A lubricant composition comprising (a) from 0.1 to 10 percent by weight of one or more polyalkylene glycols (PAG); and (2) one or more ester base oils selected from the group of natural esters, synthetic esters and combinations thereof; wherein the one or more PAG has a molecular weight in the range 1500 to 5000 g/mole, comprises from 10 to 40 percent by weight of units derived from ethylene oxide and from 90 to 60 percent by weight of units derived from propylene oxide; and wherein the one or more PAGs are in the form of block copolymer, reverse block copolymer or combinations thereof is provided. Also provided is a method of enhancing the hydrolytic stability of an ester base oil.

Synthetic and natural ester based lubricants are used in a large number of applications including, for example, automotive and aviation oils, refrigeration oils, metal working fluids, gear oils, turbo oils, hydraulic fluids and refrigeration lubricants.
Synthetic and natural ester based lubricants, however, are well known to be very sensitive to the effects of water. Hydrolysis of such lubricants can substantially shorten the lubricant life and lead to a higher risk of equipment failure. Further, it is known in the art that inclusion of anti-wear additives in ester base oils can accelerate the hydrolytic degradation of esters due to their acidic nature. Thus, at least one common additive exacerbates the hydrolytic instability of ester base oils.
Several approaches have been taken to increase the hydrolytic stability of ester based lubricants. In one approach, additives, such as dicarbo-imides, are included in various amounts to minimize ester hydrolysis. In another approach, esters having a significant level of steric hindrance around the ester functionality have been used to minimize ester hydrolysis. Neither approach has satisfactorily solved the problem ester based lubricant hydrolytic stability.

Natural and synthetic ester-containing lubricants having enhanced hydrolytic stability


A section of text in an electronic document is marked with a tag that designates a list of font faces for use in drawing the text at a computer which is remotely browsing the electronic document from a computer network. A browser at the computer chooses a font face for drawing the text from the font faces installed on the computer according to the tag-designated list, such as by matching font face name or set of font face characteristics. The browser also can include an alternative font table which stores data identifying alternative font faces for many common font faces. The browser searches the installed font faces for the alternative font faces to those in the tag-designated list when a direct match to the tag-designated font faces is not found.

Browsing software, generally known as "Internet browsers,"are now in wide-spread use for retrieving (also known as "downloading") and viewing electronic documents in hyper-text markup language (HTML) format from a portion of the Internet known as the "world-wide web." Examples of currently available browsers include the Internet Explorer by Microsoft Corporation, the Navigator by Netscape Communications Corporation, Mosaic by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and others. These HTML documents are ASCII coded (a well known standard for coding alpha-numeric characters in 7- or 8-bits) character files generally consisting of text and HTML "tags" which specify formatting of the document, links (referred to as "hyper-links") to related documents, and other files that contain information (e.g., sound, images, video, etc.) which is to be combined into the document, among other tag features.
The Internet is a well known, global network of cooperatively interconnected computer networks. The world-wide web portion of the Internet is a collection of server computers (referred to as "sites") on the Internet which store HTML documents that can be publicly accessed by computer users having a connection to the Internet. There are many such world wide web sites on the Internet.
Individual computer users commonly connect to the Internet from their computer (sometimes referred to as a "client computer") over a conventional analog telephone line (sometimes referred to as a "POTS" line) with a modem. These users dial with the modem on the public telephone system to a server computer connected on the Internet, such as a server computer of an Internet access service provider with which the user has an account. Currently available modems typically are capable of communicating at speeds of approximately 14.4 kbit/second and 28.8 kbit/second. Some computer users access the Internet over faster telephone lines, such as ISDN, T1, or like telephone lines, and are able to obtain communications speeds that are four or more times faster than with modems and conventional analog "POTS" telephone lines.
In use, browser software allows a user to navigate (also known as "browsing") between documents and sites on the world-wide web. The user can enter a name of a document, referred to as a uniform resource locator ("URL"), which specifies a particular site and a particular resource or file at that site containing the document for the browser to retrieve. Alternatively, the user can activate a "hyper-link" on an HTML document currently being viewed to retrieve a related document (as specified by a URL in the hyper-link tag within the current HTML document). This causes the browser to jump or change its display to the new document specified by the hyper-link's URL.
When an HTML document is retrieved, the browser displays the document for the user to view. As is conventional in the computer field, the browser uses fonts to draw text of the document (i.e., generate and write display data to a display buffer or output device) for display on a monitor screen or other output device. A font is a collection of characters and symbols that share a common design. In HTML, the characters and symbols in the text of a document are specified by ASCII codes. The browser displays text by drawing the respective glyph of the characters and symbols from a font for the ASCII codes in the text of the HTML document.
In general, fonts have three major design elements referred to as typeface, style, and size. The typeface of a font (hereafter also referred to as the "font face") refers to specific characteristics of characters and symbols in the font such as the width of the thick and thin strokes that compose the character and the presence or absence of serifs. A serif is the short cross line at the ends of an unconnected stroke. A font or typeface without serifs is usually called a sans-serif font.
Style refers to the weight and slant of a font. Font weights can range from thin to black. In Microsoft Corporation's Windows operating system, fonts can have the following possible weights (from lightest to heaviest): thin, extra light, light, normal, medium, semi-bold, bold, extra bold, and heavy. The slant is characterized as roman, oblique, and italic.
Size generally refers to the height of the characters in a font. In the Windows operating system, the size of a font is an imprecise value. It can generally be determined by measuring the distance from the bottom of a lowercase "g" to the top of an adjacent uppercase "M." Font sizes in the Windows.RTM. operating system are specified in units called points (approximately 1/72 inch).
The font with which an HTML document is displayed can greatly affect the appearance of the document. However, with prior browsers, the ability of authors to control the fonts with which the document is displayed has been limited.
In the Windows operating system, font faces are designated by a font name. Some font faces (e.g., TRUETYPE.RTM. scalable outline font technology type of fonts) also are classified by numerical ratings in a set of attributes (e.g., the PANOSE.RTM. font face metric). The Windows operating system provides a number of application programming interface (API) functions which allow applications software to enumerate the font faces that are installed on a computer and query their attributes.
The HTML language defines a number of tags which allow an author of an electronic document to specify the appearance of text in the document. The version 2 standard of the HTML language (hereafter "HTML 2") includes tags for designating bold, italic, underlined, and strike-out style of the font for displaying text in an HTML document, such as the following:
This text is in bold. PA1 This text is in italics. PA1 This text is underlined. PA1 <S>This text is in strike-out.</S> PA1 <BASEFONT SIZE=n> PA1
In addition, the following tags in HTML 2 denote text that is to be displayed in fixed-pitch typeface: <PLAINTEXT> . . . </PLAINTEXT>,
 . . .
, <TT> . . . </TT>, and <XMP> . . . </XMP>.
Browsers which support HTML 2 recognize these tags and display the text of electronic documents which include these tags accordingly. For example, the pieces of text in the above bold, italic, underlined and strike-out examples would be displayed by the browser in an electronic document as shown in FIG. 5. Prior browsers typically display text which is marked with the above fixed-pitch typeface tags (e.g., <PLAINTEXT>) using a font with a fixed-pitch typeface, and otherwise use a font with a proportional typeface.
Some prior browsers also support some extensions of the standard HTML language. The HTML language can be extended by defining new tags and/or tag attributes. So that extensions can be added without causing prior browsers to fail, browsers generally ignore HTML tags that they do not support.
One prior browser, the Navigator by Netscape Communications Corporation of Mountain View, Calif., supports an HTML extension which allows an author of an HTML document to specify a base font size and a relative font size for different parts of the text in a document. These HTML extensions include the following tags:
These tags specify a number n between 1 and 7 for the font size, where 7 is the largest font size. A plus before the number indicates the font size relative to the current base font size setting. For example, where the base font size is set to 3 with the tag <BASEFONT SIZE=3>, the tag  specifies a font size of 5.
Accordingly, while authors of HTML documents on the world-wide web have been able to control the style and size of the fonts used to draw their documents, the ability to control the particular font faces for the text of HTML documents retrieved from the Internet has been limited. There have been a number of tags for designating font styles and size (e.g., the , , , <S>, <BASEFONT SIZE=n>, and  tags described above). However, the HTML tags for designating typeface of a font have been limited to those designating text as having a fixed-pitch font.
For this reason, prior browsers generally have used only two font faces for displaying HTML documents, a fixed-pitch typeface and a proportional type face. In some prior browsers, these two font faces are set by default. In others, these two font faces are an option that can be set by the user. In either case, the same two font faces are used for displaying all HTML documents.
Since the appearance of a document can be greatly affected by the font faces used, it is often desirable for authors of HTML documents on the world wide web to be able to control the particular font face used when browsing the document at a client computer. It also is desirable for some documents to be able to use several different font faces, or to use other than a standard fixed-pitch or proportional font face (e.g., a script, modern or Gothic family font face).
A problem also exists that the font faces that are installed at different client computers vary widely. Different computer platforms typically have different font faces. For example, a standard installation of the Windows operating system on a computer with an Intel or compatible microprocessor has different font faces than a Macintosh computer from Apple Computer, Inc., or a computer with a version of the UNIX operating system, or a computer with the OS/2 Warp operating system from IBM. However, each of these computer platforms are employed in browsing HTML documents from the world wide web. Also, the same font face often is referred to differently on different platforms (i.e., has a different name). This is referred to herein as the multiple platforms problem. Further, there is a very large number of font faces that are sold by other parties as add-ons to these platforms, or bundled with applications software for these platforms. So, the font faces often are quite different even between two client computers having the same platform.
Another problem exists in that there are sometimes different versions of the same font face, especially for computers that are sold or used internationally. In such computers, there can be several font faces of the same name for different international character and symbol sets (e.g., the "Arial" font face may have both western and Cyrillic alphabet versions) which are installed on the same computer. This is referred to herein as the multiple installed fonts problem.
In accordance with the present invention, a tag in an electronic document controls the font face for text in the document by designating a list of one or more font faces. In the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the tag is an HTML tag which includes a comma delimited list of font face names or font face characteristic sets. When remotely browsing the electronic document, a browser at a client computer finds a font face in the list that is installed at the client computer and displays the text with that font face.
For solving the multiple platform problem with the invention, the tag can designate a list of equivalent font faces for each of a plurality of platforms which are intended to browse the electronic document. The browser at a computer having any of the platforms can then choose an installed font face appropriate to the computer's platform in the list to use for drawing the text of the document. Thus, an author of an electronic document can control the font face of text in the document to have a same or similar appearance across multiple platforms.
For solving the multiple installed fonts problem, the browser again finds a font face in the list that is installed at the client computer. If there are more than one font face with that same name, the browser selects the font face with the same default character set which is set in the operating system. For example, if the western character set is set as the default for the operating system, the browser also selects the font face with the western character set.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the font faces are listed in the tag in an order of preference. The browser traverses the list in order and selects the first of the font faces in the list that is installed at the client computer. The browser thus selects the most preferred font face for the document's text that is installed at the client computer.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the browser includes a table of alternative font faces. The table lists alternative font faces for a plurality of common font faces (e.g., alternatives for the common font face on each of various computer platforms). When an exact match to a font face in the tag's list is not installed at the client computer, the browser consults the alternative font face table. If the table lists an alternative font face for a font face in the tag's list that is installed at the client computer, the browser selects that alternative font face for drawing the document's text. With this aspect of the invention, the author of the electronic document need not be aware of the alternatives of a particular font face on different computer platforms or list these alternatives with the font face tag. The author need only list a preferred font face, and the browser will determine the appropriate alternative font face for the particular client computer from the alternative font faces table. Thus, the multiple platform problem also is solved through the mechanism of the alternative fonts table.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be made apparent from the following detailed description of an illustrated embodiment which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Local font face selection for remote electronic document browsing


