching or quivering of muscle fibers (fibrils) resulting in an irregular and often rapid heart arrhythmia associated with increased mortality and risk of stroke and heart failure. See, e.g., Calkins et al., Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation with Anti-arrhythmic Drugs or Radio Frequency Ablation: Two Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-analyses, 2(4) Circ. Arrhythmia Electrophysiol. 349-61 (2009). Atrial fibrillation may be paroxysmal or chronic, and the causes of atrial fibrillation episodes are varied and often unclear; however, atrial fibrillation manifests as a loss of electrical coordination in the top chambers of the heart. When fibrillation occurs in the lower chambers of the heart, it is called ventricular fibrillation. During ventricular fibrillation, blood is not pumped from the heart, and sudden cardiac death may result.
Existing treatments for cardiac fibrillation include medications and other interventions to try to restore and maintain normal organized electrical activity to the atria. When medications, which are effective only in a certain percentage of patients, fail to maintain normal electrical activity, clinicians may resort to incisions made during open heart surgery or minimally-invasive ablation procedures, whereby lines of non-conducting tissue are created across the cardiac tissue in an attempt to limit the patterns of electrical excitation to include only organized activity and not fibrillation. Id. at 355. If sufficient and well-placed, the non-conducting tissue (e.g., scar tissue) will interfere with and normalize the erratic electrical activity, ideally rendering the atria or ventricles incapable of supporting cardiac fibrillation.
Catheter ablation targeting isolation of the pulmonary veins has evolved over the past decade and has become the treatment of choice for drug-resistant paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. The use of ablation for treatment of persistent atrial fibrillation has been expanding, with more centers now offering the procedure.
Unfortunately, the success of current ablation techniques for treating cardiac fibrillation is less than desirable, for example, curing only about 70% of atrial fibrillation patients. Id. at 354. In contrast, ablation for treating heart arrhythmias other than fibrillation is successful in more than 95% of patients. Spector et al., Meta-Analysis of Ablation of Atrial Flutter and Supraventricular Tachycardia, 104(5) Am. J. Cardiol. 671, 674 (2009). One reason for this discrepancy in success rates is due to the complexity of identifying the ever-changing and self-perpetuating electrical activities occurring during cardiac fibrillation. Without the ability to accurately determine the source locations and mechanisms underlying cardiac fibrillation in an individual patient and develop a customized ablation strategy, clinicians must apply generalized strategies developed on the basis of cardiac fibrillation pathophysiologic principles identified in basic research and clinical studies from other patients. The goal of ablation is to alter atrial and/or ventricular physiology and, particularly, electrophysiology such that the chamber no longer supports fibrillation; it is insufficient to simply terminate a single episode. However, ablation lesions have the potential to cause additional harm to the patient (e.g., complications including steam pops and cardiac perforation, thrombus formation, pulmonary vein stenosis, and atrio-esophageal fistula) and to increase the patient's likelihood of developing abnormal heart rhythms (by introducing new abnormal electrical circuits that lead to further episodes of fibrillation).
In addition, existing catheters with their associated electrode configurations that are used to assist in preventing, treating, and at least minimizing if not terminating cardiac fibrillation have several shortcomings, including that the electrodes are too large, the inter-electrode spacing is too great, and the electrode configurations are not suitably orthogonal to the tissue surface. These catheters of the prior art tend to prompt time consuming methods since the catheter, and thus its electrodes, have to be moved to a relatively large number of locations in the heart cavity to acquire sufficient data. Additionally, moving the catheter to different locations so that the catheter's electrode(s) touch the endocardium is a cumbersome process that is technically challenging.
Further complicating the use of prior art contact-based catheters is the occurrence of unstable arrhythmia conditions. Particularly, ventricular tachyarrhythmias may compromise the heart's ability to circulate blood effectively. As a result, the patient cannot be maintained in fast tachyarrhythmia's for more than a few minutes, which significantly complicates the ability to acquire data during the arrhythmia. In addition, some arrhythmias are transient or nonperiodic in nature; therefore, contact-based catheters of the prior art are less suitable for mapping these arrhythmia's since the sequential contact-based methodology is predicated on the assumption that recorded signals are periodic in nature.
Thus, cardiac fibrillation patients would benefit from new methods and systems for the preventing, treating, and at least minimizing if not terminating cardiac fibrillation in the underlying "substrate" (i.e., the tissue on which abnormal electrical circuits of reentry are formed) responsible for the initiation and perpetuation of cardiac fibrillation. These methods and systems would help clinicians minimize or prevent further episodes and increase the success rate of non-invasive ablation treatments in cardiac fibrillation patients. There remains a need for patient-specific, map-guided ablation strategies that would minimize the total amount of ablation required to achieve the desired clinical benefit by identifying ablation targets and optimizing the most efficient means of eliminating the targets.
To select the best ablation strategy for an atrial fibrillation patient, it is important to determine the atrial fibrillation driver/circuit locations and driver/circuit types. Known mapping methods have their limitations. For example, simultaneous multi-site activation mapping requires too many electrodes to be deployed at once. Dominant frequency mapping is subjected to errors introduced by applying Fourier analysis to sharp and varies signals. And scar mapping cannot be used to identify driver types.
Challenges associated with atrial fibrillation ("AF") activation mapping include: 1) poor spatial resolution results in fractionated electrograms (and hence ambiguous local activation time) and 2) changing activation precludes sequential mapping (even with high-resolution electrodes, simultaneous mapping is not possible given a limited number of electrodes that can be inserted into the patient's heart). A hypothesis in atrial fibrillation activation mapping is that if all activation locations are mapped; it is then possible to identify all driver locations and driver types. However, computational modeling suggests that obtaining a complete activation map will not necessarily result in an accurate identification of driver location and type. With multiwavelet reentry, driver regions are not obvious, even upon visual inspection. Physiology principles indicate that driver distribution is not random, but rather associated with regional heterogeneities in the tissue. This suggests the possibility of mapping tissue properties, rather than activation sites, to deduce the driver location and type.
A major challenge with activation mapping of AF is that activation keeps changing, which makes sequential activation mapping (of fibrillation) more difficult. Tissue properties, however, are not constantly changing. Over time, tissue properties may change due to remodeling, but they typically do not change during the timeframe of map building. Therefore, tissue properties can be mapped sequentially (e.g., by moving one electrode array sequentially within an atrium).

