Methods and compositions are provided for preparation of thermoplastic gels. The compositions have a base composition including a thermoplastic gel and a softener oil and the gel has a hardness between 15 Shore 000 and 65 Shore 000. The gel may also include an additive, such as a mineral filler, an anti-tack agent, and a mixture of a mineral filler and an anti-tack agent. The softener oil may be a high molecular weight oil having a molecular weight greater than about 250 g/mol.

Processing thermoplastic rubber gel sealants in a cost effective and efficient manner has presented its challenges. As technology progresses, sealants will be subjected to increasingly higher temperature environments and more demanding performance requirements. There has been, and there presently exists, a need for high performance sealants to meet these demands. For example, there is an increasing need for high service gel sealants for use in outdoor energy transmission applications and for use near or inside engine compartments.
In particular, closure systems are used to protect internal components from degradation caused by external environments. For example, components related to the connections of fiber optics cables, coaxial cables, and copper cables are often enclosed in closure systems. Examples of commercially available closure systems include Fiber Optics Splice Closures (FOSC), the Outdoor Fiber Drop Repair (OFDR), the Outdoor Fiber Distribution Closure (OFDC), and the Fiber optic infrastructure System Technology (FIST). Additional commercially available closure systems include copper joints such as Mechanical Joint Closure (MMC), Toolless Torchless Reentrable Closure (TTRC), and Coax connector closures (GSIC) available from TE Connectivity. These types of closures can be used in aerial, pedestal, and underground environments. Other closure systems are commercially available for use with communication and energy transmission cables.
Closure systems typically include internal components such as fiber organizers, cable seals and termination devices, drop cable seals for a number of drops with drop cable termination devices, universal splice holders for a number of splices, and copper and coax connections. Cable joints may be subject to environmental factors such as varying moisture levels, heat and cold, and exposure to other chemical substances, so the internal components and connections will require appropriate protection from these elements. The closure systems are preferably protected from damage with a sealant of some sort. Conventional sealants, however, suffer from a number of drawbacks that make them less suitable for certain closure systems.
Sealants are often used for insulation and for protection against water, corrosion and environmental degradation, and for thermal management. A number of sealants are known but currently available sealants have certain drawbacks and disadvantages that make them inadequate for specific uses and for use in contact with certain materials. In particular, there is an unmet need for sealants that are suitable for the latest types of fiber optic and electronic closure systems.
Suitable sealing systems for closures are needed for use with a variety of different cables. Traditionally, thermoplastic elastomer gels (TPEGs) have been used as sealants in certain applications due to their unique properties. TPEGs have provided many years of reliable in-field performance for applications requiring a low maximum service temperature of approximately 70° C. TPEGs may comprise a styrene ethylene/butylene styrene ("SEBS") copolymer swollen with an oil softener (e.g., mineral, synthetic, or vegetable oil softeners). A problem, however, with thermoplastic gels used as sealants, and in closure systems in general, is that they often contain high amounts of mineral oil. Conventional thermoplastic gels typically exhibit 20 to 30 wt % oil bleed out. Accordingly there exists an unmet need for gels, sealants, and closure systems with suitable hardness, viscoelastic properties, long-term performance (e.g., >20 years), amongst other properties, including low oil bleed out, better processability by improved melt viscosity, lower shrinkage, and better thermal conductivity.

Thermoplastic gel compositions and their methods of making


A keyboard cover and copy holder includes a first plate member and a second plate member pivotally connected at one end to the first plate member. The second plate member pivots between a first position in which it and the first plate member have a flat configuration and a second position in which it and the first plate member lie at an acute angle.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for covering a keyboard and holding copy, and more particularly to a device with components which pivot between one position in which they serve as a cover and another position in which they serve as a holder.
The prior art includes a wide variety of keyboard covers for covering a computer keyboard when no one uses it. It also includes a wide variety of copy holders, which support copy so that an operator may view it and enter its contents into a computer. Finally, the prior art includes devices which serve as both keyboard covers and copy holders.
The prior devices identified above suffer a host of disadvantages. First, having a separate cover and holder requires storage of one device during use of the other. Separate devices also increase the number of accessories and typically, their cost. The prior devices that serve as both a cover and holder usually include complex attachments for securing to the keyboard where they may block a user's view of the computer screen.
The apparatus of the present invention avoids the disadvantages of the prior devices and effectively functions as a keyboard cover and a copy holder. It is a simple construction that minimizes the cost of manufacture and assembly and provides reliable and effective performance. It allows adjustment in its size so that it may cover a wide variety of keyboards of different size. It also allows a user to place it in any desired position when it holds copy.


To reduce the electric power consumption in a computer system having at least one server and at least one data processing apparatus, the data processing apparatus includes an electric power consumption state control module by which electric power consumption of the data processing apparatus can be changed, obtains a use relationship between each server and each processing apparatus included in the computer system, monitors a change in a state of the server, searches for a related data processing apparatus in the use relationship with the server, obtains a state of at least one related server in the use relationship with the related data processing apparatus, determines whether an electric power consumption state of the related data processing apparatus is to be changed or not based on the state of the related server, and changes the electric power consumption state of the related data processing apparatus.

This invention relates to a control method for electric power consumption of a computer system.
The electric power consumption of data processing devices constituting a computer system such as servers, external storage systems, network switches, and load balancers is increasing as the performance thereof increases accordingly. Therefore, in the computer system, costs for supplying electric power and cooling of the data processing devices increase more and more.
As a method for reducing the electric power consumption of the computer system, there is a method to supply only necessary ones of the data processing devices in the computer system with the electric power.
However, in order to realize the above method, it is necessary to determine whether a data processing device requires the electric power supply or not, and, according to the conventional method, it is necessary to manually select the data processing device to be turned on. As a result, in an autonomous system in which operation states of data processing devices dynamically change, it is difficult to properly provide a proper instruction to turn on the data processing devices, resulting in an inferior efficiency in the reduction of the electric power consumption, and labor for providing a proper instruction.

Method for controlling electric power of computer system


Methods of preparation and improved oat based puffed R-T-E or breakfast cereal products resulting there from with reduced sodium levels that provide good cooked grain flavor relative to other low or no sodium cooked cereal products and that approach the quality of higher sodium level products are provided. The methods include formulating cooked cereal doughs with minimal levels of sodium chloride and including a blend of potassium chloride and choline chloride. The cooked cereal dough is formed into pellets and gun puffed to form puff products having a total pyrazine content of at least 200 ppm. The puffed products are topically coated with saline solution and dried to provide the present improved low sodium high flavor finished breakfast cereal products.

Ready-to-eat cereals are well known and popular food items. Ready-to-eat ("R-T-E") or breakfast cereals come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, compositions, and flavors. Of long standing popularity are traditional R-T-E cereals including unpuffed products such as whole wheat flakes, or corn flakes, and puffed cereals, including oat based puffed O's. Traditionally, the products have been and are prepared by extended cook steps which develop flavorful, fully cooked cereal flavors. While popular, R-T-E cereals having a traditional, fully developed cereal flavor characteristic of long cooking, typically have high sodium content. The sodium content not only is important to the cereal flavor development during the extended cooking step, but also, salt acts as a strong flavor potentiator in the finished cereal product. Also, salt improves color generation and reduces required cook times.
Sodium chloride concentrations of from 2% to 4% have been typically used in the past for R-T-E cereal compositions. Current nutritional and health awareness regarding prepared consumer food products continue to include concerns regarding sodium intake. Producers continue to develop low sodium or reduced sodium variants of their products that provide lower sodium levels while maintaining as best as they can the acceptably salty flavors. Due to the current health focus on sodium in the diet, however, present food industry trends have been to express salt content as milligrams sodium per serving, often one ounce (dry weight) of product. In these units, a popular brand of traditional whole wheat flakes has in the past contained as much as 480 milligrams sodium per ounce of product (i.e., about 3% sodium chloride in the product formula).
Salt reduction is desirable from a reduction in sodium dietary intake standpoint, the dietary benefits of reduced sodium intake has been seen as being achieved at the expense in the decline of benefits such as decline in the desirable taste, appearance and physical properties of the finished product. The finished low sodium breakfast cereal products can have less salty, cooked cereal and toasting flavors, a bland taste and also may be lighter in color. Together, these negative changes in products attributes lead to lower product quality and risk of lower consumer acceptance for a staple food category that plays an important role in a healthy diet. Further, the low sodium breakfast cereal can be more brittle leading to increased breakage and processing losses due to excessive fines generation. The finished products can exhibit less expansion and thus are harder and less tender in eating quality. While not noticeable to the consumer, sodium chloride reduction can also result in increased processing costs to the consumer food product manufacturer due to increased cook times. Increased cook times lead to increases in capital, labor and operating costs especially energy leading to higher product costs.
Various efforts have been made over the years to reduce the sodium content of R-T-E cereals while nonetheless maintaining, insofar as possible, the desirable popular flavor of such products. Conventionally, such approaches have been to substitute other cations (e.g., potassium and/or ammonium) for sodium, to increase the cooking step, to add flavor precursors, to increase minor flavor constituents, e.g., malt, and or to add sugars for browning (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,373 "R-T-E Cereal Composition and Method of Preparation" issued Oct. 16, 1990 to Fan et al.) to offset the lack of color development. These approaches have met with some success in reducing the overall sodium content to about 300 milligrams sodium per ounce, while suffering some trade-offs with regard to flavor. In other approaches, the reduced sodium chloride content is partitioned between a first portion being part of the cooked cereal formulation and a second portion being topically applied for maximum flavor and salty taste impact (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,521 Ready-To-Eat Cereal of Reduced Sodium Content and Method of Preparation" issued Jan. 29, 1991 to Fan et al.).
A conventional approach is to provide all or a portion of the sodium chloride with a non-sodium salt especially potassium chloride ("KCL") or other salts. However, many consumers are sensitive to a bitter flavor associated with KCl. For this reason, the art has long sought techniques to reduce the negative taste of KCl (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,596,333 "Dietary Salt Substitute" issued May 1952) such as blending with flavor masking additives or employing other potassium salts. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,049 "Choline-Containing Compositions as Salt Substitutes and Enhancers and a method of Preparation issued Apr. 27, 1993 to Fielding et al.)
In other approaches, various salty flavor ingredients have been developed as "salt enhancers" that enhance the saltiness perception of any salt or sodium chloride in a food product.
Notwithstanding all the attempts to provide salt (sodium chloride) substitutes, salt enhancers or salt mimics, saltiness perceptions remains primarily dose responsive, i.e., add more salt/increase salt concentration and the product tastes saltier; reduce salt addition and the product is less salty tasting. Thus, still another approach is for producers to gradually reduce the sodium chloride level in familiar products such that over time, consumers' tastes are gradually weaned away from higher salt levels to lower salt levels.
Still another approach is to partition the sodium chloride content with a first portion being a part of the body of a food product piece and with a second portion being topically applied to its surface. By such partitioning between body and surface, the sodium chloride level can be reduced while maintaining saltiness taste perception. The product still employs sodium chloride, but the position of that sodium chloride can be used to influence saltiness perception. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,988,521 "Ready-To-Eat Cereal of Reduced Sodium Content and method of Preparation issued Jan. 29, 1991 to S. T. Fan). Of course, such a technique can be employed with one or more other sodium reduction techniques, e.g., using KCl in full or partial substitution.
Notwithstanding past efforts at providing reduced sodium consumer food products, there is a continuing need for new and useful techniques to provide low sodium food products, especially breakfast cereal products, that enhance saltiness taste perception thereby either increasing saltiness at specific sodium chloride concentrations or allowing reductions in sodium chloride concentrations (and thereby in sodium levels or loads) while maintain equivalent levels of salty taste and cereal flavor.