An electrostatic discharge protection network that uses triple well semiconductor devices either singularly or in a series configuration. The semiconductor devices are preferably in diode junction type configuration.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuits and, more particularly, to ESD protection circuits using triple well semiconductor devices residing in an integrated circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
As electronic components are getting smaller and smaller along with the internal structures in integrated circuits, it is getting easier to either completely destroy or otherwise impair electronic components. In particular, many integrated circuits are highly susceptible to damage from the discharge of static electricity. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the transfer of an electrostatic charge between bodies at different electrostatic potentials (voltages), caused by direct contact or induced by an electrostatic field. The discharge of static electricity, or ESD, has become a critical problem for the electronics industry. Device failures are not always immediately catastrophic. Often the device is only slightly weakened but is less able to withstand normal operating stresses and, hence, may result in a reliability problem. Therefore, various ESD protection circuits must be included in the device to protect the various components. Multiple considerations are taken into account during the design of such ESD protection circuits.
With system-on-a-chip (SOC), advanced CMOS and high level integration, different circuit and system functions are integrated into a common chip substrate. The industry has expended considerable efforts to prevent noise created by one circuit from infecting another circuit. The industry has used triple well technology to help provide this noise isolation. Unfortunately, with the introduction of triple well technology, several problems must be addressed with respect to ESD networks.
CMOS technology traditionally provided single well or double well isolation. In single well technology, an n-well was placed in a p-type substrate. In dual well technology, a p-well was placed in a p-type substrate as well. For both single and double well, the ESD protection networks were kept the same since the transition from single well to double well did not alter the electrical connections needed for either MOSFET-based ESD protection or diode-based ESD protection networks. The first problem results from the transition from single- or dual-well technology to a triple well technology. The triple well technology requires a region which electrically isolates both the p-well and the n-well from the substrate.
Another problem arises when mixed voltage applications are used. Mixed voltage applications are where the peripheral power supply voltage is different from the native core voltage power, or the input pad voltage exceeds the native core voltage power supply. Mixed voltage applications require unique ESD networks that don't turn on below the applied voltage condition. In triple well technology, this is a concern since structures must be able to be biased without inadvertent turn-on during the functional regime. ESD networks in a mixed voltage environment may not be able to use MOSFET structures due to electrical overstress of the MOSFET transistor. MOSFET electrical overstress occurs above the native power supply condition due to dielectric overstress.
It would, therefore, be a distinct advantage to have a triple well technology ESD network that could overcome the above noted problems. The present invention provides such an ESD network.

Electrostatic discharge protection networks for triple well semiconductor devices

International Business Machines Corporation


A shifting arrangement for a manual transmission having several forward gears and at least one reverse gear has a shift rotor that is rotated to shift the transmission gears. For this purpose, the shift rotor is connected by way of a cable pull with a shift lever. By moving the shift lever forward or backward from a neutral position, the shift rotor is rotated by way of a step-by-step system. In order to ensure a secure shifting of the reverse gear with a clear assignment for the driver and a protection against an unintended shifting, the reverse gear is operated by moving the shift lever in a second channel which is separate from the forward-gear shifting channel. For this purpose, the shift lever is connected by way of a second cable pull with a preselection shaft. By rotating the preselection shaft, coupling elements can be adjusted between the shift forks and the shift rotor irrespective of their shifting position. By means of the locking elements between the shifting shaft and the preselection shaft, a shifting of individual transmission gears is allowed only if a previously defined shifting position existed.