Methods and systems for wavelength mapping cardiac fibrillation and optimizing ablation lesion placement


A needle engaging with a loop at least lastly formed on a fabric formed just before inversion of a carriage is pulled by a pull-down cam formed in a composite cam system of the carriage while feeding a yarn to an opposite needle. When a feeding direction of a yarn fed from a yarn feeder is inverted accompanied with the inversion of the carriage, the tension force applied to the yarn is intensified to prevent tightening of the stitch of the knitted fabric.

In general, a circular knitting machine having a needle arranged movably upward on a peripheral surface of a tubular cylinder is used for forming a tubular knitting, for example, socks, gloves and sweaters. The tubular knitting is formed through feeding yarn while controlling the lifting operation of the needle on the peripheral surface of the cylinder.
With the use of the circular knitting machine for producing a tubular knitted fabric, the numbers of wale and the peripheral length are defined by the number of needles and the diameter of the cylinder. In order to form the tubular knitting with different numbers of wale and the peripheral length, the circular knitting machine equipped with various cylinders for the variation is required.
In order to form the tubular knitting with the long peripheral length, the diameter of the cylinder of the circular knitting machine is increased, thus enlarging the entire size of such machine.
The weft-knitting machine having a pair of longitudinally arranged front and rear needle beds with ends of the needles confronting each other, which is allowed to produce tubular knitted fabric of different diameters has been disclosed by the applicant of the present invention.
With the weft-knitting machine, when the carriage reciprocally movable on the needle bed is in the forward stroke, the yarn is fed to the needle of the needle bed to form the fabric at one side, and in the return stroke, the yarn is fed to the needle of the other needle bed such that the yarn for forming the fabric at one side is continued to form the fabric at the other side as shown in FIG. 5. The aforementioned fabric-forming course is repeatedly performed alternately to produce a tubular knitted fabric having both ends connected.
In the aforementioned case, upon transition from one needle bed to the other, the direction of the tension applied to the fed yarn changes as shown in FIG. 5. The needle of the needle bed at the edge of the fabric is likely to be pulled out. Once the needle is pulled out, the resultant loop becomes small.
The small loop may deteriorate quality of the tubular knitted product.
In order to cope with the aforementioned problem, the applicant of the present invention has proposed the art for producing a tubular knitted fabric using the weft-knitting machine equipped with a pair of needle beds arranged longitudinally, which allows the carriage to reciprocally move to connect both end portions of the fabric with the needle of the respective needle beds for producing the tubular knitted fabric. When the carriage is in the forward stroke where the needle is controlled to advance by the control cam for forming the knitted fabric, the needle advance preventing unit provided at both ends and/or closed to both ends is released to allow the needle to advance. When the carriage is in the return stroke, the needle advance preventing unit is enabled to allow the needle at both ends and/or close to both ends of the fabric to only retract (Patent Document 1).                Patent Document 1: Laid open Japanese Patent Application (Unexamined) Publication No. 86561/1993

Method for producing tubular knitted fabric and weft-knitting machine


A method for modifying the performance of an adaptive equalizer in a receiver is provided. A carrier wave including a first polarization state and a second polarization state, wherein there is a correlation between the first polarization state and the second polarization state, is received. The first polarization state and the second polarization state are demultiplexed to generate two respective constellations. A first expected value based on the first constellation, and a second expected value based on the second constellation, are calculated. An adaptive equalizer receives a first and second signals associated with the respective polarization states. The adaptive equalizer generates outputs based on the signals. These outputs are used to generate error values. Feedback is input into the adaptive equalizer, wherein the feedback is based on the error values.

The popularity of multimedia communications services over packet data networks, such as the Internet, continues to grow. Consequently, the demand for higher capacity in core data transport networks continues to grow. For service providers, core data transport networks are optical networks based on fiber optic technology. To increase the capacity of optical networks, advanced signal modulation techniques, such as quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) have been developed. The push for higher spectral efficiencies to lower the cost per transmitted bit and the concern about exhausting the fiber bandwidth has focused much recent research work on multi-level, multi-dimensional modulation formats to achieve the ultimate capacity in a single fiber.
Digital coherent detection has proven to be an effective technique for detecting and demodulating the received optical signals based on multi-level, multi-dimensional modulation formats. Although progress has been made, due to the increased optical-signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) requirements, the reach of these multi-level, multi-dimensional modulation formats is clearly a concern. Thus, power efficient modulation formats, those having a low required signal-to-noise ratio per bit for a given bit-error-ratio, have also received attention, with significant focus on four-dimensional optimized formats (i.e. those using both quadratures and polarization components of the electromagnetic fields). Power-efficient modulation formats are of fundamental importance in optical communications because they provide the ultimate sensitivity limit for the optical channel. Such modulation formats also have practical importance because they enable increased nonlinear tolerance, and therefore the potential for ultra long-haul transmission.

System and methods for adaptive equalization for optical modulation formats


The present invention provides such a measuring method of the CK isoform and a reagent therefor. Accordingly, the present invention provides a reagent for measuring creatine kinase (CK) activity comprising an antibody, wherein said antibody inhibits CK-M.sub.T subunit, but does not inhibit CK-M.sub.S subunit.. The present invention also provides a method for measuring CK activity comprising determining an inhibition of CK of body fluids using a reagent for measuring CK activity, wherein said reagent comprises an antibody which inhibits CK-M.sub.T subunit, but does not inhibit CK-M.sub.S subunit.