Puffed oat based breakfast cereal of enhanced salty flavor perception and method of preparation


This invention is directed to an image printing apparatus which can print images without any halfway offset or obverse/reverse pixel offset at a low cost. An image printing apparatus includes a clock generating section which generates a dot clock as the basis of each pixel forming an image, an image printing section which prints a one-line image in a main scanning direction in accordance with image data with reference to the dot clock output from the clock generating section, and prints a one-page image by repeating in the sub-scanning direction one-line image printing performed in the main scanning direction, and a clock control section which changeably controls the frequency of the dot clock during scanning of one line in the main scanning direction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image printing apparatus which prints a one-line image in the main scanning direction in accordance with image data with reference to a dot clock as the basis of each pixel forming an image, and also prints a one-page image by repeating in the sub-scanning direction one-line image printing performed in the main scanning direction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As an image printing apparatus, an apparatus for printing a one-line image in the main scanning direction in accordance with image data and printing a one-page image by repeating in the sub-scanning direction one-line image printing performed in the main scanning direction is known.
Image printing in the main scanning direction in accordance with image data is performed with reference to a clock signal (to be referred to as a "dot clock" hereinafter in this specification) as the basis of each pixel to be formed.
For example, in an electrophotographic image printing apparatus, a laser beam modulated in accordance with image data is scanned in the main scanning direction, and an image is concurrently formed on an image carrier rotating in the sub-scanning direction with the laser beam.
In this case, a laser beam is modulated with image data with reference to a clock signal (pixel clock) called a dot clock.
The arrangement of a writing unit as the main component of an image printing apparatus using a laser beam in this manner will be described with reference to FIG. 14.
In a writing unit circuit section 200, a laser diode (LD) 260 emits a laser beam LB on the basis of a laser driving signal LS generated on the basis of a dot clock.
The laser beam LB from the LD 260 passes through a collimator lens 261 and cylindrical lens 262 and is then scanned in the main scanning direction by a polygon mirror 263.
The laser beam LB scanned by the polygon mirror 263 is adjusted to be scanned at a constant velocity by an fè lens 264. The laser beam further passes through a cylindrical lens 265 to strike a photosensitive drum 10.
Sub-scanning operation is then performed by rotating the photosensitive drum 10 during this main-scanning operation. By repeating main-scanning operation in the sub-scanning direction, a one-page image is printed.
Note that part of the laser beam LB scanned by the polygon mirror is guided to an index sensor 266 to detect the timing.
In an image printing apparatus designed to print a one-page image by repeating such image printing operation, performed in the main scanning direction, in the sub-scanning direction, the main-scanning magnification (the magnification in the main scanning direction) may differ from a desired magnification due to the power characteristics and mount precision of various kinds of lens systems, the planarity and mount precision of various kinds of mirrors, the planarity and mount precision of a photosensitive drum as an image printing medium (image carrier), individual differences thereof, and the like. That is, an offset may occur in the main scanning direction.
An invention designed to change the frequency of a dot clock to adjust such a main-scanning magnification (eliminate an offset in the main scanning direction) is disclosed in, for example, patent reference 1 below.
A plurality of writing units may be provided for the above image printing apparatus to allow it to print a color image. In this case, if offsets in the main scanning direction occur between the respective writing units, a proper color image cannot be printed.
In order to eliminate such offsets in the main scanning direction, the frequency of a dot clock must be changed for each color. Conventional techniques of this type are disclosed in, for example, the following two patent references:
patent reference 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-199868 (page 4; FIG. 7)
patent reference 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-202648 (page 13; FIG. 1)
Repeated studies by the present inventors show that the following problems arise even though the main-scanning magnification is adjusted to coincide with the desired magnification by the techniques disclosed in the two patent references described above.
Even if the distance between the start and the end in the main scanning direction is made equal to a desired distance, a halfway point, e.g., an intermediate point between the start and the end, may not always coincide with a desired position.
In other words, in some case, although the two ends, i.e., the start and the end, coincide with desired positions, a slight offset (halfway offset) may have occurred between the two ends.
In the field of offset printing or the like, in particular, not only expansion/contraction between the start and the end but also a pixel offset at a halfway point (halfway offset) may pose serious problems.
The factors that cause such halfway offsets include the power characteristics and mount precision of various kinds of lens systems, the planarity and mount precision of various kinds of mirrors, the planarity and mount precision of a photosensitive drum as an image printing medium (image carrier), individual differences thereof, and the like. An enormous cost is required to manufacture and mount these components with high precision without causing any halfway offset.
In printing a color image, if such halfway offsets occur in different proportions among the respective colors, the offsets appear as noticeable color misregistration, posing a serious problem.
If the image printing apparatus is an image printing apparatus capable of printing images on the two surfaces of an image recording sheet, even if the distance between the start and the end in the main scanning direction is adjusted to a desired value, a user may recognize the difference between the distances on the two surfaces as an offset.
This is a case wherein an image recording sheet having images printed on its obverse and reverse surfaces is held up against light, an offset between the obverse and reverse surfaces is recognized. Obviously, in this case, a halfway offset may have occurred.

Image printing apparatus and method of adjusting and correcting main-scanning offset in image printing apparatus


A method for restoring a computer program infected with a computer virus to its non-viral condition. The method uses certain information about an uninfected host program recorded prior to infection without relying upon pre-existing knowledge of the computer virus. The method includes: recording a checksum of the uninfected original program, the length of the program, and information pertaining to bytes located near the beginning and end of the original program; and, subsequent to any modification of the original program that is deemed suspicious, generating one or more trial reconstructions based on the recorded information and information contained in the modified file; comparing a checksum of each generated trial reconstruction with the checksum of the original program stored in the database; and outputting a trial reconstruction as the original uninfected program if its checksum matches that of the original program.