This invention is directed to a shifting arrangement for, and a method of shifting, a manual transmission, and more particularly to a shifting arrangement having a shift rotor which can adjust shifting elements by way of coupling elements.
A shifting arrangement of this type is described, for example, in Mueller (U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,125) and has a shift rotor whose rotation shifts six forward gears and one reverse gear. The shift rotor is provided with guideways in which intermediate elements engage which interact with shift forks in a manner known per se. By means of the longitudinally guided intermediate elements, the rotating movement of the shift rotor is converted into a longitudinal movement of the shift forks. The rotating movement of the shift rotor is triggered by a step-by-step system which is connected with the shift lever of the motor vehicle. For shifting the forward gears and the reverse gear, the shift lever is moved in a single shifting channel. By moving the shift lever from a central neutral position into a shifting direction, an upshifting is triggered and by moving the shift lever from the neutral position into the opposite direction, a downshifting is triggered. In order to prevent an unintended shifting from the first gear into the reverse gear, a locking device arranged on the shift lever is provided which, by way of a cable pull, acts upon a detent pawl on the shift rotor. Furthermore, the manual transmission can be brought from each shifting position into a neutral shifting position by a transverse movement of the shift lever. In this case, a shift fork, which cooperates in the shifting of all transmission gears including the reverse gear, is provided with a swivellable coupling element which can be swivelled out of the guide of the intermediate element and can be brought into a neutral position by means of an additional guide. This swivelling out takes place by means of a servo motor which cooperates in each shifting operation and in the transverse movement of the shift lever.
An object of the present invention is to improve a shifting arrangement and method of the type generally described above such that the protection against an unintentional engagement of the reverse gear is increased and simultaneously the entire shifting arrangement can be operated with out servo motors.
This and other objects have been achieved according to the present invention by providing a shifting arrangement for a manual transmission having a plurality of forward gears and at least one reverse gear, the shifting arrangement comprising: a shift lever movable in a first shifting channel, movable in a second shifting channel, and movable between the first and second shifting channels, at least the reverse gear being shifted by movement of the shift lever in the second shifting channel; a shift rotor operatively coupled to the shift lever by way of a first transmitting device such that the shift rotor is rotatable by movement of the shift lever in the shifting channels; a plurality of shifting elements operatively coupled to the shift rotor by way of respective coupling elements; and a preselection device operatively coupled to the shift lever by way of a second transmitting device such that movement of the shift lever between the first and second shifting channels is transmitted to the coupling elements.
This and other objects have also been achieved according to the present invention by providing a method of shifting a manual transmission having a plurality of forward gears and at least one reverse gear, a shift lever movable in a first shifting channel, movable in a second shifting channel, and movable between the first and second shifting channels, a shift rotor operatively coupled to the shift lever by way of a first transmitting device, a plurality of shifting elements operatively coupled to the shift rotor by way of respective coupling elements, and a preselection device operatively coupled to the shift lever by way of a second transmitting device, the method comprising the steps of: moving the shift lever in the first shifting channel to shift between the forward gears by way of the first transmitting device, the shift rotor, the coupling elements, and the shifting elements, moving the shift lever between the first and second shifting channels to rotate the preselection shaft and the coupling elements to a neutral position; and moving the shift lever in the second shifting channel to engage and disengage the reverse gear by way of the first transmitting device, the shift rotor, the coupling elements, and the shifting elements.
A very high protection against faulty shifting and unintentional shifting of the reverse gear is achieved in that the forward gears of the manual transmission are shifted by moving the shift lever in a first shifting channel. Independently of this first shifting channel, the reverse gear is shifted in a second shifting channel so that a momentary separation of the shifting function exists for the driver. For engaging the reverse gear or for preselecting the reverse gear channel, the shift lever is moved perpendicularly to the first shifting channel. For this purpose, the shift lever is coupled by way of second transmitting devices with a preselection shaft by means of which coupling elements can be adjusted between the shift fork and the shift rotor. The adjustment of the coupling elements therefore takes place independently of the position or operation of the shift rotor. A shifting arrangement is therefore created in which a secure separation is provided between the operation of the forward gears and the operation of the reverse gear and which the driver can easily carry out when operating the shift lever. In this case, the shifting arrangement can be operated without any support by servo motors which permits considerable savings with respect to components and, in particular, a high-expenditure electronic control system is not necessary.
A shifting arrangement of this type can be constructed in a particularly space-saving manner if the coupling elements are longitudinally guided on the preselection device constructed as a preselection shaft and can be adjusted approximately perpendicularly thereto by means of the second transmitting devices. In this case, the coupling elements can be guided on this preselection shaft in the shifting direction, this movement being caused by the rotation of the shift rotor. The second transmitting devices coupled with the preselection shaft can then advantageously swivel the coupling elements by the rotation of the preselection shaft approximately perpendicularly to the shifting direction.
A particularly advantageous construction of the shifting arrangement is obtained if, during the swivelling by means of the second transmitting device, the coupling elements interact with an adjusting unit which permits a forcedly guided displacement of the coupling elements in the shifting direction. Thus, already during the swivelling of the coupling elements, a shifting operation can be carried out which changes the respective shifting element either into a neutral position or into a reverse-gear position.
It is also possible to construct the coupling element such that it is coupled with the shift rotor by means of two spaced guide members in the respective end positions of the swivel movement. As a result, by means of the first guide member in the first end position of the swivel motion, a shifting movement for the forward gears can be carried out while, by means of the second guide member, in the second shifting channel, the shifting movement for the reverse gear is carried out.
The shifting operation by means of such a shifting arrangement will still be considerably safer if, in addition, locking devices are provided by means of which a shifting of the reverse gear is possible only from defined shifting positions of the manual transmission. As a result, it can be ensured that an engagement of the reverse gear is possible only if the first gear was engaged before.
This locking device can advantageously consist of interacting locking members between the preselection shaft and the shift rotor. In a space-saving manner, these may be arranged inside the shifting arrangement or inside the transmission, in which case a purely mechanically operating lock is conceivable. In a particularly advantageous manner, the locking members may consist of at least one locking disk respectively on the preselection shaft and the shift rotor and of one locking member interacting with these.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Shifting arrangement for, and method of shifting, a manual transmission


A system and method for determining a route of travel and associated mileage of a vehicle is disclosed. The system records a vehicle's identification number, location, and odometer mileage transmitted via satellite to a fixed station. The location data is provided to a processor which determines an estimated route of travel by said vehicle using a routing program. The estimated route is comprised of a plurality of position segments, each position segment having a corresponding mileage and average expected speed. The route of travel may be checked for accuracy by comparing the estimated route mileage to the odometer mileage. If a significant difference is found, a diagnostic procedure is performed which attempts to correct the mismatch by evaluating alternate routes of travel. If the alternative route mileage agrees with the actual odometer miles within a predetermined threshold, the new route and associated mileage is used as the "true" route taken by the vehicle. The diagnostic procedure can also identify position segments where the vehicle appeared to be traveling much slower or faster than the average speed for that position segment. The mileage difference can then be allocated proportionally to each identified suspect position segment to provide an accurate estimate of the miles driven within the predetermined jurisdiction. Once the route of travel has been verified, the mileage traveled by the vehicle can be accurately determined and used for various computations. For example, state fuel-taxes may be accurately calculated from the mileage information.

I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to vehicle monitoring systems and more particularly to electronic systems for estimating travel routes taken by a vehicle and the mileage associated therewith, without the need for manual intervention by a vehicle operator.
II. Description of the Related Art
A need is recognized by many in the mobile vehicle environment for tracking vehicle movement or activity in jurisdictions, and particularly for determining miles traveled by a vehicle within a particular jurisdiction. In the commercial trucking industry in particular such information is needed in order to determine the amount of fuel and highway tax liability owed to a state or other pre-defined jurisdiction. The amount of fuel and highway tax owed to each jurisdiction is dependent upon the number of highway miles traveled within that jurisdiction and the amount of fuel purchased within that jurisdiction.
Fuel tax reporting methods in the trucking industry today remain highly inefficient and extremely costly. Most companies devote large amounts of resources to determine their highway usage, to calculate fuel taxes, and to comply with state reporting requirements. Assessment of additional taxes, interest charges, and penalties can make non-compliance extremely costly. The burden is on individual trucking companies to comply with the regulations and to keep detailed records to substantiate what they report.
Heretofore, mileage information has been provided to the trucking company home base by the truck drivers themselves. Most carriers have relied on trip sheets, driver logs, and fuel purchase receipts/bulk storage records for fuel tax reporting. These inputs are subsequently reviewed, and then entered by clerical personnel as the basis for state fuel tax reports. Determining the tax due to each jurisdiction normally involves calculating the average miles per gallon for the entire fleet, calculating the total miles traveled in each state for the vehicle(s) under consideration, and the amount of fuel purchased in each state that the vehicle(s) has traveled. From this, an estimation of the fuel consumed in each state traveled can be determined, which is then compared to actual fuel purchases to determine the tax owed or credited.
Another method of determining miles traveled within a given jurisdiction involves submitting the vehicle's origin, destination, stop-offs and various additional points (i.e. fuel stops, cash advance locations) to a mileage routing package to obtain the "most practical route" traveled and then reporting that as the actual route driven. Carriers using this method are often assessed additional taxes because other documents allow the auditor to dispute the actual route traveled.
Another method of determining state mileage requires read-write transponders at pre-determined locations along the vehicle's travel routes. For example, transponders may be located at each state border, which sense or signal the crossing of state borders by the vehicle and thereupon permit mileage determination by reference to the vehicle's odometer reading at the time of crossing. Cost and privacy issues are primary obstacles for widespread acceptance of this method.
Another known method of jurisdictional mileage determination relies on satellite communications to transmit vehicle position, time that the position was determined, and odometer mileage to a fixed station where it is processed to determine the miles driven in each jurisdiction. An example of such a method is described in International Publication No. WO 96/36018 entitled "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING TAX OF A VEHICLE" published on Nov. 14, 1996 and assigned to Highwaymaster Communications of Dallas, Tex. The same disclosure was filed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/437,404, filed May 9, 1995. To date, neither patent has issued. The principle drawback of this method is that it requires odometer readings to be transmitted along with each vehicle position. This can be very expensive when using satellite communications because costs are incurred in proportion to the length of the data message. Transmitting odometer readings with each vehicle position transmission results in substantially greater costs to trucking companies, especially companies having very large fleets of vehicles.
Another known method of state mileage determination involves determining and recording the mileage a vehicle travels within a particular state using a GPS receiver, an odometer, a memory device which contains latitude/longitudinal state boundary information, and a processor for determining on a continual basis whether the positional information received from the GPS receiver corresponds to being within a particular state boundary, and recording mileage of the truck when the position and state boundary comparison determines that a change in state boundaries has occurred. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,528 entitled "SYSTEM FOR ACCURATELY DETERMINING THE MILEAGE TRAVELED BY A VEHICLE WITHIN A STATE WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION" issued Oct. 25, 1994 and assigned to Rockwell International Corporation. The data output, which includes the desired mileage within a particular state, is stored on the vehicle in a storage device. This method requires additional effort and expense to remove the information from the on-board vehicle storage device and load it into a carrier's computer system. A further drawback of this method is that information is not immediately available for a multiplicity of vehicles, such as an entire fleet, nor is information readily available at a single central location, where it would be most helpful, as needed by persons such as a fleet manager. Yet a further drawback of this method is that it requires continuous location monitoring by the GPS receiver and processing unit in order to determine as closely as possible the exact time and odometer mileage when the vehicle crosses a state boundary.