Creatine kinase (CK) catalyzes the following reaction: EQU creatine phosphate+ADP.rarw..fwdarw.creatine+ATP
Measurement of CK activity in body fluids, especially in serum, is very important for the diagnosis of skeletal and myocardiac muscle disorder, especially, acute myocardial infarction (AMI). CK consists of two subunits, M (muscle type) and B (brain type), and three kinds of isoenzymes are present in cytoplasm, CK-MM, MB and BB. In particular, the separate measurement of CK-MB is recommended for specific diagnosis of myocardial infarction.
It has been elucidated that there are several post-translational isoforms of CK-MM and MB isoenzymes (George S., et al., J. Biol. Chem., 259, 2667-74 (1984). M subunit originally present in tissue, for example in cardiac muscle, is "tissue type M subunit (designated M.sub.T)." Once M.sub.T subunits in CK-MM or MB are released into blood stream, carboxypeptidase in plasma cleaves C-terminal lysine of the M.sub.T subunits, generating "serum type M subunit (designated M.sub.S)." Thus, CK-MM is converted from MM3 (tissue type, M.sub.T M.sub.T) via MM2 (hybrid type M.sub.T M.sub.S) to MM1 (serum type, M.sub.S M.sub.S).
It has been also clarified that the measurement of CK isoforms is a good index for earlier diagnosis of AMI and earlier detection of reperfusion after treatment of coronary thrombolysis. For example, it was reported that the ratio of MM3 to MM1 (MM3/MM1) is approximately 0.3 in healthy subjects, however, the ratio rises to 2.0, 3 to 6 hours after onset of AMI (Hashimoto H., et al., Circulation, 71, 366 (1985). Jaffe, et al. also reported (Circulation, 74, 105-9(1986) that 86% of the ratio in the first serum samples collected after onset from AMI patients exceeded its reference interval, on the other hand, the mean of total CK or CK-MB, those of which are conventional markers for diagnosis of AMI, still remained in their reference intervals.
Accordingly, the measurement of CK isoforms is very useful for the earlier diagnosis of AMI, compared with conventional AMI markers such as total CK activity and CK-MB. Earlier diagnosis of AMI makes it possible to treat AMI patients earlier with coronary thrombolysis or angioplasty.
The methods for the measurement of CK isoforms which have been reported are electrophoresis, isoelectric focusing, chromatofocusing, and liquid chromatography. Those methods are complicated, time-consuming, difficult to automate, and thus inadequate for emergency and routine assay.
Immunoassay is widely used in clinical chemistry field, and is a very excellent method because of its high sensitivity and specifity. Shah et al. showed immunoassay of CK isoforms using isoforms of specific antibodies (U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,662). This method, however, requires a long incubation time and separation and washing steps of solid phase from liquid phase, indicating that the method is complicated, laborious and unsuitable for emergency assay.
Immunoinhibition assay is also used in clinical laboratories. This method employs antibodies that inhibit part of enzyme activity such as particular isoenzymes. This method is being applied to the measurement of CK-MB isoenzyme using antibodies that inhibit CK-M (both M.sub.T and M.sub.S). In the assay, after all M subunit activity is inhibited by the antibodies, the remaining B subunit activity is then measured (Japanese Patent Publication 19239/1981 and 20274/1983). The immonoinhibition assay requires no separation procedures. The assay is completed in a short time and is easily automated, indicating that the assay is adequate for emergency and routine measurement. Immunoinhibition assay, however requires very specific antibodies. Antibodies used for immunoinhibition assay must have the ability not only to distinguish isoenzymes or isoforms from each other but also to inhibit particular enzyme activity. Generally, the antibodies against enzymes do not have either the distinguishing or inhibiting ability. The antibodies disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,662 cannot inhibit the enzymatic activity, meaning that they cannot be used in the immonoinhibition assay of CK isoform. The antibodies disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 19239 and 20274 cannot distinguish the CK-M.sub.T subunit from CK-M.sub.S. They also cannot be used in the immunoinhibition assay.
Therefore, a faster and easier method for the measurement of CK isoforms is eagerly required. The present invention provides the method for the measurement of CK isoform by immunoinhibition assay.

Reagent for measuring creatine kinase activity and measuring method thereof


Slide operator assemblies and components for fenestration units, as well as associated methods of manufacture and use thereof.

Casement windows have a sash that is attached to a frame by one or more hinges at a side of the frame, or window jamb. Window sashes hinged at the top, or head of the frame, are referred to as awning windows, and sashes hinged at the bottom, or sill of the frame, are called hopper windows. Any of these configurations may be referred to simply as hinged fenestration units, or pivoting fenestration units.
Typically, such hinged fenestration units are opened by simply pushing on the sash directly, or through the use of hardware including cranks, levers, or cam handles. In various examples, operators are placed around hand height or at the bottom/sill of the unit. Such operators typically require a user to impart a swinging or rotational motion with some form of crank handle. This type of operator hardware may have one or more undesirable traits for some hinged fenestration unit designs, including requisite location (e.g., sill, interiorly protruding), associated appearance (e.g., crank style), or form of operability (e.g., rotating/cranking/swinging).