There are two basic ways to clean up a computer virus infection: erase the infected file and replace it with a backup, uninfected version; or disinfect it. The second option is usually preferred by users because it is easier, and does not rely on the prior existence of a backup copy of the program.
The following description of how viruses typically infect host programs helps to explain why and how it is usually possible to disinfect infected programs. Unlike biological viruses, which typically destroy their host cells, computer viruses have a vested interest in preserving the function of their host programs. Any computer virus that causes its host to malfunction would be likely to arouse a user's suspicion and thus bring about its own untimely demise. By far the easiest way for a virus author to ensure this, and the only way used in practice, is to keep the original code intact and add the virus code to it. More specifically, it is almost universal to have the virus code execute first, then pass control back to the victim program. (Because the victim code might terminate in a variety of places under a variety of conditions, it is more difficult to design a virus that runs after the victim runs, and we know of no cases where this has been done.) For this reason, an infected program usually contains the entire contents of the original file in some form. Almost universally, the infected program contains large contiguous blocks of code from the original host (perhaps with some rearrangement of the original order), interspersed with blocks of virus code. Some pieces of the original host may not appear explicitly, but be encrypted and stored in data regions of the virus.
Several typical virus infection patterns are illustrated in FIG. 1. Appending viruses (FIG. 1a) add themselves to the end of the host, and modify the header of the original host so as to cause execution to begin within the virus rather than the host. A jump instruction at the end of the virus returns control to the host when the virus has finished execution. Prepending viruses (FIG. 1b) add themselves to the beginning of the host. Standard overwriting viruses (FIG. 1c) overwrite a portion of the host, and modify the header of the host so as to cause execution to begin inside the virus. Unless the virus happens to write itself into an unused portion of the host (such as an unused data region), the host is likely to suffer permanent, irreversible damage. Modified overwriting viruses such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1d and 1e copy a region of bytes equal in length to the virus to the end of the host, and then overwrite the beginning of the host. An additional virus region may intervene between the two sections of the original host. The examples of virus attachment patterns presented in FIG. 1 are illustrative, but not exhaustive.
Another important observation is that almost all viruses intersperse host and virus code very consistently, independent of the host, the operating environment, the virus's generation, etc.
Given these characteristics of typical viral infections, it is apparent that, in order to disinfect an infected program, one simply needs to know the locations of the pieces of the original host and how they ought to be joined to form the original. Additionally, in cases where portions of the host are imbedded or encrypted in the virus, it is necessary to reconstruct those bytes--either by knowing how the virus transforms and imbeds them, or by retrieving them from a database created prior to the infection of the host.
There are two known strategies for disinfecting infected programs. The most common technique is to detect the presence of a known virus in a program, and then to use specific knowledge about how that virus modifies its victims to undo that transformation. Typically, both the means for detecting and removing a given known virus are derived by a human expert; recent technological advances have made substantial progress towards automating both of these procedures.
A second strategy, referred to herein as "generic disinfection", is to record a small amount of information about each host program in a database, and to use this information to reconstruct the original program. The advantage of generic disinfection is that this method of disinfection does not rely on specific knowledge about a large number of viruses. This is particularly important For handling new viruses that have not yet been analyzed, or for which anti-virus updates have not yet been issued or installed widely by users. The disadvantage is that programs cannot be disinfected until the database has been established, i.e., viruses that were present in the system prior to the construction of the database cannot be removed by this method. Virus-specific and generic disinfection methods can be combined so as to benefit from the advantages of each.
A few implementations of generic disinfection exist, but all suffer from a lack of generality both in terms of the class of viruses they can remove and their specificity to one particular operating system. Previous schemes for generic disinfection consist of an ad hoc collection of methods, each tailored to a specific pattern of a virus's attachment to its host; some even fail to check whether the repair has been successful, and can result in damage to the host file.
This invention is a more general method for generically disinfecting host programs, applicable to nearly all existing viruses that preserve the function of their host. In some cases, it is even able to disinfect hosts that have had large portions overwritten by a virus-a situation that was previously regarded as completely hopeless. Furthermore, except for the choice of the value of a few parameters, the method does not depend in any fundamental way on the details of the operating system. Unlike some existing methods, the invention is extremely unlikely to perform an erroneous disinfection: it will either disinfect an infected host correctly, or leave it untouched.

Generic disinfection of programs infected with a computer virus

International Business Machines Corporation


A so-called "ELAN contronect network" is employed to interconnect sub-ELANs to form an ELAN. More specifically, the "ELAN contronect network" is a separate network for interconnecting the servers of the sub-ELANs, where a sub-ELAN is a part of an ELAN having its own LES and BUS that may also be configured as a stand-alone ELAN. Each of the sub-ELANs is connected to the ELAN contronect network via a point-to-point connection-oriented connection, e.g., an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) connection and the ELAN contronect network is configured to present itself to each of the servers of the sub-ELANs as clients thereof. In a particular embodiment of the invention, the ELAN contronect network includes an address server, a broadcast/route server, a configuration server, multimedia servers, and at least one LAN hub interconnected over a high-speed backbone. The address server contains an address data base for performing address resolution between the at least two addresses of each ELAN end-point in response to requests for such translations. The broadcast/route server receives data packets for broadcast to a different sub-ELAN from which the packets originated and broadcasts the received data packets to at least one other sub-ELAN. The broadcast/route server also recognizes that a packet which is a broadcast packet at layer 2 is actually a request for an address resolution at layer 3. If so, the broadcast/route server collaborates with the address server to perform the necessary address resolution and insures that a response is sent only to the client originating the request.

The current embedded base of data networks are based on IEEE 802 Local Area Networks, i.e., so-called "Legacy LANs". These Legacy LANs are so-called "connectionless" because network entities exchange packets without establishment of a layer-2 connection. Many existing and emerging applications are designed to run primarily on Legacy LANs. These applications reside on top of so-called "layer-2" and "layer-3" protocols such as Medium Access (MAC) and Internet Protocol (IP), respectively. As is well known in the art, the layers referred to are those of the international standards organization (ISO) seven layer networking reference model.
Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) with its a) fixed size cell switching, b) sealability from few megabits to hundreds of megabits, c) ability to offer guaranteed quality of service (QoS) on a per connection basis, and d) connection orientation, is viewed as the enabling technology for high-speed multimedia networking. Therefore, it is desired in the art to interconnect Legacy LANs and ATM end-stations, to themselves and to each other, using ATM. This has been achieved in the prior art in a variety of ways.
To describe the existing solutions, consider the example shown in FIG. 1 of two small networks 101 and 103, each representing a different logical subnet at layer-3. LAN 101 has sites 111, 113, and 115 which are interconnected through an ATM wide area network (WAN) 131. Hosts 111-1, 111-2 and 111-3 of site 111 are connected via Ethernet 111-4, hosts 113-1, 113-2, and 113-3 of site 113 are connected via Ethernet 113-4, and ATM hosts 115-1 and 115-2 are connected to an ATM switch 115-6 at site 115. Similarly structured, the second network, LAN 103, has only two hosts per Ethernet site.
A classical method for interconnecting these sites is so-called "bridging and routing". Consider the case of host 111-1 sending a data packet to the MAC address of host 113-2. All stations on Ethernet 111-4, and consequently, bridge 111-5 receives the packet. Bridge 111-5 a) builds broadcast ATM connections to bridge 113-5, hosts 115-1 and 115-2; b) encapsulates host 111-1's data packet on top of the ATM layer, and c) sends it over the ATM connections.
Bridge 113-5, hosts 115-1 and 115-2 receive the information transmitted over the respective ATM connections. Bridge 113-5 strips of the ATM encapsulation, converts the ATM cells into a MAC packet, and sends it to Ethernet 113-4. Thus, all stations on Ethernet 113-4, and consequently, host 113-2 receives the data packet. Hosts 115-1 and 115-2 ignore the received data packet since it is not addressed to them.
lnter-LAN communication according to this technique is achieved through the use of external router 151, since networks 101 and 103 are in different layer-3 subnets. For example, if host 117-1 wants to communicate with host 111-1, host 117-1 sends a data packet to the MAC address of router 151, in which case bridge 117-5 builds an ATM connection to router 151 and sends an ATM encapsulated data packet thereto. Router 151 forwards the packet to bridge 111-5.
A deficiency of this method is that, since it is based on a broadcast principle and thus mimics shared-medium operations, all data packets are broadcast to all ATM destinations, thereby flooding the network with broadcast traffic. Another deficiency is that the broadcast nature of the technique virtually requires a mesh network between all bridges and ATM hosts within a LAN, and all inter-LAN traffic must pass through router 151.
The ATM Forum has developed another bridging solution called LAN Emulation (LANE). LANE relies on a LAN Emulation Server (LES), which performs ATM-to-MAC address resolution, i.e., translation, and a Broadcast and Unknown Server (BUS), which performs data broadcast. The above-described example operates in a LANE environment as follows.
LAN 101 and LAN 103 constitute two different ELANs. As shown in FIG. 2, LAN 101 is served by LES 201 and BUS-203 while LAN 103 is served by LES 211 and BUS 213. As in the previous technique, host 111-1 transmits a data packet with the MAC address of host 113-2. All stations on Ethernet 111-4, and consequently, bridge 111-5, receive, the data packet. Bridge 111-5 either contains within its own information the ATM address of host 113-2, or, if not, it establishes an ATM connection to LES 201 and transmits thereto a so-called "LE.sub.-- ARP.sub.-- request" message to obtain the ATM address of host 113-2. The LE.sub.-- ARP request is defined in the ATM Forum's LAN Emulation Over ATM Specifications, Version 1.0, which is incorporated herein by reference and the contents of which are well known by those skilled in the art.
If LES 201 contains within its own information the requested address, it responds by transmitting it to bridge 111-5. Bridge 111-5 then builds an ATM connection to bridge 113-5, and transmits thereto the data packet. Otherwise, LES 201 broadcasts an LE.sub.-- ARP.sub.-- Request message requesting the ATM address of host 113-2 to all other LAN Emulation Clients (LECs) in ELAN 101, namely bridge 113-5, hosts 115-1 and 115-2. Generally speaking, LAN emulation clients (LEC) are end-stations or bridges that are directly connected to an ATM network. Bridge 113-5 responds to LES 201 with its own ATM address, because it is serving host 113-2, the host whose MAC address has been specified. Here, bridge 113-5 is called a "Proxy LEC", since it represents multiple end-point addresses, e.g., the MAC addresses of hosts 113-1, 113-2, and 113-3. For a more detailed description of the definitions of LEC and proxy LEC reference may be made to the above-mentioned ATM Forum's LAN Emulation Over ATM Specifications, Version 1.0.
Broadcast data packets, such as a so-called "ARP.sub.-- Request", are forwarded to a BUS, which in turn broadcasts them to all LECs. "ARP.sub.-- Requests" are defined in Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) request for comments (RFC) 826, which is incorporated herein by reference. Also, data packets are sent to a BUS until a direct ATM connection is established to the target address within the LAN.
Similar to the previous example, the communications between two Emulated LANs is done via external router 151. Bridge 117-5 receives a data packet from host 117-1 to the MAC address of router 151. Either bridge 117-5 has the ATM address of router 151, or it requests the address from LES 211. After obtaining the ATM address of router 151, bridge 117-5 builds an ATM connection thereto, and transmits the data packet over the connection.
Either router 151 has the ATM address of bridge 111-5, or it requests the address from LES 201. Router 151 then builds an ATM connection to bridge 111-5, and send thereto the data packet. The data packet will be received by bridge 111-5 and passed to hosts 111-1, 111-2 and 111-3. Thus, disadvantageously, all inter-LAN packets must pass through router 151, which may become a communications bottleneck.
A third method builds upon LANE, but incorporates the routing function as well as bridging function into a so called multi-layer LAN switch. Fundamentally, there are three major functions associated with routing: 1) routing, i.e., determination of the layer-3 address of the next-hop-router along the path to the target address, 2) address resolution or translation, i.e. determination of a router's ATM address corresponding to its layer-3 address, and 3) data forwarding, i.e., relaying data packet from one port of the router to another port. A traditional router performs functions (1) and (3) while function (2) is required because an ATM connection must be established between adjacent ATM router hops or to the target ATM address. A multi-layer switch performs only function (3), i.e. data forwarding.
A route server is used to store next-hop router's layer-3 address, and an address resolution protocol (ARP) server is used to resolve, i.e., translate, layer-3 addresses to ATM addresses. Sometimes these functions are merged into one server, a so-called "Route/ARP Server". With a multi-layer LAN switch, the intra-LAN communication is performed just as in LANE using the local LES and BUS of each ELAN. However, inter-LAN communication is different. In the following description, Router 151 of FIG. 2 is assumed to undertake the role of a Route/ARP server.
If host 111-1 wants to talk to host 117-2, then bridge 111-5 acts as a router, obtains the next-hop-routers IP address from the route server 151, and obtains the corresponding ATM address from ARP server 151. It then establishes an ATM connection directly to bridge 117-5 and sends the data packet.
This method is more efficient than using external router since the external router hop is eliminated. Further efficiency is obtained by each multi-layer switch performing fast data forwarding both for layer-2 and 3 packets, while complicated route determination and address resolution functions are logically removed from the switches. Although the Route Server decouples the routing from data forwarding, it only can serve a few logical subnets, and is thus not suited to cover large number of logical subnets. As the number of subnets governed by a single route server increases the efficiencies provided with this approach greatly diminish, since several router hops become practically unavoidable.
Thus, the existing LANE and Route/ARP Server methods work effectively only for small scale local networks. The LANE solution requires one LES and BUS per ELAN, and one ELAN per subnet. If an ELAN becomes large, there will be large numbers of broadcast messages transmitted, which results in a degradation of network performance. Similarly, a single route/ARP Server approach is not suitable for large scale networks, as it also creates performance bottlenecks.
Another problem with the foregoing approaches is the difficulty of handling frequent moves and changes between ELANs when an ELAN may extend beyond corporate boundaries and may span several remote sites. For example, during the life of a project it may be useful for LAN 101 and LAN 103 to form a single LAN. However, with the above solutions, the assigning of hosts to a single LAN is not easily manageable, except in the case of relatively small local networks.

Method and apparatus for interconnecting LANs


Provided is a nanoparticulate composite with two layers. One of the layers comprises one or more metals, which are a paramagnetic metal, a ferromagnetic metal, or a superparamagnetic metal. This layer also contains one or more suitable dopants. The other layer comprises one or more metals of gadolinium, manganese (II), and iron (III), in the form of an oxide or a fluoride. This layer may contain one or more lanthanide dopants. The nanoparticulate composite may be used as a contrast agent, in particular in magnetic resonance imaging.

The following discussion of the background of the invention is merely provided to assist the reader in understanding the invention, and is not admitted to describe or constitute prior art to the present invention.
Multimodal imaging probes are highly desirable for in vivo diagnosis due to their ability to be detectable in multiple mode techniques, leading to more accurate and reliable data.1 Multimodal probes that possess magnetic resonance (MR) as well as optical imaging capabilities have attracted considerable attention in recent years.1a,2 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers imaging of opaque tissues in a noninvasive manner with a high spatial resolution.3 However, its limited sensitivity for imaging at the cellular level hampers its applications for molecular imaging.3 Optical imaging, on the other hand, provides high sensitivity for in vivo imaging, but suffers from low tissue penetration.4 The integration of MRI and optical imaging could act synergistically by improving the resolution and sensitivity.5 In this regard, numerous efforts have been dedicated to the fabrication of bimodal imaging contrast agents, such as Gd-Cy5.5/magnetic nanoparticles (NPs),6 NaYF4/Si-DTTA-Gd3+ NPs,7 Fe2O3/CdSe (ZnS) NPs,8 and Gd2O3/C nanoshells.9
In particular, lanthanide nanocrystals (NCs) have been actively pursued as multimodal probes due to their unique paramagnetic and luminescent properties. Paramagnetic lanthanides, owing to their unpaired electrons, have been found to be useful as MRI contrast agents, which enhance the visualization of MRI signals. The use of MR contrast agents, which usually constitutes paramagnetic species, can enhance the contrast between normal and malignant tissues by greatly enhancing the water proton's longitudinal (T1) or transverse (T2) relaxation rate, the effect which is widely known as proton relaxation enhancement (PRE).10 T1 contrast agents, which typically include—paramagnetic complexes containing Gd3+ and Mn2+ ions, induce bright MR images in T1-weighted experiments by increasing the spin-lattice relaxation rate of nearby water protons. In contrast thereto, T2 contrast agents, which commonly consist of superparamagnetic NPs (e.g., iron oxide NPs) cause protons in their vicinity to undergo fast spin-spin relaxation which gives rise to dark MR images in T2-weighted experiments.11 A dual-mode imaging strategy, where T1 and T2 MR imaging modes can be utilized simultaneously, has the potential to obtain more comprehensive and complementary diagnostic information. For such purpose, Gd-labeled magnetite NPs12 and "magnetically decoupled" MnFe2O3—Gd2O(CO3)2 core/shell NCs were designed as dual-contrast agents for T1- and T2-weighted MR imaging.13 Ultrasmall superparamagneticiron oxide (USPIO) NPs, capable of depicting enhanced T1 and weak T2 contrast effects at low concentration range, have been developed.14 A FeCo-graphitic system has also exhibited a high T1 and T2 contrast effect, however, an understanding of the mechanism by which this system operates is still unclear.15
In addition, compared to conventional imaging probes such as organic fluorescent dyes and quantum dots (QDs), lanthanides exhibit multicolor and sharp emission with high quantum yield, long luminescence lifetimes, and low toxicity.16 These excellent features, coupled with their high resistance to photobleaching, make them highly suitable as alternatives to organic dyes and QDs for various biological applications.16 Lanthanides also possess the ability of converting near-infrared (NIR) light (usually 980 nm) to higher energies ranging from UV to the NIR, a process known as up-conversion (UC), which is strongly desirable for biological applications as it gives rise to deeper light penetration, reduced autofluorescence and light scattering, and increasing image contrast.17 A persisting bottleneck in achieving simultaneous UC fluorescence and dual T1, T2 MRI contrast in single lanthanide nanocrystals is the presence of dysprosium (Dy3+) ions, which are up-converter quenchers. Dy3+ ion, despite being a "poison" for UC emission, can enhance the transverse relaxation rate of water protons in tissues.17 They are regarded as promising T2 contrast agents in MRI, as they can provide better spatial resolution and higher contrast to noise ratio at higher magnetic field (>1.5 T).11
However, there is still a need to provide further contrast agents, in particular dual modal contrast agents.


Systems, methods, and data structures for augmenting data placed on the clipboard with additional data are disclosed. Such systems, methods, and data structures may transform the data to produce data in other formats using, for example, transform specifications or executable code.

Users of modern operating systems and applications may be accustomed to using a "clipboard" to copy and paste a wide variety of data between different screens and applications. In addition to holding data items, some clipboard systems have the ability to represent or contain multiple formats for a given item. For example, when a user copies, say, a set of cells from a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet application may place those cells on the clipboard in multiple formats. For example, for the copied spreadsheet cells, a clipboard might contain a plain text representation, a formatted text representation (in one or more of a variety of formats), an image representation, an application-specific representation that contains all of the cell information, and so on. When a user pastes the spreadsheet cells into a particular application, the application may request or use a particular format. For example, a text editor may only understand and use the plain text representation, an image editing program may use the image representation, another instance of the same spreadsheet application may use the spreadsheet data, and so on.
While a clipboard system may have the capability of supporting multiple formats for the same item, it is not always the case that a particular format used or required by a destination is included in the format or formats provided by the source of the data. As just one example, a personal information management (PIM) application may have the ability to automatically create a contact, with the appropriate fields already populated, when the user pastes data that the PIM application recognizes as a contact. For example, the PIM application might recognize data formatted using the vCard standard. However, even when a source application has all of the information required to create a contact—the name, address, phone number(s), and so on—it may not know how to format this information in a specific format that may be required by some other application. Continuing this example, if the source provides the contact data in another format—like hCard—then the destination may not recognize the data as a contact and may not automatically create a contact using the pasted data.
As a result, the transfer of data between different applications may be limited to a lower fidelity representation, like strings of text. In this example, even if both a source and destination application understand contact data, if they do not exchange contact data in formats supported by both the source and destination applications then a user may still need to, for example, manually copy individual fields—like name, address, and so on—between applications.


Job tickets with banner descriptions and document descriptions are automatically generated by a print shop's DMS. The banner descriptions and the document descriptions are composed of PDL instructions. Document descriptions can be managed and altered without necessarily affecting the job ticket. The banner page PDL instructions are specially designated so that banner pages cannot be managed without also managing the job ticket. Preserving the banner page within a job ticket prevents unwanted side effects from disturbing the print shop's work flow.

Many print shops use a work flow depending on banners or banner pages. Banners are sheets of paper that are often positioned on top of a printed stack of pages. The banners have instructions regarding what to do with the stack. Operators read the banner and then move or process the stack as instructed. Some print shops use banners that are hand written on scrap paper, some others use computer printouts. There are many variations of the banner concept.
More advanced print shops use automatically generated banners. A document request submitted to the shop's document management system (DMS) results in a job ticket that contains or references a document description. A printing engine can use the document description to produce physical copies of the desired document. Custom programming causes the DMS to automatically generate a banner description that can be individually printed or that is prepended to the document description. Individually printed banners are hand placed onto a stack. Prepended banner descriptions result in the banner being printed as the first page of the stack.
FIG. 5, labeled as prior art, illustrates a document description 501 containing page description language (PDL) instructions for multiple pages. PostScript is a commonly used PDL that many printers can interpret. The printer accepts the document description 501 and then interprets the instructions for each page to generate the stack. The first page is printed by interpreting the page 1 PDL instructions 502. The second page is printed by interpreting the page 2 PDL instructions 503. The third page is printed by interpreting the page 3 PDL instructions 504. The fourth page is printed by interpreting the page 4 PDL instructions 505.
The document description 501 can also contain PDL instructions that affect every page. For example, the document description 501 can specify that every page is to be printed on certain size media having a particular finish.
The PDL used to describe documents is a rich language with many features. The features ease the handling, specification, and description of documents. Systems and methods for bringing the richness PDL features to banner descriptions without also damaging print shop work flows are needed.

Exception page programming for banner sheets


An elevator governor rotor comprises a central axis and a plurality of pairs of lobes. Each pair of lobes comprises an inner lobe and an outer lobe.

The disclosure relates to elevator overspeed governors. More particularly, the disclosure relates to lobed centrifugal governors.
A number of elevator governor configurations are in use. One common group of governor configurations is known as pendulum-type governors. An example of such a governor is found in Lubomir Janovsky, "Elevator Mechanical Design", 3rd edition, 1999, pages 269-270, Elevator World, Inc., Mobile, Ala.
Another type of governor is the flyweight-type governor. Examples have a governor rotor including a plurality of pivotally-mounted lobes. The circle swept by the lobes during rotation of the rotor increases with speed. At some threshold speed, the lobes may trigger a sensor (e.g., a switch) that may cut power to the elevator machine and/or trigger other safety functions. An example of this is found in Janovsky, above.
Such lobed governors have been proposed for use in a variety of mounting situations. These mounting situations include car-mounted situations wherein the governor sheave is engaged by a stationary or other tension member (e.g., rope, belt, or the like) so as to rotate the sheave and rotor during normal ascent and descent of the elevator. Other configurations involve stationary governors wherein the governor is mounted, for example, in the equipment room or hoistway and its sheave is driven by engagement with a tension member that moves with the car.


An improved method of ophthalmological surgery is disclosed. The method is used to change the optical characteristics of an eye through subjecting the eye's cornea to ultraviolet irradiation thereby volumetrically removing corneal tissue by way of photoablative decomposition. The method comprises the further step of subjecting a central portion of the cornea to increased ultraviolet irradiation and photoablative decomposition, over and above the irradiation of other corneal tissue. The effect is an increase in qualitative visual results while not significantly changing the refractive characteristic of the cornea.

The human eye functions much like a camera in that light passes through the frontal portion of the eye and is focussed to produce an image on the rear surface or retina. There arc two primary focusing elements to the eye; the cornea and the lens, with the cornea providing the majority of the focusing power. Like film at the back of a camera, in order for an image to be seen clearly by the eye it must be focused precisely on the retina. When the focal point of the eye is for some reason altered and the image is not sharply focused on the retina, eyeglasses or contact lenses are often used to correct the problem.
Under normal circumstances the human eye is somewhat spherical with a frontal bulge comprising the cornea and the lens. However, over 70 million people in North America alone suffer from nearsightedness or myopia wherein there is a mismatch between the length of the eye and the shape of the cornea, with the cornea being generally too steep for the length of the eye. Under these circumstances light is focused on a spot in front of the retina resulting in a blurred or out of focused image. Another somewhat common visual impairment, and one that often accompanies myopia, is corneal astigmatism. Corneal astigmatism occurs when the cornea is a football or toric shape with the two major meridians having radii of different lengths. In the case of corneal astigmatism, the eye focuses at two different positions either in front or behind the retina causing a distortion or tilting of images received. In the case of hyperopia, a third form of visual impairment, the focal point of the eye is located behind the retina resulting in images that are out of focus, unless there is adequate muscular accommodation.
Traditionally myopia, astigmatism and hyperopia have been treated or corrected through the use of glasses or contact lens which adjust the light received by the eye to focus images on the surface of the retina, As an alternative to the use of such corrective lenses, it has been known that surgically altering the shape of the cornea will achieve essentially the same result. That is, through selectively altering the profile or anterior radius of the cornea's curvature, the refractive characteristics of the eye can be changed and improved, resulting in sharper visual imaging upon the retina and hence clearer unaided sight.
There are a number of techniques that have been employed to effect such modifications to the cornea. These techniques include: keratomileusis, epikeratophakia, keratophakia, radial keratotomy, and the use of plastic inserts. Keratomileusis involves the removal of a portion of the cornea and reshaping it while frozen before replacing the corrected removed portion back onto the cornea. In epikeratophakia the epithelium is removed and a synthetic or donor lenticle is sutured in place. Keratophakia involves placing a donor cornea/button into a pocket created in the patient's corneal stroma.
Radial keratotomy is a significantly different procedure that involves the cutting of a number of deep radial incisions that extend from the optical zone to the periphery of the cornea. As a result of these incisions the peripheral cornea bulges outwardly causing central corneal flattening and a reduction of its reflective power that may correct myopia. Transverse keratotomics, or T-cuts as they are sometimes known, when made perpendicular to the astigmatic axis can correct astigmatism.
Although each of these 5 methods can be useful when treating visual impairment of the types discussed, each also suffers from inherent problems. For example, keratomileusis may produce glare problems and sometimes creates irregular astigmatism. In addition, all these methods of refractive surgery have significant inherent problems; being primarily problems of predictability, ease of performing the procedure and surgical complications. When dealing with the elective correction of the refractive characteristics of the eye, extremely fine tolerances must be observed when removing or incising tissue. Extremely small variations in tolerances can result in significant diopter changes in refraction. A further problem with corneal surgery is that it is important that the procedure not impair the transparency or degrade the optical quality of the cornea. Incisions made within the optical region of the cornea must be made with great care so as to preserve the anatomical relationships of the corneal epithelium and minimize the incidence of stromal scaring and hence loss in transparency. Furthermore, in radial keratotomy the tissue below the keratotomies sustain mild damage leading to endothelial cell loss. In effect whenever mechanical means are employed to incise tissue some resulting damage to surrounding tissue will result. This fact is consistent no matter how fine the blade on the cutting tool that is used or how experienced the surgeon.
In response to the shortcomings and problems with these refractive surgery techniques, excimer laser keratectomy has been developed. With the introduction of ultraviolet lasers it was found that tissue from the anterior surface of the cornea could be removed through photoablution. Photoablution is the process where ultraviolet photons are absorbed by tissue molecules placing the molecules in a state of excitation. The increased energy state of the molecules "loosens" the bonds between the atoms causing the bonds to break in tiny bursts which can be described as very tiny explosions. The tissue under these conditions is said to "ablate". Since the ablation process involves the breaking of molecular bonds without significant heating, tissue damage is limited to the area of exposure.
The laser found to be best suited for this application is an argon fluoride excimer laser operating at a wavelength of 193 nm. Using such a laser, corneal tissue can be removed with a high degree of precision and with virtually no damage to adjacent or underlying unexposed surfaces. Excimer laser machines have been developed that supply pulsed ultraviolet radiation calibrated to ablate corneal tissue to a precise known depth. Such a laser beam can be configured in any cross-sectional shape and is accurately controlled as it strikes the cornea through the use of computerization. This no-touch method allows a surgeon to remove corneal tissue precisely without fear of damaging surrounding tissue. Laser keratectomy can then be carried out without the problems associated with the use of mechanical cutting means such as in radial keratotomy.
There are two basic forms of excimer laser beam configuration used in laser keratectomy; broad beam and narrow scanning beam. Narrow scanning laser beams suffer from their own inherent limitations and problem, however they are outside the general scope of this invention which deals more specifically with broad or wide beam configurations. Broad beam excimer lasers allow a surgeon to produce wide areas of photoablation such that the anterior surface of the cornea can be directly reprofiled to alter its optical power. For example, in the case of myopia, a portion of the central part of the cornea can be photoablated causing the cornea to be flattened with a corresponding reduction in dioptic power. Similarly through altering the targeting on the cornea, more tissue can be removed from the periphery of the cornea causing a steepening of the cornea to treat hyperopia. This process of correcting refractive error is commonly referred to as photorefractive keratectomy or PRK.
Although photorefractive keratectomy has proven to be a significant advancement in the field of optical correction of visual myopia, astigmatism and other corneal surface irregularities the procedure has not been without its problems. Laser refractive surgeons have increasingly reported surface irregularities after photorefractive keratectomy which result in side effects from the surgery. Of particular significance are central islands or elevations that often appear in the otherwise smooth corneal surface following PRK. Central islands are generally defined as topographic areas of steepening of at least 3 diopters and 3 millimeters in diameter, measured at least one month post-operatively. Central islands are normally time related and significantly prolong visual rehabilitation. Most often central islands eventually disappear, however, some may continue to exist indefinitely. Although quantitatively the patient's vision may be improved, qualitatively there may be significant visual impairments. Patients with central islands following PRK typically complain of "ghosting", monocular diplopia, and glare and distortion problems.
The precise cause of central island formation has heretofore not been totally understood. In an attempt to explain the cause of these central islands some researchers have proposed what has been referred to as the vortex plume theory. This theory proposes that the plume that is formed above the cornea during the ablation process blocks portions of the laser beam leaving a zone with less irradiation treatment; hence forming the topographical anomaly known as a central island. Operating under this theory, some researchers have proposed blowing nitrogen across the cornea during ablative treatment to eliminate the formation of central islands. However, purging the surface debris plume has been found to result in an increase in anterior-stromal reticular haze, regression, irregular astigmatism with slow visual rehabilitation and loss of best corrected visual acuity. The effect of central islands normally dissipates over time and normally within a few months they have either regressed or their effects have become only minimal. In more severe cases where central islands persist, they are retreated with a second excimer laser ablation confined specifically to the island itself.
Another theory advanced by some to explain the formation of central islands is known as the optic degradation theory. The theory is based upon the premise that central islands are formed as a result of the degradation of the optical characteristics of excimer lasers over time. Research has shown that this theory appears unsupportable since the incidence of central islands does not seem to vary between new and old lasers. One would expect that under the theory new lasers would have a lower incidence of central island formation. In addition, under the optic degradation theory nitrogen purging and the use of alcohol to remove the epithelium should have no significant effect on central island formation. This has been found not to be the case.
From the perspective of treating a patient using photorefractive keratectomy, the incidence of central islands is of concern since they have a significant effect upon the duration of the patient's recovery, sometimes require further treatment, produce visual distortion and may be permanent.


A method for manufacturing an insert-resin-molded product prevents resin burrs from being generated. The method includes the steps of: preparing a resin-molding mold having a cavity having an inner wall including a recess formed therein; preparing a metallic member to be placed in the cavity of the resin-molding mold so as to be integrally molded with resin, the member having a metallic part to be fit into a recess of the resin-molding mold; placing the metallic member in the cavity of the resin-molding mold and fitting the metallic part of the metallic member into the recess of the resin-molding mold; and injecting resin into the cavity of the resin-molding mold to integrally insert-resin-mold with the metallic member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an insert-resin-molded product which is molded by means of integrating resin with a metallic member, and a product produced thereby.
2. Description of the Related Art
A description will be given of a conventional method for manufacturing an insert-resin-molded product, with reference to FIGS. 4 through 6. The described figures and method are not "prior art," but "related art."
As shown in FIG. 4, a chip-type connector 1 is formed as an insert-resin-molded product. The connector comprises an outer conductor 2 as a first metallic member, an inner conductor 3 as a second metallic member, and resin 4 which is molded by means of integrating resin with the metallic members.
First, the outer conductor 2 and the inner conductor 3 are prepared. The former, as shown in FIG. 5, is formed by a substantially pipe-shaped cylindrical portion 6 at the center thereof, a flange-like top surface portion 7 formed at one end of the substantially pipe-shaped cylindrical portion 6, metallic parts 8a and 8b which are formed by bending the end portions of the top surface portion 7 in the direction of the substantially pipe-shaped cylindrical portion 6, and legs 9a and 9b connected to the ends of the metallic parts 8a and 8b. The metallic parts 8a and 8b have through-holes 10a and 10b disposed at approximately the respective centers thereof. The metallic parts 8a and 8b have shapes that substantially resemble the letter "U." The through-holes 10a and 10b are made by cutting out two respective portions on the top surface portion 7. A detailed description will be omitted of the inner conductor 3 shown in FIG. 4, as such a detailed description is unnecessary for the purpose of this disclosure.
Next, as shown in FIG. 6, there is prepared a resin-molding mold 32, which has a cavity 31 capable of accommodating the outer conductor 2 and the inner conductor 3. The cavity 31 is formed into a rectangular parallelepiped, at the center of which a protrusion 34 is disposed so as to be fitted into the inner periphery of the cylindrical portion 6 of the outer conductor 2. Inner walls 33 of the cavity 31 are flat, except for the region of the protrusion 34. The resin-molding mold 32 shown in FIG. 6 forms a lower mold portion. An associated upper mold portion, which is not shown in FIG. 6, is equipped with a gate for injecting resin. The upper mold portion lays flat across and encloses the upper opening 35 of the cavity 31.
Inside the cavity 31 of the resin-molding mold 32, the outer conductor 2 and the inner conductor 3 are accommodated in a state in which these components remain insulated from each other. Molten resin 4 is injected into the cavity 31 of the resin-molding mold 32 after the upper opening 35 of the cavity 31 is enclosed by the upper mold portion. After the resin 4 injected into the cavity 31 has set, the whole device is taken out from the resin-molding mold 32. A chip-type connector 1 is thereby obtained. More specifically, the device obtained is an insert-resin-molded product integrating the outer conductor 2, the inner conductor 3 and the resin 4 into a unit, as shown in FIG. 4.
As for surfaces of the chip-type connector 1, referring to FIG. 4, a description will be provided using a side surface A of the device as an example. The end portions S1 and S3 and the center portion S2 of the resin side surface, which are connected to the metallic part 8a, are formed flush with the surface of the metallic part 8a of the outer conductor 2. The side surface A of the chip-type connector 1 is made flat in conformity with the configuration of the flat inner wall 33 of the cavity 31, which corresponds to the side surface A, as shown in FIG. 6.
In the above method for manufacturing the chip type connector 1, however, when the mold is filled to excess with the molten resin 4, the resin 4 may flow over the surface of the metallic part 8a, which is flush with the resin surfaces S1, S2 and S3. As a result, the resin may be deposited on the surface of the metallic part 8a, resulting in the formation of "resin burrs" 5.
Additionally, when a configuration of the corner portion R1 of the bent metallic part 8a (shown in FIG. 5) differs from a configuration of the corresponding corner portion R2 of the cavity 31 (shown in FIG. 6), the resin 4 may flow over the surface of the corner portion of the metallic part 8a in a manner similar to that described above. Consequently, resin is deposited on the surface of the metallic part 8a, so that resin burrs 5 (Shown in FIG. 4) are generated.

Method for manufacturing insert-resin-molded product


Embodiments for a module for scheduling sleep/wake intervals for a first one or more communication devices are disclosed. The module includes a computer readable medium having instructions thereon. The instructions, when executed by one or more processing devices, cause the one or more processing devices to obtain a coverage prediction for the first one or more communication devices. The coverage prediction indicates intervals during which a second one or more communication devices are predicted to be within range of the first one or more communication devices. The instructions also cause the one or more processing devices to generate sleep intervals and wake intervals for the first one or more communication devices based on the coverage predictions.

Conservation of battery power is an important concern for any battery powered communication device. A traditional approach to battery conservation for a communication device is to use sleep/wake cycles that allow battery powered radios to decrease energy while "sleeping". The timing of the sleep and wake intervals for a group of communication devices can be synchronized so that all the communication devices in the group wake at a prescribed time to communicate with each other and then sleep until the next synchronized wake interval.


A switch includes a chassis, a drive bay including a plurality of downlink switch ports that are configured to be connected to a plurality of storage devices, a plurality of uplink switch ports, and an embedded circuit for providing signal switching between the plurality of uplink switch ports and the plurality of downlink switch ports. The drive bay is disposed on a first side of the chassis, and the plurality of uplink switch ports are disposed on a second side of the chassis that is opposite to the first side of the chassis. The plurality of downlink switch ports is embedded in the drive bay.

A standard Ethernet switch has user-accessible uplink ports such as RJ45, small form-factor pluggable (SFP), and quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP). Active networking ports are typically located on one side of the switch. In addition to the networking ports, some switches may provide one or more management ports on another side of the chassis due to the limited space on the single-headed side. However, those switches do not provide data and/or networking ports on two or more sides of the chassis.
Non-volatile memory (NVM) express (NVMe) is a standard that defines a register-level interface for host software to communicate with a non-volatile memory subsystem (e.g., a solid-state drive (SSD)) over a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) bus. NVMe over fabrics (NVMf) is an extension to the NVMe standard enabling operation over a variety of fabrics (or interconnects) other than PCIe. Herein, the term, fabric, represents a network topology in which network nodes can pass data to each other through a variety of interconnecting protocols, ports, and switches. For example, Ethernet-attached SSDs may attach directly to a fabric, and in this case the fabric is the Ethernet.
FIG. 1A shows a system block diagram of an example NVMe-based storage system. The single-headed switch 150A includes a motherboard 151 (e.g., x86-based motherboard), a plurality of network interface cards 152A-152L, and a plurality of downlink switch ports (e.g., via PCIe) 153A-153M for providing device interfaces to a plurality of front-access drives using cables and connectors arranged in a midplane/backplane 160A. The front-access drives may be solid-state drives (SSDs) 170A-170N. The downlink switch ports 153A-153M can support PCIe interfaces. The single-headed switch 150A has a plurality of uplink ports 110 to receive requests from a plurality of initiators (e.g., servers and clients) to the targeted SSDs 170A-170N. The plurality of uplink ports 110 can be used to provide the requested data or a status (e.g., write completion) from the SSDs 170A-170N. The single-headed switch 150A can be used in an NVMe-based server or storage system.
FIG. 1B shows a system block diagram of an example NVMf-based storage system. The single-headed switch 150B includes an Ethernet switch 155 in 1 RU and a drive bay in 2 RU. The drive bay includes a pass-through board 157, and a midplane/backplane 160B. The pass-through board 157 includes a plurality of quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP) connectors to connect to targeted SSDs 170A-170N. The single-headed switch 150B has a plurality of uplink ports 110 to receive requests from a plurality of initiators (e.g., servers and clients) to the targeted SSDs 170A-170N. The plurality of uplink ports 110 can be used to provide the requested data or a status (e.g., write completion) from the SSDs 170A-170N. The single-headed switch 150B can be used in an NVMf-based server or storage system.
To provide connectivity for devices or servers compatible with NVMe over fabric to SSD drives, a standard switch may be used. However, the standard switch would need a rack space and a deeper chassis to accommodate bulky internal connectors and cables for the uplink and downlink ports. These internal connectors and cables may prohibit fully exploiting the high-speed connectivity that NVMe over fabric devices may offer. Further, the use of the standard external switches to support NVMe over fabric would be costly due to the requirement for an additional power supply for the drive bay chassis in addition to a power supply for the external switch.

Two-headed switch including a drive bay for fabric-attached devices


An undercarriage for a track vehicle includes an endless track having links of constant length connected end to end in the direction of travel, each link having a pair of spaced-apart guide webs and a cog which connects the webs, the cogs being of substantially identical size. The drive sprocket wheel has at least two circumferential sections with teeth having spaces therebetween for engaging cogs. The tooth pitch in each section decreases in the direction of travel from a maximum valve to a minimum value, the space between teeth having the minimum value being sufficient to accommodate one of the cogs with clearance.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to a drive sprocket wheel for a track-type undercarriage, especially for lattice mast cranes, which sprocket wheel has track teeth around its circumference and works together with an endless track. The endless track has individual track links, each with its own base plate, where each track link has two spaced-apart guide webs which are symmetric to the center of the link; a cog extending downward between the links meshes with the track teeth of the sprocket wheel.
2. Description of the Related Art
A sprocket wheel of the general type in question is known from GB 1,602,143. This works together with an endless track and is provided with track teeth of the involute type. The endless track consists of multiple track links, each with its own base plate and with two guide webs asymmetric to the center, spaced a certain distance apart, and having engaging surfaces which ride on circumferential flanges on the sprocket wheel. A cog connects the two webs from a position below the engaging surfaces and meshes with the teeth of the sprocket wheel. The transverse pitch or pitch angle, which is obtained by dividing 360 degrees by the number of track teeth, is constant over the entire circumference. The disadvantage of the known solution is that, when a crane is traveling downhill, it must be braked. As a result of the clearance present in all segments, a relative displacement occurs between the sprocket wheel and the endless track, so that the head area of the track tooth runs up against the flank of the cog. In the least favorable case, the track tooth shears off the flank of the cog, which leads to a further deterioration in the meshing conditions, as can be recognized from the loud noise produced. The problems just described also occur when the change is made from forward to reverse travel.
A camshaft drive for passenger car engines in the form of a sprocket wheel chain drive is known from DE 43 31 482, which, to suppress howling noises caused by resonance vibrations, provides sprocket wheels with varying pitch and a chain with links of different lengths corresponding to the varying pitch of the sprocket wheels. The problems of improving the meshing between the sprocket wheel and the chain is not addressed in this document.
The task of the invention is to improve the sprocket wheel of the general type in question in such a way that the disadvantages described above are avoided.
According to the invention, the toothed rim area of the sprocket wheel has at least two circumferential sections, which, while the tooth width remains constant, are provided with a transverse pitch which varies from segment to segment, one xe2x80x9csegmentxe2x80x9d being defined as the intermediate space between the centers of two immediately adjacent teeth. The rule applies here that the sum of all deviating transverse pitches divided by the number of teeth results in a value which corresponds to the constant transverse pitch. Another characteristic is that, relative to the rotational direction of the sprocket wheel, the transverse pitch decreases from a maximum value to a minimum value or increases from a minimum value to a maximum value in each circumferential section, and also that the greatest difference in the transverse pitch occurs at the transition from one circumferential section to the next. The smallest occurring minimum value of the transverse pitch is selected so that, relative to the cog of the endless track engaging in the spacewidth, a clearance remains, which, under consideration of the production tolerances for the endless track and the sprocket wheel and the wear of the endless track, makes it possible for the cog to engage in the spacewidth. With respect to production tolerances, the least favorable pairing (i.e., cog at the upper tolerance limit and spacewidth at the lowest tolerance limit) is to be taken into account, and, with respect to wear, essentially the stretching of the endless track is to be considered. The endless track used with the sprocket wheel according to the invention has links of uniform length, as is conventional.
The proposed design offers the advantage that the previously known difficulties not longer occur, especially those associated with traveling downhill, because the endless track is held by the segment of the sprocket wheel with the narrowest pitch, and thus it is impossible for relative motion to occur between the sprocket wheel and the endless track.
The toothed rim area preferably has at least two similar (rotationally symmetric to the rotational axis of the sprocket wheel) circumferential sections, which, whereas the tooth width remains constant, are provided with a transverse pitch which changes from segment to segment, where the sum of all deviating transverse pitches in the circumferential section in question divided by the number of track teeth of this section results in a value which corresponds to the constant transverse pitch.
In cases where the transverse pitch decreases in the rotational direction of the sprocket wheel, the total clearance between the cog and the spacewidth decreases from a maximum value to a minimum value in the segment formed by a trailing and a leading tooth. The reverse is true in the case of an increasing transverse pitch.
The total clearance preferably consists of a clearance component A formed between the leading flank of the trailing tooth and the trailing flank of the cog and a clearance component B formed between the trailing flank of the leading tooth and the leading flank of the cog, where the sum of clearance component A and clearance component B is different in each segment.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed solely for purposes of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims. It should be further understood that the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale and that, unless otherwise indicated, they are merely intended to conceptually illustrate the structures and procedures described herein.

Drive sprocket wheel for a track vehicle


A hardened asbestos-free, porous, calcium silicate filler material for an acetylene storage vessel is made by mixing quicklime with water to form a first mixture and at the same time mixing water, synthetic silica, cellulose fibers and ground quartz silica to form a second mixture. The first mixture is then added to the second mixture to form a third mixture. The third mixture is homogenized. Then a suspending agent is dispersed in the third mixture to form a fourth mixture. The fourth mixture is transferred into a cylinder to be filled and is cured under saturation steam pressure. Thereafter, the cylinder is dried. A gas storage cylinder so formed has a monolithic dry mass filling a metal shell. The mass has a porosity of about 88 to 91% and a density in the range of 250 g/l to 270 g/l.

This invention relates to a porous calcium silicate filler material. More particularly, the invention relates to acetylene gas storage vessels having an asbestos-free calcium silicate filler material therein and a method for manufacturing same.
Acetylene is widely used in oxy-acetylene torches because it enables temperatures of up to 3500.degree. C. to be reached for the welding and cutting of metals. However, acetylene gas is difficult to store because it is unstable and can decompose to its elements, carbon and hydrogen, with explosive violence at pressures greater than about 2 atmospheres if not properly stabilized. To provide for safe storage of acetylene gas, the gas must be dissolved in a solvent. Acetylene gas is thus typically stored in the form of an acetylene gas solution dissolved in, for example, an acetone solvent, in a vessel containing a porous filler mass. The storage vessel may be a steel cylinder. In this way, acetylene can be safely stored and shipped under pressures of up to about 15 atmospheres.
The porous filler mass comprises a capillary system of interconnecting micropores. Typically the porous filler mass is a hardened calcium silicate mass having a porosity of about 90%. The calcium silicate mass allows sufficient surface area to aid in maximum contact between the solvent and the acetylene. This system will absorb acetylene at a rate approaching 0.58 lbs. of acetylene per pound of the solvent.
The acetylene-containing cylinders are produced by filling the cylinder with the porous filler mass and injecting the solvent into the cylinder. Acetylene is then introduced into the cylinder and is distributed throughout the capillary system of the porous material as a result of its dissolution in the solvent. In this way, it is possible to insure safe storage of dissolved acetylene in quantities of up to eight times the volume of the gas which could be stored without the porous mass/solvent system.
The calcium silicate storage mass is made by mixing quicklime (calcium oxide) into water to form an aqueous slurry. Ground quartz silica is added to the slurry. A reinforcing agent is added during the mixing step to help create and hold a homogenous solution to insure a uniform mass throughout the cylinder after curing and drying. Traditionally, asbestos fibers have been used for this purpose. During mixing, one or more agents can be added to insure that the mass remains monolithic before the crystalline structure is formed during curing.
The solids are mixed in an aqueous solution for certain mixing times. The slurry is then pumped into cylinder shells completely filling them and is then cured, creating a crystalline calcium silicate mass in the cylinder. The mass is then dried to form a high porosity core, which allows the absorption of the solvent and the acetylene gas.
It is of great importance that the calcium silicate filler mass should be monolithic and should be substantially free of voids. Void spaces in the filler mass provide an available space for the formation of unacceptable volumes of acetylene gas with the attendant explosion risk. Thus, the filler mass must be formed with uniformly distributed very fine pores. During drying, the mass shrinkage must be kept controlled to less than 0.05% in any dimension but never to exceed 0.125 inches in a longitudinal direction inside the steel shell.
Previously, asbestos fibers were introduced into the aqueous slurry from which the calcium silicate filler mass was produced. The asbestos fibers functioned as a settling resistant or suspending agent to retard the settling or separation of the lime and silica from the water in the aqueous slurry composition prior to its hardening into the calcium silicate filler mass. In addition, in the hardened calcium silicate filler mass, the asbestos fibers acted as a reinforcing agent to help maintain the structural integrity of the filler mass.
However, asbestos fibers have now been found to pose health and pollution problems. Recent regulations by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration have made the use of asbestos much more difficult. OSHA regulations, particularly in 29 C.F.R. .sctn.1910 now state that an asbestos fiber level of just 0.1 fiber per cubic centimeter on an eight hour time weighted average is subject to regulation. In addition, the disposal of waste from the manufacturing phase of the calcium silicate storage mass makes it desirable to replace asbestos fibers with another more environmentally friendly product. Such constraints relating to health and safety conditions and to the handling of asbestos material have led to the consideration of other suspending and reinforcing agents in the calcium silicate filler mass.
One known substitute for asbestos fibers in the calcium silicate filler mass is an alkali resistant glass fiber. An acetylene storage vessel having a hardened asbestos free calcium silicate filler mass reinforced by glass fibers is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,463. While glass fibers are acceptable for this purpose, the cost of such alkali resistant glass fibers is rather high and glass fibers do not allow the filler mass to have the necessary compressibility because the glass fibers fracture even when only slightly compressed.
Therefore, others have tried to use organic suspending and reinforcing agents such as cellulose, together with mineral suspending agents. One known such calcium silicate filler mass is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,895,825. This mass includes cellulose reinforcing fibers, as well as a mineral suspending agent which can be either solid glass fibers or solids of purified clay. However, the cost for this filler material is still rather high. In addition, the mixing time of this material is long since it involves the steps of slaking quicklime with hot water to form a first mixture; adding additional water and stirring at a slow speed to form a second mixture; dispersing a cellulose reinforcing agent in the second mixture to form a third mixture; introducing with stirring into the third mixture a mixture of natural silica and either calcium silicate or amorphous ultrafine synthetic silica to form a fourth mixture and subsequently dispersing a second mineral suspending agent, which can be either glass fibers or purified clay, into the fifth mixture to form a sixth mixture. Only then is the sixth mixture transferred into the storage cylinder to be filled. Also, the step of slaking quicklime with hot water is hazardous as a volatile mixture is created.
Accordingly, it has been considered desirable to develop a new and improved calcium silicate storage mass and a method for manufacturing same, which would overcome the foregoing difficulties and others while providing better and more advantageous overall results.

High porosity calcium silicate mass for storing acetylene gas


A sustained release tablet comprising a base tablet comprising a water-swellable gelling agent and a pharmaceutically active ingredient dispersed homogeneously in said gelling agent, said base tablet being coated with a film coating composition prepared by dissolving one or two members selected from the group consisting of ethylcellulose and acetylcellulose in an organic solvent. The tablet is capable of zero order dissolution of both water-soluble drugs and slightly water-soluble drugs, and can be produced economically with ease.

Many of the pharmaceutically active ingredients currently considered useful have a short biological half life and need to be administered several times a day. Should the administration frequency of such drugs can be decreased, it will not only lessen the burden on patients but also enhance compliance of the patients and bring about higher treatment effects. For this end, it is necessary to control release of a pharmaceutically active ingredient in such a manner that an effective concentration in blood can be maintained over an extended period of time.
In this regard, release of a drug at a constant rate (zero order dissolution) irrespective of the concentration of the drug which is in the dosage form as shown in FIG. 1a will be most ideal.
Such ideal zero order drug release maintains the concentration of a drug at a constant level in the tissues, thus allowing the drug concentration in blood to stay at a safe level. In particular, this release method is most effective for a drug which causes side effects even at a concentration a drug administration can easily achieve. In addition, the administration frequency can be decreased, since efficacy of the drug can be maintained for a long time. In contrast, a dissolution with decreasing rate with time, such as that shown in FIG. 1b and presently seen in many preparations, is called a first order dissolution.
Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 23814/1988 reports a sustained release pharmaceutical composition for oral administration having almost zero order release property. According to this gazette, the composition has, in the main construction, a core material comprising at least a 20% derivative cellulose as a gelling agent, a drug homogeneously dispersed in the gelling agent and optionally a pharmaceutically acceptable excipient, and a coating of a permeable, slowly-dissolving derivative cellulose polymer applied to the core material. As the gelling agent, usable is, for example, hydroxypropylmethylcellulose and as the coating polymer, usable is, for example, a dispersion of ethylcellulose (aqueous dispersion). According to the examples therein, however, the zero order release continues for the first 10 hours or up to 85% dissolution at most, and it is not verified if the dissolution remains zero order up to 100%. The reason therefor is that the ethylcellulose for the coating layer has poor binding property when used as an aqueous dispersion and the core swells as the gellation proceeds, to the point that the coating layer is finally broken.
Besides the aforementioned, there are many controlled release (sustained release) preparations being studied, such as those shown in the following.
A sustained release preparation comprising rapidly dissolving granules and slowly released granules in combination in, for example, a capsule, such as the one for rhinitis achieves the sustained release according to a preparation design in which the rapidly dissolving part is dissolved immediately after administration and then a predetermined amount of a drug is released gradually from the slowly released part. In this case, the defect is that the production of the granules to be released slowly with time should be modified every time a drug to be contained changes, as can be seen in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication Nos. 103012/1987, 197433/1989 and 230513/1989. The release of a drug from globular sustained release granules as described does not make a zero order release, since dissolution rate slows down with time due to the decreasing concentration gradient of the drug contained in the granules, as a result of the dissolution of the drug through an outer layer without destruction of the granules. This type of preparation mostly releases drug by allowing same to dissolve through a film which is formed on a spherical granule containing the drug and which does not dissolve in a digestive juice. For this mechanism, this type of preparation cannot be applied to a drug slightly soluble in water. While there are other types of dissolution which are similar to the one mentioned above, such as simple matrix type dissolution wherein a drug is encapsulated in a wax or a water-insoluble coating agent and gradually dissolved through the outer layer or the drug is dissolved along with the dissolution of the outer layer, such preparations hardly achieve a zero order release but rather a first order release, since the drug dissolution area becomes smaller as the drug dissolves out.
The hydrophilic polymer matrix preparations recently drawing attention have a preparation design in which a drug dispersed in a hydrophilic polymer is diffused through the gel formed by the polymer by the absorption of water in the digestive tract, and released from the gel layer. For example, EP-B-282,111, Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 128917/1989 and SE-A-8008646-5 disclose controlled release of a pharmaceutically active ingredient by the use of a gelling polymer. The swelling type sustained release tablets using a hydrophilic polymer comprise those wherein tablets simply absorb water, swell (into a spherical shape in this ease) and disintegrate from the outer layer where dissolution begins gradually, and those wherein a drug dissolves out beginning from the outer layer to the inner layer while maintaining the swollen, spherical shape. The significant defect is that they can be prepared into first order dissolution preparations only, since the dissolution area becomes smaller as the drug dissolves out and the concentration of the drug in the matrix develops a gradient.
When a semipermeable film, a water-swellable film such as polyacrylate or an enteric-coated film generally used for sustained release preparations is used, possible swelling is as conventional as the one shown in FIG. 3, wherein a tablet gradually absorbs water from the entire surface through the film so that it swells into a sphere, or the film is dissolved in a gastric juice so that the tablet absorbs water from the entire surface and swells into a sphere, with the result that a zero order release cannot be attained. When an enteric coating is mainly used, administration of the tablet to the patients suffering from achlorhydria may be difficult.
When using a prior art technique, formulation and production method should be greatly modified according to the characteristics of the pharmaceutically active ingredient to be administered. For example, Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 1614/1986 teaches triple coating of different types of pH-dependent films to achieve sustained release. The above-mentioned Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 23814/1988 teaches the use of a buffer according to the pharmaceutically active ingredient.
Besides the aforementioned, many sustained release preparations have been developed, which basically are, generally-classified, of simple matrix type inclusive of those having a hole in the coated film, of membrane permeable type to allow dissolution of a drug through a semipermeable film, of water-swellable matrix type, or of disintegration or dissolution type, and at the present moment, there has not been provided a zero order sustained release tablet which is applicable to both water-soluble and slightly water-soluble drugs.

Yoshitomi Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.