System and method for determining vehicle travel routes and mileage


An electronic device for managing energy is described. The electronic device includes a voltage sensor module that monitors a voltage waveform. The voltage sensor module includes discrete components. The electronic device includes a current sensor module that monitors a current waveform. The current sensor module includes discrete components. The electronic device is coupled to the voltage sensor module and to the current sensor module. The computing module determines a phase margin based on the voltage waveform and the current waveform. The electronic device includes a control module coupled to the computing module. The control module controls a load based on the voltage waveform, current waveform and phase margin. The control module includes discrete components. The voltage sensor module, the current sensor module, the computing module and the control module are housed within a wall box.

In recent years, the price of electrical devices has decreased dramatically. In addition, the size of electrical devices has continued to decrease. Further, electrical devices continue to increase in capability and convenience.
Decreasing prices and increasing capabilities of electrical devices has permitted modern devices to be conveniently used in homes and businesses. Many homes and businesses include multiple electrical devices to assist in everyday tasks. While these electronic devices may provide convenience and entertainment, many also require control. Moreover, these electronic devices consume electrical power and may consume other resources. The ever-increasing cost of resources, such as electricity, may be a concern.
With more and more electrical devices being used in homes and businesses that consume more and more electrical power, improved energy management features are needed. As illustrated by this discussion, improved energy management of electrical power consumption may be beneficial.


An amplifier 2c amplifies a transmit signal and outputs the amplified transmit signal to an antenna 10. A drive current for driving the amplifier 2c is inputted to a drive current input terminal 7. A current divider circuit 41 is provided between the drive current input terminal 7 and the amplifier 2c, and divides the drive current among a plurality of paths. The current divider circuit 41 includes a plurality of switching elements provided in the paths, respectively, and switched between a conduction state and a blocking state; and a resistance element 13 provided in at least one of the plurality of paths. A detection section 5 detects an electrical parameter in the resistance element. A control section 6 switches the plurality of switching elements between a conduction state and a blocking state, based on the electrical parameter detected by the detection section 5.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power amplifier module, and in particular to a power amplifier module having the function of preventing an amplifier from being damaged due to overcurrent.
2. Description of the Background Art
Generally, in order to emit into space a carrier wave having information superimposed thereon, a wireless apparatus includes a power amplifier module for amplifying a signal to a sufficient level; and an antenna for emitting the carrier wave.
In the antenna, in order to efficiently transmit and receive signals, impedance matching is done in the transmit and receive frequency band. By thus doing matching, an output signal from the power amplifier can be emitted from the antenna. That is, reflected power is not inputted to the power amplifier module from the antenna.
However, if the antenna is damaged or broken for any reason, the matching is deteriorated. As a result, part of an input signal to the antenna from an output terminal of the power amplifier becomes reflected power, and the reflected power is inputted to the output terminal of the power amplifier. In this manner, if reflected power is inputted to the power amplifier, the reflected power is superimposed on the power of a transmit signal. Part of the power which includes the reflected power is consumed as heat by the power amplifier. As a result, the power amplifier causes thermal runaway due to an abnormal temperature increase and then causes overcurrent, whereby the power amplifier may be damaged.
The gain, output, and consumption current of the power amplifier are determined by the load conditions of the power amplifier. If the matching conditions of the antenna are changed by a reflected wave, the load conditions of the power amplifier change as well. Accordingly, due to the generation of the reflected wave, the impedance matching of the power amplifier changes and thereby overcurrent occurs, and as a result, the power amplifier may be damaged.
In order to prevent the power amplifier from being damaged, there exists a power amplifier module which detects, upon occurrence of overcurrent, an abnormal current increase in the power amplifier and suppresses the overcurrent. Specifically, a resistor is inserted in series with a power supply terminal of a power amplifier included in the power amplifier module. The voltage drop generated across the resistor is detected, and the consumption current of the power amplifier is detected. Then, based on the detected consumption current, the consumption current of the power amplifier is controlled (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 09-199950). The above-described power amplifier module will be described below with reference to the drawing. FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of the power amplifier module.
The power amplifier module shown in FIG. 14 includes a power amplifier 101, a terminal 102, a switching circuit 103, a resistor 104, a drain current detection section 105, a gate voltage control section 106, a loop filter 107, a comparator 108, a terminal 109, a latch circuit 110, and a reset signal circuit 111. The circuit configuration of the power amplifier module will be described below.
The power amplifier 101 has a drain terminal D, a gate terminal G, and a source terminal S. The source terminal S is grounded. The loop filter 107 is connected to the gate terminal G. The resistor 104 is connected to the drain terminal D.
A power supply voltage Vdd is inputted to the switching circuit 103. One end of the resistor 104 is connected to the output side of the switching circuit 103, and the other end is connected to the drain terminal D. The drain current detection section 105 is connected to both ends of the resistor 104. Further, the drain current detection section 105 is connected to an input terminal of the gate voltage control section 106 and to an input terminal of the comparator 108. The gate voltage control section 106 is connected to the loop filter 107. The terminal 109 is connected to an input terminal of the comparator 108. An output terminal of the comparator 108 is connected to the latch circuit 110. The latch circuit 110 is connected to the reset signal circuit 111 and to the switching circuit 103. The roles of the components of the power amplifier module having the above-described circuit configuration will be described below.
The power amplifier 101 comprises a field-effect transistor (FET), for example, and amplifies a signal inputted from the terminal 102 with an amplification factor based on the magnitude of a drain current inputted to the drain terminal D, and then outputs the amplified signal to an antenna (not shown) The resistor 104 is a resistance element having a known resistance value. The drain current detection section 105 detects the voltage drop across the resistor 104 to detect the magnitude of the drain current, and then outputs a signal having a voltage based on the magnitude of the drain current.
Based on the voltage of the signal outputted from the drain current detection section 105, the gate voltage control section 106 controls the gate voltage of the power amplifier 101 through the loop filter 107. By this, an increase in the gate current of the power amplifier 101 is prevented.
The comparator 108 compares between the voltage of the signal outputted from the drain current detection section 105 and a reference voltage to be inputted from the terminal 109, and then outputs a comparison result. Specifically, if it is determined that the voltage of the signal outputted from the drain current detection section 105 is higher than the reference voltage, the comparator 108 outputs a low-level signal. On the other hand, if it is determined that the voltage of the signal outputted from the drain current detection section 105 is lower than the reference voltage, the comparator 108 outputs a high-level signal. The latch circuit 110 holds the signal outputted from the comparator 108. The reset signal circuit 111 outputs a reset signal to the latch circuit 110 to reset the latch circuit 110. The latch circuit 110 outputs the signal being held thereby to the switching circuit 103. If a low-level signal is outputted to the switching circuit 103 from the latch circuit 110, the switching circuit 103 switches from a conduction state to a blocking state.
The operation of the power amplifier module configured in the above-described manner will be described below. The following describes the operation of the power amplifier module performed when reflected power from the antenna is increased and thereby the drain current of the power amplifier 101 is increased.
In the case where the drain current of the power amplifier 101 is increased, the drain current detection section 105 detects an increase in drain current based on the voltage drop across the resistor 104. The gate voltage control section 106 controls the gate voltage of the power amplifier 101 through the loop filter 107. By this, an increase in drain current is inhibited.
Now, the case is described where the drain current is increased despite the control by the gate voltage control section 106. In this case, the signal level outputted from the drain current detection section 105 is higher than the reference voltage inputted from the terminal 109. Hence, the comparator 108 outputs a low-level signal. The latch circuit 110 acquires the low-level signal and then outputs the low-level signal to the switching circuit 103. Accordingly, the switching circuit 103 switches from a conduction state to a blocking state. That is, the drain current becomes zero. Thereafter, the latch circuit 110 is reset by the reset signal circuit 111.
By performing such operation, the conventional power amplifier module prevents the power amplifier 101 from being damaged. In power amplifier modules as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications No. 09-284062 and No. 11-355054 too, a resistor is inserted in series between a power supply terminal and a power amplifier, and the current is detected through the voltage drop across the resistor.
The above-described conventional power amplifier modules, however, have the problem of an increase in consumption current, which will be described in detail below. In the above-described conventional power amplifier modules, the resistor is inserted in series with the power supply terminal, and the voltage generated across the resistor is detected. Therefore, the voltage dropped by the inserted resistor is applied to the power amplifier module. That is, due to the presence of the resistor, a loss occurs in the drain current of the power amplifier, resulting in an increase in the consumption current of the power amplifier module.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A column oven for a liquid chromatograph includes a temperature control mechanism possessing a heater, which controls a temperature, and a thermally conductive column holding member in contact with the temperature control mechanism for holding an analytical column of a liquid chromatograph and for transferring heat from the temperature control mechanism to the analytical column. The column holding member includes a space for containing the analytical column. The space is formed to have an opening on one side surface of the column holding member and to have a cross-sectional shape forming a part of an involute curve along a vertical direction with respect to a longitudinal direction of the analytical column held in the column holding member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a column oven for controlling a temperature of an analytical column of a liquid chromatograph to a predetermined temperature.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid chromatograph analytical system is provided with a column oven for controlling, to a predetermined temperature, an analytical column for separating a sample into components. The column oven includes a thermally conductive column holding member for holding the analytical column, and controls the temperature of the analytical column by transferring heat from a heater to the analytical column via the column holding member.
Analytical columns of various outer diameters exist. Therefore, the column holding member of a conventional common column oven has a cross-sectionally V shaped groove which is opened at the top so as to be able to cope with various types of analytical columns, and sandwiches and holds an analytical column in the groove (see JP 2000-111536 A).
The structure as described above of sandwiching and holding an analytical column in a V-shaped groove of a column holding member has an advantage that it can cope with analytical columns of various diameters, but it also has disadvantages that there will be a large gap between the inner side wall of the V-shaped groove and an analytical column and that the area of the opening of the V-shaped groove is large. Due to these disadvantages, desirable heat transfer efficiency is not obtained between the column holding member and an analytical column, and the amount of heat released by the column holding member is increased. If the efficiency of heat transfer from the column holding member to an analytical column is low, there are issues that it takes a long time for the analytical column to reach a target temperature, and also that, since the amount of heat released by the column holding member is great, the temperature distribution of the analytical column becomes uneven.