A door machine mechanism for a rolling door has an electric machine mechanism, a brake mechanism and an output mechanism. In normal power supply condition, the rolling door is opened by the electric machine mechanism. In case of fire, the brake mechanism releases brake so that the rolling door moves downward by its own weight. However, in an emergency condition, if an external force is applied to push the door upward, the rolling door will be reopened by an assistance of spare electricity to the electric machine mechanism.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a door machine mechanism, more particularly to a door machine mechanism for a rolling door having fireproof, smokeproof, and escape functions by which the rolling door can be opened in a reverse direction by a one-way transmission device.
2. Brief Description of Prior Art
Generally, rolling door can be cataloged as fire doors, smokeproof doors, emergency doors and escape doors according to their usage, function and purpose. The conventional fire doors or the smokeproof doors are classified into two types based on their operational mode: one type is failsafe mode, and the other type is a non-failsafe mode. In the case of the failsafe mode, a brake is immediately released to let the rolling door move downward by its own weight and close, if electric power is interrupted, no matter what the cause of which is. However, if the electric power is not interrupted on a firing, the electric power will be cut out by, for example, smoke detector, temperature sensor or other fire detecting devices, or is cut out mechanically by fusible link devices, in which a fusible metal will be melted by fire. Hence the brake is released to close the rolling door by the way as stated above. On the other hand, for the non-failsafe mode, the rolling door is not closed immediately after an interruption of electric service. Only after an occurrence of firing is detected by, for example, smoke detector, temperature sensor or other fire detecting device, and a short duration of electric current from a spare power source, such as capacitor, battery or the like, is fed for releasing the brake for a short time period, or fusible link devices for mechanically releasing brake are melted due to high temperature of fire, the rolling door moves downwardly and closes by its own weight. The above-mentioned fire door and smokeproof door generally have equipped with a manual operation mechanism, such as a hand chain wheel with an endless chain, to drive a transmission mechanism of the rolling door. If the cause of the interruption of electric service is not due to firing and the rolling door is needed to be opened, or the cause is due to firing and the rolling door must be opened for fire escape, the rolling door can be lifted up by driving the hand wheel through an exertion on the endless chain. When the rolling door must be opened for emergent escape in case of firing, much time and physical effort have to be consumed for opening the rolling door by manual operation, which will render vital delay of escaping.
However, a design of emergency door or escape door is contrary to that of fire door in usage and function, i.e., the fire door should be maintained to be unimpeded or easily opened in a power interruption condition. Therefore, for manufacturing industries, a variety of door machine mechanisms have to be developed to cope with different demands based on location for installing a door machine mechanism, desired function and purpose. Not only time required for development for a machine mechanism is long, production cost is high, but also number of parts is high, and hence which may cause their production process becoming complicated and high inventory.
A lot of relevant patents concerning door machine mechanism of fire door have been proposed, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,514, U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,234, U.S. Pat. No. 5,203,392, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,891. Basically, for the above patents, a rolling door slides downward to shut a door by its own weight of gravity under a power interruption condition so as to block thick smoke or raging flame from scattering. Further, in the above patents, the rolling door can be lifted up directly by hands without using a hand chain wheel and endless chain as described above. However, using physical force to resist against the weight of the rolling door to open the door will consume enormous physical effort, which especially is too difficult for feeble men.

Door machine mechanism for rolling door having functions of fireproof, smokeproof, and fire escape


There is provided a power amplifying device having a linearizer in which a bias circuit has an initial impedance set when initially operated, then the impedance is varied according to a level of an input signal and the input signal is amplified in a broad range from a low level region to a high level region, thereby improving linearity of an output signal. The power amplifying device including: an amplifying unit receiving a bias power source and amplifying an input signal; a bias unit varying the bias power source according to a set impedance to provide to the amplifying unit; and an impedance setting unit setting the impedance of the bias unit in response to a preset control voltage when the bias unit is initially operated and re-setting the impedance of the bias unit according to a level of the input signal of the amplifying unit after initial operation of the bias unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power amplifying device, and more particularly, to a power amplifying device having a linearizer, in which a bias circuit has an initial impedance set when initially operated, then the impedance is varied according to a level of an input signal and the input signal is amplified in a broad range from a low level region to a high level region, thereby improving linearity of an output signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a power amplifying device essentially employed in a wireless telecommunication system, when operating in a saturation region having nonlinear characteristics, experiences distortion in size and phase of an output signal due to the nonlinear characteristics, thereby generating signal distortion components. In consequence, this significantly degrades transmission performance of the telecommunication system.
To reduce these inter-modulation distortion components, the power amplifying device may linearly amplify an output while ensuring high linearity. The power amplifying device can perform linearization via a back-off method or by employing a bias structure using a linearizer.
First, when it comes to the back-off method, the power amplifying device, when used at a P1 dB band, i.e., a point where the output signal is 1 dB low from a saturation region, undergoes severe non-linearity, and thus the output of the power amplifying device is backed off from the P1 dB band to several dB. However, in this back-off method, the power amplifying device is operated in a several dB low region, which is not a maximum output region having maximum efficiency. This as a result considerably undermines efficiency of the power amplifying device.
Next, a description will be given of a method of employing a bias structure using a linearizer in a power amplifying device with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B.
FIG. 1A is a circuit diagram illustrating an example of a conventional power amplifying device.
Referring to FIG. 1A, the conventional power amplifying device 10 includes a signal amplifying unit 11, a bias unit 12, a linearizing unit 13 and a current compensating unit 14. The signal amplifying unit 11 has a transistor amplifying an input signal RF IN in response to an operating power source (Vcc). The bias unit 12 has a transistor supplying a bias current to the signal amplifying unit 11. The linearizing unit 13 has a passive capacitor and the current compensating unit 14 compensates for a current supplied to the bias unit.
The transistor of the signal amplifying unit 11 receives the operating power sources and operates in response to the operating power source and then amplifies the input signal input signal (RF IN) fed through a base terminal. Here, the transistor of the bias unit 12 has an impedance lower than the transistor of the signal amplifying unit 11. Thus, in a case where the input signal is a high frequency signal, the input signal RF IN is fed to the transistor of the bias unit 12, thereby decreasing potential between a base and emitter of the transistor of the bias unit 12. This accordingly compensates for decrease in the base-emitter voltage of the transistor of the signal amplifying unit 11, thereby improving linearity of an output signal RF out.
The conventional power amplifying device 10 as described above is structured such that a passive capacitor of the linearizing unit 13 rectifies the input signal RF IN and generates an additional direct current (DC) in response to the input signal. Here, the passive capacitor has a capacitance fixed. Thus, in a case where the input signal RF IN has a low level, the fixed capacitance leads to a low impedance, thereby increasing current consumption and degrading efficiency. This also aggravates inter-modulation distortion.
FIG. 1B is a circuit diagram illustrating another example of a conventional power amplifying device.
Referring to FIG. 1B, the conventional power amplifying device 20 has a linearizing unit 23 structured differently from that of the power amplifying device 10 shown in FIG. 1A. The conventional linearizing unit 23 of the conventional power amplifying device 20 includes a reverse diode. The reverse diode supplies a dynamic impedance to a transistor of a bias unit 22 so that the input signal (RF IN) is less applied to the bias unit 22 in a low level region and the input signal is more applied to the bias unit 22 in a high level region. This as a result improves linearity of an output signal RF OUT generated from the amplified input signal.
Here, due to presence of equivalent capacitance in the low level region, a portion of the input signal (RF IN) is applied to the linearizing unit 23 via the bias unit 22, accordingly increasing current consumption, undermining efficiency and aggravating inter-modulation distortion.

