A system and method are provided for vascular access, enabling repetitive vascular access while preventing damage to the blood vessel wall, reducing hematomas, improving flow in a vessel, preventing back-wall perforation, and enabling improved fistula maturation and care. The system includes an implanted conduit that is incorporated into surrounding fibrous tissue that can guide a needle and/or catheter from a puncture site on the skin to a vessel wall, which may be used to provide repetitive vascular access for persons requiring hemodialysis or chemotherapy.

Repetitive, secure access to a blood vessel is often required by patients with chronic diseases. A subset of these patients, dialysis patients, require access to a high flow vessel.
For example, end stage renal failure patients need repeated, chronic access to the vascular system to allow life sustaining hemodialysis. In the United States, an estimated 421,349 patients per year undergo hemodialysis and, thus, require maintenance of a vascular access site. The annual estimated cost associated for dialysis patients is approximately $73,000 dollars and a significant portion of these costs is spent on maintaining vascular access capability. Cumulatively, $30.9 billion U.S. dollars/year are spent, equal to approximately 7.1 percent of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services total budget (United States Renal Data System 2015 USRDS annual data report: Epidemiology of Kidney Disease in the United States. National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Md., 2015).
Repetitive puncture of a blood vessel in a localized area may ultimately lead to weakening of the vessel wall in that area that can result in aneurysm formation (a ballooning out of the vessel wall) which may eventually rupture with serious bleeding. A blood clot may also form within the aneurysm that can ultimately cause a thrombosis (blood clot) of the fistula.
Furthermore, repetitive needle punctures of a blood vessel may result in damage to the vessel wall causing scar tissue formation, narrowing the vessel (stenosis), and causing it to be nonfunctional.
Another complication of repetitive punctures is hematoma formation. This may be caused by back wall vessel perforation by a needle after penetrating the front wall, or upon needle extraction from the front wall, if inadequate pressure is applied to the blood vessel to allow sealing of the puncture hole with a blood clot.
Still further complications may occur if, after extraction of the needle from the blood vessel, excessive pressure is applied to the vessel to avoid leakage from the puncture hole. The excessive pressure may shut off blood flow in the vessel, resulting in a complete clotting of the vessel.
Currently, there are three commonly used systems to establish vascular access for kidney failure patients: catheter-based access, native arterial venous fistula, and synthetic graft fistula. All techniques commonly have complications that require interventions to reestablish access.
Catheter-based access. This system may include a synthetic catheter that is placed transcutaneously, allowing the dialysis technician to attach the patient's catheter to the hemodialysis machine. Although this system offers immediate availability for use after placement, there may be several disadvantages. First, the system may be prone to infection, particularly for transcutaneously placed catheters where infection can develop at the skin exit site due to inadvertent breaks in the sterile technique by technicians. The presence of a foreign body in the vascular system is prone to seeding from distant sources of infection in the patient via the bloodstream. When a catheter becomes infected, removal is usually required to clear the infection. As a result, another catheter must be placed at another site to resume treatment. This requirement results in the additional cost and inconvenience of performing an additional surgical procedure as well as the cost of the replacement catheter.
Second, the relatively small caliber of the synthetic tubes placed in the vascular system may permit only limited blood flow through the system while a patient is on the dialysis machine. This may prolong the time each patient needs to be dialyzed and may indirectly contribute to the frequency of dialysis treatments.
Third, the catheter system introduces a foreign body in a central vein. This can lead to further complications including, for example, frequent formation of fibrin clots or blood clots in the lumen of the tube requiring the infusion of costly thrombolytic drugs to clear the catheter. Sometimes even more costly endovascular procedures are required to reestablish function in a catheter. Furthermore, the foreign body in the vascular system may result in a thrombosis or a narrowing (stenosis) of a major vein (subclavian vein or superior vena cava) that then precludes using that vein for future venous access in that patient. This complication can have life threatening ramifications particularly if the stenosis involves the superior vena cava.
Native Arterial Venous Fistula. A second mode of vascular access requires the construction of a connection between a patient's native vein and an adjacent artery (an Arterial Venous (AV) fistula), that creates a high flow of blood through a limited portion (generally 15-20 cm) of the patient's vascular system. This superficially positioned native vascular conduit usually grows to a certain minimal size (approximately 5-6 mm or greater in diameter) that then provides a target for the dialysis technician to insert the two needles that are required to place a patient on the dialysis machine. Some advantages of a native AV fistula may include, for example, longevity, immunity from infection, and low cost. This type of fistula has the longest life span of all known types of vascular access, lasting from several years up to twenty years or more, with the possibility of performing a secondary surgical intervention to salvage the functioning of the fistula even if complications do develop with the fistula over time. Also, since the fistula is constructed of native tissue, it is relatively immune to infection. Moreover, the fistula is cheaper to construct since there is no requirement for a costly catheter or synthetic graft.
On the other hand, since there are limited sites for the creation of a functioning fistula in each patient, the current standard of care is to perform the fistula in the most distal vessels in a patient's upper extremity where a preoperative assessment indicates that the fistula has a reasonable chance for maturing successfully. A 20% failure rate is considered acceptable for first time fistulas as vascular access surgeons try to maximize the available sites in a patient, cognizant that patients may require new fistulas at other sites in the future if the primary fistula eventually fails. This 20% failure rate can lead to further operations and, thus, significant additional costs and inconvenience to the patient.
Synthetic Graft Fistula. A third mode of vascular access requires the placement of a synthetic graft in a subcutaneous position, usually in a patient's upper extremity. The technician achieves access to the vascular system by placing needles directly into the easily palpable graft. Some advantages may include that the graft provides a reliable, easily accessible conduit to access to connect a patient to the dialysis machine. This choice of access is particularly valuable in patients who do not have the requisite minimally sized vein that will permit the establishment of a native AV fistula.
On the other hand, the cost of such a graft is approximately $3,292 (US) per patient. Also, the most commonly placed grafts require several days and up to several weeks for perioperative swelling to decrease and for the grafts to become sufficiently incorporated into a patient's tissues to allow safe access via the graft. The graft can also become infected by inadvertent lapses of sterile technique by the dialysis technician or through seeding from distant sources in the patient. An infected graft frequently requires a very costly and inconvenient (to the patient) series of procedures that includes removal of the infected graft, placement of an interim dialysis catheter, and a subsequent implantation of a new graft after the infection has been definitively treated to reestablish vascular access. A synthetic graft can also be prone to development of early or late thrombosis due to its synthetic, foreign quality.
Moreover, the site of the venous anastomosis between the graft and the patient's native vein can be a frequent site of stenosis that develops from a mismatch in the distensibility characteristics of the patient's native vein and the synthetic graft. This can require secondary costly surgical or endovascular interventions to correct the problem and to preserve continued functioning of the graft as a viable access conduit. Some grafts may even form a stenosis within the graft due to a proliferation of fibrin and scar tissue that requires a secondary procedure to maintain the viability of the graft. Additionally, repeated puncture of a graft in the same location by the dialysis technician can lead to a pseudoaneurysm formation (i.e., a localized collection of blood) that can eventually lead to failure of the graft if not corrected. Improper technique by the dialysis technician can also result in a hematoma formation during access to the graft or following removal of the needles at the end of the dialysis run. The hematoma may make access to the graft in that location difficult or impossible for a period of time, and may lead to occlusion of the graft.
Methods of vascular access that require fistula access are highly dependent on the skill of the dialysis technician. A fistula that, at maturation, is somewhat smaller than desirable, or is located deeper in the patient's tissues thereby presenting a less easily palpable target than normal, is more likely to be damaged during attempts to access the fistula. In the United States, the preferred method that is taught to access native fistulas is the step ladder approach, i.e., constantly moving the locations where the two access needles are placed in the fistula. The protocol of sticking needles into the fistula at different locations at each dialysis session leads to increased pain experienced by the patient since the effect of a localized area of insensitive scar tissue—e.g., where the fistula is accessed using the buttonhole technique (discussed further below)—is never allowed to form. Moreover, the native fistula may require at least 6 weeks and sometimes up to several months to mature, i.e., to grow to an adequate size and increased thickness of its walls that will allow the vessel to be safely punctured with a needle. During the maturation time for a fistula, a bridging dialysis catheter must be placed in the patient's central venous system to allow a patient to be dialyzed. Thus, there exists a need for a vascular access device that is capable of being used prior to fistula maturation.
Another approach, the buttonhole technique to access fistulas, has been shown in some studies to increase the longevity of a fistula while decreasing complications associated with moving access sites to different locations in the fistula during subsequent dialysis sessions. Some advantages of the buttonhole technique may include: (a) two nearby needle puncture points to access the fistula (approximately 3 cm apart) require only a relatively short functioning and accessible fistula to access the bloodstream; (b) blunt needle access through a fistulous opening in the skin into a scar tissue cylindrical track that leads the needle down to and into the vessel causes less patient discomfort (c) the narrow cicatricial cylindrical tract self-seals relatively easily with thrombus after removal of the needles following a dialysis run, eliminating the incidence of perifistula hematomas on the front wall of the fistula that can temporarily, or even permanently, incapacitate a fistula; and (d) after a cicatricial track has been established, blunt needles can be used to access the graft, decreasing the incidence of needle point damage to the back wall of the fistula when inserting needles.
A disadvantage of the buttonhole approach is that it requires a highly skilled dialysis technician to create a button-hole track. Ideally, a single, highly-skilled technician will repetitively perform the needle insertion on the same patient during the initial dialysis sessions, following the exact needle track in the same patient (same entrance point, same angle, same depth) every time for the first 10-15 access events until a well formed tract has developed. The logistical difficulty of having the same highly-skilled technician available for the first 10-15 access events in an individual patient currently limits the wider applicability of this technique.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,414,530, to Roger Alan Mason, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, teaches the use of a vertically oriented chamber which guides a needle to a site in a blood vessel. Improvements to this device have been made which are incorporated into the present disclosure.
Vascular access devices that substantially overcome the foregoing disadvantages are needed.


Information may be provided relating to each component in a computer aided design (CAD) drawing indicating certain attributes of each of the components. Standard CAD blocks are provided which include attributes attached to the blocks which directly correspond to possible components to be used in the CAD drawing. Information relating to each component added in the CAD drawing is entered into an attribute block of a database file corresponding to the type of component added in the CAD drawing. When the drawing is completed, database output files are generated and the attribute data may be provided to a user via an output device such as a printer printing a hard copy or a display device displaying the information.

The present invention relates to a system and method of extracting and providing attribute information corresponding to components such as equipment, instruments and process lines included in a computer aided design system drawing.
Computer aided design (CAD) systems such as AutoCAD.RTM. and Intergraph.RTM. have been used in creating drawings such as a Process & Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) used in, for example, a process involved in a plant operation. However, if a drawing such as a P&ID is designed by one company and provided to a second company for operation in the second company's plant, some computer aided design systems such as AutoCAD.RTM. do not provide a design of the system including a listing of attributes corresponding to each individual piece of equipment, instrument or process line in the system. Therefore, if such a system is designed by a first company and provided to a second company for operation in their plant, for example, the second company cannot easily obtain detailed information about each individual piece of equipment from a view of the AutoCAD.RTM. design system drawing. Therefore, a need has arisen to provide information via attributes and known database software relative to a computer aided design drawing for each individual piece of equipment, instrument or process line in the computer aided design drawing.

Method and system extracting attribute information corresponding to components included in a computer aided design system drawing such as a process and instrumentation diagram


Weighted ridge regression (WRR) processing is applied to three or more distance measurements to determine the location of a terminal. For example, in an integrated satellite-based navigation system/wireless network, the location of a mobile unit can be determined by applying WRR processing to at least three distance measurements, where one or more of the distance measurements are satellite-based distance measurements (e.g., GPS pseudorange measurements) and one or more are wireless network-based distance measurements (e.g., round-trip delay or pilot phase offset measurements). WRR processing provides improved accuracy in the determination of mobile unit position over conventional least mean square techniques.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the location of terminals, such as wireless mobile units, using distance measurements, such as satellite-based and/or wireless network-based distance measurements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Satellite-based navigational systems, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), provide accurate position information to worldwide users. A satellite-based navigational system requires a terminal to be able to detect signals from at least three satellites in order to determine its location. When GPS signals from three satellites are received, a xe2x80x9ctwo-dimensionalxe2x80x9d position (e.g., latitude and longitude) of the terminal can be determined. When GPS signals are received from four or more satellites, a xe2x80x9cthree-dimensionalxe2x80x9d position (e.g., latitude, longitude, and altitude) can be determined. These preconditions, however, may not always be satisfied, especially when one or more of the direct satellite signals are obstructed, such as for a terminal located inside a building.
When the terminal is a mobile unit or other wireless communication device that is part of a wireless telecommunication network, its position may also be determined based on distance measurements available within the wireless network, such as the round-trip delay (RTD) and the pilot phase offset (PPO). The RTD is the time that it takes to transmit a signal from a cellular base station to the mobile unit and then back to the base station. The PPO is a measure of the code phase of a pilot signal as received by the mobile unit. If RTD and/or PPO measurements corresponding to three or more base stations are available, then the position of the mobile unit may be determined using wireless network-based position techniques including conventional triangulation schemes, such as time difference of arrival or angle of arrival.
One drawback for such wireless network-based positioning techniques is that the accuracy of the position determination is typically much lower than that provided by satellite-based positioning techniques. Another problem is that there may not always be three or more wireless network-based distance measurements available for the purpose of position calculation.
The present invention is directed to a technique that enables the determination of the position of a mobile unit in a wireless telecommunication network, where the mobile unit is configured with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver or other satellite-based navigational system receiver. According to implementations of the present invention, the position of the mobile unit is determined by integrating satellite-based measurements and wireless network-based measurements. As such, the present invention can be used to determine the position of the mobile unit when less than the required minimum number of satellite signals are available for conventional satellite-based positioning techniques. Moreover, the present invention can be used to provide more accurate positioning than would otherwise be provided by conventional wireless network-based positioning techniques.
Conventional schemes for integrating satellite-based distance measurements and wireless network-based distance measurements for determining the position of a mobile unit do not produce desirable results for several reasons. One problem is that the quality of the measurements, which come from different sources, are quite different. For example, errors in the round-trip delay (RTD) and/or pilot phase offset (PPO) measurements used in wireless network-based positioning techniques may be as much as ten times larger than the errors in the GPS pseudorange measurements used in satellite-based positioning techniques. GPS pseudorange measurement errors are typically about 10-25 meters, while typical RTD measurement errors are about 40-100 meters. Simply combining satellite-based distance measurements and wireless network-based distance measurements (e.g., in a conventional least mean squares (LMS) triangulation algorithm) without considering the corresponding measurement qualities may adversely affect the accuracy of the determined position.
Another problem with the conventional integration schemes is that no approach is adopted to reduce the influence of undesirable geometric distributions. Undesirable geometric distributions refer to certain orientations of the mobile unit with respect to the various sources of the distance measurements (i.e., satellites and/or base stations) that make accurate determination of the three-dimensional or even the two-dimensional position of the mobile unit difficult. For example, accurate three-dimensional position determination may be difficult when the mobile unit and three or more of the various sources of the distance measurements all lie in approximately the same plane. Similarly, accurate two- or three-dimensional position determination may be difficult when the mobile unit and two or more of the various sources of the distance measurements all lie in approximately the same line. In these situations, a position error known as the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP) arises. When such a situation exists, it is well known that errors in the distance measurements can be greatly magnified in a conventional LMS triangulation algorithm.
As a result of these problems, an integration scheme that simply applies a conventional LMS triangulation algorithm to a combination of satellite-based distance measurements and wireless network-based distance measurements to determine the position of a mobile unit will not typically provide satisfactory results.
The present invention is directed to a technique that effectively integrates satellite-based and wireless network-based distance measurements to provide accurate position determination for mobile units of a wireless telecommunications network. Embodiments of the present invention utilize one or both of the following technologies: (1) a weighting strategy that assigns an appropriate weight to each different distance measurement (e.g., different weights for satellite-based and wireless network-based distance measurements) based on a level of confidence in the accuracy of the distance measurement, and (2) a ridge regression strategy that reduces the influence of geometric dilution of precision on the mean square error of the calculated position. The present invention can be used to increase the accuracy of position determination for mobile units, as well as to remove the requirement of having to have all distance measurements come from a single type of source (e.g., all satellite-based distance measurements or all wireless network-based distance measurements) in order to determine mobile unit position.
In one embodiment, the present invention is a method for determining the location of a terminal, comprising the steps of: (a) assigning a weight value to at least one of a set of three or more distance measurements corresponding to three or more different sources relative to the terminal to generate a weighted set of distance measurements; (b) assigning a value for an insertion parameter; and (c) performing weighted ridge regression (WRR) processing based on the weighted set of distance measurements and the insertion parameter to determine a WRR estimate representing the location of the terminal.

Location determination using weighted ridge regression


A drive means for a pump or the like comprises a pair of spaced axles having sprocket wheels thereon interconnected by an endless chain. The end of a piston rod or plunger of a pump is connected to the chain via a plate. Rotation of one of the sprocket wheels drives the chain which in turn causes the rod or plunger to reciprocate with a stroke equal to the distance between the spaced axles.

Use has been made of mechanisms having a great height and a large rotating counterpoise for moving the plungers of pumps operating under the above conditions, since generally speaking the length of travel of said piston or plunger is considerable.
The well-known "Perry" Manual shows the reason why it is advisable to use pumps with one or more cylinders or pistons, when it is necessary to work under the above-mentioned conditions: plunger pumps are the only ones which can operate in the range from 0 to 400 meters with an almost continuous discharge of about 520 liters per minute, under atmospheric conditions. The rotating counterpoise devices or mechanism, apart from being extremely expensive, are also difficult to install, and even more difficult to transport, since the masses which help to counter-balance the forces acting on the piston or plunger are considerable. Again, these rotating masses, being extremely heavy in relation to the weight of the rest of the equipment, require a whole structure and anchoring of appreciable size, and in addition their speed of rotation is necessarily low.


A method for drawing a flexible sleeve over an elongated mandrel includes placing a ring within a lumen of the sleeve. A first end of the sleeve is fixed against movement relative to a first end of the mandrel. A first end portion of the sleeve is inverted over a first end portion of the mandrel so as to define a circumferential cuff in the sleeve, and the ring is positioned concentrically within the circumferential cuff. Using, e.g., a magnet, the ring is then urged longitudinally along the mandrel and toward an opposite, second end thereof, such that the sleeve is inverted over at least an outer surface of the mandrel.

1. Technical Field
This application relates to manufacturing systems and methods in general, and more specifically, to methods and systems for the automated placement of flexible sleeves on elongated mandrels.
2. Related Art
The manufacture of composite structures, e.g., composite-bodied aircraft, involves the fabrication of structural components comprising matrices of a plastic, e.g., a thermosetting resin, within which reinforcing fibers, e.g., carbon or glass fibers, are embedded.
Some such structural components, e.g., door surrounds, stringers, spars, and similar long/thin geometries, can be fabricated by placing a flexible sleeve, e.g., a braided glass or carbon fiber sleeve, over an elongated mandrel, and then encapsulating the sleeve within a layer of a liquid plastic, e.g., a thermosetting resin, which is subsequently cured, partially or fully. In some embodiments, the sleeve can then be removed from the mandrel or vice-versa for subsequent processing, and in others, the mandrel, which can be solid or tubular, can remain within the sleeve and comprise an integral, "core" portion of the finished product.
Sleeves, and in particular, bi-axially braided sleeves, are intrinsically difficult to install onto elongated mandrels manually due to their material properties, in which a lack of longitudinal tension can result in an undesirable increase in the diameter of the sleeve. The issue is exacerbated by the requirement that material placement be uniformly smooth in order to avoid wrinkles in the finished product. Consequently, manual processes tend to be slow and result in substantial variability in the finished product quality. Once the length of the sleeve exceeds a certain length, manual handling and loading of the sleeve becomes very difficult, unless automation methods and apparatus are employed. An example of this is in the case of long (>100 in.) aircraft stiffeners, such as fuselage and wing skin stiffeners and vent stringers. During manual handling, there is the potential for the introduction of Foreign Object Debris (FOD) and the material can be easily damaged. Additionally, there are Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) issues associated with the handling of, e.g., glass and carbon fibers, such as skin and respiratory irritation.
Accordingly, there is a long-felt but as yet unsatisfied need in the industry for systems and methods for the automated placing of flexible sleeves on elongated mandrels that overcome the foregoing and other problems of the conventional manual placement techniques.

Automated braided sleeve placement and tensioning


A diamond abrasive recovery method in which diamond abrasive is recovered from polishing material slurry including diamond abrasive used for polishing a polishing target mainly composed of silicon. The method comprises (1) recovering polishing material slurry including the used diamond abrasive; (2) adding inorganic salt including a metallic element which is to be a divalent or trivalent cation to the recovered polishing material slurry to aggregate the diamond abrasive and separating a supernatant liquid from a diamond abrasive included dispersion medium; and (3) extracting diamond abrasive from the separated diamond abrasive included dispersion medium using a low polarity dispersion medium.

As polishing material which accurately polishes in a production method of an optical glass or a semiconductor device, there are, diamonds, cerium oxide, iron oxide, aluminum oxide, zirconium oxide, colloidal silica, etc.
Some main constituent elements of the polishing material are obtained from minerals which are not found inside Japan, and some are resources relying on import. In addition, most are expensive material. Therefore, it is necessary to technically consider reuse of resources in liquid waste of polishing material including used polishing material.
As a method of processing waste water including suspended fine particles typically generated in various industrial fields, the suspended fine particles are aggregated and separated using a neutralizer, inorganic aggregating agent, macromolecular aggregating agent and the like, the processed water is discharged, and the aggregated and separated sludge is burned. With this, the waste water is disposed.
Polishing target components, such as waste from the optical glass, generated in large amounts in the polishing process is mixed in the liquid waste including used polishing material. Normally, it is difficult to effectively separate the polishing material component and the polishing target component included in the liquid waste. Therefore, at present, the polishing material liquid waste is often disposed after use. This causes the problems of cost in disposal.
Therefore, lately, it is becoming important to efficiently recover and reuse main constituent elements of the polishing material in order to conserve resources of highly scarce elements.
As a method of recovering the polishing material including the diamond abrasive, the following method is disclosed, the polishing slurry liquid waste is centrifuged, the metallic component is dissolved by processing with mineral acid such as nitric acid, and the liquid phase and the solid phase are separated to recover the diamond abrasive (for example, see patent document 1).
However, usually, few tens of liters to few hundreds of liters of polishing material slurry are repeatedly used in the polishing process. According to the method of patent document 1, the use of acid becomes a heavy burden to the environment.


A shelving unit comprises a plurality of upright support posts and shelves having multiple corners with multi-component corner structure at each corner of the shelf for releasably connecting the shelf to the posts. Each corner structure comprises a two piece base segment and a substantially frictionless outside interlocking segment. The two piece base segment includes a housing fixedly connected to a shelf corner and a substantially frictionless inner liner within the housing. The outside interconnecting segment includes outwardly extending flanges that engage vertically oriented opposed undercut slots on the inner liner to facilitate interconnection of the base and interlocking segments. Both segments include partial frusto conical surface portions that engage a frusto conical clamping sleeve on the support posts to facilitate releasable connection of the shelf to the posts. The substantially frictionless material of the inner liner and outside interlocking segment enables ease of assembly and disassembly as well as a tight wedging fit of the components.

The present invention relates to shelving and, more specifically, to an improved shelving unit having shelves with multi-component conical corner structure which facilitates the mounting on or removal of a shelf relative to upstanding corner posts without the necessity of initially removing adjacent shelves connected to the posts.
Adjustable shelving units employing shelves constructed of sheet metal or wire are well known and extensively utilized. They are particularly intended to be readily assembled and disassembled. For this purpose, the shelving normally utilizes corner structures for securing the shelves to upright posts. In situations where strength and rigidity of the assembled shelving unit is of significance, the corner structure generally employs a conical collar arrangement which totally surrounds the corner post to achieve a secure and rigid clamping engagement with the post. Such corner structure, however, not only makes assembly of the shelving unit more complex since the conical collar must be slidably inserted over the post from one end, but this corner structure also makes partial disassembly or rearrangement of the shelves more difficult. For example, with most known shelving units employing a corner structure of this type, the corner structure does not permit a bottom or intermediate shelf to be mounted on or removed from the posts after the shelving unit has been assembled due to the inability to position a corner structure in surrounding relationship to the post. Hence, the entire shelving unit must be reassembled.
A known shelving unit of the above type which has achieved significant commercial success provides conical collar corner structures which telescope downwardly over upstanding support posts, and conical clamping sleeves which are normally diametrically split into two pieces and which are wedgingly interposed between the collars and posts. This arrangement, wherein the intermediate conical clamping sleeve is utilized, has proven desirable inasmuch as this positively ensures a positive wedging and hence secure engagement of the shelf with respect to the posts so as to provide an extremely strong connection. The shelving units employing this intermediate conical sleeve, however, have still normally possessed features which have been considered undesirable with respect to the required assembly and disassembly techniques, the inability to add or remove intermediate shelves, and the general overall structural and functional complexities associated with some of the collar structures.
Multi-component corner constructions has been proposed which enable an intermediate shelf to be added or removed without initially removing adjacent shelves such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,626. A two piece corner structure at each of the four corners of a shelf permits the shelf to be connected to or removed from four supporting corner posts without the necessity of removing the shelving directly above or below in the overall shelving system. However, extreme wedging action and friction hold the two piece corner constructions together when secured to the posts and later separation for shelf removal is quite difficult and problematic.

Multi-component conical corner structure for shelving

Metal Masters Foodservice Equipment Co., Inc.


A method for registration of images of tissue slices comprises: receiving a first image of a first tissue slice and a second image of a second tissue slice, both tissue slices being prepared from the same tissue block; determining an unreliable area in the first image showing folded tissue; and registering the first image and the second image by registering an area of the first image and the second image outside of the unreliable area.

Pathology diagnostic investigation of patient material (tissue and cells) is the basis of many treatment decisions, in particular in oncology. Usually, thin slices from a biopsy are presented on microscope slides and stained according to certain protocols. Specific stains are used for scoring and grading the possibly present type of cancer. As the number of stains applied to a single slide is rather limited due to overlapping frequencies in the visual spectrum (especially in bright field microscopy), consecutive slices are used, each differently stained. In traditional pathology, the information of one slide is transferred to the next slide only in a figurative sense. Quickly alternating between multiple slides is impossible, as it requires to switch the physical slides and to find the region of interest. Therefore, registration of multiple slides has to be done in one's head by the operator (e.g. a pathologist).
With the introduction of digital scanners, image analysis tools may help the pathologists to register the (consecutive) slides. However, general registration techniques as global registration may not work due to differences in the tissue, deformation of the tissue, stretching of the tissue, etc. More advanced registration techniques such as local registration do not require a single (global) transformation matrix and permit local adaptation.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


A system for automating data partitioning in a parallel database includes plural nodes connected in parallel. Each node includes a database server and two databases connected thereto. Each database server includes a query optimizer. Moreover, a partitioning advisor communicates with the database server and the query optimizer. The query optimizer and the partitioning advisor include a program for recommending and evaluating data table partitions that are useful for processing a workload of query statements. The data table partitions are recommended and evaluated without requiring the data tables to be physically repartitioned.

Database systems increasingly rely upon parallelism to achieve high performance and large capacity. Rather than relying upon a single monolithic processor, parallel systems exploit fast and inexpensive microprocessors to achieve high cost effectiveness and improved performance. The popular shared-memory architecture of symmetric multiprocessors is relatively easy to parallelize, but cannot scale to hundreds or thousands of nodes, due to contention for the shared memory by those nodes. Shared-nothing parallel systems, on the other hand, interconnect independent processors via high-speed networks. Each processor stores a portion of the database locally on its disk. These systems can scale up to hundreds or even thousands of nodes, and are the architecture of choice for today's data warehouses that typically range from tens of terabytes to over one hundred (100) terabytes of online storage. High throughput and response times can be achieved not only from inter-transaction parallelism, but also from intra-transaction parallelism for complex queries.
Because data is partitioned among the nodes in a shared-nothing system, and is relatively expensive to transfer between nodes, selection of the best way to partition the data becomes a critical physical database design problem. A suboptimal partitioning of the data can seriously degrade performance, particularly of complex, multi-join "business intelligence" queries common in today's data warehouses. Selecting the best way to store the data is complex, since each table can be partitioned in many different ways to benefit different queries, or even to benefit different join orders within the same query. This puts a heavy burden on database administrators, who have to make many trade-offs when trying to decide how to partition the data, based upon a wide variety of complex queries in a workload whose requirements may conflict.
Previous efforts have chosen partitions heuristically or have created a performance model separate from the optimizer. Heuristic rules unfortunately cannot take into consideration the many inter-dependent aspects of query performance that modern query optimizers do.
Accordingly, the present invention recognizes a need for a tool that can be used to automate the process of partition selection.

System and method for automating data partitioning in a parallel database

International Business Machines Corporation


Described is a method for augmenting or enhancing the aroma or taste of smoking tobacco or smoking tobacco articles by adding to smoking tobacco or to at least one section of the smoking tobacco article, e.g., the paper, the filter or the body of tobacco, a mixture consisting essentially of:. (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA0 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA0 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA0 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA0 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA0 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA0 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA0 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal. PA0 Particularly, on smoking the side stream is modified and masked. The smokey, phenolic, cresolic odor is covered and the aroma in the environment around the smoked cigarette is clean and slightly citrusy.

This invention relates to the use of:
(a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 in augmenting or enhancing the aroma or taste of smoking tobacco or smoking tobacco articles. PA1 (i) saturating a natural fiber textile with water; PA1 (ii) admixing with said water-saturated natural fiber textile at least one organic acid selected from the group consisting of oleic acid, linoleic acid and linolenic acid or glyceride ester thereof; PA1 (iii) exposing the resulting product to a gas selected from the group consisting of air, oxygen and ozone at a pressure of from about 1 up to about 50 atmospheres and also exposing the resulting product to ultra-violet light rays; and PA1 (iv) passing the resulting product through an operating clothes drier thereby producing a mixture of C.sub.6 -C.sub.15 straight chain aldehydes in said natural fiber which yields an enhanced fresh air dried aroma, said mixture of aldehydes consisting essentially of: PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 in augmenting or enhancing the aroma or taste of smoking tobacco compositions or smoking tobacco articles including the environment surrounding the smoking tobacco article as it is smoked. PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 gives rise to a fresh, clean, slightly citrusy aroma in the main stream and the side stream of the cigarette on smoking and further masks the smokey, phenolic, cresolic odor in the main stream and the side stream and in the environment surrounding the smoking tobacco article as it is smoked. PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal. PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 other flavoring and aroma additives may be added to the smoking tobacco material or substitute therefor, or to a component of the smoking tobacco article either separately or in admixture with the mixture of aldehydes as follows: PA1 Beta-ethyl-cinnamaldehyde; PA1 Eugenol; PA1 Dipentene; PA1 Beta-Damascenone; PA1 Maltol; PA1 Ethyl maltol; PA1 Delta undecalactone; PA1 Delta decalactone; PA1 Benzaldehyde; PA1 Amyl acetate; PA1 Ethyl butyrate; PA1 Ethyl valerate; PA1 Ethyl acetate; PA1 2-Hexenol-1; PA1 2-Methyl-5-isopropyl-1,3-nonadiene-8-one; PA1 2,6-Dimethyl-2,6-undecadiene-10-one; PA1 2-Methyl-5-isopropylacetophenone; PA1 2-Hydroxy-2,5,5,8a-tetramethyl-1-(2-hydroxyethyl)-decahydronaphthalene; PA1 Dodecahydro-3a,6,6-9a-tetramethylnaphtho-(2,1-b-)-furan; PA1 4-Hydroxyhexanoic acid, gamma lactone; and PA1 Polyisoprenoid hydrocarbons defined in Example V of U.S. Pat. No. 3,589,372 issued on 6/29/71. PA1 Celery seed oil; PA1 Coffee extract; PA1 Bergamot oil; PA1 Cocoa extract; PA1 Nutmeg oil; and PA1 Origanum oil. PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 and if desired, one or more of the above-indicated additional flavoring additives may be added to the smoking tobacco material, to the filter or to the leaf or paper wrapper. The smoking tobacco material may be shredded, cured, cased and blended together material or reconstituted tobacco material or tobacco substitutes (e.g., lettuce leaves) or mixtures thereof. The proportions of flavoring additives may be varied in accordance with the taste but insofar as enhancement or the imparting of fresh, clean, citrusy notes are concerned and insofar as the masking of the smokey, phenolic, cresolic odor around the smoking tobacco article and in the main stream and the side stream is concerned we have found that satisfactory results are obtained if the proportion by weight of the sum total of aldehydes of the composition of matter, to wit: PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 to smoking tobacco material is between 50 ppm and 1,500 ppm (0.015%-0.15%). We have further found that satisfactory results are obtained if the proportions by weight of the sum total of aldehydes of the composition of our invention, to wit: PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 used to flavoring material is between 1,500 and 15,000 ppm (0.15%-1.5%). PA1 (a) from about 0.5 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-hexanal; PA1 (b) from about 5 up to about 21% by weight of said composition of n-octanal; PA1 (c) from about 30 up to about 80% by weight of said composition of n-nonanal; PA1 (d) from 0 up to about 40% by weight of said composition of n-decanal; PA1 (e) from 0 up to about 7% by weight of said composition of n-tetradecanal; PA1 (f) from about 7 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-heptanal; PA1 (g) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-undecanal; and PA1 (h) from 0 up to about 12% by weight of said composition of n-dodecanal, PA1 of our invention taken alone or taken further together with other flavoring additives as set forth above may be applied by means of a suitable applicator such as a brush or roller on the paper or leaf wrapper for the smoking tobacco product or it may be applied to the filter by either spraying or dipping or coating. PA1 2.2% n-hexanal PA1 20.0% n-octanal PA1 75.0% n-nonanal PA1 2.8% n-tetradecanal PA1 to provide a tobacco composition containing 800 ppm by weight of the mixture of aldehydes on a dry basis. Thereafter, the alcohol is removed by evaporation and the tobacco is manufactured into cigarettes by the usual techniques. The cigarette when treated as indicated has a desired and pleasing clean, fresh aroma which is detectable in the main stream and the side stream when the cigarette is smoked. This aroma also gives rise to the masking of the smokey, phenolic, cresolic odor present in most cigarettes on smoking and also present in the environment surrounding the smoker during the smoking operation.
Fresh, clean, citrusy aroma and taste characteristics both prior to and on smoking in the main stream and in the side stream and in the environment around the smoking cigarette are highly desirable characteristics in formulation of smoking tobacco and in the production of smoking tobacco articles.
The environment around a smoking tobacco article during the smoking process has, in addition to the standard tobacco aroma, a smokey, phenolic, cresolic aroma. There is a need to mask this aroma in the environment around the smoking cigarette or other tobacco article, e.g., cigar.
Although Leffingwell "Tobacco Flavoring For Smoking Products" published by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, 1972 indicates that individual aldehydes have specific smoke aromas, e.g.:
______________________________________ Compound Smoke Taste Smoke Aroma ______________________________________ Butyraldehyde harsh, green chemical herba- ceous green n-decanal green, citrus green, waxy, fatty heptanal fatty, green fatty, green n-hexanal spicy, green apple, green, fatty fatty-waxy n-nonanal fatty, floral, waxy fatty, floral, waxy n-octanal fatty, sweet fatty undecanal fruity, sweet, sweet, fruity- waxy-floral fatty ______________________________________
Leffingwell, however, does not show that a specific combination of specific aldehydes has the power to mask the smokey, phenolic, cresolic aroma and at the same time effect a citrusy, fresh, clean aroma in the main stream and the side stream of the cigarette on smoking and in the environment around the smoking cigarette or other smoking tobacco article.
Additional prior art indicates that straight chain aldehydes are useful in augmenting or enhancing the aroma of perfume compositions, colognes and perfumed articles. Thus, Arctander "Perfume and Flavor Chemicals (Aroma Chemicals)", published by the author in 1969 discloses that n-nonanal is useful in augmenting or enhancing or imparting floral aromas at Monograph 2343. By the same token, Arctander indicates that n-octanal is useful in imparting citrusy and floral aromas at Monograph 2397. n-Undecanal is shown by Arctander at Monograph 3028 to be useful in imparting "fresh air" odors and also to have a floral and refreshing odor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,880 issued on July 31, 1984 contains claims drawn to a process for preparing a fresh air aroma comprising the steps of:
(a) from about 0.5 up to about 5% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-hexanal; PA2 (b) from about 2 up to about 12% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-heptanal; PA2 (c) from about 5 up to about 15% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-octanal; PA2 (d) from about 40 up to about 70% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-nonanal; PA2 (e) from about 10 up to about 30% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-decanal; PA2 (f) from about 0.5 up to about 5% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-undecanal; PA2 (g) from about 0.5 up to about 5% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-dodecanal; PA2 (h) from about 0.5 up to about 5% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-tridecanal; PA2 (i) from about 0 up to about 5% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-tetradecanal; PA2 (j) from about 0 up to about 5% by weight of said aldehyde composition of n-pentadecanal.
However, nothing in the prior art discloses the use of the combination:

Process for augmenting or enhancing aroma or taste of smoking tobacco and smoking tobacco article using aldehyde composition


A surge protection apparatus, has a signal terminal, and first and second power supply terminals which are connected to the internal circuit to be protected, and first and second diodes which are connected between the signal terminal and the first and second power supply terminals, and a protective transistor acting as a discharge path for the surge voltage which is connected between the first and the second power supply terminals. As a result, even if the discharge capability of the internal circuit connected between the first and second power supply terminals is small, the surge voltage can be discharged in a short time through the protective transistor. Moreover, since the protective diode at the positive power supply side is connected to the power source of low impedance, the plural signal terminals will not be coupled by the junction capacitance. Thus, crosstalk does not occur between the plural signal terminals.

The present invention relates to a surge protection apparatus for preventing electrostatic breakdown of an electronic function circuit.
FIG. 10 shows a conventional example of a surge protection apparatus. This is an equivalent circuit diagram of the surge protection apparatus disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent No. 58-159370.
In FIG. 10, plural (two, in this example) signal terminals 2 and 3, and a pair of power supply terminals 4 and 5 are connected to an internal circuit 1. Between the two signal terminals 2 and 3 and the negative (or zero volt) power supply terminal 5, diodes 6 and 7 for discharging the negative electric charge are connected in the direction shown. On the other hand, between the signal terminals 2 and 3 and the power supply terminal 5, a positive charge protective circuit 8 for discharging the positive electric charge is connected. The positive charge protective circuit 8 comprises diodes 9 and 10 connected to the signal terminals 2 and 3, and a transistor 11 those collector is connected to the cathodes of the diodes 9 and 10, and whose emitter is connected to the power supply terminal 5, and whose base is open.
The operation of the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 10 is as follows.
While the input voltage applied to the signal terminals 2 and 3 are within a range of operating voltage of the internal circuit 1, the transistor 11 is in its cut-off state, and the positive charge protective circuit 8 is at a high impedance. The diodes 6 and 7 are also in then cut-off state and are at a high impedance. Accordingly, the surge protection apparatus does not operate at all, and the voltages applied to the signal terminals 2 and 3 are directly supplied to the internal circuit 1, and ordinary signal processing is done.
When, due to some reason or other, negative high voltages are applied to the signal terminals 2 and 3, the diodes 6 and 7 are made to conduct. Accordingly, the negative high voltages are applied via bypass to the power supply terminal 5 through the diodes 6 and 7. As a result, breakdown of the internal circuit 1 due to negative high voltages will be prevented.
To the contrary, when positive high voltages exceeding the tolerance of the transistor 11 are applied to the signal terminals 2 and 3, the transistor 11 breaks down at BV.sub.CEO (the breakdown voltage between the collector and emitter with the base open). Consequently, the input voltages at the signal terminals 2 and 3 are clamped at BV.sub.CEO. Thus, by limiting the input voltages applied to the signal terminals 2 and 3 by the positive charge protective circuit 8, the internal circuit 1 may be protected from the breakdown due to positive static electricity.
FIG. 12 shows another example of a conventional surge protection apparatus. This is the surge protection apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 48-30189.
In FIG. 12, a signal terminal 12 and a pair of power supply terminals 4 and 5 are connected to an internal circuit 1. Between the signal terminal 12 and the positive power supply terminal 4, a diode 13 for discharging the positive electric charge in the polarity shown is connected. On the other hand, between the signal terminal 12 and the negative (or zero volt) power supply terminal 5, a diode 14 for discharging the negative electric charge in the polarity shown is connected.
The operation of the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 12 is described below.
While the input voltage applied to the signal terminal 12 is within a range of supply voltage, the diodes 13 and 14 are both in their cut-off state and are at a high impedance. Accordingly, the surge protection apparatus does not operate at all, and the input voltage applied to the signal terminal 12 is directly supplied into the internal circuit 1, and ordinary signal processing is done.
On the other hand, due to some reason or other, if a positive high voltage exceeding the supply voltage is applied to the signal terminal 12, the diode 13 is made to conduct, and the input voltage applied to the signal terminal 12 is clamped. To the contrary, when a negative high voltage exceeding the supply voltage is applied to the signal terminal 12, the diode 14 is made to conduct, and the input voltage applied to the signal terminal 12 is clamped.
The surge protection apparatus shown in FIG. 12 protects the internal circuit 1 from breakdown due to surge voltage in this way.
The conventional surge protection apparatus shown in FIG. 10 and FIG. 12, however, have the following problems.
In the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 10, in actual use, that is, when a supply voltage is applied to a pair of power supply terminals 4 and 5 and input voltages not exceeding the supply voltage are applied to the plural signal terminals 2 and 3, the diodes 9 and 10 and transistor 11 do not conduct. In such an input condition, the equivalent circuit in FIG. 10 becomes as shown in FIG. 11. More specifically, the diodes 9, and 10 are replaced by the electrostatic capacities 15 and 16, and the transistor 11 by the parallel circuit of collector resistance 17 and electrostatic capacity 18 between collector and emitter. When such surge protection apparatus is applied to the input part of the circuit processing high frequency signals or switching signals, such as high frequency amplifiers and switching circuits, the electrostatic capacities 15 and 16 are a set at low impedance in the high frequency region of the input signal. Accordingly, the plural signal terminals 2 and 3 are coupled through the low-impedance electrostatic capacities 15 and 16, and the input signal applied to one signal terminal 2 is mixed into the other signal terminal 3, thereby generating a so-called crosstalk. This crosstalk occurs not only in high frequency amplifier and switching circuits but also in high input impedance circuits or high gain circuits even in a low frequency amplifier.
In the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 12, electrostatic capacity is not present between the signal terminal 12 and the other signal terminal. Therefore, in actual use, the crosstalk as experienced in the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 10 does not occur. In the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 12, however, since the junction capacitance of the diodes 13 and 14 is applied between the signal terminal 12 and the pair of power supply terminals 4 and 5, the high frequency characteristic of the electronic function circuit deteriorates.
Generally, moreover, the environments for inducing the electrostatic breakdown of a semiconductor integrated circuit (called an IC hereinafter) incorporating electronic function circuits are:
1. when the IC is put in a magazine and is conveyed, and
2. when the IC is built into an electronic device, among others, and in these circumstances, anyway, friction is applied to the IC from its outside. In such environments, the surge voltage applied to the signal terminal 12 of the IC incorporating the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 12 is discharged through the impedance in the internal circuit 1, or the impedance (in the internal circuit 1, or the impedance) between the pair of power supply terminals 4 and 5. Accordingly, in the surge protection apparatus in FIG. 12, the effect of the surge protection (the discharge capability) varies depending on the magnitude of the impedance between the power supply terminals 4 and 5. For example, in the IC with a small degree of integration, generally, the current consumption is small, and the internal direct-current resistance between the power supply terminals 4 and 5 is large. Furthermore, since the junction area of the resistance element or transistor element formed in one semiconductor substrate is small, the equivalent junction area between the power supply terminals 4 and 5 becomes consequently small. When a positive static electricity is applied to the signal terminal 12 of such an IC with a small degree of integration, the positive charge flows into the internal circuit 1 by way of the diode 13. However since the impedance between the power supply terminals 4 and 5 is large, in other words, the electric charge absorbing capability is weak, the voltage between the power supply terminals 4 and 5 is likely to go up, and a high voltage is maintained for a long period. This tendency appears more significantly when the IC has a large internal impedance between the power supply terminals 4 and 5, and the probability of breaking down the IC by static electricity is raised.
Meanwhile, in the conventional surge protection apparatus shown in FIG. 10, since the discharge route of positive charge is formed by the breakdown voltage BV.sub.CEO of the transistor 11, a favorable surge protective effect is obtained regardless of the impedance between the power supply terminals 14 and 15.
Thus, the two surge protection apparatuses shown in FIG. 10, FIG. 12 have their own merits and demerits. Therefore, the designers of ICs were forced to select the surge protective apparatus estimated to be the best for each IC in consideration of the application of IC and the degree of integration of the circuit elements. The criterion is, at the present, dependent on the intuition of the designers on the basis of the past experience.
In this background there is a growing demand for the development of general-purpose surge protection apparatus applicable to any design specification of IC.
The present invention is intended to present a surge protection apparatus meeting such a demand.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A lighting system for cold environments which comprises a source of DC voltage, a high-frequency, square-wave alternating current generator connected to the source of DC voltage, and one or more fluorescent lamps non-thermionically connected to the square-wave alternating current voltage generator.

In the past, the majority of refrigerator/freezer lighting systems incorporated incandescent lamps. Incandescent lamps heat up the interior of the refrigerator thereby decreasing the efficiency, and also have to be replaced frequently.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 6,034,485, I disclose lighting systems in which high-frequency, ballast-free, square-wave drivers are utilized to non-thermionically initiate and maintain discharges in lighting systems. In my application Ser. No. 08/942,670, filed Oct. 2, 1997, I disclose fluorescent lighting systems which use my ballast-free, non-thermionic high-frequency AC square-wave driver system which start and operate fluorescent lamps without significant change in voltage. These non-thermionic driver systems do not use heated filaments, and, surprisingly, it has been found that they are efficient in starting and operating in cold temperatures and provides more efficient cold environment lighting systems.
The present invention adapts the non-thermionic high-frequency (40 kHz to 120 kHz) alternating current drivers to start and operate lighting systems for cold environments such as refrigerator/freezers, walk-in coolers, cold food display cases, etc.
The invention provides a cold environment fluorescent lamp lighting system for refrigerators, freezers, display cases, walk-in coolers, etc. comprising a circuit for generating a high-frequency (40 kHz-120 kHz) alternating current voltage waveform, and a circuit for non-thermionically applying in a ballast-free manner the high-frequency alternating current voltage waveform to lamp electrodes to start and operate the lamp(s). The high-frequency alternating current voltage waveform as applied to the lamp electrodes is configured to reverse the polarity of the alternating current voltage at the lamp electrodes more rapidly than the pattern of electron and ion density in the gaseous medium can shift.
Thus, the object of the invention is to provide an improved cold environment lighting systems.

High-frequency, ballast-free, non-thermionic fluorescent lighting system for cold environments


A fan assembly for a gas turbine engine for aircraft has a stator casing made of a first material and an annular abradable seal structure made of a second material comprising an epoxy foam having heat expandable, thermoplastic microballoons filled with a chemical which expands when the second material is cured such that the second material bonds directly to the stator casing upon curing thereby minimizing the number of processing steps during manufacture.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to abradable seals and seal materials and, more particularly, to an abradable seal for the stator casing of a fan or a compressor of a gas turbine engine for aircraft.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the conventional, relatively cooler operating portion of a gas turbine engine, an organic lightweight abradable material secured to the casing of the stator is used to provide an abradable rub surface to the ends of fan or compressor blades. As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,547,455, issued Dec. 15, 1970 to J. E. Daunt; U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,278, issued Oct. 22, 1974 to S. P. Totell; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,460,185, issued Jul. 17, 1984 to M. F. Grandey, the abradable material may consist of an epoxy resin or a halogenated hydrocarbon including chopped fiberglass or phenolic microballoons or both.
Typically, a rub shroud of epoxy with phenolic microballoons is used as a filler and is structurally supported by a plastic honeycomb structure which is fixed to the inner annular surface of the casing of the stator to provide a structure on which to build a thick layer of the microballoon abradable material. The honeycomb may be made from a polyamide or aramid paper sold by Dupont Chemical Company under the trademark "Nomex", which is formed into a honeycomb that is dipped into a phenolic resin to stiffen the structure and is sold by Hexcel Corp. under the trademark "HRH 10". The honeycomb is bonded directly to the surface of a layer of fiberglass that is then bonded to the surface of the stator casing. The layer of fiberglass provides a textured surface for the microballoon abradable material to bond to and a thermal barrier between the metal (e.g., aluminum, steel, or titanium,) casing and the microballoon abradable material. The abradable material has a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion of the two materials which can cause cracking of the abradable material as a result of CTE mismatch exposed to variations in temperature. As a result, the abradable material is prone to falling out of the honeycomb cells.
During manufacture, the abradable material must be troweled into the honeycomb cells in an operator sensitive operation that often leaves voids and empty spots in the honeycomb. The application of the fiberglass, the honeycomb structure, and the abradable material each require a separate cure cycle which further complicates the manufacturing process.

Seal including a non-metallic abradable material


A gaming machine of the present invention operates such that when a plurality of positions are inputted, positional information is generated based on the plurality of positions and sign information, indicative of a sign passing across the plurality of positions, is generated based on the positional information upon which comparison is made between sign information, indicative of the signs passing across the plurality of positions, and preliminarily stored sign data to discriminate a correlation between the sign information and the sign data.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to gaming machines and, more particularly, a gaming machine and related programs wherein input operations per se has gaming characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, research and development work has heretofore been undertaken to provide gaming machines, such as slot machines and computer-games for home use/arcade game use. These gaming machines, which are widely used in general practice, include a controller, composed of various buttons, which is programmed such that when a player operates the controller, characters on a display device achieve desired operations.
Further, another gaming machine has been developed which has a display device configured to allow a player to directly touch the display device and a detected player touched position whereby enabling various operations to be performed depending on the touched position (as disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-939 (on paragraphs [0054] to [0061] and in FIGS. 7 to 12).
With the gaming machine set forth above, a contact sensor, such as a touch panel, is attached onto a front surface of the screen. Such a contact sensor detects a position, at which the player has touched.
Examples of a contact position detection system with such a touch panel include an electrostatic capacity type method, which measures electric potentials at electrodes located at four corners of a touch panel (as disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-507148), and an electrostatic capacitory coupling method that measures a flow rate of electric current at the four corners of the touch panel (as disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-250710).
However, with the gaming machines set forth above, the operations to be executed upon manipulations of the player to directly touch the screen are made for the games to be progressed. Thus, no remarkable difference exists with respect to input operations activated by a normally used keyboard and game pad and the input operations per se have no gaming characteristic.
Further, the related art gaming machine is configured to allow the inputting on the touch panel such that one input like an input conducted by one hand of the player is allocated to one reaction and one process to cause restriction in variations in the input with the touch panel, resulting in limitation in an attempt to allow the input per se to have an interesting and entertaining capabilities.


A locking ring assembly retains a bearing to a shaft rotatably supported on a first axis of rotation. Guide pins extend axially from an annularly shaped bearing retainer slidably disposed on the shaft toward the pressure ring, also slidably on the shaft. A head of the guide pins is slidably disposed and captured in adjusting apertures of the pressure ring. Pressure screws in the adjusting apertures of the pressure ring translate axially in the apertures of the pressure ring when rotated, engaging the guide pin heads to displace the pressure ring from the bearing retainer. The pressure ring reacts against a reaction element disposed on the shaft opposite the bearing retainer to develop an axial thrust load against the bearing.

Known locking ring assemblies are available in a wide variety of configurations. All typically have a portion or an element disposed in an annular groove of the shaft with an adjusting mechanism disposed between the groove and a bearing to be retained on the shaft. The bearing is typically pressed by the adjusting mechanism against a shoulder of the shaft.
Retaining bearings on mill roll shafts and the like is complicated by the large size of the associated components and the resultantly high axial thrust loads required to maintain bearings in their desired positions. The design of locking ring assemblies for mill roll shafts is further complicated by the dirty, harsh operating environment in which they are employed. The intrusion of dirt and contaminants into undesired locations within a locking ring assembly can potentially affect its ability to maintain the required thrust load against the bearing.
One well known design for an adjusting mechanism consists of a pressure ring disposed on the shaft between the bearing and a snap ring or similar travel limit means disposed in a groove around the shaft. A plurality of jack screws or Jack bolts threadingly engaging the pressure ring in a direction parallel to the axis of the shaft extend beyond the pressure ring to contact either the bearing or an intermediate member therebetween. Turning of the jack screws develops a compressive load against the bearing which reacts against the shaft shoulder. With each of the plurality of Jack screws fully torqued, a sufficiently high axial thrust load can be developed against the bearing.
In the case of adjusting mechanisms having Jack screws disposed directly against the bearing to be retained, there is a possiblity that even with relatively dirt free components, the pressure ring may be cocked during the tightening of the jack screws, particularly if the Jack screws are tightened one at a time, thereby producing an uneven load distribution against the bearing. Additionally, if there is any dirt present between an end of the jack screw and the bearing, the resultant thrust load between the bearing and the Jack screw will significantly deteriorate should any of the dirt trapped therebetween become displaced. Additionally, dirt collecting on the extended threads of the screws can potentially damage the threads on both the screws and pressure ring when the screws are loosened.
There is a need in the field of locking ring assemblies to provide an adjusting mechanism which is relatively insensitive to contamination in a dirty environment.


A fire receiver including: an operation selection switch for selecting a desired operation from a plurality of operations that can be executed; an address selection switch for selecting a desired address from different addresses respectively given to a plurality of fire detectors and lines; an address changing device for continuously changing the address to be selected in accordance with the operation of the address selection switch; an address display device for displaying the address to be instructed which has been changed by the address changing device; and a command device for commanding a fire detector or a line corresponding to the address displayed by the address display device to perform the operation selected by the operation selection switch.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a fire receiver that receives fire information from a fire detector to display a fire area and the like and to control devices, such as fire-block and smoke exhausting devices and fire extinguishing devices and the like, which are the subjects to be controlled, in accordance with fire information.


The present invention achieves the benefits of the improved joint detector previously disclosed with significantly less computation by, first, moving the backward substitution computation outside the detector""s decoding iteration loop and, second, by moving the input buffer inside the iteration loop. The backward substitution computation is performed initially as part of a joint detection equalization stage prior to entering the decode iteration loop. Then with each decode iteration, the present invention generates a correction signal that is subtracted from the present input signal to produce the next input signal. Each correction signal is generated from a series of differences between the decoded symbols of the current iteration and those in the previous iteration. Thus, the present invention achieves the same performance improvement over conventional joint detectors as the improved joint detector previously disclosed but with dramatically less computational requirements.

The present invention relates generally to communication systems and, in particular, to joint detection of a coded signal in a CDMA system.
FIG. 1 depicts a discrete time baseband model 100 of a known CDMA system that supports K block transmission users. These users have simultaneous access to the same physical, frequency-defined channel and transmit data block by block, each block having N symbols. Each user, 1 through K, has a sequence of information bits, d(1) through d(K), to be transmitted. Each user""s sequence is first turbo encoded and mapped to channel symbol sequences s(1) through s(K) respectively. These channel symbol sequences are then spread by their corresponding code C(1) through C(K), each of which has Q random chips, and passed through their corresponding channel, characterized by impulse responses h(1) through h(K) with W taps at chip level. For simplicity, it is assumed that this system uses BPSK modulation, so s(1) through s(K) are sequences of 1 and xe2x88x921, and the physical channel is an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel.
At the receive end, the received signal r can be expressed:                     r        =                                            ∑                              k                =                1                            K                                                  xe2x80x83                                                                  s                                  (                  k                  )                                                                                C                                      (                    k                    )                                                  ⊗                                  h                                      (                    k                    )                                                                                +          n                                        =                  As          +          n
where r is a summation of K sequences and n represents channel noise, each of the length (NQ+Wxe2x88x921). A is a (NQ+Wxe2x88x921) by NK matrix consisting of:
a(k)=(a1(k), a2(k), . . . , aQ+Wxe2x88x921(k))=C(k) {circle around (x)}h(k)
and s is a composite symbol vector combining all symbols of the K users and arranged in the following order:
s=(s1(1),s1(2), . . . ,s1(K),s1(1),s2(2), . . . ,s2(K) ,s3(1), . . . ,sN(1), . . . ,sN(K))T
where T denotes the transposition operation. The received signal r is passed through a bank of matched filters, each one matches a(k). The output of the matched filter bank, y, is a minimum sufficient statistic of transmitted signals for all K users and can be expressed as:
y=AHr=AHAs+z=Rs+z
where y, s, and z are NK by 1 vectors, and R is an NK by NK block toeplitz matrix. By using Cholesky factorization, R can be written as:
R=LLH=LnDLnH
where L is a lower triangular matrix, Ln denotes a normalized L in which all elements of the diagonal are ones, and D represents a diagonal matrix.
Joint detection is known to be an optimal receiver for CDMA systems. One well-known joint detector is implemented using a zero-forcing block linear equalizer (ZF-BLE). Its output may be expressed as:
sZF-BLE=Rxe2x88x921y=Lxe2x88x92HLxe2x88x921y=Lnxe2x88x92HDxe2x88x92xc2xdLxe2x88x921y
In practice, inversion of lower and upper triangular matrices can be achieved by forward and backward substitution. Therefore, by using Cholesky factorization, no actual matrix inversion is needed for joint detection. Another well-known joint detection technique, zero-forcing block decision feedback equalization (ZF-BDFE), is derived from ZF-BLE by using quantized previous samples, according to the symbol alphabet, in the backward substitution corresponding to the operation of Lnxe2x88x92H.
With regard to performance, ZF-BLE joint detection suffers from noise enhancement and thus performs very poorly in bad channel conditions where frequency response has a deep notch. ZF-BDFE joint detection does not have this drawback and therefore usually outperforms ZF-BLE joint detection. However, since the hard decision in conventional ZF-BDFE joint detection is generated by a simple slicer, the performance of ZF-BDFE joint detection will also degrade if the received signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) is low. Unfortunately, turbo encoded signaling, which will be used in 3rd generation (3G) mobile systems, exhibits a low SNR. The improved joint detector disclosed in the co-pending application xe2x80x9cMETHOD AND APPARATUS FOR JOINT DETECTION OF A CODED SIGNAL IN A CDMA SYSTEMxe2x80x9d, Ser. No. 09/798,305, filed on Mar. 2, 2001, successfully addresses these deficiencies and provides at least a 1 dB improvement over these conventional joint detectors.
However, the improved joint detector achieves these performance improvements at the cost of computational complexity. For example, for turbo decoding that requires eight iterations, the improved joint detector requires approximately 4 times the computation of the conventional joint detectors. In practice, devices with greater computational requirements cost more to manufacture and have greater energy needs than devices requiring less computation. Thus, a method and apparatus for joint detection that achieves the benefits of the improved joint detector without the increased computational requirements is needed.

Method and apparatus for joint detection of a coded signal in a CDMA system


In subterranean wells, it is common to effect the radial expansion of an annular organic packing element into sealing engagement between a tubular inner body and the inner wall of a well conduit, such as a well casing. Extrusion of the organic material has been encountered between the inner surface of upper and lower cone elements and the exterior of a tubular body portion and also between the inclined surfaces of upper and lower cone elements and the cooperating surfaces of cone rings. The first mentioned extrusion path is eliminated by forming a generally radial surface on the inner end of the upper and lower cones orthogonal to the tubular body and inserting a carbon fiber filled organic material in the resulting annular chamber. The extrusion path between the inclined surface of the cone and the cooperating surface of the cone ring is minimized by utilizing the forces exerted by the compressed sealing material of the packing element in combination with axial movement by the cone element to effect the shearing of the inner vertex portion of a packer ring along a plane that corresponds exactly to the inclined surface of the cone ring.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an improved sealing assembly for a subterranean well packing unit, and particularly to a sealing assembly that minimizes extrusion of the organic sealing material commonly employed in such packing units.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
As will be later described in connection with FIG. 1, prior art sealing assemblies have involved a packing sleeve formed of an organic sealing material which snugly surrounds the tubular body portion of a packer or bridge plug for a subterranean well. The packing sleeve is subjected to substantial compressive forces by upper and lower cone elements having oppositely disposed inclined surfaces. Intermediate the inclined surfaces of both the upper and lower cone elements and the original end surfaces of the packing sleeve, a cone ring and a packer ring are mounted. Both types of these rings have to be C-rings to permit their expansion. The cone ring has an inclined surface that is cooperable with the inclined surface on the adjacent cone. An annular groove and slot effects the connection of each cone ring to a mating packer ring. Each packer ring has an inclined surface which engages with the end surface of the packing sleeve.
As the upper and lower cones are moved axially relative to each other so as to bring them closer together, an increasing compressive force is applied to the packing sleeve. At the same time, the cone rings and packer rings are expanded radially outward by the inclined surfaces of the upper and lower cones.
When the packer or bridge plug is fully set and the packing sleeve is compressed between the exterior of the tubular body and the bore of a well conduit, the substantial compression forces on the organic packing element causes a gradual extrusion of the material of such element between the inner face of the upper and lower cones and the outer surface of the tubular body. An additional major extrusion path is provided between the packer ring, the inclined surface of the cone ring, and the cooperating inclined surface of the respective upper or lower cone because of the C-ring construction of the cone ring. Such extrusion paths effect a gradual reduction in the compressive forces trapped in the organic packing element, hence reducing the sealing effectiveness of such element.
Numerous solutions have been proposed for this extrusion problem in the past, but none have been fully effective. There is a definite need therefore, for a sealing asembly which will effectively prevent extrusion of an organic packing element along the extrusion paths previously mentioned.

Sealing assembly for subterranean well packing unit


The present invention is related to processes for the preparation of faropenem, which comprises treating the compound of Formula II,

(5R,6S)-6-[(1R)-1-hydroxyethyl]-7-oxo-3-[(2R)-tetrahydrofuran-2-yl]-4-thia- 1-aza bicyclo[3.2.0]hept-2-ene-2-carboxylic acid, commonly known as faropenem of Formula I is a synthetic, broad-spectrum, carbapenem antibiotic.

The sodium salt of faropenem shows potent antibacterial activity against methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), Streptococcus pyrogenes and Streptococcus pneumoniae and gram-positive bacteria such as penicillin-resistant pneumococci (PRSP), oral staphylococci and enterococci. It also shows a wide antibacterial spectrum covering gram-negative bacteria such as Haemophilus influenzae and anaerobic bacteria such as the genus Bacteroides.
U.S. Pat. No 4,997,829 provides a process for the preparation of sodium and potassium salts of faropenem, involving the deprotection of allyl faropenem in the presence of triphenylphosphine, palladium tetrakis-triphenylphosphine and sodium or potassium 2-ethylhexanoate. However, the process disclosed in the '829 patent does not result in stable and commercially useful hydrates of faropenem salts.
EP Patent No. 410,727 provides various processes for preparing the hemipentahydrate of faropenem salts, involving the deprotection of allyl faropenem in the presence of an alkali metal enolate of 1,3-diketone. The faropenem formed in situ is converted into hemipentahydrate by the addition water. JP Patent No 2,949,363 B2 also provides a process for preparing hydrates of faropenem salts by treating deprotected faropenem with an alkali metal salt of a C1-4 carboxylic acid in the presence of water.
The water added to the reaction mixture to effect the formation of hydrates in the prior art processes is removed by distillation. However, the removal of water from the reaction mixture under reduced pressure consumes both time and energy. Additionally the solution stability of faropenem sodium in water is very poor and prolonged storage or heating results in impurity formation.

Process for the preparation of faropenem

Abstract: with an alkali metal salt of a substituted or unsubstituted C5-10 carboxylic acid and a catalytic amount of a palladium complex in the presence of an organic solvent, followed by the treatment of the reaction mixture of with water and a water miscible solvent, and isolating a hydrate of an alkali metal salt of faropenem from the reaction mass, wherein water is not removed from the reaction mixture in water treatment or isolation steps.