One embodiment of the present invention provides a method for recommending leisure activities to a user. During operation, the system receives at least one query for leisure activities. The system then determines a collaborative filtering score of a candidate activity based on a collaborative filtering model, a soft query score for the candidate activity based on a soft query model, a content preference score for the candidate activity based on a content preference model and the user's past behavior, and a distance score for the candidate activity based on a distance model. Next, the system generates a composite score for the candidate activity by calculating a weighted average of the collaborative filtering score, the soft query score, the content preference score, and the distance score. The system further returns a recommendation list containing the activities with the highest composite scores.

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a recommender system. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a recommender system incorporating four utility models for making recommendations about leisure activities.
2. Related Art
The purpose of most recommendation systems is to help individuals discover items they might not necessarily be able to find on their own. In today's technologically-oriented society, a primary source of such recommendations is a specialized "recommender system." Such a recommender system can generate personalized recommendations in response to a query from a user. A user submits a query indicating certain interests, such as a person, place, books, films, music, web content, abstract idea, etc., and the recommender system rates the items within interest scope and generates a recommendation.

Mixed-model recommender for leisure activities


Strands active electronic devices (AEDs), such as field-effect transistors, are made by processing a semiconductor substrate so that it yields a number of elongate semiconductor members liberated from the starting substrate. The elongate semiconductor members are secured to wires or wire-like structures so as to form semiconductor-member-on-a-wire composites upon which the AEDs are formed using various deposition and etching techniques. The AED strands have many uses, including the creating of electronic components, including flexible, conformal, rigid and foldable electronics, such as displays and sensors.

With the continuing evolvement of the electronics industry, new techniques are continually needed to allow not only incremental progress, but also (albeit typically less often) major technological leaps that become the impetus for another round of incremental progress. For example, in the manufacturing of displays, for example, flat-panel displays such as video, television and computer monitors, among others, substrate sizes have been increasing incrementally over the approximately seven generations of flat panel display technology. The initial substrate size of the first generation of flat panel displays was roughly 320 mm×400 mm. This has increased to about 1800 mm×2100 mm in the current (seventh) generation of flat panel displays. However, these ever-increasing substrate sizes create significant manufacturing and engineering challenges with regard to their use, handling and transportation. In addition, the upfront capital investment in infrastructure required to process these large sheets of glass for each subsequent generation of fabrication has ballooned to upwards of $2 billion per fabrication facility.
Furthermore, future trends in the display/electronics industry suggest that future display and electronic products will be made on flexible/conformal substrates. This transition is seen as inevitable to service the ever present need and desire to reduce the size, weight and cost of devices we use without sacrificing performance. A wide gamut of devices, such as displays, electronics and sensors, to name a few, would benefit from methodologies that would result in the mass production of ruggedized, light-weight, portable, small-form-factor, less power hungry and lower-cost devices. Moreover, new and novel markets and opportunities could be addressed and opened-up if these devices could be made flexible and/or conformal.
To counter the ever-growing substrate-size dilemma and to service future flexible display needs, attempts have been, and are being, made to develop manufacturing processes that would allow for roll-to-roll, or reel-to-reel (also call "web coaters"), technologies. These technologies would allow flexible substrates, such as polymer/plastic foils and metal foils, to be substituted for rigid glass substrates. However, attempts so far have had limited success, primarily due to the complexity of manufacturing active electronic devices, such as field-effect transistors (FETs) that form the basis of most electronic circuitry (note that thin-film transistors (TFTs) are typically in the form of FETs). Typical manufacturing of such devices requires multiple coatings deposited at high temperatures and interspaced with multiple photolithographic patterning steps.
It is commonly known that polymers/plastics, if used as substrates, severely limit the maximum temperature that may be used during device manufacturing. In addition, to prevent undue out-gassing and contamination of equipment and devices during coating deposition, these substrates need to undergo a complex and time-consuming pre-bake thermal cycling step. This step also serves to expel moisture and humidity from the native polymer substrate, thereby stabilizing the coefficient of thermal expansion of the substrate, which is helpful in the photolithographic patterning and pattern alignment steps. Metal foils are more resilient and tend to be immune from this temperature limit imposed by polymer/plastic substrates. However, to date, TFT devices made on metal foils have exhibited low electronic performance due to contamination effects and "unknowns" attributed to high surface-roughness of starting metal substrates.
In addition, the use of flexible substrates has placed heavy demands on engineering new ways and equipment to address dimensional stability of substrates during lithography, mechanics for handling substrate curvature, registration accuracy and consistency of placement of TFTs and electrodes. Furthermore, flexible polymer/plastic substrates have had issues with moisture absorption and resistance to solvents and other chemicals. One of the more significant of these technical challenges that has slowed, and even stymied, attempts at roll-to-roll manufacturing of electronic devices on either polymer/plastic or metal foils is the issue with photolithographic registration and alignment due to the number of coatings and photomasking steps involved in the manufacturing of traditional TFTs.
Pick-and-place techniques wherein complete and/or partial circuits are manufactured in a silicon (semiconductor) wafer and then transferred onto a separate substrate and interconnected to form electronic articles have been known in the semiconductor industry for some time. A variant of the pick and place method is the "fluidic suspension assembly," or FSA, process, a technique patented by Alien Technology, wherein the manufactured "circuits" are floated into specific locations using a fluidic media and surface chemistry.
Yet another technique, pioneered by Dr. John Rogers and others at the University of Illinois, is a so-called "top down" micro-technology approach to creating high performance active flexible electronic circuits. In short, this group of researchers has created free-standing micro-and nano-scale objects of single crystal silicon (and other semiconductors) from silicon-on-insulator wafers by lithographic patterning of resist, subsequently etching the exposed top silicon, and removing the underlying SiO2 to lift-off the remaining silicon. The free-standing silicon objects so obtained are then deposited and patterned, by dry transfer printing or solution casting, onto mechanically pliant substrates (like plastic) to yield mechanically flexible thin film transistors. They have coined these objects as "microstructured silicon." Modified versions of the same basic technique are being pursued by Dr. Max Lagally at the University of Wisconsin (SiGe and Strained SiGe crystals), Triton Systems and Si2Technologies, among others.

Methods of making semiconductor-based electronic devices on a wire and articles that can be made thereby


A temperature sensing system and method for determining a patient's core body temperature by measuring the temperature of the patient's blood at a location in a vessel lumen retrograde of an insertion point of a temperature sensor or sensors into the vessel lumen.

This invention relates generally to a temperature sensing system, and more particularly concerns a device in the form of a probe or modified probe having temperature sensors for deployment through an introducer sheath placed in a body lumen to allow retrograde delivery of the sensors for the measurement or monitoring of the core body temperature.
Under ordinary circumstances, thermoregulatory mechanisms exist in the healthy human body to maintain the body at a constant temperature of about 37° C. (98.6° F.), a condition sometimes referred to as normothermia. To maintain normothermia, the body's thermoregulatory mechanisms act to precisely balance the amount of heat generated by metabolic activity in the body with heat lost to the environment. For various reasons, however, a person may unintentionally develop a body temperature that is below normal, a condition known as hypothermia. In more recent times, hypothermia has been allowed or even induced for various therapeutic purposes.
Accidental hypothermia is generally a dangerous condition that may have serious medical consequences and may result from various conditions such as extreme exposure, injury, illness or anesthesia. Measures are usually taken to restore normothermia to a patient suffering accidental hypothermia. Simple methods for treating hypothermia include wrapping the patient in blankets, administering warm fluids by mouth, and immersing the patient in a warm water bath. If the hypothermia is not too severe, these methods may be helpful. However, if the hypothermia is severe, and especially if the patient is undergoing surgery, such methods may be too slow, impractical and ineffective. One cannot wrap patients undergoing surgery in a warming blanket or immerse them in warm water, or ask severely hypothermic patients that may be unconscious, to swallow enough warm liquid to restore normothermia. Furthermore, where external control over body temperature is desired because the physician desires to induce and maintain hypothermia, these methods are generally not powerful enough to defeat the patient's thermoregulatory responses. For example, if a patient is cooled below the shivering threshold, generally about 35.5° C., the body will shiver and generate metabolic heat that will defeat the attempt to cool the patient to hypothermic levels. Even if the body's thermoregulatory responses are disabled by, for example, disease or anesthesia, surface cooling or warming methods are generally not powerful enough to provide control that can keep a patient at a particular temperature. If the patient begins to get too cold or to warm above the target temperature, the surface cooling and warming methods generally cannot react fast enough and with sufficient precision to maintain the target temperature.
Partly in response to the inadequacies of surface application of heat, methods have been developed for adding or removing heat to a patient's body by internal means. A patient being administered breathing gases, for example a patient under anesthesia, may have the breathing gases warmed. This method may be effective but is limited in the amount of heat that can be administered without injuring the lungs. Similarly, a patient receiving IV fluids may have the fluids warmed. This too may be effective in the case of mild hypothermia, but the temperature of the IV fluid is limited by the temperature that will be destructive to the blood, generally thought to be about 41° C.-49° C., and by the amount of fluid that is acceptable to administer to a patient.
A far more invasive method may be used to add heat to a patient's blood, particularly in the case of heart surgery. Blood is removed from a patient, circulated through a by-pass system, heated or cooled, and then reintroduced into the patient's body. This by-pass method is both fast and effective in adding or removing heat from a patient's blood, but has the disadvantage of involving a very invasive medical procedure which requires the use of complex equipment, a team of highly skilled operators, and is generally only available in a surgical setting, usually where the patient has his or her chest opened by a thorachotomy. It also involves mechanical pumping of blood and channeling the blood through various machines and external lines, all of which are generally very destructive of the blood tissue. Because of this, most surgeons avoid placing a patient on by-pass for greater than 4 hours, and if control of the patient's temperature is desired for longer than that time, this method is unavailable.
One method for adding or removing heat from a patient by adding or removing heat from the patient's blood that does not involve pumping the blood with an external, mechanical pump involves placing a heat exchange catheter in the patient's bloodstream and exchanging heat through the catheter. This endovascular temperature management (ETM) technique was described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,208 to Ginsburg, the complete disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. One method disclosed for doing so includes inserting a catheter having a heat exchange region comprising a balloon into the vasculature of a patient and circulating warm or cold heat exchange fluid through the balloon while the balloon is in the bloodstream.
In successful ETM, in addition to fast and precise changes in a patient's body temperature, fast and precise control over a patient's thermal condition is very desirable. A general apparatus and method of ETM control based on feedback from temperature probes in or on the patient is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,673 to Ginsburg, the complete disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. A similar method is described in PCT publication WO 00/10494 to Radiant Medical Inc., the complete disclosure of which is also incorporated herein by reference. In such methods, a signal representing the temperature of a target tissue, which in whole body ETM may be the core body temperature, is directed to a controller from a temperature probe inserted on or in the patient, and the controller then controls the exchange of heat between the heat exchange catheter and the patient's blood flowing past that catheter. That in turn controls the temperature of the patient. With such a method, precise and rapid control is dependent to a large extent on accurate temperature measurement of the target tissue and thus dependent on an accurate temperature probe located at an appropriate site.
Currently, the patient's temperature may be measured by any one of several generally available temperature probes. These include, for example, skin temperature probes, oral thermometers, tympanic probes that may be placed in the ear canal and perhaps even in physical contact with the ear drum, esophageal probes including nasoesophageal probes, rectal probes, bladder probes, temperature sensors placed on an insertion sheath, and temperature probes that may be inserted by needle directly into the target tissue. These may be highly accurate temperature probes for their purpose. However, when used to provide a temperature signal for ETM, each of these probes suffers from significant shortcomings.
Some probes may not give an accurate temperature of the target tissue. For example, if the target is the core temperature of the patient, a skin temperature is generally not an accurate representation of the core temperature; if cardiac muscle is the target tissue, a bladder probe might not be a sufficiently accurate measure of the temperature of that tissue. This is especially true when used in the context of changing temperature, for example when hypothermia is being rapidly induced by cooling a normothermic patient.
For example, lowering the heart temperature to 32° C. may be very beneficial for a heart attack victim, but lowering the temperature to 28° C. might lead to dangerous arrhythmias. A rectal temperature probe is generally very slow to respond to temperature changes in the body's core temperature, and thus if the target tissue is the heart, and the core temperature is being lowered quickly, a controller receiving its temperature signal from a rectal probe might not receive a temperature measurement that represents the current cardiac temperature and thus might continue cooling even after the cardiac tissue has reached a target temperature and the patient's actual cardiac temperature might dangerously overshoot the target temperature of 32° C. and drop the cardiac temperature below 28° C. In similar manner, probes placed in the bladder also tend to lag core body temperature when that temperature is being changed, i.e., when the patient is being cooled or warmed.
Some probes are awkward and too difficult to use. For example, tympanic probes are difficult to place and tend to fall out of the ear during use. Bladder probes are difficult and awkward to place and generally require a slow but constant flow of uring to function accurately. Rectal probes are inconvenient to use, especially where a sterile surgical field is required. A needle probed placed through a hypodermic syringe into the target tissue may be more accurate and precise but would require injecting the probe directly into the patient and may also require radioscopic or fluoroscopic confirmation of placement, procedures that are not always readily available. Such a procedure would also entail a risk to the patient and the discomfort of a needle stick into the target tissue which might be deep within the body.
Where a temperature probe is controlling an ETM procedure and thus is in or on a patient at the same time as an ETM heat exchange catheter, the probe may be unacceptably influenced by the temperature of the catheter and not accurately reflect the temperature of the target tissue, especially if the probe is located too close to the heat exchange catheter. Temperature probes or sensors placed on the insertion sheath, for example, tend to be unduly influenced by the temperature of the heat exchange catheter placed through the sheath. When the probe is placed in the vasculature at a location some distance away from the catheter so as not to be influenced by the catheter, however, it generally requires a second needle stick or incision, and may utilize a vascular site on the patient that is needed by a physician for some other purpose. For example, if the ETM catheter is located in the left femoral vein, and the probe is placed in the right femoral vein, it would require a separate stick, that is, a puncture of the vessel, for the probe and would make it difficult for an interventionalist to perform angioplasty from either the right or the left femoral artery. A temperature probe might be placed through the same introducer sheath used by an ETM heat exchange catheter to access the central vasculature, but in such a case it would generally be lying alongside the catheter and be influenced by the temperature of the catheter. If the heat exchange catheter had a central working lumen as described in the patents and publication described above, and was located in a central vein, for example the Inferior Vena Cava (IVC), a temperature probe might be passed through the working lumen and distal of the catheter to measure the temperature in the blood. Such a probe would not require a second stick to place it into the bloodstream; however, in this configuration the temperature probe would measure the temperature of the blood soon after it passed over the heat exchange surface and thus might not be an accurate measurement of the temperature of a target tissue or organ or a patient's core. In some cases, If the temperature probe is advanced far enough beyond the catheter tip to obtain an accurate measure, it may need to be positioned in or near the heart which could have serious health repercussions. Such a positioning of the probe would also generally require the use of fluoroscopy or x-ray, procedures which are not always available or desirable.
There is a need therefore, especially in the context of ETM which requires accurate temperature information of a patient's target tissue, for a temperature probe that is not unduly influenced by the temperature of the heat exchange catheter, is located to accurately reflect changes in the patient's temperature, may be conveniently placed, will not require that the patient endure additional punctures or surgical procedures, will not usurp other needed surgical or interventional sites, and can be maintained in place throughout the procedure. The present invention fulfills those needs as well as others.