Power amplifying device having linearizer


Techniques are described herein for handling handover requests from a user device. The techniques include receiving a handover request from a user device connected to a first access network and identifying an evolved packet data gateway (ePDG) serving the user device. The user device provides to the ePDG, measurement reports indicating network conditions. The techniques further include receiving the measurement report from the ePDG and determining whether a measurement in the measurement report is above a predetermined threshold. If the measurement is above the predetermined threshold, the handover request is accepted to enable the user device to connect to a second access network.

Many mobile devices such as smartphones access both non-cellular and cellular networks. These mobile devices may disconnect from one network in order to switch to another network. Switching from one network to another is called a handover, and mobile devices are generally configured to automatically switch networks when various network conditions are met. For example, mobile devices may switch from slow or unreliable Wi-Fi networks in order to switch to a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) network such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE). However, when the available cellular signal is marginal or unstable, transitioning from Wi-Fi to LTE too early can result in a poor or dropped connection. Thus, when handover is triggered in mobile devices, the performance of the cellular network should be determined in order to improve the automatic handover in mobile devices.


Devices and/or computer-implemented methods facilitating static ZZ suppression and Purcell loss reduction using mode-selective coupling in two-junction superconducting qubits are provided. In an embodiment, a device can comprise a superconducting bus resonator. The device can further comprise a first superconducting qubit. The device can further comprise a second superconducting qubit, the first superconducting qubit and the second superconducting qubit respectively comprising: a first superconducting pad; a second superconducting pad; a third superconducting pad; a first Josephson Junction coupled to the first superconducting pad and the second superconducting pad; and a second Josephson Junction coupled to the second superconducting pad and the third superconducting pad. The first superconducting pad and the second superconducting pad of the first superconducting qubit and the second superconducting qubit are coupled to the superconducting bus resonator. The superconducting bus resonator entangles the first superconducting qubit and the second superconducting qubit based on receiving a control signal.

The subject disclosure relates to a quantum device, and more specifically, to a quantum device facilitating suppression of ZZ interactions between two-junction superconducting quantum bits (qubits).
Qubits coupled via a bus have residual interactions with each other, even in the absence of external drives (e.g., external microwave pulses, magnetic fields, etc.). These residual interactions, known as ZZ interactions, can cause a qubit's frequency to be dependent on the state of its neighbors and can inhibit the fidelity of quantum operations. Furthermore, coupling a qubit to a bus can contribute to energy loss and decoherence, either through internal losses in the bus (e.g. surface loss or two-level systems) or through external loss of energy to the outside world via the bus's drive port.
Some prior art technologies use a two-junction qubit to enable tunable coupling to a readout resonator and as a method to encode multiple qubits within a single circuit. A problem with such prior art technologies is that they do not use mode-selective coupling in multi-mode qubits to suppress static ZZ interactions between data modes while enabling purely longitudinal coupling to the bus resonator.

Quantum device facilitating suppression of ZZ interactions between two-junction superconducting qubits

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


An Internet of Things (IoT) device may receive a network configuration profile including one or more parameters relating to a scan interval and a mode priority of the IoT device indicating a priority for a first IoT network over a second IoT network. The IoT device may scan for an availability of the first IoT network. Based on determining that the first IoT network is unavailable, the IoT device may scan for an availability of the second IoT network. Based on determining that the second IoT network is available, the IoT device may initiate a network connection with the second IoT network. While connected to the second IoT network, the IoT device may scan for the availability of the first IoT network. Based on determining that the first IoT network is available, the IoT device may initiate a network connection with the first IoT network.

An Internet of Things (IoT) device may perform functions based on receiving command messages. For example, the IoT device may collect and provide sensor information, may open or close a switch, and/or the like. Different IoT devices may be associated with different instructions, different data types, different information formats, different device libraries, and/or the like. In some cases, multiple IoT devices may be implemented in a particular environment (e.g., a house, a business, a building, a train stop, and/or the like).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and device for selecting a network mode for an internet of things device


An apparatus and method for determining an inclination angle θ between an axis of an elongate object such as a cane, a pointer or a jotting implement such as a pen, pencil, stylus or the like and a normal to a plane surface at times when a tip of the elongate object is contacting that plane surface. The apparatus has an emitter mounted on the object for illuminating the plane surface with a probe radiation at an angle σ with respect to the axis of the object. The apparatus also has a detector mounted on the elongate object for detecting a radiation characteristic of a scattered portion of the probe radiation returning from the plane surface and a computing unit for deriving the inclination angle θ from the radiation characteristic. A scanning arrangement, such as a uniaxial or biaxial scanner, or a light guiding optic can be used for varying angle σ, and the probe radiation can be emitted in the form of a scan beam. Preferably, the emitter and detector of the scattered portion of the probe radiation are integrated and the scattered portion of the probe radiation whose characteristic is being measured is the back-scattered portion. The radiation characteristic detected by the detector can be the intensity, polarization, time-of-flight or any combination thereof.

