A telescopic rod with a plurality of tubular rod sections which are mounted so as to be slidable within each other, and with a multistage piston-cylinder unit arranged within the telescopic rod. The multistage piston-cylinder unit is connected, on the one hand, to the outermost rod section of the telescopic rod and, on the other hand, to the last inner rod section of the telescopic rod. Radially adjustable abutments are provided on the inner base portions of at least some of the rod sections, wherein the abutments are directed toward the outer surfaces of the extended stages of the piston-cylinder unit and can be placed in contact with the outer surfaces. Stationary abutments may be arranged on the first and last rod sections of the row of rod sections of the telescopic rod, wherein the stationary abutments are arranged adjacent the outer surfaces of the corresponding stages of the piston-cylinder unit when the piston-cylinder unit is extended.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telescopic rod with a plurality of tubular rod sections which are mounted so as to be slidable within each other, and with a multistage piston-cylinder unit arranged within the telescopic rod. The multistage piston-cylinder unit is connected, on the one hand, to the outermost rod section of the telescopic rod and, on the other hand, to the last inner rod section of the telescopic rod.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telescopic rods of the above-described type are used, for example, as telescopic jibs in a vehicle crane or rail crane, as a jib of a truck loading crane or as a telescope arm of a work platform. The telescopic rod has a plurality of tubular rod sections which are slidable into one another. The cross-section of these tubular rod sections may be round, oval or polygonal. In the latter case, the rod sections are box-shaped sectional members. The multistage piston-cylinder unit used for extending the telescopic rod is mounted within the rod and the number of stages may correspond to the number of rod sections of the telescopic rod. However, this does not necessarily have to be the case. For retracting the telescopic rod, usually a separate return device is provided. This return device may be composed of a rope or a chain which is arranged within the telescopic rod and is connected, on the one hand, to the last extendable rod section and, on the other hand, to a winding device.
When the telescopic rod or the piston-cylinder unit are extended, the resistance against collapsing stress applied to the extended piston rod is decreased in proportion to the extent by which the telescopic rod has been extended, i.e., in dependence on the length of the extended portion of the piston rod or the effective length of each rod section. Accordingly, an increasing length of the telescopic rod in the extended state requires an increase in the resistance against collapsing stress. Since cranes with great lifting heights are required in actual use, each rod section of the extendable telescopic rod must have a very great length and, consequently, a piston-cylinder unit is required which has a very long piston rod, so that one of the long rod sections can be extended and retracted relative to another of the other rod sections over the necessary distance. When the extended portion of the piston rod has a very long length, usually a piston rod with a great diameter is provided which has the necessary resistance to buckling. However, when the diameter of the piston rod is increased, a cylinder must be provided whose dimensions are also greater, so that the cylinder has a greater weight and the manufacturing costs are increased.
Accordingly, it has been attempted to develop means for preventing buckling of an extended piston-cylinder unit in a telescopic rod. Means of this type are described and illustrated in DE-OS 20 18 926. In that case, a carriage is provided which is displaceably mounted on the piston rod of the piston-cylinder unit. The carriage has radially outwardly directed rigid arms which rest through rollers or slide blocks against the inner side of the respectively following rod section. The carriage is provided with drive means which are guided through transmissions in a such a way that, in the case of a given extended distance of two rod sections, the carriage guided on the piston rod travels only half this given extended distance. This is effected partially by means of cable pull devices, partially by means of racks and pinions or by means of drive members acting against spring pull devices. All of these measures are structurally complicated and, therefore, not useful.


An information processing system, device and method wherein a base board is configured to couple to both back and midplane systems as well as optical modules for use in a data center rack system. Specifically, a base board adapter is configured to electrically couple to an integrated backplane/midplane electronic interface of the base board and translate the signals to one or more optical interface module connectors such that one or more optical interface modules are able to be coupled to the base board.

There are three main types of chassis for supporting and connecting data systems. Specifically, there are rack chassis which are used in data centers and include a plurality of shelves to house one or more blade servers. Further, there are backplane and midplane chassis for use with printed circuit board cards in, for example, traditional edge or core systems. Currently, the cards or blades for use in the different systems are limited such that they are only able to couple with either rack chassis or backplane/midplane chassis, not both. As a result, these blades/cards are system dependent and switch to new types of systems and/or operating two types of systems creates significant costs because the cards/blades need to be replaced and/or duplicated in order to support the desired systems.

Baseboard interconnection device, system and method


The machine provides for training a user in maintaining a correct posture when performing a physical exercise, and has a frame resting on the floor and which supports a number of exercise devices and a supporting surface for supporting part of the user""s body. The main characteristic of the present invention lies in the machine having means for detecting a correct posture of the user and which are fitted to the supporting surface.

The present invention relates to a posture training machine.
As is known, the shortage of open spaces, intensive study, the widespread use of computers, and long hours in front of a television have led, particularly in children, to various motor deficiencies. When deprived of physical exercise, a child""s psychomotor development is impaired, which eventually results in various forms of paramorphism. The most common affect the musculoskeletal system, as in scoliosis or lateral curvature of the spine, others affect other areas such as the cardiocirculatory and respiratory systems, and all have a potentially negative effect on the psychological behaviour of the child.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a machine for training a user, in particular a child, to maintain a correct posture designed to promote correct physical development.
According to the present invention, there is provided a machine for training a user to maintain a correct posture and comprising a frame resting on the floor and in turn comprising at least one exercise device and supporting means for supporting part of the user""s body; the machine being characterized by comprising detecting means for detecting the correct posture of the user; said detecting means being fitted to said supporting means.


In a double-shoulder threaded tool joint connection, the pin external threads and the box internal threads have a thread taper between 0.75 inch per foot and 1.0 inch per foot. The pin external threads and the box internal threads have equal stab flank and load flank angles, and are in a range from thirty-three to thirty-nine degrees. Both the pin external threads and the box internal threads have roots formed in a shape of a portion of a circle tangent to both thread flanks with a minimum radius of 0.063 inch. The pin external threads and the box internal threads are in the range of two to three per inch. The box counterbore has a length of 0.750 or less. The pin nose has a length in a range of 30% to 90% of the length of the box counterbore.

(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to drill stem threaded connections used in oil field and trenchless horizontal drilling operations. In particular, the present invention relates to threaded connections on drill pipe tool joints, heavy weight drill pipe, drill collars, and or other drill stem elements. Still more particularly, this invention relates to double shouldered connections capable of withstanding increased torque, bending and tensile loading, while maintaining a tool joint with a large ID and a small. OD.
(2) Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,908,212 ("the Smith patent") discloses a double-shoulder threaded connection with a taper less than one inch per foot and a box counterbore with length of at least 1.5 inches (FIG. 1, Column 1, lines 34-50). It achieves high torque resistance with a minimum ratio of cross-sectional areas. The Smith patent does not disclose (a) means for resistance to bending fatigue by the connection threads, (b) means for reducing stress concentrations in the connection roots, or (c) a means to avoid swelling or buckling of the box counterbore or pin nose.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,004 ("the Schock patent") discloses a double-shoulder, torque-resistant threaded connection. The tool joint is provided with thread shaving a seventy-five degree included angle between the thread flanks, and with generally elliptical root surfaces (FIG. 1 Column 4, lines 1-23, and Column 5, lines 15-49, FIGS. 7 and 9). The Schock patent does not disclose (a) means for achieving high torque forces with a shallow thread taper; (b) means for enhanced fatigue resistance, using a large root surface that is a product of only a single root radius; and (c) means to achieve a "slim-hole" design, that is, having a small OD and a large ID.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,210,710 ("the Williamson patent") discloses a double-shoulder drill stem connection. In discussing its FIG. 2, the Williamson patent teaches a thread taper of the box and pin threads of preferably 1 and ⅛ inches per foot. With such a taper, the turns-to-make-up are decreased, because the stabbing depth is increased. However, such a taper decreases the amount of cross-sectional area that is at the secondary (internal) shoulder, which reduces torque capabilities. Also, with such a taper the ID of the connection cannot be as large as shallower taper connections, because there will be a conflict with maintaining enough steel to have an internal shoulder. Finally, such a taper does not allow a "slim-hole" design, that is, a design having a small OD and a large ID.
The Williamson patent teaches the use of dissimilar load flanks. Because of that dissimilarity, the Williamson device has to use two or more radii to bridge the two load flanks. Thus, as claimed in its claim 7, the roots of the internal and external threads are formed in a shape of a portion of an ellipse. The Williamson patent also asserts, in discussing its FIG. 2 (column 8, lines 17-21) that "the length of the pin nose L. sub. PN should be about one to one and one-half times as long as the counterbore length L. sub. BC." Further, the counterbore length is about 1 inch (longer than conventional connections). The Williamson patent does not disclose (a) means for achieving high torque forces with a shallow thread taper, (b) means for enhanced fatigue resistance using a large root surface that is a product of only a single root radius, and (c) a means to avoid swelling or buckling of the box counterbore or pin nose.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,401 discloses dual mating shoulders and nose faces on the pin and box members. U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,818 ("the Snapp patent"), U.S. Pat. No. 6,848,724 ("the Kessler patent"), and U.S. Pat. No. 7,416,374 ("the Breihan patent") disclose thread forms with one or more root radii larger than that of conventional API by offsetting the center of one or more radii from the centerline of the thread flanks. In each of these designs, offsetting the root radii undercuts one of the thread flanks, weakening the threads' shear capacity, and are limited to radii less than 0.063. All of these patents are incorporated herein by this reference: U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,401; U.S. Pat. No. 5,908,212; U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,004; U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,818; U.S. Pat. No. 6.848.724; U.S. Pat. No. 7,210,710; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,416,374.
Thus, the known prior art for tool joint connections has at least three major deficiencies. The prior art lacks: (1) means for enhanced bending fatigue resistance using a large root surface that does not reduce thread shear capacity, (2) means to achieve a minimal fluid pressure loss and maximum hole cleaning capabilities through a large ID and small OD, while maintaining high torque, bending and tensile load resistance, and (3) means to avoid swelling or buckling of the box counterbore or pin nose.
The performance of a tool joint connection, as a minimum, depends upon the combination of OD, ID, material yield, pitch diameter, truncated thread height, thread angle, threads per inch, taper, one or two shoulders, clearances, and bevel diameters. These parameters are interdependent, so that it is not possible to simply change one at a time without affecting performance.
Prior art of very high torque connections teaches a long box counterbore, and long pin nose lengths are required to provide sufficient deflections to appropriately load both external and internal shoulders. But, a long box counterbore and long pin nose lengths leads to instability (swelling) of these critical sections as described by Smith (paper "Box OD Stability of Double Shouldered Tool Joints at Catastrophic Failure" presented by J. E. Smith et. al. at the March 1996 SPE/IADC Drilling Conference). Applicant has found that in addition to deflections from axial loading of box counterbore and pin nose, significant deflection occurs elsewhere in the connection. Further, applicant has found that the pin nose length should be as short as possible, because the pin nose acts as a bridge between the pin connection and the box internal shoulder for load distribution. That is, the shorter the length of the pin nose, the more compressive stresses the pin nose can take, thus making a stronger connection.


A ventilation system and a method for discharging hazardous air during cooking are disclosed. The ventilation system allows hazardous air generated by cooking to flow in a backward direction of a cooking device so as to quickly transfer the hazardous air to a hood, such that the hazardous air is prevented from being inhaled by a user. As a result, the hazardous air may be concentrated into a predetermined region without being dissipated, and then subsequently discharged outside. Information about a quality of air generated in a current state of a cooking space is transferred to a user so that the user may more actively use the ventilation system, thereby better protecting the user's health.

A cooking space such as a kitchen includes a hood for discharging fumes and heat caused by cooking to the outside.
Generally, the hood installed at an upper side of a cooking device may suction smoke and fumes generated by cooking. As the smoke and fumes spread upward, the hood region may need to be enlarged in proportion to the increasing hood height from the cooking device.
However, air pollutants (hereinafter referred to as hazardous air) such as fine dust, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide (CO), volatile organic compounds, etc. are generated in a cooking process of cooking materials such as cooking oil at a level exceeding a reference value regardless of the cooking device, and concentration of ultra-fine dust generated in most cooking processes is more than 25 times a reference concentration of ultra-fine dust.
Because of the environment of such cooking spaces such as a kitchen, many researchers have asserted that nonsmoking women suffer from higher rates of lung cancer due to hazardous air generated from the kitchen.
When a user opens a window and operates the hood to let fresh air in, a large amount of hazardous air is discharged outside. However, due to structural characteristics of the hood installed at the upper side of the cooking device, hazardous air and fine dust generated in the cooking of food may move upward toward the hood, and at the same time, hazardous air can move toward the respiratory organs of the user who cooks the food, such that the user inhales the hazardous air.
In addition, the user is unable to recognize a pollution level of the air generated by cooking. Some users who do not like listening to loud noise generated from the hood often prefer to cook food without operating the hood.

Ventilation system and method for controlling the same


The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for CT data acquisition using a rotatable pre-subject filter having more than one filtering profile to control radiation exposure to a subject. The filter is caused to rotate by a motor and bearing assembly and has one profile used to filter radiation when the radiation source is positioned above a subject and another profile that is used to filter radiation when the radiation source is positioned at a side of the subject.

The present invention relates generally to diagnostic imaging and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus of dynamically filtering radiation emitted toward a subject during radiographic imaging.
Typically, in radiographic imaging systems, an x-ray source emits x-rays toward a subject or object, such as a patient or a piece of luggage. Hereinafter, the terms "subject" and "object" may be interchangeably used to describe anything capable of being imaged. The beam, after being attenuated by the subject, impinges upon an array of radiation detectors. The intensity of the attenuated beam radiation received at the detector array is typically dependent upon the attenuation of the x-rays. Each detector element of the detector array produces a separate electrical signal indicative of the attenuated beam received by each detector element. The electrical signals are transmitted to a data processing system for analysis which ultimately produces an image.
In computed tomography (CT) imaging systems, the x-ray source and the detector array are rotated about a gantry within an imaging plane and around the subject. X-ray sources typically include x-ray tubes, which emit the x-rays as a beam at a focal point. X-ray detectors typically include a collimator for collimating x-ray beams received at the detector, a scintillator for converting x-rays to light energy adjacent the collimator, and a photodiode for receiving the light energy from an adjacent scintillator and producing electrical signals therefrom. Typically, each scintillator of a scintillator array converts x-rays to light energy. Each photodiode detects the light energy and generates a corresponding electrical signal. The outputs of the photodiodes are then transmitted to the data processing system for image reconstruction.
There is increasingly a need to reduce radiation dosage projected toward a subject during an imaging session. It is generally well known that significant dose reduction may be achieved by using a "bowtie" filter to shape the intensity profile of an x-ray beam. Surface dose reductions may be as much as 50% using a bowtie filter. Generally, the bowtie filter is constructed such that the profile used to filter the radiation projected toward the subject is constant through the imaging process. That is, the bowtie filter is constructed to filter radiation emitted toward a subject such that the sum of the radiation path length through the filter plus the path length through the subject is roughly constant. One drawback of this construction is that a subject's shape is not constant. For example, a patient's shape changes as a function of view angle as the x-ray tube and detector rotate around the patient and because the filter has a constant filtering profile at different points in the imaging process, portions of the subject may be over-radiated whereas at other times, other portions will be under-radiated. As a result, a choice must be made between having under-radiated portions during the imaging process or increasing the dosage such that a minimum radiation dosage throughout the imaging session is maintained with some portion being over-radiated.
A number of developments have been made to address this situation. The CT scanner may be equipped with multiple beam shaping filters. Multiple filters, however, increases the manufacturing costs of the CT scanner as well as requiring additional controls to insure the appropriate filters are being used during the scan session. Another approach is to dynamically control the amount of x-ray dosage emitted by the projection source as a function of view angle. This approach, however, requires significant and complex controls to alter the amount of radiation projected toward the subject during the scan that significantly increases the costs of the CT system nor takes into account shape of the pre-patient filter.
Therefore, it would be desirable to design a pre-subject collimator having a filter that rotates and effectively changes its filtering and been shaping properties as a function of view angle as the x-ray tube and detector rotate around a subject.

Method and apparatus for presenting multiple pre-subject filtering profiles during CT data acquisition


Provided are an LED light-emitting module and an illumination apparatus using the same. The LED light-emitting module includes a body frame having a light emitting opening in a direction inclined with respect to a ground surface and a coupling surface to which an LED package is coupled, the body frame including reflective plates extending from opposite sides of the coupling surface to define the light emitting opening, a plurality of heat radiating fins placed on the entire surface of the body frame except for the light emitting opening, and a plurality of LED packages installed on the coupling surface of the body frame such that light radiation angles of the LED packages are adjusted according to an angle by which the coupling surface is bent.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an LED light-emitting module and an illumination apparatus using the same, and more particularly, to an LED light-emitting module with excellent heat radiating characteristics whose light radiation angle can be easily adjusted, and an illumination apparatus using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, LEDs are being studied as an illumination unit due to their low power consumption and long lifespan as compared with general light sources. As heat generated in LED packages shortens the lifespan, structures for smoothly radiating the heat of the LED packages are also being widely studied and developed.
In particular, while it is required to enhance the heat radiating characteristics of an LED street lamp employing a plurality of LED packages, there is a limit in enhancing smooth heat radiating characteristics with a structure in which heat radiating fins are provided on the rear surface of a printed circuit board (PCB) having a plurality of LED packages. In spite of many efforts to enhance heat radiating characteristics by increasing the number and height of heat radiating fins, there is also a limit in improving heat radiating characteristics as air cannot be convected in spaces between the heat radiating fins.
Japanese Utility Model No. 3163002 (hereinafter, the conventional technology) discloses an example of a structure for preventing lowering of heat radiating efficiency due to an increase in the height of heat radiating fins toward the rear side of a mounting surface of an light emitting diode (LED) used as an illumination means.
The conventional technology discloses an improved illumination apparatus adapted to smoothly emit heat due to air introduced between high heat radiating fins by crossing heat radiating fins of different shapes and heights toward the rear side of a mounting surface of an LED.
However, as it is relatively difficult to manufacture heat radiating fins of different heights, and there is a need to process groove patterns for easy flow of air in a central upper side of the heat radiating fins, manufacturing costs increase and productivity decreases.
Moreover, in the conventional technology, while a housing protrudes from a side of the LED mounting surface contacting a board to which LED chips are mounted, toward a lower side and some of the heat radiating fins are placed outside the protruding portion, the heat radiating fins on the side have an area remarkably small as compared with the area of the heat radiating fins placed on the rear side of the LED mounting surface, resulting in a very small amount of radiated heat.
This is because, considering that heat radiating efficiency is basically proportional to the area of the heat radiating fins to a certain degree, heat radiating effect is low and heat is radiated mainly to the rear side of the LED mounting surface, resulting in lowering of heat radiating efficiency.
In addition, in the conventional technology, there exist portions of a frame except for an area of the heat radiating fins whose thicknesses are partially different from the other portions, in which case the lifespan of some of the LED chips becomes shortened due to partial non-uniformity of temperatures caused by differences between the thicknesses of the frame, resulting in a shortened lifespan of the entire LED light-emitting apparatus.
Meanwhile, as an LED package has a narrow light radiating angle as compared with a general light source of a different type lamp, a more complex mechanical structure is needed to comply with a minimal light radiation angle range of a street lamp which is also related to the height of the street lamp. However, it is not easy to design such a structure and without increasing manufacturing costs.
Moreover, required illumination intensities may be different according to the locations of LED street lamps. Thus, since there is a need to consider the number of LED packages in designing the conventional LED street lamp from the start of the design, additional designs and manufactures are required for illumination apparatuses of different illumination intensities.
Although the conventional technology can satisfy the illumination intensity issue when a plurality of illumination apparatuses are disposed in parallel, they respectively include a rotor for rotation, making their mechanisms for individually driving the rotors very complex and making it difficult to configure the mechanisms. Further, the outwardly protruding rotors contact a coupling plate, making it difficult to adjust their angles.

LED Lighting module and lighting device using the module


The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a polishing pad. The method of the invention includes the steps of forming a polishing layer from a polyurethane solution has a solid content more than about 90 wt % and drying the polyurethane solution at a temperature from about 130° C. to about 170° C. The invention also provides a polishing pad manufactured by the method mentioned above. The defect of scraping the surface of the substrate to be polished due to polishing particles remaining is avoided when applying the polishing pad according to the invention, and the flatness of the substrate to be polished is raised and the defective rate is eliminated also.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a polishing pad and a polishing pad.
2. Description of the Related Art
Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is a procedure for planarizing the surface of a substrate with a polishing pad. CMP is generally applied in polishing lens, mirrors, substrates of liquid crystal displays, silicon wafers, and oxidation and/or metal layers on silicon wafers.
Taking silicon wafers as an example, ingots of monocrystalline silicon are sliced first. The wafers are usually lapped to make them flat for subsequently chemical etching. A polishing process is required after the etching process. During the polishing process, a polishing pad together with slurry reacts chemically with the silicon atoms on the surface of the wafer to make the reacted surface softer than the underlying silicon. Furthermore, the reacted surface is continually wiped away causing fresh silicon to be exposed to the slurry and the polishing pad.
A conventional polishing pad is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,860,802. A thermosetting mixture is poured into a cylindrical mold. Then, the thermosetting mixture is cured or heated to become a block. The block is cooled and skived into a polishing pad. The thermosetting mixture according to the conventional polishing pad usually has a low solid content, such as about 25 to 35 wt %, so that the thermoset fails to distribute evenly. When applying such conventional polishing pad in a chemical mechanical polishing procedure, the flatness of the substrate to be polished is not satisfactory, and the uniformity is raised. Therefore, the polishing particles in the slurry are remained on the surface of the substrate to be polished, and the surface of the substrate to be polished is scraped. If applying the conventional polishing pad in the manufacture of wafer, the scrapes on the surface of wafer affect the stability, and the subsequent procedures of litho or photo, development and etching. When stacking micro integrated circuits, the stability is diminished and the defective rate is raised. Thereby, the cost of manufacture is raised. Furthermore, when manufacturing the conventional polishing pad, volatile organic compounds are produced, and pollution is yielded.

Method for manufacturing polishing pad and polishing pad


A hybrid harmonic tuner uses a reverse injection technique, a modified adjustable Gamma Boosting Unit (GBU) cascaded with a passive multi-carriage harmonic impedance tuner in the same slabline and housing. The GBU samples a portion of the forward travelling signal at the fundamental frequency, adjusts its phase and amplitude, amplifies it and injects it back, in reverse direction into the main signal path. In the hybrid tuner technique, as is herein implemented, the forward coupler (wave-probe) is mounted on the vertical axis of a slide screw tuner-type carriage and, being horizontally and vertically controlled, it eliminates the need of a separated phase shifter and attenuator, which makes the solution better, simpler and more effective; harmonic tuning is performed using only the multi-carriage passive tuner.

This invention relates to high power testing of microwave transistors (DUT) in nonlinear operation, where the signal form is distorted and harmonic signal components are generated and must be processed. When the transistor is driven in its nonlinear operation regime, the internal impedance at the output of power transistors is very low. An impedance tuner used to match the transistor must also match such impedance. Passive impedance tuners can reach maximum reflection factors tuner |Γtuner| of the order of 0.95, corresponding to impedances of 2.4Ω. The insertion loss between DUT and tuner reduces the available tuning range at the DUT reference plane and thus the capacity of the passive tuner to match the transistor. The only remedy to this limitation is using active systems, i.e. test systems whereby a signal coherent with the signal injected into the transistor, is injected independently into the DUT output terminal and creates a virtual load. This additional signal can be the only one injected, in which case we speak of "active" load pull, or is can be superimposed to signal reflected by a passive tuner, in which case we speak of "hybrid" load pull; obviously if only a passive tuner is present, we speak of "passive" load pull. In both active injection cases the objective is reaching and conjugate matching the internal impedance of the transistor; in general terms a standard requirement is a dynamic range reaching a reflection factor |Γ|=1 (corresponding to an internal impedance of 0Ω). The objective of this invention is an active tuner apparatus, combining a modified reverse signal injection mechanism within a tuner architecture allowing |Γ|=1. Harmonic signal components are processed (matched with proper loads) using passive harmonic (20, 23) tuners. The typical test system is shown in FIG. 1:
A four port vector receiver (24, VNA), injects signal (25) into the DUT (21) via a source tuner (23), which is wideband or harmonic and a bidirectional coupler (11). The outgoing signal travels through a second bidirectional coupler (10) and a load harmonic tuner (20) which is terminated with characteristic impedance Zo (19), typically 50Ω. The injected and reflected power waves <a> and <b> into and from the DUT are measured by the VNA (24), after being sampled by the couplers (10, 11). The tuners and instruments are controlled digitally (18, 17) by a system controller (22) running appropriate test software.


Wood strands are oriented into parallelism with the aid of a number of adjacent, generally parallel spaces defined by relatively thin, elongated guide members having flat sides with the longitudinal axes of the guide members extending substantially parallel to a support surface below the spaces for receiving the parallel, oriented wood strands. Each pair of adjacent guide members are moved in opposite directions to turn strands which span the guide members until the strand falls into the space therebetween. In one form of the invention, certain of the guide members have yielding projections on their upper margins and the other guide members have positive projections on their upper margins, each yielding projection having a pair of inclined end edges and each positive projection having end edges generally perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the corresponding guide member. In another form of the invention, each guide member has spaced, yielding and positive projections with a positive projection being between each pair of adjacent yielding projections, respectively. In both forms of the invention, the yielding projections serve to raise wood strands which span the distance between three or more guide members; whereas, the positive projections operate to turn the strands until they fall between the guide members.

A method and apparatus for orienting binder-coated wood strands into parallelism has been described in pending U.S. application Ser. No. 535,079, filed Dec. 20, 1974 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,201. As described in this application, wood strands may be felted in a number of layers with the orientation of adjacent strand layers being generally perpendicular to each other. Thus, after compressing the mat of strand layers and curing the binder on the wood strands, a board is produced which has superior structural properties. Such a product is of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,511.
U.S. application Ser. No. 535,079 further describes an apparatus comprised of a plurality of elongated, parallel, relatively thin plate-like strand guide members positioned above a moving support. The longitudinal axes of the guide members extend substantially parallel to the surface of the support, and the widths or the short axes of the guide members are substantially perpendicular to the surface of the support. The distance from one guide member to the next adjacent guide member is less than the lengths of the majority of the wood strands.
During operation of the apparatus, adjacent guide members move in opposite directions with respect to each other and in the general direction of their longitudinal axes. As the guide members move, wood strands are caused to gravitate from above the guide members. Moreover, each guide member has spaced projections on its upper margin which operate to turn those strands which, instead of immediately passing through the spaces between the guide members, are intercepted and span the distance between two or more guide members, such turning action continuing until the strands fall into the spaces between the guide members and onto the moving support therebelow. Using this method and apparatus, strands may be oriented parallel to the direction of movement of the support and perpendicular to the direction of such movement, depending upon the positions of the guide members relative to the direction of support movement.
The technology in the industry is available to produce wood strands of generally uniform length. Such strands can be oriented into parallelism at a high through-put rate with apparatus of the type described in U.S. application Ser. No. 535,079 using projections of the type described above on the upper margins of the guide members and with a spacing between each pair of adjacent guide members selected to accommodate strands of this uniform length. It is recognized, however, that to produce strands of uniform length would be costly and would not be economical for mass production of oriented strand boards.
If all wood strands were of relatively uniform length, the distance between the guide members could be a little less than one-half the maximum strand length to assure proper orientation. If the guide members used for orientation have upper marginal projections with generally vertical end edges, the apparatus would then achieve a relatively high through-put and the strands would not bend or break. If the distance between the guide members is considerably smaller than one-half the maximum strand length and such projections with vertical end edges are used, then the longer strands would span three or more guide members and be engaged by three or more such projections on the corresponding three or more guide members at the same time. This would result in a number of broken or bent strands and this number would increase with an increase in strand length or decrease in the distance between the adjacent guide members.
In view of the foregoing problems, a need has arisen to provide apparatus and method to orient wood strands having different, non-uniform lengths which are felted onto moving guide members simultaneously. The objective is to accommodate such wood strands of different lengths without breaking or bending the long strands yet still permitting the alignment of the short strands into parallelism while maintaining a relatively high through-put.

Apparatus and method for aligning elongated ligno-cellulosic strands into parallelism


The invention relates to a method for operating a secondary station in a communication network including a primary station, the method comprising generating a precoding matrix obtained from the Hadamard product of an alphabet modifying matrix and an original precoding matrix, wherein the original precoding matrix consist of complex coefficients of equal magnitude, transmitting a precoding report representative of the precoding matrix to the primary station.

In systems using MIMO such as LTE, the secondary station (or User Equipment or UE) can give the primary station (or base station or eNB) feedback on the downlink channel state. This can partly comprise an index to a precoding matrix selected from a codebook of matrices. Alternatively, as proposed for LTE-A, the precoder is defined by a pair of indices, each for one of two codebooks, where the precoder is derived from the matrix multiplication of the two matrices. In this case there could be more than one particular type of "matrix multiplication" that could be applied.
Typically a precoding matrix is defined such that the coefficients in column of the matrix represent the precoding coefficients applied the each transmit antenna for a given spatial channel.
A constraint on the codebook design to ensure that CQI calculation can be consistent with equal power per transmit antenna, at least with a subset of codebook entries, was proposed. This is intended to support full power amplifier (PA) utilization, where the same total output power is required for each antenna:[ww*]mm=κ, m=1, . . . ,NT
Where W is the overall precoder, and NT is the number of transmit antennas.
Moreover, it is possible that at least a subset of codebook entries should also have orthogonal columns with unit norm (i.e. corresponding to unitary precoding).
In the RANI discussion of codebook design the desirability of a restricted alphabet (e.g. QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying), 8-PSK or 16-PSK) for precoding coefficients has been mentioned. One advantage of using an alphabet based on higher order M-PSK (e.g. M=8 or 16) is that it can better match the channel characteristics that low order M-PSK (e.g. M=4). Restricting strictly to M-PSK would ensure that requirements for both full PA utilization and unit norm are automatically met for all codebook entries. There may also be some reduction in computational complexity with restricted alphabets, but it is not clear how significant this consideration would be in practice. However, it is of interest to examine what other alphabets could be beneficial (e.g. whether different amplitude values should be allowed within a precoder). In principle, an ideal precoder, even with power balancing between antennas, would require an unconstrained alphabet, but we focus here on limited alphabets.
We could consider the optimum allocation of power among the precoding coefficients as analogous to the "water filling" problem. It is well known that "constant power water filling" (i.e. allocating either zero or uniform power) is quite close to the optimal solution, assuming that unused power can be re-allocated elsewhere. This suggests that adding the possibility of "zero" to an M-PSK alphabet will achieve much of the potential benefit available from an alphabet with different amplitudes.
The general principle of setting some elements of the precoder to zero is already known.

Method for operating a secondary station


A magnet is specially designed for the creation of an extremely uniform magnetic field in a small volume for use in MRI mammography. A disk of ferromagnetic material has a surface having a well adapted to receive the object to be examined and lined with a solenoidal coil which provides the basic magnetic field. Uniformity is increased by three additional coils surrounding the solenoidal coil and placed in annular slots surrounding the well. Of these three additional coils, the middle one generates a magnetic field in the well which opposes the basic magnetic field, and the others supplement the basic magnetic field. The ampereturns of the three additional coils are selected to maximize uniformity of the magnetic field in the well.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to magnetic-resonance imaging apparatus to be used for producing a three-dimensional scan of a human breast (MRI Mammography.)
2. Description of the Related Art
Magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) is used in medicine to display internal organs of the human body. In this respect it is similar to X-ray "Computed Axial Tomography" (CAT-scan). The most fundamental difference is that in the case of CAT scanning the body is penetrated by X-rays, and in the case of MRI scanning the body is penetrated by a magnetic field and a radio-frequency electromagnetic field. The potential for serious harm caused by the X-rays in the case of a CAT scan is very small, but not zero. In the case of an MRI scan, the potential for harm is supposedly zero. The two methods differ substantially also in that they highlight different features of the anatomy.
One potentially very important area of application of the MRI technique is scanning of the human breast (mammography). If the recommended yearly mammogram (for women over a certain age) can be done as well or better by an MRI technique rather than an X-ray technique, the radiation "load" on the female population will be substantially reduced.
Medical MRI apparatus presently in use, typically, have a solenoid magnet or a set of coaxial coils, large enough for a human to fit inside, several "gradient" coils producing a superimposed "sweep" field and high-frequency coils designed to detect the precession of the hydrogen nucleus (proton) in the magnetic field. With the sweep field turned off, the uniformity of the main field, in the region of interest, is generally of the order of 30 parts per million for MRI apparatus designed to measure and map hydrogen density only.


A digital multimedia presentation appliance is provided having a display for displaying at least one digitized image. The digital multimedia presentation appliance further includes a processor configured to communicate and receive commands, including a digital multimedia presentation appliance print job command, from an external processor capable of executing a software application program for displaying a printing utility. The processor executes a program having instructions for processing the print job command and displaying the at least one digitized image by the display of the digital multimedia presentation appliance. The print job command is transmitted after selection of a digital multimedia presentation appliance printing icon corresponding to the digital multimedia presentation appliance following selection of the printing utility to print the at least one digitized image.

The present disclosure relates to data processing and network systems, and more particularly, to a system and method for printing, i.e., transferring and displaying, at least one digitized image to a digital multimedia presentation appliance.
Digital multimedia presentation appliances, such as digital picture frames, digital televisions and computer monitor displays, enable users to display digitized images which are obtained from sources, such as the world wide web, a paid service, a memory card, or a computing device (such as a digital camera), connected to the digital multimedia presentation appliance wirelessly or non-wirelessly, e.g., via a universal serial bus (USB) connection, and other means. Displaying a digitized or digital image on a display of a digital multimedia presentation appliance generally requires performing a workflow that is not familiar to most personal computer users. One workflow that is familiar to personal computer users is using a printing utility available on most software application programs for selecting a particular printer and printing to the particular printer.

System and method for printing at least one digitized image to a digital multimedia presentation appliance


In cellular communication systems, the success rate for incoming calls for a client terminal in idle mode is related to the successful reception of paging messages. The instances for paging message transmission, known as paging occasions, may be based on a client terminal's unique identity. The network transmits a paging message addressed to a specific client terminal in its specific paging occasion. In addition to the reception of paging messages, a client terminal may be required to search and monitor neighbor cells for cell reselection and handoffs. A method and apparatus are disclosed that improve the cell reselection by using the known a priori information to categorize the neighbor cells, to categorize the cell reselection types, and to perform cell reselection to an appropriate neighbor cell at the opportune time such that a paging message reception may be neither missed nor delayed during the cell reselection.

Typically, as shown in FIG. 1, a wireless communication system 10 comprises elements such as a client terminal or mobile station 12 and base stations 14. Other network devices which may be employed, such as a mobile switching center, are not shown. In some wireless communication systems there may be only one base station and many client terminals while in some other communication systems such as cellular wireless communication systems there are multiple base stations and a large number of client terminals communicating with each base station.
As illustrated, the communication path from the base station (BS) to the client terminal direction is referred to herein as the downlink (DL) and the communication path from the client terminal to the base station direction is referred to herein as the uplink (UL). In some wireless communication systems the client terminal or mobile station (MS) communicates with the BS in both DL and UL directions. For instance, this is the case in cellular telephone systems. In other wireless communication systems the client terminal communicates with the base stations in only one direction, usually the DL. This may occur in applications such as paging.
The base station with which a client terminal is communicating is referred to as the serving base station. In some wireless communication systems the serving base station is normally referred to as the serving cell. While in practice a cell may include one or more base stations, a distinction is not made between a base station and a cell, and such terms may be used interchangeably herein. The base stations that are in the vicinity of the serving base station are called neighbor cell base stations. Similarly, in some wireless communication systems a neighbor base station is normally referred to as a neighbor cell.
Cellular wireless communication systems may use multiple frequencies within a cell and across different cells. If a neighbor cell is using the same frequency as the serving cell, it is referred to as an intra-frequency neighbor cell. If a neighbor cell is using a frequency different from the serving cell, it is referred to as an inter-frequency neighbor cell. A network may use different Radio Access Technologies (RATs) for providing various services. In a particular network, the cells of different RAT's may be overlapping or adjacent to each other. If a neighbor cell is using a RAT that is different from the RAT used by the serving cell, it is referred to as an inter-RAT neighbor cell.
When a client terminal is not in active call or active data transfer, it is considered to be in idle mode. In idle mode, when a client terminal moves away from the coverage area of its current serving cell and it may be in the coverage area of one or more neighbor cells, it may initiate a cell reselection procedure towards one of the neighbor cells. The neighbor cell towards which the cell reselection procedure is initiated is referred to as a target cell. After the cell reselection procedure is completed successfully, the target cell becomes the new serving cell for the client terminal.
In idle mode, a client terminal for the most part may turn off a majority of its circuitry to reduce power consumption. This is often referred to as "sleep" state, a sub-state within the idle mode. A client terminal may remain in a sleep state for a long duration and may wake up at the desired time window where it expects to receive the paging messages and certain broadcast messages. The success rate for the incoming calls (e.g., mobile terminated voice calls and/or data calls) in a client terminal is directly related to the successful reception of paging messages. Normally, in idle mode, in addition to the reception of paging messages and broadcast messages, a client terminal may continue to search and monitor neighbor cells.
When a client terminal performs a network registration procedure to get service from a cell, it decodes the system information broadcast in the cell. The client terminal may store such system information for most recently visited cells for future reference. The system information carries important information regarding the cell reselection criteria. Such information includes but not limited to the tracking area code (TAC), Public Land Mobile Network Identity (PLMN ID), Closed Subscriber Group Identity (CSG ID), etc. This information may help to decide whether a cell is a "suitable cell" for the client terminal to avail all the services offered by it, or the cell is an "acceptable cell" where the client terminal may avail only limited services such as emergency calls. The client terminal may have to perform the network registration procedure to get service from the network and for the network to be able to page the client terminal for mobile terminated (incoming) calls. The network registration procedure may be typically performed by a client terminal with a particular cell. A group of cells in the geographic vicinity of each other may form a registration area. A registration area may be identified based on the system information of a cell. For example, the TACs of a group of cells in a registration area may be the same.
As long as a client terminal is in the same registration area, the client terminal may not perform network registration procedure again except that a periodic network registration update procedure may need to be performed even if the client terminal continues to move within the same registration area. If the client terminal moves to a cell which does not belong to the registration area in which the client terminal is registered, then the client terminal may perform network registration procedure to get access to and service from the network.
When a client terminal is in idle mode, the network may only be aware of the location of the client terminal at the registration area level. In order for a network to page a client terminal, it may need to send the paging message in all cells belonging to the same registration area. The instances for paging message transmission, known as paging occasions (POs), are usually derived based on a client terminal's unique identity and a paging cycle. The network may transmit a paging message addressed to a specific client terminal in its specific paging occasion. When a client terminal performs cell reselection, the exact instances of paging occasions may be different in the new serving cell. Depending on the exact timing of the cell reselection and the timing of the POs in the old serving cell and the new serving cell, the client terminal may potentially miss a paging message or may receive it with delay.

Method and apparatus for cell reselection


An apparatus and method for spray metallizing a coating of metal (e.g. zinc) onto one or both sides of a base metal (e.g. steel) which comprises melting the metal to be deposited, propelling first and second streams of the melted metal towards the base metal at a point of convergence adjacent to the substrate, and applying a potential difference between the streams to form an electric arc whereby superheated particles are deposited on the base metal.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for coating a corrodible base metal, on one or both sides, with another metal which is molten. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for spray metallizing a coating of metal onto one side of the base metal, using an electric arc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A number of processes are known for the production of sheet steel which is galvanized on one side. These include such conventional methods as the continuous passage of sheet metal through a bath of molten metal, and continuous thermal spraying. Commercial galvanized sheet in which zinc is coated on both sides is not generally acceptable for use in automobile body construction because of complications arising from the adherence of zinc to the tips of welding electrodes in resistance welding processes. Again, while it is desirable to have the zinc covering on interior surfaces where its protective qualities are most needed, it is desirable to leave the exterior surfaces uncoated to promote the adherence of paint or other surface finishes.
In the case of the thermal spraying process, the material being sprayed, in this case zinc, is supplied to "pot guns" in bulk form and heated to a temperature of approximately 426.degree.-482.degree. C., and atomized with a propellant such as air and sprayed onto the surface to be coated. In another version of this process, wire or powder is fed into an oxy-fueled flame which melts it and air atomizes and propels it onto the surface to be coated. Another thermal spray process, electric arc metallizing, which utilizes two metal wires fed to an electric arc, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,546,415, herein incorporated by reference.
These processes all suffer in one way or another from a variety of deficiencies. For instance, the processes which utilize zinc wire or powder are much more expensive than those which use slab zinc, since there is a price differential of over 50% between the two forms of this material. When wire is used, in addition there is a loss due to overspray which can amount to as much as 30 to 40% of the material, leaving a net deposit efficiency of 60 to 65% of material which actually sticks to the metal surface. Galvanizing by hot dipping has several deficiencies. First, the iron-zinc, metallurgical bond, which is formed at the interface between the metals in the form of a crystalline surface, leaves a structure which is brittle and is undesirable for automobile parts, since it cannot be deep drawn; however, other techniques are available to reduce the brittleness of the coating. Another disadvantage of galvanizing is that large open vats are required to accommodate the customary widths of the sheet steel. A great deal of energy is wasted in maintaining the baths at 426.degree. C. or so, to keep the zinc in the molten state. The disadvantage of "pot gun" process is poor quality of coating and low deposit efficiency.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for the continuous spray metallizing of sheet steel with molten zinc, which utilizes slab zinc, is economic in its heat requirements, and in which there is little waste material.

Metallizing of a corrodible metal with a protective metal


There is provided a method of rapidly relieving pain in a mammalian, preferably human, subject. The method comprises orally administering to the subject an effective pain-relieving amount of a composition comprising celecoxib formulated in such a way as to provide, when tested in fasting humans in accordance with standard pharmacokinetic practice, a blood plasma concentration profile of celecoxib in which a concentration of about 250 ng/ml is attained not later than about 30 minutes after oral administration.

The present invention relates to new uses of certain orally deliverable pharmaceutical formulations containing the selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitory drug celecoxib, for fast relief of pain, and for manufacture of medicaments useful in treatment of pain.
Numerous compounds have been reported having therapeutically and/or prophylactically useful selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitory effect, and have been disclosed as having utility in treatment or prevention of specific cyclooxygenase-2 mediated disorders or of such disorders in general. Among such compounds are a large number of substituted pyrazolyl benzenesulfonamides as reported in U.S. Pat. No. 5,760,068 to Talley et al., including for example the compound 4-[5-(4-methylphenyl)-3-(trifluoromethyl)-1H-pyrazol-1-y1]benzenesulfonamide, also referred to herein as celecoxib. Celecoxib has the structure shown in formula (I):
A need for orally deliverable pharmaceutical compositions giving fast relief of pain exists. A particular need exists for such compositions giving fast relief of pain through selective inhibition of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), without the undesirable side effects associated with inhibition of cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) that can occur with conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). An especial need exists for such compositions giving fast relief of pain through selective inhibition of COX-2, yet exhibiting an onset of effective pain relief at least as rapid as standard NSAIDs used in the art, for example ibuprofen.
Celecoxib is well known as a highly effective selective COX-2 inhibitory drug and is widely prescribed for treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Celecoxib is available under the trademark Celebrex(copyright) of Pharmacia Corporation in capsule dosage forms containing 100 mg or 200 mg of the drug. Although these dosage forms can provide very effective relief of pain, they can, at least in some acute pain situations, exhibit a slower onset of pain relief than a standard NSAID such as ibuprofen.
A suspension of particulate celecoxib in a vehicle of apple juice is disclosed in Ecuador Patent Application No. 98-2761 (xe2x80x9cEC 98-2761xe2x80x9d which corresponds to WO 00/32189, Jun. 8, 2000). See in particular Example 13 therein, which describes preparation of such a suspension by dissolving celecoxib in ethanol containing 5% polysorbate 80 and adding the resulting mixture to apple juice prior to oral administration to 10 healthy male subjects. The dose administered was 300 mg celecoxib. An equal 300 mg dose was administered for comparison, in the form of three 100 mg capsules containing formulated celecoxib having a D90 particle size of about 37 xcexcm (i.e., 90% by weight of celecoxib particles in the formulation were smaller, in their longest dimension, than about 37 xcexcm). Pharmacokinetic parameters disclosed indicate that the suspension gave a higher Cmax, shorter Tmax and shorter Txc2xd than the capsules as indicated in Table 1 below, where Cmax is the average maximum blood plasma concentration of celecoxib following administration, Tmax is the average length of time from administration until Cmax is reached, and Txc2xd is the average terminal half-life of blood plasma concentration of celecoxib following Tmax.
Ibuprofen in a typical acute pain relief dose of 400 mg normally provides an adequate level of suppression of pain, for example post-surgical pain, by about 1 hour after administration. Celecoxib in capsule form normally takes longer, for example about 2 hours, to achieve a similar level of pain suppression. No suggestion is made in above-cited EC 98-2761 that the apparently modest reduction in Tmax exhibited by the disclosed suspension by comparison with the capsule formulation, when administered in a 300 mg dose, could be associated with a major improvement in onset of pain relief, or that the suspension formulation of celecoxib could be at least comparable with ibuprofen in onset of pain relief.
Above-cited EC 98-2761 merely discloses in general terms that compositions of the invention disclosed therein, i.e., including the disclosed capsule formulations as well as the suspension composition of Example 13 thereof, are effective xe2x80x9cfor pain management generally (particularly post-oral surgery pain, post-general surgery pain, post-orthopedic surgery pain, and acute flares of osteoarthritis)xe2x80x9d. Nevertheless, this reference contains no suggestion that the suspension composition might provide an effective pain relieving amount of celecoxib nor was it appreciated by this reference that an effective pain-relieving concentration of 250 nm/ml plasma or greater could be achieved in a rapidly bioavailable formulation. This is particularly in view of the extensive binding of celecoxib to plasma albumin which was known to occur following oral administration (Davies et al., Clin. Pharmacokinet. 38:225-242, 2000). Thus, one could not have predicted that a particular plasma concentration would produce analgesia.
Australian Patent Applications No. 200042711, No. 200043730 and No. 200043736 disclose compositions comprising a selective COX-2 inhibitory drug, a 5HT1 receptor agonist and caffeine, said to be useful for treating migraine.
Although objectives of the present invention are not limited to any particular measure of analgesic response, a method of providing analgesia with an onset time of 60 minutes or less, especially 30 minutes or less and ideally 15 minutes or less, by oral administration of a celecoxib composition would be an important advance in the art.
It has now surprisingly been discovered that celecoxib can provide acceptable relief of acute pain within about 60 minutes or less after oral administration, in some cases much less than 60 minutes, for example as little as about 15 to about 45 minutes, after oral administration, if it is formulated and administered in such a way as to give a particular pharmacokinetic profile as defined below.
Accordingly, there is now provided a therapeutic method comprising orally administering to a mammalian, preferably human, subject in need of analgesia an effective pain-relieving amount of a composition comprising celecoxib (herein also referred to as a celecoxib composition) formulated in such a way as to provide, when tested in fasting humans in accordance with standard pharmacokinetic practice, a blood plasma concentration profile of celecoxib in which a concentration of about 250 ng/ml is attained not later than about 30 minutes after oral administration. The plasma concentrations of 250 ng/ml or greater achieved by the compositions and methods of the present invention at or before 30 minutes after oral administration and, more preferably, at or before 15 minutes after oral administration, are effective pain-relieving plasma concentrations.
It has not previously been known that fast absorption of celecoxib, as indicated by such a blood plasma concentration profile, is important in achieving fast onset of analgesic response. As noted above, celecoxib is known to be extensively bound to plasma albumin following oral administration (Davies et al., supra) such that one could not have predicted that a particular plasma concentration would produce analgesia.
There is also provided a method of use of celecoxib, formulated in such a way as to provide, when tested in an effective pain-relieving amount in fasting humans in accordance with standard pharmacokinetic practice, a blood plasma concentration profile of celecoxib in which a concentration of about 250 ng/ml is attained not later than about 30 minutes after oral administration, in preparation of a medicament for rapid relief of pain in a mammalian, preferably human, subject.
The phrase xe2x80x9cin need of analgesiaxe2x80x9d as applied to a subject herein embraces a subject suffering mild to intense pain at the time of administration of the celecoxib composition, as well as a subject that can reasonably be expected to have an imminent onset of mild to intense pain, e.g., within about 1 to about 2 hours and especially within about 30 minutes, if no analgesic is administered. An illustrative example of a situation where a subject can reasonably be expected to have such an imminent onset of pain is a period immediately following surgery under local anesthetic, as effects of the local anesthetic wear off.
What constitutes an effective pain-relieving amount, or dose, of a celecoxib composition according to the invention depends, among other factors, on the body weight of the subject and the intensity of the pain being treated. Normally an effective celecoxib dose will be found in the range of about 1 to about 6 mg/kg body weight. For an average 75 kg subject, this range equates to a celecoxib dose of about 75 to about 450 mg. Proportionately smaller or larger doses can be appropriate for subjects having lesser or greater body weight. Such a dose can be administered as needed, but typically administration 1 to about 4 times per day, in most cases 1 or 2 times a day, provides adequate continuing relief of pain.
An xe2x80x9ceffective pain-relieving concentrationxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ceffective pain-relieving plasma concentrationxe2x80x9d as used herein is intended to mean a plasma level in a patient which when tested in a standardized test involving patient scoring of the severity of pain, achieves a mean score indicating pain relief. In one such test as described hereinbelow, patients score pain on a scale of from 0 (no reduction in severity of pain) to 4 (complete relief of pain) and a mean score equal to or greater than a given value is deemed to constitute effective pain-relief. A mean score of 0.5 or greater and, more preferably, 1.0 or greater in such a test, as exemplified herein, is deemed to constitute effective pain relief. The skilled artisan will appreciate, however, that other approaches can be used to assess the severity of pain and relief from such pain.
Thus, one aspect of the present invention involves a therapeutic method for analgesia in which a composition comprising celecoxib is administered orally to a subject, in a formulation which provides detectable pain relief not later than about 30 minutes after oral administration. By xe2x80x9cdetectable pain reliefxe2x80x9d, it is meant that the formulation produces effective pain relief which is measurable by a standard method such as described above. For example, a formulation, which achieves a mean score of 0.5 or greater and, more preferably, 1.0 or greater on a scale of from 0 to 4 in a testing system as described above, is deemed to provide detectable pain relief. The invention is not limited to use of any particular type of formulation, so long as it exhibits the pharmacokinetic profile defined herein. Examples of suitable formulation types are described below.
Protocols for conducting human pharmacokinetic studies are well known in the art and any standard protocol can be used to determine whether a particular celecoxib formulation satisfies the pharmacokinetic criteria set out herein. An example of a suitable protocol is described below.
An advantage of the present invention is that relief of pain, even intense pain as can occur, for example, following oral, general or orthopedic surgery, is achieved significantly faster, i.e., in a significantly shorter time after administration, than is achievable with standard formulations of celecoxib.
A further advantage is that, by contrast with pain relief methods involving NSAIDs lacking selectivity for inhibition of COX-2, rapid relief of pain can be obtained without the side-effects commonly associated with COX-1 inhibition. Thus the method of the present invention is especially suitable where NSAIDs are contraindicated, for example in patients with peptic ulcers, gastritis, regional enteritis, ulcerative colitis or diverticulitis, patients with a recurrent history of gastrointestinal lesions, patients with gastrointestinal bleeding, coagulation disorders including anemia such as hypothrombinemia, hemophilia and other bleeding problems, or kidney disease, patients prior to surgery, or patients taking anticoagulants.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be in part apparent and in part pointed out hereinafter.

Use of a celecoxib composition for fast pain relief


The present invention relates to a method, system and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium for measuring ball spin. According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for measuring ball spin, comprising the steps of: detecting at least one mark appearing in a region corresponding to a ball in each of a plurality of images in which the ball is photographed, wherein a physical quantity of the ball is to be measured; recognizing a mark commonly detected over a first image and a second image that are temporally adjacent, with reference to information on properties of the at least one detected mark in each of the plurality of images, and generating a mark sequence including information on the properties of the recognized mark in the first and second images; and measuring a physical quantity related to spin of the ball with reference to the generated mark sequence.

Virtual golf systems are widely spreading which allow golfers to virtually play golf at low cost in downtown areas and the like. The basic concept of such virtual golf systems is to acquire a number of photographed images of a golf ball upon being hit by a golfer, measure physical quantities of the golf ball on the basis of the trajectory, interval, size and the like thereof, perform a simulation of the shot, and display a result of the simulation on a screen. In the virtual golf systems, it is important to acquire the photographed images of the golf ball as good as possible.
In this connection, a technique for photographing a golf training session while adjusting the location or color of illumination to acquire more diverse images of a golf ball has been disclosed in Korean Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-2009-0112538 (entitled, "APPARATUS FOR OBTAINING GOLF IMAGES USING ILLUMINATION CONTROL, AND GOLF PRACTICE SYSTEM BASED ON IMAGE PROCESSING USING IT"), the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. However, various conventional techniques including the above one have not been concerned with a technique required to acquire golf ball images in a good state, which is necessary in accurately measuring a physical quantity of a golf ball, or a technique for measuring physical quantities of a golf ball using a mark sequence obtainable from a plurality of golf ball images.
Therefore, the inventor(s) present a novel technique for accurately measuring physical quantities of a golf ball by analyzing a mark sequence appearing in golf ball images obtained from a high-speed camera capable of photographing many frames of images for a short time.

Method, system and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium for measuring ball spin


A telephone communication method and system for retrieving and providing advertisement information that matches a communication terminal user's preference as to advertisement information. The telephone communication method of the invention is a method of providing the communication terminal with one or more pieces of advertisement information via a telephone network. This method obtains a plurality of pieces of advertisement information from an advertiser terminal prior to provision of the advertisement information on one hand, and obtains user-related information from the user's communication terminal as a retrieval condition for retrieval of the advertisement information on the other hand. The method then transmits to the communication terminal at least one piece of advertisement information retrieved from a plurality of pieces of advertisement information on the basis of the user-related information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone communication system and method for providing a communication terminal with one or more pieces of advertisement information via a telephone network, and also relates to a server for providing advertisement information.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of the existing services for providing advertisement information via a telephone provides advertisement information for a certain period, which starts immediately upon off-hooking of a telephone handset and ends when dialing a telephone number of a receiving party is complete. In this system, a telephone company discounts a telephone fee while it charges an advertisement company an advertisement fee. Japanese Patent Application, After-Examination Publication (Kokoku) No. 8-31929 teaches such technology.
This conventional system, however, distributes the same advertisement information to all the telephone users so that it does not always provide the telephone users with advertisements which they want to have. As a result, the telephone users do not listen to the advertisement information, and the advertisement activities are not useful the advertisement company. This is undesirable in terms of cost-effectiveness of the advertisement.

Telephone communication system and method, and server for providing advertisement information


A photoelectric conversion element having high photovoltaic conversion efficiency is provided.

In recent years, power generation devices using photovoltaic conversion, such as a photovoltaic cell and a solar cell, light-emitting devices such as an organic EL device, optical display devices such as an electrochromic display device and electronic paper, sensor devices sensing, for example, temperature and light, and other devices employ photoelectric conversion elements.
Among them, the photoelectric conversion elements in a solar cell and other devices have actually employed a pn junction device, and various photoelectric conversion elements have been studied for photo-electrochemical devices (for example, see Patent Literature 1). The photoelectric conversion element includes an electrode with an electron transport layer, a counter electrode, and an electrolyte as a hole transport layer and other layers interposed between the electrodes. The electron transport layer typically supports a dye as a photosensitizer, and such a structure allows the element to be used as a dye-sensitized solar cell. Applying light to the electron transport layer causes the electron transport layer to generate charges; the charges move through the hole transport layer; and electricity can be extracted to the outside from the electrode with the electron transport layer as the negative electrode and from the counter electrode as the positive electrode.
For photoelectrochemical devices including such a photoelectric conversion element, a method of providing a radical compound in contact with the electron transport layer has been developed (for example, see Patent Literature 2). In the method, carriers (electrons or holes) generated by photoirradiation to the electron transport layer participate in redox reaction (oxidation-reduction reaction) of the radical compound. The radical compound undergoes electrochemically oxidation or reduction to become a redox couple. This accelerates the response speed to photoirradiation to the electron transport layer and such a device obtains excellent stability and reproducibility.

Abstract: The photoelectric conversion element includes a first electrode, a second electrode arranged opposite to the first electrode, and an electron transport layer provided on a face of the first electrode, and the face is opposite to the second electrode. The photoelectric conversion element further includes a photosensitizer supported on the electron transport layer and a hole transport layer interposed between the first electrode and the second electrode. The electron transport layer contains a perylene imide derivative of [Chemical Formula 1].


An infant restraining chair for installation in a corner or other compact area of a bathroom, for restraining an infant while the infant's guardian makes use of bathroom facilities. A chair supporting and surrounding a substantial portion of an infant's body is mounted on top of a column having a cross-section of a generally triangular shape. Arcuate seat belt portions of substantially rigid construction are maintained in a body of the chair normally in a position retracted into the chair, but are selectably extendable out of the chair body to encircle and restrain an infant seated in the chair. A retraction arrangement utilizes force from gravity constantly to bias the seat belt portions into a retracted position. A mechanical locking arrangement may be provided for locking the seat belt portions in a restraining position.

It is proposed in the Official Gazette for Japan Utility Model Laid Open No. 100743-1986 that a chair for an infant be installed inside a lavatory compartment. However, the baby chair is a common-type chair with the main body thereof being composed of the back part and the seat part and with a handrail provided to extend from the back part at the height of the armrest to enclose the front region of the chair, and with a slip-preventing band being provided between the central region at the fore ends of the handrail and the central part of the front part of the seat.
The baby chair of the type mentioned above is ordinarily constructed with both the handrail and the slip-preventing band fixed rigidly, and consequently it is necessary to put the baby in the chair and to remove him from the chair from a point over the main body of the chair, and it is therefore necessary to lift the infant to a high level. It often happens that infant lifting cannot be done smoothly to set the infant in the chair and to remove him from the chair because the infants legs (often kicking) tend to interfere with the handrail and also with the slip-preventing band of the chair.