Temperature sensing system with retrograde sensor


Methods and systems are provided for assisting installation of network devices including determining the type (e.g., consumer grade or Carrier Grade) of an upstream Network Address Translation (NAT) device in a double NAT environment (e.g., Large Scale NAT or NAT444) and automatically enabling or disabling NAT or bridging in the network device as may be needed or desired according to attributes that are deduced about the upstream network device. An example of a method includes: broadcasting a Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) DISCOVER packet to an upstream network; receiving a DHCP OFFER from an upstream Network Address Translation (NAT) device in response to the DHCP DISCOVER packet; deducing attributes of the upstream NAT device with assistance of information from the received DHCP OFFER; and determining whether or not to disable Network Address Translation and bridge to the upstream network according to the deduced attributes.

In communication networks, a connection between a small home network or Local Area Network (LAN) and a larger network, such as the Internet or a Wide Area Network (WAN), may pass through one or more devices, e.g., a modem or router, generally referred to as a gateway. A gateway may provide a connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and may perform a number of various functions such as providing a firewall and Network Address Translation (NAT) for the LAN. Network Address Translation can be used to allow multiple devices with "private" Internet Protocol (IP) addresses on the LAN to share a "public" IP address on the WAN by a process of modifying IP address information in IP packet headers while in transit across a traffic routing device, e.g., a gateway or router. For example, as network traffic (e.g., data packets) passes from the local network to the Internet, the source address in each packet may be translated on the fly from a private address to the public address. The NAT device (e.g. gateway or router) may track packet data about each active connection (particularly the destination address and port) so that, when a reply returns to the NAT device, the NAT uses the connection tracking data it stored during the outbound phase to determine the private address on the internal network to which to forward the reply. (When using the port information, NAT is also referred to as NAPT—Network Address and Port Translation. As used herein, NAT shall refer to both or either of NAT and NAPT unless otherwise specifically noted.) By allowing multiple devices on "private" IP address subnets (such as the LAN in the preceding example) to share "public" addresses, NAT has extended the capabilities of the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addressing scheme, which might otherwise have run out of available IP addresses long ago (referred to as "address exhaustion").
The imminent exhaustion of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address space has Internet Service Providers considering the use of Carrier Grade NAT (CGN), also known as Large Scale NAT (LSN) or NAT444, depending on the various implementations. For example, one use of CGN is known as NAT444 because some customer's connections to public servers may pass through three different IPv4 addressing domains: the customer's own private network, the carrier's private network, and the public Internet. (Conventional NAT is now sometimes referred to as NAT44 by comparison). Carrier Grade NAT (NAT444, LSN) has been proposed as an approach for mitigating IPv4 address exhaustion, and easing the transition to IPv6. A typical application of NAT 444 (or LSN) provides a way of permitting the sharing of relatively small pools of public addresses among many end sites—e.g., a residential Local Area Network (LAN) connected to an operator's (e.g., Internet Service Provider) network via a home (customer premises) network gateway—with Network Address Translation between the ISP's network and the public IPv4 addresses being provided by Network Address Translation devices (e.g., Carrier Grade NAT devices) embedded in the network operator's (or ISP) network. Two levels of Network Address Translation are, thus, provided so that a NAT444 or LSN network configuration may be referred to as a double NAT environment.

Determining the type of upstream network address translation from a home gateway


A paper or plastic surface material of appropriate thickness and stiffness which can be coated with or laminated to asphaltic or non-asphaltic adhesives. The surface material can have a plurality of individual slits formed in substantially parallel spaced rows extending transversely from one end to the opposing end of the surface material. The flexible surface material is expandable by extending the opposing ends of the surface material whereby the slits form an array of openings. The length, width and spacing of the cuts can be varied to achieve desired stretch ratios. The surface material can be easily stored in the non-expandable position and easily expanded to be stretchable and conformable around windows, skylights or other suitable uses.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to stretchable and conformable products for building/construction/roofing applications, and more specifically, to peel and stick products having surface film cross slit patterns that allow the films to stretch to conform to windows, skylights or other suitable uses.
2. Prior Art
Generally, the films that are used in the building/construction industry for waterproofing around skylights, windows and other odd shape articles with a non-linear profile include a crepe surface film or paper to seal the borders of the window or skylight. This crepe surface film or paper can be expensive and bulky, and can therefore cost more after transportation charges.
Further, a problem occurs around windows or skylights that have a curved outer surface. The surface film or paper is stretched around the curve and can tear or not cover the surface area evenly. Thus, it is likely that water or moisture will leak through the borders of the windows or skylights. Additionally, by virtue of the very nature of crepe surface, delamination from the compound occurs during its application thereby resulting in reduced protection from weather elements.
Therefore, there is a need in the building/construction industry for a stretchable film or paper that can be applied without tearing to the borders of curved windows or skylights, and which provides a more reliable waterproof seal.

Building Materials Investment Corporation


A plastic product tank for containing product under pressure has a lower funnel portion including a product outlet and an upper container portion having a product-containing capacity substantially greater than the lower funnel portion. The lower funnel portion and upper container portion are in substantially gas-tight communication with each other and the upper container portion of the tank includes side walls formed by a plurality of substantially planar surfaces adjacent to each other. Each interior angle between adjacent side walls of the upper container portion is greater than ninety degrees.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to agricultural product tanks, and more particularly to agricultural product tanks for containing material under pressure.
2. Description of Related Art
Air seeders, sprayers and other similar types of agricultural implements typically include product tanks for bulk storage of material to be distributed by the implement onto or underneath the soil. Those tanks designed for storing and distributing granular material generally include a lower, funnel portion with an angled design to efficiently dispense the granular material, and an upper portion which is generally larger in volume than the funnel portion for increasing storage capacity. These tanks have been fabricated by welding and/or bolting sheet metal panels in a tank configuration on an implement frame. Sheet metal construction is relatively expensive, primarily because a relatively long fabrication time is required to assemble the panels on the support frame. In addition, these metal tanks are relatively heavy and subject to water leakage and corrosion, particularly in tanks which are used to contain fertilizer.
As an alternative to metallic fabrication, the more recent past has seen a progression toward manufacture of such tanks from composites or plastics. These plastic tanks do not corrode as a result of the products transported within the tanks. Also, the plastic tanks overcome most of the water leakage problems attendant metallic construction. In addition, the plastic tanks are generally less expensive to make and weigh less than tanks made from steel.
While plastic product tanks eliminate some of the disadvantages of metallic tanks, plastic tanks heretofore available present another set of problems. For instance, where the tanks are subjected to air pressure as, for example, in a positive pressure air seeding system, a substantial bulging effect is imparted to the surface of the upper portion of the tank. Conventional tanks are known which are generally octagonal when viewed from the side, but which are generally rectangular in plan. These tanks are made up of fairly large panels joined at their edges so that the middle regions of the panels receive insufficient support to withstand pressure and therefore tend to bulge excessively.
Some known plastic tanks have a rounded surface or surfaces in their upper portions, allowing the tank to more easily withstand air pressure because the pressure is more evenly distributed. During periods where such a tank is unpressurized, however, portions of the rounded surfaces tend to become concave (i.e., "cave in"), under their own weight or when they come in contact with the operator or with equipment such as an on-board auger. The amount of air pressure or force due to the weight of product within the tank may not be enough to restore the outwardly convex shape. Over time, the plastic tanks tend to develop a "memory" for the undesirable concave shape and the deformity will remain permanent.
In addition, repeated flexing of the tank weakens the material from which it is constructed and makes it more prone to cracking and failure. When the tanks are unpressurized when loading product, the product itself may be unable to push walls out without the assistance of air pressure. Therefore, the tank may not be filled to nominal capacity. Also, a tank with collapsed walls is not aesthetically appealing.
Conventional tanks typically have four sides in plan and at least 4 corners with interior angles of about 90.degree.. Because these angles are relatively small, the tank must be made thicker to withstand resulting high stress concentrations. The increased thickness represents an increase in cost and weight.
Tanks with irregular shapes have been used, but still have relatively small interior angles between panels. U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,549, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, describes such a plastic product tank which has eight sides in plan, yet retains several right angles at joints between side panels.


The invention includes a siloxy-amine functionalized rubbery polymer, which exhibits good reinforcing characteristics and filler dispersing effect, a method for making, and a rubber composition including the same. In one embodiment, a process for manufacturing includes polymerizing a conjugated diene monomer using an organolithium compound as an initiator in a hydrocarbon solvent. Next, an active terminal end of the polymer is reacted with a functionalized terminating agent represented by:RN—(CH2)XSi(OR1)3,  Formula (I)wherein R, in combination with the nitrogen (N) atom, is a substituted or unsubstituted heterocyclic aromatic or non-aromatic compound which includes a ring structure with one or more nitrogen atoms as part of the ring; R1 represents a group having 1 to 18 carbon atoms selected from an alkyl, a cycloalkyl, an allyl, or an aryl; and X is an integer from 1 to 20.

It is sometimes desirable for tires to have a combination of good wet skid resistance, low rolling resistance, tear strength, and good wear characteristics. Wear characteristics of a tire tread are often difficult to improve without sacrificing traction and/or rolling resistance. In one aspect, such properties depend upon dynamic viscoelastic properties of the tire tread rubber composition and the rubbery polymers utilized in the rubber composition.
In order to reduce the rolling resistance and to improve the tread wear characteristics of tires, rubbers or rubbery polymers having a high rebound physical property (low hysteresis) have often been used for the tire tread rubber compositions. However, in order to increase the wet skid resistance of a tire tread, rubbery polymers that have a relatively lower rebound physical property (higher hysteresis) which thereby undergo a greater energy loss have sometimes been used for such tread rubber compositions. In order to achieve such relatively inconsistent viscoelastic properties for the tire tread rubber compositions, blends (mixtures) of various types of synthetic and natural rubbers are normally utilized in tire treads.
It is often desirable for synthetic rubber polymers to exhibit relatively low levels of hysteresis (indicated by relatively higher rebound values). This is usually particularly important in the case of elastomers that are used in tire tread rubber compositions. In practice, the elastomers are conventionally blended with a sulfur curative, rubber reinforcing fillers such as, for example, precipitated silica and rubber reinforcing carbon black, sulfur vulcanization accelerators, rubber antidegradants and other desired rubber chemicals and are then subsequently vulcanized, or cured, under pressure at an elevated temperature in a suitable mold. The physical properties of such cured rubber compositions depend upon the degree to which the rubber reinforcing fillers, such as carbon black or silica, are homogeneously dispersed throughout the elastomer. The degree of homogeneity of the dispersement of the reinforcing filler relates, at least in part, to the degree of affinity that carbon black or silica for the rubbery polymer.
Amorphous silica reinforcement has sometimes been used in combination with rubber reinforcing carbon black to promote lower rolling resistance (e.g. better vehicular fuel economy) and to promote better traction (e.g. skid and braking resistance) for a tire tread rubber composition. However, use of such silica reinforcement filler, as compared to rubber reinforcing carbon black, often results in a decrease in wear resistance (e.g. increase in tread wear) of a tire tread rubber composition.
Accordingly, it is envisioned that use of a combination amorphous silica (e.g. precipitated silica) and rubber reinforcing carbon black might be used to balance the challenges of promoting reduced tread wear (e.g. increased abrasion resistance of the rubber composition), reduced tire rolling resistance (e.g. increased rebound values of the rubber composition) as well as promoting traction for the tire tread instead of using carbon black or silica separately as reinforcing filler.
In one aspect, terminal modified or functionalized elastomers, which promote an interaction with a wide variety of such silica and carbon black reinforcing fillers to promote good dispersibility of such reinforcing fillers within the rubber composition, and thereby suitable wear resistance (e.g. suitable abrasion resistance) of the rubber composition, might be used.
Accordingly, functionalized rubber polymers (elastomers) and methods of making same for use in rubber compositions, such as for use in tires, are needed.

Methods of making siloxy-amine functionalized rubbery polymers and uses thereof in rubber compositions for tires


An electronic wireless communication system includes an electronic device with a plug-in circuit card. The plug-in circuit card includes a wireless radio circuit and at least one on-board coaxial connector coupled with the wireless radio circuit. An antenna card includes at least one antenna and at least one on-board coaxial connector. At least one of the on-board coaxial connectors on the antenna card is coupled with a corresponding antenna. Each on-board coaxial connector on the antenna card is also coupled with a mating on-board coaxial connector on the plug-in circuit card.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for wireless communication between electronic devices, and, more particularly, to antennas used with such wireless communication systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless ethernet, (or Wi-Fi, or IEEE 802.11), is becoming a mainstream technology. The integration of an antenna/radio solution within a notebook PC involves the ability to build a wireless radio directly on the main board or on a mini-PCI card, both of which are considered "integrated" within the case of the notebook personal computer (PC). Currently, many notebook PCs integrate IEEE 802.11 technology via a mini-PCI card which contains the wireless radio and Media Access Controller (MAC) electronics. The mini-PCI card is a portable, small card that is integrated or plugged directly onto the motherboard via a PCI interface socket located in the notebook PC. An upgrade using a mini-PCI card is not as easily performed as those wireless systems located on a PCMCIA card, but the risk of damage and loss of components are greatly reduced with the internal mini-PCI card system.
A mini-PCI card includes two connectors on the card (i.e., Hirose U.FL) which are available to connect two pre-installed cabled antennas to the card. The antennas are not internally integrated into these mini-PCI radios. Even though these commodity radio units are certified for various world geographies, re-certification is necessary when external antennas are attached.
If a printer or other electronic device makes use of the cost/performance/reliability of these commodity mini-PCI radios to enable wireless connectivity, each product requires recertification of the radio section for each product, even if the radio/antenna system is identical to the previously certified system. Again, this is due to the variation of external antenna geometry which is considered a new configuration.
What is needed in the art is an antenna for use with a mini-PCI radio card which is quickly and easily attached to the mini-PCI radio card, provides good performance, and does not require re-certification when used in different electronic devices.

Snap-in antenna assembly for wireless radio circuit card


A conductive resin composition which includes an epoxy resin (A), a compound (B) having a (meth)acryloyl group and a glycidyl group, a phenolic resin curing agent (C), a radical polymerization initiator (D) and a conductive particle (E). The conductive resin composition which may be B-staged (semi-cured) at a relatively low temperature to exhibit sufficient tack-free properties and excellent pressure-sensitive tackiness. This permits temporary bonding of parts without involving solvent evaporation or light illumination, thereby reducing or avoiding an increase in facility costs. The conductive resin composition may thereafter be cured (C-staged) to provide a cured product having a desirable bond strength, while maintaining a low specific resistivity.

In recent years, the progress in electrical technology has led to demands for miniaturization, weight reduction and higher functionality in the field of sensors such as collision avoidance sensors and acceleration sensors and in the field of electrical equipment such as semiconductor integrated circuits. To realize accurate manufacturing of complicated and fine sensors and semiconductor devices associated with the recent demands for miniaturization, weight reduction and higher functionality, there have been increasing demands for conductive resin compositions that are supplied and applied by a printing method, then semi-cured (so-called B-staged) to improve handling properties, and thereafter cured (so-called C-staged) to exhibit excellent bond strength in the bonding of electronic parts.
Such B-stageable conductive resin compositions have been proposed in the art. Some types of conductive resin compositions contain solvents and are B-staged by the evaporation of the solvents (Patent Literatures 1 and 2). Other types of conductive resin compositions are B-staged by light illumination or the like (Patent Literature 3).

Conductive resin composition and cured product thereof


An optical fiber coupling system has high insertion loss repeatability. A lens expands the mode size of a source fiber connected to a test instrument or other source, reducing insertion loss sensitivity to positional and angular alignment of the bare input fiber with the source fiber. Index matching fluid reduces the effect of the cleave angle of the input fiber on insertion loss. The optical fiber coupling system is calibrated by substituting a through fiber of similar type and length in place of the input fiber. According to a first preferred embodiment of the present invention, a capillary tube contains the index matching fluid. According to a second preferred embodiment of the present invention, the index matching fluid is contained in a reservoir enabling optical signals to be coupled to optical components having multiple input fibers.

A variety of optical components, such as those used in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) systems, are equipped with bare fiber interfaces. Optical signals are coupled into the bare fibers to measure performance parameters of the optical components before the components are installed into a WDM system. Measurement accuracy depends on repeatability of the insertion loss of the signal coupling into the bare fiber. Micropositioners may be used to image optical signals directly onto the bare fibers, but insertion loss is sensitive to the alignment of the optical signals on the bare fiber, and even slight misalignment causes insertion loss variations. Alignment sensitivity may be reduced by imaging a filtered white light source onto the bare fiber, but coupling white light into the fiber is inherently inefficient and does not provide enough optical signal strength to test wide dynamic range optical components, such as those used in the WDM systems. In addition, polarization characterization and optical time-domain reflectometry measurements are not conveniently performed using white light. Fusion splicing the bare fibers provides highly repeatable insertion loss, but it is time consuming, especially when the optical component being measured has multiple bare fibers. Bare fiber adapters have short set-up times, allowing bare fibers to be coupled quickly, but the adapters have poor insertion loss repeatability. Accordingly, there is a need for an optical fiber coupling system that has repeatable insertion loss and that also allows for quick coupling of optical signals to bare fibers.