When an object moves with respect to stationary references such as a ground plane, fixed points, lines or reference surfaces knowledge of the object's inclination with respect to these references can be used to derive a variety of its parameters of motion. In fact, inclination of the object with respect to a reference is usually required for navigating the object or obtaining information about its trajectory. Over time, many useful coordinate systems and methods have been developed to parameterize the equations motion of such objects. For a theoretical background the reader is referred to textbooks on classical mechanics such as Goldstein et al., Classical Mechanics, 3rd Edition, Addison Wesley 2002. For general examples of object tracking and inclination measurements a few examples can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,786,804 to Gordon and U.S. Pat. No. 6,023,291 to Kamel et al. as well as the references cited therein.
In one specific field of navigation it is important to know the inclination of an elongate object while it is in contact with a plane surface. Usually, inclination is defined to an axis of the object that passes through the point of contact with the plane surface. In some cases, this axis is also the center axis of the elongate object. Various types of elongate objects can benefit from knowledge of their inclination while in contact with a plane surface. These objects include canes such as walking canes when in touch with the ground, pointers when in touch with a display or projection surface, writing devices when in touch with a writing surface, styluses when in touch with a screen.
The need to determine inclination is deeply felt in the field of input devices such as pens and styluses. Here, inclination has to be known in order to analyze the information written or traced by the user. In principle, many methods can be adapted to measure pen inclination. Such methods can employ ranging devices using ultrasound, electromagnetic radiation including visible light and other apparatus. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,668 teaches a 3-axis detection method, U.S. Pat. No. 5,977,958 teaches a method using a difference in the time-of-flight of an electromagnetic wave and still other references teach to apply the time-of-flight method to microwaves. Still other approaches use calibration marks, e.g., as described in U.S. Pat. Appl. 2003/0025951 or entire auxiliary calibration systems as described in U.S. Pat. Appl. 2002/0141616. Still another method for measuring the inclination of a pen with respect to the vertical employs sensors mounted in the pen for measuring magnetic fields created by magnetic dipoles and oriented perpendicular to a writing board as described in U.S. Pat. Appl. 2002/0180714. Unfortunately, all of these methods are cumbersome and limiting to the user because the signals sent from the pen have to be received by external devices. In other words, the pen cannot determine its inclination independently with on-board equipment.
Clearly, it is desirable to have pen and stylus input devices that can determine their inclination independently with their own on-board equipment. In principle, pens using inertial sensors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers can be designed to derive their inclination without external devices. Japan patent application 6-67,799 proposes a method using a 2-axis acceleration sensor and the inclination angle is determined by integrating the angular velocity of the pen. Also of interest are U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,902,968; 5,981,884 using a 3-axis acceleration sensor and a 3-axis gyroscope. U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,371 teaches a structure in which an acceleration sensor is attached to the tip of a pen such to thus compensate the error due to pen inclination and a signal processing portion is located at the upper portion of the pen. Unfortunately, inertial sensors suffer from drift errors and accumulation errors that typically increase as time squared for accelerometers and linearly with time for gyroscopes.
An approach attempting to overcome the limitations of inertial sensors U.S. Pat. Appl. No. 2002/0148655 to Cho et al. teaches the use of an optical 3-dimensional detection device for detecting orientation angles of a center axis of an electronic pen relative to a ground and a height of the pen over a writing surface. Meanwhile, a 3-axis accelerometer is used for detecting movement of the pen. The optical device has a portion such as a light source for radiating a beam to the writing surface to form beam spots and a detecting portion such as a camera and corresponding optics for detecting the beam spots from the light reflected off the writing surface. This solution requires a dedicated camera and light source to detect the orientation angles and it should be noted that a significant separation between the viewpoints of the camera and the light source has to be significant in order to obtain accurate values of the orientation angles.
Still another optical method of detecting inclination in manual pen type reading devices is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,611 to Watanabe. According to this method a CCD arranged in the pen type reading device picks up a dot code from the sheet and an inclination sensor arranged at the rear end of the device detects an inclined state of the device with respect to the sheet. The inclination sensor can use various mechanisms and methods for determining the inclination angle including analysis of a luminance distribution, image blurring, distance between markers on the sheet, positional shift or change in size of the markers. This solution relies on prior knowledge surface or on pre-existing data present on the surface, e.g., markers. Therefore, this method is not adaptable to a self-contained pen or stylus or other elongate object whose tip is in contact with any plane surface.

Apparatus and method for determining an inclination of an elongate object contacting a plane surface


A system, apparatus, computer program product and method of performing operational validation on a system are provided. The system may include a CPU with a cache, a communications network, and a plurality of devices exchanging data during a test. When the test is ready to be performed, the CPU may set up a pool of buffers in the cache. The pool of buffers may generally have a set of locations corresponding to locations in an actual destination buffer and a set of locations corresponding to locations in an actual source buffer. During the performance of the test, data is exchanged over the communications network to and from the source and destination buffers. Snooping logic in the cache may snoop data on the communications network. The data snooped may be entered in appropriate locations in the pool of buffers. This allows the CPU to perform operational validation by using cached data instead of data that is in the actual source and destination buffers.

1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to post-silicon system-on-chip (SOC) operational validation. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an apparatus, system, computer program product and method of performing post-silicon validation with limited CPU use of a communications network.
2. Description of Related Art
An SOC is a semiconductor device (i.e., a chip) that includes all necessary hardware and electronic circuitries for a complete computer system. That is, an SOC may include on-chip memory, one or more microprocessors or CPUs (central processing units, peripheral interfaces, input/output (I/O) logic control, communications network, data converters etc. Generally, each group of hardware and electronic circuitries that performs a particular function in an SOC is referred to as a core. Thus, the CPUs, the I/O logic control, the data converters etc. may each be referred to as a core.
As with any semiconductor device, pre-silicon (i.e., before semiconductor fabrication) functional verification, and post-silicon (i.e., after semiconductor fabrication) operational validation are critical to the functional and operational quality of the device. This is especially true for an SOC device in which one defect may cause the failure of the entire device.
As is well known in the field, pre-silicon functional verification testing is time-consuming and is inherently un-encompassing (i.e., not every possible condition can be tested). Consequently, "bugs" may remain undetected in the SOC after pre-silicon functional verification testing has been performed. Note that the "bugs" may be due to misinterpretations of functional requirements as well as to incorrect assumptions during design. Further, bugs that are due to workmanship and material defects may be introduced during fabrication. Consequently, it is essential that exhaustive post-silicon functional validation tests be performed on an SOC. The tests should preferably include interactions by the cores as well as with other peripherals and subsystems.
One of the post-silicon functional validation tests that is rather important for an SOC is load stressing. In a load stressing test, the CPU or one of the CPUs (if there is a plurality of CPUs in the SOC) may coordinate execution of tests by the cores and validate the results of the tests. The tests may concurrently be executed by the cores. During the execution of the tests, the cores may interact with each other and thus may have to contend for the use of the communications network. Further, in coordinating the execution of the tests and validating the tests, the CPU may also contend for the use of the communications network as well as use the communications network. Having the CPU use the communications network when it is needed by the cores during the execution of the tests reduces the parallelism aspect of the tests. In addition, the desired test coverage of multi-core interaction and communications network contention may suffer.
Thus, what is needed is an apparatus, system, computer program product and a method of performing post-silicon validation with limited CPU use of a communications network.

Method of performing operational validation with limited CPU use of a communications network

International Business Machines Corporation


A wireless communication device comprising processor electronics configured to select a channel bonding mode from a plurality of channel bonding modes. Each of the plurality of channel bonding modes indicates at least two wireless communication channels and at least one of the plurality of channel bonding modes corresponds to a mode that indicates a punctured wireless communication channel. The processor electronics are further configured to generate a frame to be transmitted from the wireless communication device in accordance with the selected channel bonding mode. The frame includes a preamble portion and a data portion and the preamble portion includes a first preamble field that identifies the selected channel bonding mode. Transceiver electronics are configured to transmit the frame on the wireless communication channels indicated by the selected channel bonding mode identified in the first preamble field.

This disclosure relates to wireless communication systems, including Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs).
Wireless communication systems can include multiple wireless communication devices that communicate over one or more wireless channels. When operating in an infrastructure mode, a wireless communication device called an access point (AP) provides connectivity with a network, such as the Internet, to other wireless communication devices which can be referred to as client stations (STAs), client devices, clients, access terminals (ATs). Various examples of wireless communication devices include mobile phones, smart phones, wireless routers, and wireless hubs. In some cases, wireless communication electronics are integrated with data processing equipment such as laptops, personal digital assistants, and computers.
Wireless communication systems, such as WLANs, can use one or more wireless communication technologies, such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) for the physical (PHY) layer. In an OFDM based wireless communication system, a data stream is split into multiple data substreams. Such data substreams are sent over different OFDM subcarriers, which are commonly referred to as tones or frequency tones. WLANs such as those defined in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) wireless communications standards, (e.g., IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11n, and IEEE 802.11ac, or any other standard by any other organization) can use OFDM to transmit and receive signals. Some wireless communication systems can use Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) to enable different devices to communicate on different subsets of subcarriers at the same time.
Wireless communication devices in a WLAN can use one or more protocols for a medium access control (MAC) layer and a physical (PHY) layer. For example, a wireless communication device can use a Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) with Collision Avoidance (CA) based protocol for a MAC layer and OFDM for the PHY layer. The MAC layer can communicate with a Physical Layer Convergence Protocol (PLCP) sublayer. After receiving a MAC protocol data unit (MPDU) from the MAC layer, the PLCP sublayer can include PHY specific preamble fields to form a PLCP protocol data unit (PPDU) for transmission. A MPDU can also be called a PLCP service data unit (PSDU).

Channel bonding mode signaling for punctured channels


A computer-implemented method may include hosting an article sharing portal accessible by the one or more electronic tenant interfaces, the article sharing portal being responsive to actions performed with the one or more electronic tenant interfaces to create, modify, or delete inventory data for sharing one or more articles across a plurality of inventories. The method may include receiving user selections initiated at user platforms for articles described in the received wearable article data, including a first shared article included in an electronic inventory of a first tenant, the first shared article being placed in the electronic inventory of the first tenant by the actions performed with the one or more electronic tenant interfaces for sharing the articles, and in response to receiving the one or more user selections, initiating one or more microservices to facilitate physical shipment of the first shared article to a user.

Online rental and/or subscription-based services typically offer a single, unified catalog of items to a plurality of users. Individual items of the catalog of items can be tracked, enabling the service provider to ensure that, under most circumstances, sufficient physical products are available to satisfy user interest. Catalogs change infrequently, typically due to significant, predictable events, such as seasonal changes, the introduction of new products, etc. Even when multiple catalogs are maintained by a single entity, each catalog may be associated with a separate inventory, or a plurality of separate inventories. However, such services do not include infrastructure for hosting or otherwise providing the ability to share items in one or more physical inventories and support dynamic changes to the inventories. In somewhat more complex services, a plurality of individually-branded inventories are offered to different sets of users. Physical inventories of such services are managed individually so that, when identical products are offered in more brands or services, physical products are allocated to a specific brand or service with separately-managed inventories.
Conventional systems also lack the capability to facilitate inventory sharing across different entities. For example, some systems can provide functionality that allows different entities to manage separate inventories, but are not configured to manage the complexity involved with managing various types of data for facilitating inventory sharing by these entities. Additionally, while online rental and/or subscription-based services rely on vast amounts of information for inventory management, existing systems are unable to harness this information to provide suitable inventory exchange services for placement of articles in a plurality of different electronic storefronts, or for managing relationships between different tenant devices that interact with the service to dynamically add, change, or remove shared articles.
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art, or suggestions of the prior art, by inclusion in this section.

Systems and methods for electronic platform for inventory sharing


A method for controlling boost pressure in an internal combustion engine is provided. The method includes a boost pressure control device, which is used to control the boost pressure in an internal combustion engine. The boost pressure control device includes a bypass unit, preferably in the exhaust gas flow of the internal combustion engine. The bypass unit includes an actuating device which enables the bypass unit when a predetermined actuating device setpoint value is reached. An adapted value is established as the correction value (pwgad) as a function of preset and/or detected internal combustion engine parameters (rlsol, nmot). The adapted value is used to adapt the setpoint value for the actuating device, which is specified as a function of the operating point, for a predetermined control deviation between a boost pressure actual value and a boost pressure setpoint value.

Such boost pressure control is known from DE 195 02 150 C1, for example. In this case a boost pressure control device includes an integral action controller whose integration of the control deviation is limited to a predetermined limit value to avoid severe overshooting. For this purpose various limit values are specified for stationary and for dynamic operating states, whereby the dynamic limit value is provided with corrections that are dependent on the operating characteristics and is provided with an adaptive correction, and in addition is increased by a safety margin. The aim is to ensure consistently good quality of control, even when the components involved in the control are subject to contamination or wear. Similar boost pressure control is also known from DE 198 12 843 A1, in which, for operation of the boost pressure control over a broad operating range without excessively retarding the control process or causing overshooting in the control, a manipulated variable for an actuator is transformed to values such that after transformation of the values, a linear relationship exists between the manipulated variable and the control variable. A correction value for a limit value which is specified for an integral portion of an integral action controller is also known in conjunction with boost pressure control from DE 197 12 861 A1.
Due to serial dispersion dictated by the manufacturing process, for example in spring pretensioning in the waste gate region, such as in the specific region of a spring-loaded pressure box which acts on a bypass valve, for some vehicles a different control characteristic is obtained which is undesirable. The same also applies to aging symptoms of the components of a controlled system, which likewise may vary from vehicle to vehicle.
The object of the present invention, therefore, is to provide a method and a device for controlling boost pressure in an internal combustion engine by means of which, in particular for serial dispersion and aging symptoms of the components of the controlled system, a high-quality and reproducible control may be provided with the lowest possible control deviation between the setpoint boost pressure and the actual boost pressure.

Method for controlling boost pressure in an internal combustion engine for motor vehicles


A tape preparation is provided which does not use a backing such as a plastic film, knit or a woven fabric, or a nonwoven fabric, has very high conformability to skin, and is easy to use at the time of application. There is provided a tape preparation 1 that is produced by laminating a drug-containing adhesive layer 4 on the printed ink layer 3 side of a cover film 2 with printing thereon and covering the drug-containing adhesive layer with a release film 5. In this tape preparation, the adhesive strength between the cover film and the printed ink layer is higher than the adhesive strength between the drug-containing adhesive layer and the release film, and the adhesive strength between the printed ink layer and the drug-containing adhesive layer is higher than the adhesive strength between the cover film and the printed ink layer.

Various tape preparations that are applied onto the surface of a human body for the purpose of anti-inflammation, pain relief, pruritus, shaking off drowsiness, refreshment, and the like have been previously launched.
These tape preparations are applied onto a wide variety of sites depending on their purposes. The tape preparations are often applied onto bendable parts such as an elbow joint or a knee joint, or curved parts such as a face, a neck, or a shoulder.
A conventional tape preparation is, as is shown in FIG. 7, a tape preparation 10 that includes a backing 11 on which a drug-containing adhesive layer (ointment layer) 12 is laminated and a release film 13 that covers the drug-containing adhesive layer (ointment layer) 12.
When the conventional tape preparation is applied in practice, the release film 13 is peeled off and the ointment layer is applied together with the backing. To enhance conformability at an application site, elastic materials such as a polyvinyl chloride film or a polyester film, a knit or a textile, or a nonwoven fabric are used as the backing on which the ointment layer is laminated.
The thickness of the backing of this tape preparation is thin in order to ensure conformability. The thickness is about 100 to 200 μm in the case of a film and about 700 to 1200 μm in the case of a nonwoven fabric or a knit.
Furthermore, the backing used for the tape preparation is very flexible. Therefore, people frequently fail in applying the tape preparation, since the tape preparation becomes difficult to handle at the stage when people peel off the release sheet and try to apply the tape preparation.
For this reason, conformability at an application site has been searched for while ensuring a certain amount of hardness of the backing. However, the tape preparation is not conformable to the complicated movement of skin and often causes an uncomfortable feeling at the time of application.
Another problem that has also been seen is that creases due to shrinking occur, which is unique to a tape preparation, and the applied tape preparation tends to peel off easily at its ends.
Furthermore, when a polyvinyl chloride film, a polyester film, and the like are used as the backing, their sealing performance causes sweating and consequently the tape preparation may peel off.
Therefore, development of a tape preparation that solves these problems has been under study in various ways (Patent Documents 1 to 4).
These studies mainly focus on a drug-containing adhesive layer. These problems are avoided, for example, by designing a highly adhesive preparation, but are not completely solved. Conversely, adverse effects such as damaged keratin and internal hemorrhage have been seen when the tape preparation is peeled off from an affected area.


Provided is an expression vector capable of constitutive expression of a foreign gene in a bacterium belonging to the genus Rhodococcus. The vector is a constitutive expression vector for a bacterium belonging to the genus Rhodococcus comprising: DNA comprising a nucleotide sequence of a mutated TipA gene promoter where a mutation is incorporated into a −10 region sequence of a TipA gene promoter, the mutated TipA gene promoter being capable of thiostrepton-independent and constitutive expression of a gene located downstream thereof; a promoter sequence for the constitutive expression of a foreign gene; a ribosome-binding site sequence located downstream of the promoter sequence; and a multiple-cloning site sequence capable of incorporating a foreign gene therein, located downstream of the ribosome-binding site sequence.

Currently, an expression system using Escherichia coli as a host is widely used for preparing a large amount of a recombinant protein derived from a eukaryote. This is because the system is readily handled and its research progresses most (Weickert et al., Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 7: 494-499 [1996]).
On the other hand, the present inventors have previously demonstrated that Rhodococcus erythropolis can also be used as a host for recombinant protein production (JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-73032A and Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-235008). R. erythropolis is one of Actinobacteria capable of proliferation at temperatures ranging from 4° C. to 35° C. The biggest feature of an expression system that uses this bacterium as a host is in that a recombinant protein can be produced at temperatures not higher than 10° C. such as 4° C. In systems that employ other hosts including Escherichia coli, bacteria belonging to the genus Bacillus, yeasts, and Sf9 insect cells (Cereghino and Cregg, Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 10 422-427 [1999]; and Miller, Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 3 97-101 [1993]), recombinant protein production at temperatures not higher than 10° C. is quite difficult. Recombinant protein production at temperatures not higher than 10° C. has allowed the production of proteins difficult to produce until then, for example, proteins inhibiting the proliferation of host cells, proteins getting insoluble at temperatures around 30° C., and proteins derived from organisms adapting to low temperatures.
The present inventors have constructed a group of expression vectors for a bacterium belonging to the genus Rhodococcus called pTip vectors and have used them in recombinant protein production (JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-73032A and Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-235008). These vectors contain the promoter of a TipA gene whose expression is induced by antibiotic thiostrepton and also contain a multiple-cloning site (MCS) for cloning a foreign gene (gene to be expressed), located downstream of the promoter. Thus, the pTip vectors are thiostrepton-inducible expression vectors. In bacteria belonging to the genus Rhodococcus that are transformed with these expression vectors, foreign protein production is induced only when thiostrepton is added to a culture solution.
Non-Patent Document 1
Weickert et al., Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 7: 494-499 [1996]
Non-Patent Document 2
Cereghino and Cregg, Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 10 422-427 [1999]
Non-Patent Document 3
Miller, Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 3 97-101 [1993]

Process for producing recombinant protein in bacterium belonging to the genus

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology