An apparatus for and method of enabling enhanced, selective agitation of liquid containing a solid-phase reagent. The apparatus includes at least one liquid-bearing container, a circular tray, and a motor. The liquid-bearing container(s) includes at least one internal baffle that imparts turbulent agitation to the liquid when flowing from one end of the container to an opposite end. The circular tray is adapted for selective rotation about a vertical axis of rotation. The rotary circular tray assembly includes container-receiving stations that selectively retain a respective liquid-bearing container in an inclined or pitched orientation with respect to a horizontal plane. The motor creates centrifugal force, which causes liquid in the container(s) to travel from the first end of the container to the second end of the container via the internal baffle(s), agitating the liquid and the solid-phase portions of the reagent. When gravitational force exceeds the centrifugal force, liquid in the container(s) travels from the second end of the container to the first end of the container via the internal baffle(s), again agitating the liquid and the solid-phase portions of the reagent.

The present invention relates to reagent trays for automated immunoassay systems, and more particularly to rotary reagent tray assemblies that are structured and arranged to promote homogenous mixing of solid-phase reagents using rotary motion of the ring and centrifugal force.
Previous immunoassay systems have included linear reagent trays for holding reagent packs, such as ReadyPack reagent packs manufactured by Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Inc. of Tarrytown, N.Y. Typically, linear reagent trays are adapted to rock about a point of rotation so that the rocking, back-and-forth motion maintains most of the solid-phase portion of the reagent in suspension. However, even with automatic rocking motion, it is not always possible to suspend all solid-phase portions of the reagent adequately. As a result, some reagent packs must be manually mixed and agitated before being installed in the reagent tray. A further problem with applying a rocking motion is that the motion must be continuously applied to the reagent packs so that the solid-phase portion of the reagent does not settle out. This "24/7" approach produces more wear and tear on the system and also affects the on-board stability of the reagent.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,451,528 to Raymoure et al. (the "'528 Patent") purports to disclose methods of modifying a liquid assay reagent for prolonged longevity. The method includes adding an inert material to the liquid assay reagent. In addition, according to the '528 patent, the liquid assay reagent is automatically agitated by the back-and-forth motion of a reagent carousel onto which reagent packs containing the liquid assay reagent are loaded. The acceleration, velocity, distance moved, and pause-asymmetry can be changed to provide "rapid assay reagent resuspension without foaming or bubble formation." In short, the '528 patent relies on centripetal forces and the hurky-jerky movement of the carousel to "slosh" the liquid assay reagent sufficiently to maintain the solid-phase portions of the reagent in suspension.
However, "sloshing" due to hurky-jerky centripetal forces can result in solid-phase portions of the reagent adhering to the sides or walls and even to the lid of the liquid-carrying container. Such a result would reduce the percentage or concentration of the solid-phase portion in the reagent.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a rotary reagent tray assembly that is adapted to use the movement and energy of the tray rotation and stopping to mix and agitate the solid-phase portion of a liquid assay reagent, and, thereby, to eliminate the need for manual mixing/agitation prior to installation of the reagent packs in the reagent tray. Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a rotary reagent tray that is adapted to use centrifugal forces resulting from the rotational movement of a rotary reagent tray to mix and agitate the solid-phase portion of a liquid assay reagent, and, thereby, eliminate the possibility of loss of some of the solid-phase portion through adherence to an inner surface of the reagent pack due to uncontrolled centripetal "sloshing".
In comparison with linear reagent trays that use a rocking, back-and-forth movement to suspend solid-phase portions, rotary reagent trays increase the capacity of the reagent tray while minimizing the footprint of the tray. Moreover, advantageously, lateral travel requirements of the aspirating reagent probe are reduced and can result in replacement of a three-axis of control probe with a simpler, two-axis probe mechanism.

Rotary reagent tray assembly and method of mixing solid-phase reagents


A hinge connection for joining a heavy carrying wood member such as a glulam and a carried wood member having different depth dimensions including a metal hinge connector having side members disposed on opposite sides of the carrying and carried wood members joined at a lower portion by a seat member and at upper portions by a top flange member. The hinge connection is particularly suited for structures subject to earthquakes, hurricanes and other cataclysmic events which subject the structure to uplift and lateral forces in addition to the specified gravity load design forces.

A special type of connector for joining a heavy carrying wood member such as a glulam and a carried wood member having different depth dimensions is commonly known as a hinge connector. Hinge connections typically occur at the intersection of a carrying post member and a carried beam member or a cantilevered carrying beam and a carried beam. The connector evolved from a rhomboid shaped member having parallel side, a seat and a top flange joined by welding the separate members. Later a hinge connector evolved being constructed from a pair of U-hangers inverted and joined at their edges. The seat of one U-hanger formed the seat for carrying the carried member and the seat of the inverted U-hanger formed the flange carried by the carrying member. As seismic considerations dictated that additional horizontal resistance be provided by the hinge connector, tabs were added at both the top and bottom of the side members providing bolt openings for insertion therethrough and into the carried and carrying members.
The hinge connector remained locked into the above described design both by code and engineering approval as well as by commercial acceptance even though the hinge had many shortcomings. The prior art hanger required too many parts, and too many welds resulting in an expensive connector to manufacture. The connector due to its evolving design resulted in a connector which took too much space to store in inventory and to ship. More importantly, the connector provided little torsional resistance even though torsional forces were known to occur in cataclysmic disturbances such as earthquakes, hurricanes and typhoons. In spite of the need for an improved hinge connector, the industry stayed with the old hinge connector.


A speed reducer having a fixed first member, a second member opposed to the first member, a pressing member and for inclining the second member and making it bear against the first member. The pressing member also presses the second member so that the bearing portion thereof may describe a circular locus. Also provided are an output shaft and a connecting member connecting the second member and the output shaft together.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a speed reducer which can obtain a high speed reduction ratio by a single stage.
2. Related Background Art
Various speed reducing mechanisms have heretofore been proposed to make high speed rotation into low speed rotation, and speed reducers as shown below are known.
(1) First Example of the Conventional Art
A transmission using a plurality of stages of gear trains such as spur gears, bevel gears and worm gears or using planetary gears to effect speed reduction.
(2) Second Example of the Conventional Art
A transmission using a harmonic drive mechanism which is one type of mechanism utilizing a difference in the number of teeth to effect speed reduction.
(3) Third Example of the Conventional Art
A transmission using a resiliently deformable wave gear described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 63-214544 which is another one of the mechanisms utilizing a difference in the number of teeth to effect speed reduction.
(4) Fourth Example of the Conventional Art
A transmission using a universal joint or a ball described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 4-191546 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 5-99283 to pivotally move a pivotally movable bevel gear, is another one of the mechanisms utilizing a difference in the number of teeth to effect speed reduction.
The transmission according to the above-described third example of the conventional art is shown in FIG. 5 of the accompanying drawings. In FIG. 5, the reference numeral 30 designates a wave gear having a toothed portion 30A formed on the peripheral portion of the end surface thereof. The reference numeral 31 denotes a speed change gear having a toothed portion 31A formed on the peripheral portion of the end surface thereof, the toothed portion 31A differing in the number of teeth from the toothed portion 30A. The reference numeral 32 designates the rotary shaft of a motor which forms an input shaft, the reference numeral 33 denotes an arm, the reference numeral 34 designates a roller provided on the tip end portion of the arm 33, and the reference numeral 35 denotes a chassis. In this transmission, the wave gear 30 urged by the roller 34 is resiliently deformed and the toothed portion 30A thereof is in meshing engagement with the toothed portion 31A of the speed change gear 31, and when the arm 33 is rotated about the rotary shaft, the meshing position shifts sequentially.
Assuming here that the wave gear 30 is fixed in the direction of rotation thereof, the speed change gear 31 is squeezed by one pitch each of the gear and is rotated. Accordingly, if for example, the number of teeth of the wave gear 30 is 64 and the number of teeth of the speed change gear 31 is 66, when the arm 33 effects one full rotation, the speed change gear 31 is rotated by an amount corresponding to the difference in the number of teeth because the difference in the number of teeth is two. That is, it is rotated by 1/33 (2/66).
The transmission according to the above-described fourth example of the conventional art is shown in FIG. 6 of the accompanying drawings. In FIG. 6, the reference numeral 40 designates a casing, the reference numeral 41 denotes an input shaft, the reference numeral 42 designates an input rotor, the reference numeral 43 denotes an input side gear, the reference numeral 44 designates a rotary bearing ball, the reference numeral 45 denotes an output shaft, the reference numeral 46 designates a detent roller pin, the reference numeral 47 denotes a slit groove, and the reference numeral 48 designates an output side gear. When the input shaft 41 is rotated, the input rotor 42 fixed to the input shaft 41 and formed with an inclined end surface is also rotated, and the input side gear 43 which is sliding contact therewith is pivotally moved about the rotary bearing ball 44.
The input side gear 43 is not rotated because the detent roller pin 46 mounted on the outer periphery thereof fits in the slit groove 47 formed in the casing 40. When the input rotor 42 which is in sliding contact with the back of the input side gear 43 effects one full rotation, the input side gear 43 is pivotally moved and the output side gear 48 partly meshing with the input side gear 43 is rotated by an amount corresponding to the difference in the number of teeth therebetween.
If for example, the number of teeth of the input side gear 43 is 100 and the number of teeth of the output side gear 48 is 99, when the input side gear 43 effects one full rotation, the input side gear 43 meshes with the output side gear 48 by an excess amount corresponding to the difference in the number of teeth because the difference thereof in the number of teeth from the output side gear 48 is one tooth. That is, it is rotated by 1/100.
However, the following problems are pointed out in the above-described examples of the conventional art.
(1) Regarding the First Example of the Conventional Art
When spur gears, bevel gears or planetary gears are used, 1/2 to 1/3 is suitable as a speed reduction ratio per stage of gears, and when an attempt is made to obtain a high speed reduction, a plurality of stages of gear trains become necessary, and this leads to the fault that the apparatus becomes bulky.
Also, when worm gears are used, a high speed reduction is obtained by a single stage, but generally transmission efficiency is as bad as 40%.
(2) Regarding the Second Example of the Conventional Art
The transmission using a harmonic drive mechanism can obtain a high speed reduction ratio by a single stage, but it is difficult to make the thickness small, and the number of parts is increased as by the use of ball bearings, and this leads to the disadvantage of expensiveness.
(3) Regarding the Third Example of the Conventional Art
This example is characterized by a resiliently deformable wave gear, and a resilient material is used for the gears and constantly deformed gears opposed to each other are forced to mesh with each other for use and therefore, from the viewpoints of the mechanical strength of the resilient member and the constitution of the constituent parts, this example is applied, for example, to compact products for public welfare which are low in torque and do not much require the accuracy of rotation and durability.
(4) Regarding the Fourth Example of the Conventional Art
Use is made of a pivotally movable gear and an output bevel gear formed of a rigid material, and the pivotally movable gear is regulated in the direction of rotation by the use of a universal joint or a pivot bearing using balls and a pin, and the shaft of the output bevel gear opposed thereto provides an output shaft, but from the viewpoint of the rigidity of the material forming the pivotally movable gear and output bevel gear, particularly the mechanism which can withstand even a high load from the output shaft side, and the constitution of the constituent parts, this construction is directed, for example, to products for industry and for heavy machines which are high in torque and moreover require durability.
Consequently, when this Example is used as a compact transmission, it becomes difficult for it to become compact, and particularly thin, and since a roller pin is used for the regulation of rotation, the roller pin strikes against a slit groove in a casing during rotation while being pivotally moved and thus, backlash is liable to occur, and this leads to the occurrence of backlash and the irregularity of rotation at the start.


Whole-nose nasal respiratory devices and methods of making and using whole-nose nasal respiratory devices are described and illustrated herein. These devices are typically configured to be adhesively secured to a subject so that they engage both of the subject's nostrils and allow airflow from both nostrils to communicate with an airflow resistor. The airflow resistor is configured so that it inhibits exhalation through the nostrils more than it inhibits inhalation through the nostrils.

Nasal respiratory devices have been well-described in the following US patent applications, each of which is incorporated herein in its entirety: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/298,640 (titled "NASAL RESPIRATORY DEVICES") filed Dec. 8, 2005; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/298,339 (titled "RESPIRATORY DEVICES") filed Dec. 8, 2005; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/298,362 (titled "METHODS OF TREATING RESPIRATORY DISORDERS") filed Dec. 8, 2005.
These patent applications generally describe nasal respiratory devices and methods for treating a variety of medical conditions through the use of such devices. These medical conditions include, but are not limited to, snoring, sleep apnea (obstructive, central, complex and mixed), Cheyne Stokes breathing, UARS, COPD, hypertension, asthma, GERD, heart failure, and other respiratory and sleep conditions. Such nasal respiratory devices may passively induce positive end-expiratory pressure ("PEEP") or expiratory positive airway pressure ("EPAP"), and are adapted to be removably secured in communication with a nasal cavity. These devices act passively because they do not actively apply positive airflow, but instead regulate the subject's normal breathing, typically using one or more valves to inhibit expiration more than inspiration.
For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/759,916 describes passive nasal devices such as that shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B. FIG. 1A is a back view of one example of a nasal device formed into a flexible, somewhat "flat" configuration, so that it may be applied over (and/or partially within) a subjects nostril. This example is a layered nasal device, because it may be formed of layers, as shown in FIG. 1B. The device typically includes a holdfast layer 101 and an airflow resistor 103. The reverse side of the device shown in FIG. 1A includes an adhesive material (not visible) that may be covered by a protective covering. The protective covering (which may also be referred to as a protective liner) can be removed to expose the adhesive before application of the device. Thus, the holdfast layer of the device secures it to the subject. This holdfast layer may itself be layered (formed of layers), and may include an adhesive substrate (e.g., a backing layer). FIG. 1B shows an exploded view of the device of FIG. 1A, illustrating the layers of the device, including the adhesive holdfast 101 layer, the airflow resistor layer (comprising the flap valve 107 layer and flap valve limiter 109 layer), and an adhesive ring 111 that may help attach the flap valve and flap valve limiter to the adhesive holdfast.
The layered adhesive nasal devices previously described may be used in communication with one nostril ("single nostril" devices) or both nostrils ("whole-nose" devices). Whole-nose nasal device may be particularly useful, at least because they may be easily applied, have highly predictable expiratory and inspiratory resistances, and are less likely to be affected by nasal cycling, a phenomena in which vasculature in each nasal passage becomes more engorged and then less engorged, leading to variations in each nostril's air flow. The respiratory devices described herein provide additional variations and features of whole-nose nasal devices that may be removably secured at least partly over, at least partly around and/or at least partially within a subject's nose or nostrils. It would be beneficial to provide additional nasal devices (and methods of manufacturing and using such devices), that may be used to passively regulate airflow through both of a subject's nostrils. Such whole-nose nasal devices are described in greater detail and shown in examples below.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An embodiment relates to a semiconductor device and a light emitting device package including the same. The semiconductor device according to the embodiment may include: a first semiconductor layer; a second semiconductor layer disposed on the first semiconductor layer and including V-pits; an active layer disposed on the second semiconductor layer; a third semiconductor layer having a bandgap wider than that of the active layer on the active layer; a fourth semiconductor layer having a band gap narrower than that of third semiconductor layer on the third semiconductor layer; and a fifth semiconductor layer having a bandgap wider than that of the fourth semiconductor layer on the fourth semiconductor layer, wherein the third semiconductor layer and the fifth semiconductor layer include an aluminum composition, and the fifth semiconductor layer has a bandgap equal to or wider than that of the third semiconductor layer.

Since semiconductor devices including compounds such as GaN and AlGaN have many merits such as wide and easily adjustable bandgap energy, the semiconductor devices may be variously used as light emitting devices, light receiving devices, and various diodes.
Particularly, light emitting devices, such as a light emitting diode or a laser diode using a group III-V compound semiconductor material or a group II-VI compound semiconductor material, may realize various colors such as a red color, a green color, a blue color, and ultraviolet rays through the development of thin film growth technology and device materials, may realize a white light beam having high efficiency by using a fluorescent material or combining colors, may have advantages such as low power consumption, semi-permanent lifetime, quick response time, safety, and environment friendliness, as compared to conventional light sources such as fluorescent lamps and incandescent lamps.
In addition, when a light receiving device such as a photodetector or a solar cell is manufactured by using a group III-V compound semiconductor material or a group II-VI compound semiconductor material, device materials may be developed to use light of various wavelength ranges to generate photocurrent. Therefore, tight of various wavelength ranges from gamma rays to radio wavelength ranges may be used. In addition, due to advantages of fast response time, safety, environmental friendliness, and easy control of device materials, it may be easily used for power control, microwave circuit, or communication module.
Therefore, the application of semiconductor devices expands to transmission modules of optical communication means, light emitting diode backlights replacing a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) constituting a backlight of a liquid crystal display (LCD) device, white light emitting diode lighting devices capable of replacing fluorescent lamps or incandescent lamps, car headlights, traffic lights, and gas or fire sensors. In addition, the application of semiconductor devices may expand to high frequency application circuits, other power control devices, and communication modules.

Semiconductor device and light emitting device package comprising same


A method for constructing a sequentially arranged machine readable binary code for each of a plurality of ideographic characters adaptable for processes by a data handling and transfer system is disclosed in this invention. The method includes the steps of: (a) defining a plurality of binary bit patterns each representing a standard stroke for composing the plurality of ideographic characters; (b) decomposing each of the plurality of ideographic characters into a sequence of compositional strokes each correspondent to one of the standard strokes according to a stroke sequential order for writing the plurality of ideographic characters; and (c) constructing the machine readable binary code adaptable for processes by the data handling and transfer system by sequentially placing each of the binary bit patterns correspondent to each of the compositional strokes according to the stroke sequential order for writing the plurality of ideographic characters whereby each of the ideographic characters are arranged in a systematic predefined order when represented by the machine readable binary code.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to apparatus and methods for construction and organization of machine recognizable binary codes employed in data handling and transmitting systems. More particularly, this invention relates to a novel apparatus and method for construction and organization of machine recognizable binary codes based on systematic ordering of a sequence of decomposed stroke elements of the ideographic characters to provide a platform to build a computer and data transmission system derived directly from a language represented by ideographic writing characters.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Due to the large number of individual writing characters and the complexity of graphic representation for each writing character in an ideographic language system, e.g., Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and Korean, very limited computer processes can be applied to these characters other than representing each of these writing characters as a special graphic entities. For that reason, all industrial standards for binary bit patterns employed for representing textual contents for data handling and transmitting systems are derived from a linguistic system which is alphabetic-based, e.g., ASCII code based on English alphabets. Technical difficulties still exist by many previous efforts in attempt to overcome this limitation. Application of the ideographic-based languages, e.g., Chinese, as a programming language for computer or to develop a standard code of binary bit-patterns applicable for broad spectrum of data handling and transmission operations still seem to be entirely impractical. In contrast to the limited number of alphabetic elements used in English for text representation, Chinese language includes about 8000 to 20,000 writing characters depending on the level of writing sophistication. Besides the requirements involves in recognizing and managing this large number of individual writing characters, each of these typographic symbols is further composed by arrangements of stroke elements of different degree of graphic and structure complexities. While the highly sophisticate human brain can manage the complex task of applying these writing characters in developing culture and civilization with ancient traditions, modern computers, with the limited processing power and learning abilities, and without more complicate two-dimensional graphic recognition capability, become completely overwhelmed and incapable to effectively adapt to an ideographic based language such as Chinese which is more graphic in nature.
Considering the fact that languages, e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, based on different typographic character writings are spoken and written by large proportion of world population today, this language limitation of modern computers and various data handling and transmission systems often imposes a language handicap to these peoples who are not well versed in English. It is not only desirable that this limitation can be overcome such that the application of computer technology can be employed more directly by non-English speaking peoples. But also that higher speed of progress and advancement in technology can be expected when more people have the opportunity to operate and program various processors without being limited by linguistic ability in English.
A machine adapted for selection of complete typographic characters by multiple key operation is disclosed in a U.S. Pat. No. 2,950,800 by Caldwell entitled "Ideographic Type Composition Machine" (issued on Aug. 30, 1960). In order to provide an easy to use type composing machine for Chinese and other similar ideographic languages, Caldwell discloses a useful feature to reduce the number of input keys to represent a character. A typographic character is managed as an "ensemble" and each "ensemble" is analyzed into a plurality of "symbols" wherein each "symbol" are either the elemental strokes or frequently used combinations of elemental strokes with each combination referred to as an "entity". The selections of input keys are performed based on the fact that the writing of an ensemble is accomplished by marking the assembly symbols in a particular recognized sequence. Caldwell discloses a 31-symbol-key machine to provide key selection to compose the writing of an "ensemble", i.e., a Chinese character. Caldwell further discloses a coding means operated in association with the keys for representing each symbol by a binary code. The number of digits used to express a stroke or special instruction is dependent on the frequency of its use.
The invention of Caldwell presents some useful concepts. However, since the invention is focused on the construction of a key board for a type-machine, it does not provide a linguistic basis, generally referred to as a platform, upon which a Chinese computer system can be built. Many key construction elements are incomplete that a computer system or data handling and transmission system can be formed with operations controlled and directed by machine codes derived entirely and directly from Chinese program languages or commands.
In another U.S. Pat. No. 4,689,743, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Validating the Electronic Encoding of an Character" (issued on Aug. 25, 1987), Chiu discloses a method and apparatus for validating the electronic encoding of an incoming ideographic character. The ideographic characters are encoded according to a group of predetermined basic stroke elements and sequencing rules of strokes. The incoming characters are first analyzed by the use of a complexity analyzer to determine the level of complexity for each character. A table lookup search is then performed to match the code of the incoming characters with a list of standard table listing a plurality of characters and corresponding codes. A closest match is then determined to generate as an output for representing the validated incoming character. Chiu's invention could be useful to increase the accuracy and efficiency of construction of characters represented by codes. However, the disclosure does not teach a platform to build a data handling and management system based on binary codes derived from the ideographic characters of a linguistic system.
Yan discloses in another U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,202 entitled "Oriental Language Processing System", a processing system where the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters are converted into readable code suitable for input through a small keyboard into an information processor. The ideographic characters are coded into a pronunciation portion and a determinative portion. The codes can be inputted from the keyboard to generated the output wherein the output generated by the processing system are conventional ideographic characters. Yan's disclosure represents another type of attempts in representing or encoding the characters by the use of pronunciations in addition to shapes. However, due to the fact that the pronunciations of characters are less intuitive and involve another layer of associations, Yan's method does not seem to provide any useful technique in developing a non-English computer programming system.
Therefore, a need still exists in the art of design and manufacture of data handling and transmission systems to provide a new platform upon which an ideographic linguistic system can be implemented as a high level language to build operating systems and programs for data and instruction communication. This platform is preferably intuitive and user friendly, and also can be easily adaptable to establish linkage and association to interface with the current English-based systems.

Data handling and transmission systems employing binary bit-patterns based on a sequence of standard decomposed strokes of ideographic characters


Exposing sludge to underwater, high-intensity sparks, to increase cake solids, provide faster settling, and increase the rate of dewatering.

Sludge is produced during the biological treatment of wastewater. It is also produced through a variety of processes, such as the manufacture of pulp and paper. As shown in a conventional process of FIG. 1, wastewater W is typically fed into a reactor 10 containing a suspension of microorganisms, most of which are acclimated to grow on or otherwise decompose the dissolved organic material contained in the wastewater W.
A fraction of the microorganisms dies and settles out. These solids, along with other solid debris that settles out from the wastewater, constitute sludge S that must be disposed of. The sludge S is typically collected and treated with chemicals at step 20 that promote flocculation of the sludge particles. One example of such chemical treatment is through use of thickeners such as polymers or lime. [1] Mechanical thickening has also been reported although the process has not been commercialized.
The flocculated sludge FS is dewatered at step 30, using various dewatering devices well-known in the art, including, but not limited to, presses of various configurations, and centrifuges. The dewatered sludge, or final cake solids FCS, are typically in the range of about 15-50% consistencies (i.e. 85-50% water content).
The final cake solids FCS are disposed of at step 40 through means such as landfilling, burning, or landspreading. The water contained in the dewatered sludge is a deadload, and it is thus advantageous to reduce the water content of the final cake solids as far as possible.
An electro-acoustic process where the application of electric and acoustic fields consolidates the cake and increases final solids is known. [2] Ultrasonic energy has been shown to dewater fine-particle high-concentration suspensions such as slurries and sludges. [3]
Discharging a high-intensity spark underwater generates a sound wave, and it has recently been demonstrated that some applications that rely on acoustics can also be conducted with an underwater sparker. For example, trace levels of adhesives in process streams of mills that recycle paper can be oxidized by either ultrasonic radiation or sparking. [4-6] However, the spark application can be more economical in terms of both capital and operating costs. [6].
Underwater sparking has been applied to anaerobically digested sludge in an effort to reduce polymer use. [7] Limited pilot-scale success was achieved with low-conductivity sludge, but the spark source was of relatively low energy (0.25 J), and the application did not successfully scale up.
It would be beneficial to demonstrate that exposing biological sludge to underwater sparks of much higher energy (˜10 kJ) leads to acoustic agglomeration of the particles, which results increased cake solids, and faster settling.
Increasing the cake solids by even a relatively small amount would reduce the amount of water that must be disposed of together with the sludge solids. The rate of dewatering is also an important factor that affects the efficiency and cost of processing of the sludge. If the dewatering rate is slow, then the throughput will be low.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method for increasing the solids content of dewatered sludge. There is also a need for a system and method for increasing the rate of sludge dewatering by altering the properties of the sludge.


A method of manufacturing a touch panel, includes forming a print layer on a peripheral portion of a surface of a touch panel body portion; coating resin on the surface of the touch panel body portion on which the print layer is formed and, after coating, curing the resin to form a resin layer; and adhering an optical clear adhesive sheet on a surface of a cover film and further adhering the surface of the cover film, at which the optical clear adhesive sheet is adhered to, to the surface of the touch panel body portion at which the resin layer is adhered to.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a touch panel and a touch panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Touch panels are input devices capable of directly inputting data through a display and usually provided at a front surface of the display. A user can directly input data based on information visually recognized by viewing the display through the touch panel, so that the touch panel is used in various ways.
As such touch panels, resistive touch panels and capacitive touch panels are widely known. For the resistive touch panel, transparent conductive layers are respectively formed on an upper conductive substrate and on a lower conductive substrate, and the upper conductive substrate and the lower conductive substrate are stacked such that the transparent conductive layers are positioned to face each other. When force is applied to a point of the upper conductive substrate, the transparent conductive layers of the upper conductive substrate and the lower conductive substrate contact at that point so that a coordinate position of the pushed point can be detected. For the capacitive touch panel, a position is detected by detecting a current flowing through a transparent electrode or the like of the touch panel when a finger or the like contacts the touch panel.
Generally, a cover film provided with a print layer, which becomes a decorating layer, at a peripheral portion is adhered to a surface of the touch panel.
However, as will be explained later in detail, when the print layer is provided at the peripheral portion, there is a step between an area where the print layer is formed and an area where the print layer is not formed, which results in air bubbles being generated at an interface. When such air bubbles are generated, a bad effect may be caused on visibility or quality of the touch panel, or further, such a touch panel becomes defective.

Method of manufacturing touch panel and touch panel


A plastic pipe cutting device for both cutting and filing a plastic pipe has a semi-circular top sleeve and bottom sleeve. A top guide track is connected to the top sleeve and a bottom guide track is connected to the bottom sleeve. The top guide track and the bottom guide track are continuous upon closing the device. A guide roller is rotatably connected to the roller housing and is capable of rolling upon the top and bottom guide track. A blade is connected to the roller housing for cutting a plastic pipe. A rasp is connected to the roller housing for filing the end of a plastic pipe.

1. Field of the Invention
The present embodiment of the invention relates to a plastic pipe cutting device for use in connection with cutting devices. The plastic pipe cutting device has particular utility in connection with plastic pipe cutting devices that debur while cutting.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Plastic pipe cutting devices are desirable for quickly assembling tubing or pipe for use as plumbing. Currently plastic pipe is cut and a deburring step is subsequently done for joints to mate and for no flash material to flow within the pipe that could cause clogging. A need was felt for a plastic pipe cutting device that would both debur the edges so that the cut piece could be immediately used.
The use of cutting devices is known in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,756 to McGuire discloses a pipe cutting apparatus is provided for cutting a hole or 'window' in the wall of a pipe, for example prior to joining a branch pipe to a host pipe. The apparatus comprises a chassis frame carrying a cutter unit supporting a cutter tool. The chassis is attached to and movable around the pipe by means of 'roller' chains. The cutter unit is movable with respect to the chassis frame by means of the associated slider block which is slidable along longitudinally extending chassis frame members. Thus, the cutter tool can be moved relative to the workpiece in one sense by movement of the chassis frame and in another sense by movement of the cutter tool relative to the chassis frame. A combination of such movements enable the hole or 'window' to be cut. However, the McGuire '756 patent does not both cut and debur the cut portion of pipe.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,046,250 to Huang discloses a pipe cutting device includes a body. A mouth is formed in the front end of the body for receiving a pipe to be cut. A cutter is received in the body and is movable toward the mouth. A gear and an upper end of a handle are pivotally coupled to the body. The gear is engaged with the cutter and is caused to rotate when the handle is pulled so that the cutter can be caused to move forward by the rotation of the gear in order to cut the pipe. The pipe can be cut neatly and efficiently when the handle is repeatedly pulled and released. However, the Huang '250 patent does not both cut and debur the cut portion of pipe.
Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,368,577 to Babb discloses a hand-held and hand-operated cutting tool particularly well suited for cleanly and quickly cutting plastic pipe or tubing, rubber hose, or the like. The tool has a blade rotatable in increments or steps from a retracted position in which it is enclosed within a housing to a cutoff position in which it cooperates with a stationary anvil so as to sever the article to be cut. A ratchet drive interconnects a movable handle and the blade so as to incrementally drive the blade towards its cutoff position upon manipulation of the handle. A pawl prevents opening of the blade caused by the springiness of the article being cut upon being engaged by the blade. Upon severing of the article, the blade may be readily returned to its retracted position by, for example, releasing a thumb operated locking pawl. However, the Babb '577 patent does not both cut and debur the cut portion of pipe.
While the above-described devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a plastic pipe cutting device that allows plastic pipe cutting devices that debur while cutting. The McGuire '756, Huang '250 and Babb '577 patents make no provision for both cut and debur the cut portion of pipe.
Therefore, a need exists for a new and improved plastic pipe cutting device which can be used for plastic pipe cutting devices that debur while cutting. In this regard, the present embodiment of the invention substantially fulfills this need. In this respect, the plastic pipe cutting device according to the present embodiment of the invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of plastic pipe cutting devices that debur while cutting.


A sealed type container accommodating a semiconductor substrate is positioned to a load port of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. The semiconductor substrate is taken out of the container. An ionizer is used for static-eliminating the semiconductor substrates before and after process treatment in a transport area between the load port and a treatment section. The static-eliminated semiconductor substrate is accommodated in the container positioned to the load port. Thus, it is possible to decrease foreign materials adhering to the semiconductor substrate and errors in handling the semiconductor substrate.

The present invention relates to a technique for manufacturing a semiconductor integrated circuit device. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technique effectively applied to a static elimination technique of a semiconductor substrate and an accommodating technique of a closed type.
For example, as methods of static-eliminating the substrate, techniques thereof are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 8-8319, No. 7-14761 and No. 9-223673.
First, according to a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 8-8319, air is ionized by using an antistatic or static-elimination mechanism such as an ionized air generator, and the ionized air is blown on a substrate, thereby antistatic or static-elimination of the substrate is carried out, so that trouble such as miss transportation of substrates, or the like is prevented.
According to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 7-14761, under the state that non-reactive gas is filled in a case in which an electrically charged substrate is put, electric charges of the electrically charged substrate are neutralized by generating ions and electrons in the case, and thereby complete annihilation of electromagnetic noise free, contamination free and residual potential can be achieved.
According to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 9-223673, a transport apparatus is described which is capable of transporting a semiconductor substrate into a reactor that grows a predetermined semiconductor layer, without bringing out the semiconductor substrate outside the system thereof. Ion of predetermined gas is generated in predetermined atmosphere and thereby a semiconductor substrate in the transport apparatus is static-eliminated.
With respect to a clean room for performing manufacturing processes or the like of a semiconductor substrate, for example, the associated technology is described in pp. 16-21 of "Electronic Materials, August Issue" published on 1 Aug., 2000 by Kogyo Chosakai Co., Ltd. This issue reports a clean room structure including mini-Environment (meaning small environment made of a sealed container for isolating products from contamination and human being) and an elimination of chemical contaminant, etc.

Method of manufacturing a semiconductor integrated circuit device with elimination of static charge


A method and composition for reversibly increasing the proliferation of cells in vitro. Cell populations are treated in vitro with antisense oligonucleotides to a tumor suppressor gene, such as the retinoblastoma (Rb) gene. Such treatment inhibits expression of the tumor suppressor gene product and results in a reversible increase in the proliferation of the cell population.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and compositions that are used to control the rate at which cells proliferate and their capacity for proliferation. More particularly, the present invention involves methods and compositions which are used to increase cell proliferation in a completely reversible way without causing the cells to become malignant or otherwise affecting the cells.
2. Description of Related Art
Many diseases involve the degeneration of specific cells. Such diseases include Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, olivopontocerebellar atrophy and many others. A suggested treatment for these diseases involves removing cells from relatives and introducing them into the patient. However, rejection of the foreign cells is and will be a recurrent problem with such a proposed treatment approach (Partridge, T.A., et al. (1989)). Nature 337:176-179). ( Another approach to treating the above-identified diseases is to use the patient's own cells. Use of the patient's own cells allows a perfect immunological match and therefore overcomes any problems associated with rejection of the cells. In such processes, the patient's cells are removed from the patient, grown in vitro, genetically engineered to produce the appropriate protein, and reintroduced to the patient.
A major problem with the above approach is that tumor suppressor genes are expressed in all normal (non-cancerous) cells. These tumor suppressor genes express proteins that inhibit growth of cells. Viruses and transforming genes have been used to bind the inhibiting proteins and thereby effect proliferation of cells.

Method for reversibly increasing proliferation of a non-malignant cell population

The Regents of the University of California


The invention is a polyester resin that includes between about 20 and 200 ppm of an inert particulate additive, preferably selected from the group consisting of surface-modified talc and surface-modified calcium carbonate. The invention is also a method of making the polyester resin, which is capable of being formed into low-haze, high-clarity bottles possessing reduced coefficient of friction.

This application incorporates entirely by reference co-pending and commonly-assigned application Ser. No. 09/738,150, for Methods of Post-Polymerization Injection in Continuous Polyethylene Terephthalate Production.
The invention relates to a polyester resin that includes small amounts of an inert particulate additive, which reduces the coefficient of friction in bottles formed from the polyester resin while maintaining bottle clarity.
Polyester resins, especially polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and its copolyesters, are widely used to produce rigid packaging, such as two-liter soft drink containers. Polyester packages produced by stretch-blow molding possess high strength and shatter resistance, and have excellent gas barrier and organoleptic properties as well. Consequently, such plastics have virtually replaced glass in packaging numerous consumer products (e.g., carbonated soft drinks, fruit juices, and peanut butter).
In conventional techniques of making bottle resin, modified polyethylene terephthalate is polymerized in the melt phase to an intrinsic viscosity of about 0.6 deciliters per gram (dl/g), whereupon it is polymerized in the solid phase to achieve an intrinsic viscosity that better promotes bottle formation. Before 1965, the only feasible method of producing polyethylene terephthalate polyester was to use dimethyl terephthalate (DMT). In this technique, dimethyl terephthalate and ethylene glycol are reacted in a catalyzed ester interchange reaction to form bis(2-hydroxyethyl)terephthalate monomers and oligomers, as well as a methanol byproduct that is continuously removed. These bis(2-hydroxyethyl)terephthalate monomers and oligomers are then catalytically polymerized via polycondensation to produce polyethylene terephthalate polymers.
Purer forms of terephthalic acid (TA) are now increasingly available. Consequently, terephthalic acid has become an acceptable, if not preferred, alternative to dimethyl terephthalate as a starting material for the production of polyethylene terephthalate. In this alternative technique, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol react in a generally uncatalyzed esterification reaction to yield low molecular weight monomers and oligomers, as well as a water byproduct that is continuously removed. As with the dimethyl terephthalate technique, the monomers and oligomers are subsequently catalytically polymerized by polycondensation to form polyethylene terephthalate polyester. The resulting polyethylene terephthalate polymer is substantially identical to the polyethylene terephthalate polymer resulting from dimethyl terephthalate, albeit with some end group differences.
Polyethylene terephthalate polyester may be produced in a batch process, where the product of the ester interchange or esterification reaction is formed in one vessel and then transferred to a second vessel for polymerization. Generally, the second vessel is agitated and the polymerization reaction is continued until the power used by the agitator reaches a level indicating that the polyester melt has achieved the desired intrinsic viscosity and, thus, the desired molecular weight. More commercially practicable, however, is to carry out the esterification or ester interchange reactions, and then the polymerization reaction as a continuous process. The continuous production of polyethylene terephthalate results in greater throughput, and so is more typical in large-scale manufacturing facilities.
When the polymerization process is complete, the resulting polymer melt is typically extruded and pelletized for convenient storage and transportation. Thereafter, the polyethylene terephthalate may be molded into preforms and bottles.
As will be understood by those having ordinary skill in the art, polyethylene terephthalate is typically converted into a container via a two-step process. First, an amorphous bottle preform is produced from bottle resin by melting the resin in an extruder and injection molding the molten polyester into a preform. Such a preform usually has an outside surface area that is at least an order of magnitude smaller than the outside surface of the final container. The preform is reheated to an orientation temperature that is typically 30xc2x0 C. above the glass transition temperature. The reheated preform is then placed into a bottle mold and, by stretching and inflating with high-pressure air, formed into a bottle. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that any defect in the preform is typically transferred to the bottle. Accordingly, the quality of the bottle resin used to form injection-molded preforms is critical to achieving commercially acceptable bottles.
Polyethylene terephthalate bottles, especially straight-walled two-liter soft drink bottles, often possess high coefficients of friction (COF). This is a significant problem in the bottling industry as excessive friction between adjacent bottles prevents such bottles from easily and efficiently sliding past one another as they are depalletized. To improve depalletizing, bottlers conventionally resort to water misting and line lubrication on a filling line.
Therefore, there is a need for a polyester bottle that possesses reduced coefficient of friction while retaining bottle clarity.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a high-clarity polyester bottle including a surface-modified talc or surface-modified calcium carbonate in concentrations that permit the bottle to possess reduced coefficient of friction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for making polyethylene terephthalate preforms and bottles possessing reduced coefficients of friction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a polyester resin that is capable of being formed into high-clarity bottles possessing reduced coefficient of friction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for making polyethylene terephthalate resin that can be formed into high-clarity bottles possessing reduced coefficient of friction.
The foregoing, as well as other objectives and advantages of the invention and the manner in which the same are accomplished, is further specified within the following detailed description and its accompanying drawings.

Polyester bottle resins having reduced frictional properties and methods for making the same


A temperature regulator or the like that can circulate a desired thermal medium and efficiently transfer the heat of the thermal medium is provided. The temperature regulator includes a pipe that is made of a metal or alloy with corrosion resistance to a predetermined thermal medium and that serves as a flow path for circulating the thermal medium; and a plate in which the pipe is buried, wherein the plate is formed by accelerating powder made of aluminum (Al) or alloy together with a gas and thereafter spraying the powder remaining in a solid phase toward the pipe so that the powder is deposited on the pipe.

Conventionally, in various processes performed on a substrate for manufacturing a semiconductor, a liquid crystal display device, an optical disk, or the like, a temperature regulator (a cooling device or a heating device) is used, in which a flow path for circulating a thermal medium for cooling or heating is formed inside a plate made of aluminum or aluminum alloy. Such a temperature regulator is formed such that, for example, two bulk materials to be used as an upper side and a lower side of the plate are prepared, the flow path is formed on each of the surfaces by a groove cutting process, and the surfaces of the upper side and the lower side of the plate where the flow paths are formed are brought into contact with each other and joined by brazing or the like. Because aluminum has good thermal conductivity, there is an advantage in that heat of the thermal medium can efficiently be transferred to the substrate via the wall of the flow path and the plate, and the temperature of the substrate can be regulated quickly and uniformly.
Meanwhile, because aluminum is a highly corrosive metal, a thermal medium that is available to the temperature regulator made of aluminum is limited. Therefore, water mixed with corrosion inhibitor (process cooling water: PCW), organic solvent, inert gas, or the like is exclusively used. However, in the industry, there is a demand to use, as the thermal medium, city water that can easily be available at low costs or seawater that can abundantly be available from natural resources.
To make the flow path resistant to corrosion, it may be possible to form a flow path portion with a corrosive metal or alloy. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technology in which a cooling pipe made of copper having excellent thermal conductivity and corrosion resistance is installed inside the main body of a susceptor of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.

Temperature regulator, cooling device, and method for manufacturing temperature regulator


A computer-implemented method for storing an object includes providing an object, an ordering vector of the object, the ordering vector being associated to a lexicographic order having at least one dimension, and base keys associated to each dimension of the lexicographic order; deriving a key by retrieving the base key associated to the first dimension of the lexicographic order for which the ordering vector has a value different from the smallest value, and applying a one-way function a number of times corresponding to the value of the ordering vector for the last dimension of the lexicographic order; encrypting the object with the key; and storing the object as encrypted.

The invention relates to the field of computer science, and more specifically, to a computerized system, a method, a program and a data storage medium for storing objects encrypted based on a key and providing for the deletion of the objects.
Secure data deletion often features as a requirement in a number of domains. As an example, privacy and data protection regulations of different countries have agreed on a set of common principles. Among those, "purpose" and "security" are particularly relevant, as it appears from Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 Oct. 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and from the OECD guidelines on the protection of privacy and transborder flows of personal data. The principle of "purpose" states that personal data can be stored only for purposes agreed by the data owner, and that once this purpose is no longer valid, data should be erased. Coupled with the security principle, that mandates that data should be kept secure from any potential abuses, it is clear that the legislator requires special care in the handling of "expired" data. Indeed, access to data whose purpose is expired would clearly represent a violation of both principles.
This is even truer when the information at hand belongs to particularly sensitive domains such as healthcare and finance. In this case, the numerous existing regulations require avoiding any unauthorized exposure of confidential corporate and government data by imposing fines and even civil and criminal liability. This is the case for example for the Health insurance portability and accountability act in 1996, the Financial services modernization act in 1999, the Public company accounting reform and investor protection act in 2002, and the Fair and accurate credit transactions act in 2003, of the US Congress.
Retaining data too long increases the risks of unwanted disclosure, for instance through a security breach or by subpoena. The truth of this statement is backed up by the number of incidents whereby companies have lost sensitive data. Such incidents are related in different news articles and studies, such as the ones by J. Vijayan entitled "Programmer who stole drive containing 1 million bank records gets 42 months", Computer World, 2008, or by D. Sharp, entitled "Breach exposes 4.2 million credit, debit cards", Associated Press, 2008, or by J. Evers, entitled "Credit card breach exposes 40 million accounts", CNET News 2005. The 2010 annual study entitled "U.S. cost of a data breach" by Symantec Corporation in 2011 showed that the average cost of such a data breach is in the order of millions of dollars, and that this cost is rising over time.
These simple facts show how information that is no longer required can only become a liability for a company, and that an important goal of IT systems in the corporate world should be the ability of disposing of information in a secure way.
Standard OS deletion primitives do not offer a solution to the problem of secure deletion. Indeed, a deletion operation such as unlink( ) and remove( ) in Unix operating systems only remove the reference to a file from the filesystem data structure, leaving the actual data on the physical disk.
A first known approach towards secure file deletion is overwriting. However, if done naively, overwriting may still leave magnetic traces of past data in the disk. Gutmann et al. showed how secure deletion can be achieved by overwriting the content using certain patterns that are adapted to the low-level encoding mechanism of drives (P. Gutmaun, "Secure deletion of data from magnetic and solid-state memory", in Proceedings of the 6th USENIX Security Symposium, pages 77-89, 1996). However, a number of problems affect this solution. Firstly, large files cannot be deleted efficiently. Secondly, if files are replicated to increase their availability, or backed up, the burden of deletion increases linearly in the number of copies.
In addition, tools that achieve secure deletion through data overwriting (like wipe, eraser and shred developed for known operating systems) work only if the overwrite patterns apply to the actual physical device at hand, if the patterns are actually being written to disk (and not only to cache), and if the writes are targeted to the disk sectors that contained the data. Without detailed knowledge of the media at hand, ensuring the first condition is hard. The second condition can be ensured in a complicated way, through an OS-level or disk-level write barrier, write cache flush, or by disabling the write cache. With respect to the third condition, enforcing write locality is quite hard in modern file system. Indeed, journaling file systems, such as, for instance, JFS, ReiserFS, XFS, Ext3, perform write operations on journals and not directly to disk. Other filesystems write redundant data, others take disk snapshots or cache data in temporary locations. Furthermore, it has been shown by M. Wei, L. M. Grupp, F. M. Spada, and S. Swanson in their paper entitled "Reliably erasing data from flash-based solid state drives", in Proceedings of the 20th USENIX Security Symposium, 2011, that none of the available disk overwrite techniques are effective if data is stored on different media, such as solid-state drives. Generally, storage systems have many layers. The problem is that knowledge of lower-layer implementation mechanisms is lacking and the interfaces do not contain methods for instructing a lower layer to securely delete data.
A number of works have attempted to implement overwriting-based techniques as an automatic feature of existing filesystems. In the paper by Bauer and N. B. Priyantha entitled "Secure data deletion for linux file systems", in Proceedings of the 10th conference on USENIX Security Symposium—Volume 10, SSYM'Ol, pages 12-12, Berkeley, Calif., USA, 2001, USENLX Association, the authors present an implementation of an overwrite-based secure deletion extension for the ext2 filesystem. The system is based on a separate daemon carrying out an asynchronous overwrite of blocks that have been marked as deleted. This work has the shortcoming of only supporting an outdated, non-journaled filesystem. In the papers by N. Joukov, H. Papaxenopoulos, and E. Zadok entitled "Secure deletion myths, issues, and solutions", in Proceedings of the second ACM workshop on Storage security and survivability, StorageSS '06, pages 61-66, New York, N.Y., USA, 2006, ACM, and by N. Joukov and E. Zadok entitled "Adding secure deletion to your favorite file system", in Proceedings of the Third IEEE International Security in Storage Workshop, pages 63-70, Washington, D.C., USA, 2005, IEEE Computer Society, the authors present a solution for secure deletion based on intercepting deletion calls and translating them with link( )/unlink( ) operations that move files in a specified folder. Then, the shred utility is asynchronously used on these files. All these works share the shortcomings of overwrite-based approaches highlighted above.
In their paper entitled "A revocable backup system", in proceedings of the 6th conference on USENIX Security Symposium, Focusing on Applications of Cryptography—Volume 6, pages 9-9, Berkeley, Calif., USA, 1996, USENIX Association, D. Boneh and R. J. Lipton present an approach for deletion of content—in particular backed-up off-line content. The key idea the authors propose is to encrypt all the content that may require secure deletion, and—upon secure deletion request—carry out a deletion of the keys instead of the deletion of the file content. The authors also introduce the support for versioned backups. However, using such a system translates to the requirement of managing a number of cryptographic keys for each individual file.
The idea of leveraging on cryptography to achieve secure deletion has been picked up by a number of subsequent works. In the paper by Z. N. J. Peterson, R. Burns, J. Herring, A. Stubblefield, and A. D. Rubin entitled "Secure deletion for a versioning file system", in proceedings of the 4th conference on USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies—Volume 4, pages 11-11, Berkeley, Calif., USA, 2005, USENIX Association, the authors present a solution to support secure deletion in a versioning filesystem, based on the idea of adding short, cryptographically computed tags to a file: the deletion of the tag implies the impossibility to recover the file. However, differently from keys, tags are public and can be stored and replicated as normal data.
In the paper entitled "The ephemerizer: making data disappear", Technical report, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, Calif., USA, 2005, Perlman presents the concept of the ephemerizer: a semi-trusted third party that creates and advertises public keys, and guarantees their secure deletion after a predefined amount of time. This way, users can encrypt the session keys used to encrypt messages for one another, using one of the keys of the ephemerizer, with the assurance that after their expiration time, these keys will no longer be available. In the paper entitled "File system design with assured delete", in proceedings of the Third IEEE International Security in Storage Workshop, pages 83-88, Washington, D.C., USA, 2005, IEEE Computer Society, the same author presents a solution where such idea can be used to implement a filesystem. This work, however, pays the penalty of being built on a solution initially designed for encryption of messages between different users.
In the paper by R. Geambasu, T. Kohno, A. A. Levy, and H. M. Levy. entitled "Vanish: increasing data privacy with self-destructing data", in proceedings of the 18th conference on USENIX security symposium, SSYM'09, pages 299-316, Berkeley, Calif., USA, 2009, USENIX Association, the authors show how the churn rate of DHT-based peer-to-peer systems can be used to achieve secure deletion. Their solution requires content to be encrypted using a cryptographic key, and such key needs to be split in shares using for instance Shamir's approach exposed in the paper by A. Shamir entitled "How to share a secret", Commun. ACM, 22:612-613, November 1979. Then, the different shares of the key can be distributed to random users of a DHT. Since users will naturally disappear from the DHT, and given that keys are only stored in non-persistent memory, after a certain amount of time the key will no longer be available. However the scheme can be attacked by exploiting well-known sybil attacks on DHTs, as explained in the paper by Wolchok, Hofmann, Heninger, Felten, Halderman, Rossbach, Waters, and Witchel entitled "Defeating Vanish with low-cost Sybil attacks against large DHTh", in proc. 17th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), ISOC, February 2010.
An approach, referred to as Di Crescenzo et al.'s approach that constitutes an approach for an abstraction of the secure deletion problem, is now presented. This approach is also described in the paper by Di Crescenzo, N. Ferguson, R. Impagliazzo, and M. Jakobsson entitled "How to forget a secret", in proceedings of the 16th annual conference on Theoretical aspects of computer science, STACS'99, pages 500-509, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1999, Springer-Verlag. The method comprises building an erasable memory of arbitrary size from an external erasable memory of small, constant size and standard (non-erasable) memory of arbitrary size. The idea is centered around a key tree: each node of the tree is associated to a cryptographic key. No key is stored in plaintext in the tree, but it is stored after having been encrypted with the key associated to its parent node (encrypting a key being also called key-wrapping). The key associated to the root is stored in the external erasable memory, whereas the other values are stored in the standard memory. The key tree is a complete n-ary tree and the N=nm values that require secure deletion are arranged as leaves of this tree: the leaves are therefore the only nodes whose values are actual data and not cryptographic keys. The data associated to the leaves is encrypted using the key of each node's parent node. When a value requires secure deletion, the following operations are executed over the tree: for each node in the path between the node requiring deletion and the root, 1) a new value is drawn from the keyspace and is wrapped using the new unwrapped value of its ancestor; and 2) the value of each of its siblings is re-wrapped using the new unwrapped value of the ancestor. The same happens for the key associated to the root of the tree. In addition, since such key is stored on a securely erasable memory, its retrieval after the deletion operation is impossible. The node requiring secure deletion is not reencrypted. This way, its secure deletion is guaranteed since its decryption would require—thanks to the property of the tree—access to the old value of the root, which is no longer possible by definition, as it is stored in the erasable memory.
Thus, there is still a need for an improved method for storing data and providing for their later secure deletion.

Ordered deletion of content in storage systems

International Business Machines Corporation


A watercraft lift with translating bunks supported by a base frame and having rollers mounted to the base frame to initially raises the watercraft upward when driven onto the lift sufficiently to be positioned above the bunks when in their lowered position and thereby permit operation of the lift in water too shallow for use of the bunks by themselves. The rollers are positioned relative to the translating bunks such that when the bunks are in their lowered position and the lift is used in sufficiently shallow water, the watercraft driven onto the lift initially engages the rollers, which lift the watercraft upward above the height when floating in the water and above the height of the bunks. The translating bunks are then used to lift the watercraft off of the rollers and upward to a raised position above the water.

The use of watercraft lifting devices is well known. A watercraft may be subject to several difficulties if moored within the water: damage to the watercraft may occur when wave action or other in-water forces cause the hull of the watercraft to strike adjacent in-water structures such as docks or seawalls; damage may also result from longer term effects such as vegetative buildup on the hull of the watercraft. Watercraft lifting devices alleviate these potential hazards by allowing the watercraft user to lift the watercraft from a position in the water to a position where the watercraft is wholly above the water. The watercraft lift thus provides a convenient solution to the before-stated difficulties since the watercraft may be quickly removed from the water during periods of non-use and returned to the water when desired with minimal user effort.
Existing watercraft lifts, however, do not sufficiently address problems caused by fluctuating water levels and/or consistently shallow waters. In water bodies where watercraft are typically used, water levels may fluctuate dramatically on a daily or seasonal basis due to tides, weather-related draught or flooding, or because of public or private use of water from reservoirs or lakes. Watercraft moorage facilities may also be situated in waters that are continually shallow. 'Drive-on' style lifts have very little lifting range. Lifts with translating bunks provide adequate range, but do not function in extreme shallow water. Existing translating bunk watercraft lifts may become functionally useless when water levels drop below a certain point. This occurs when the watercraft support platform, typically consisting of supporting bunks, is sufficiently high in the lowered position relative to the watercraft and waterline that friction forces between the watercraft and support platform cause watercraft ingress or egress to become impossible or unsafe.
Generally, watercraft lifts do not employ specific features that allow the lifts to operate in extreme shallow water. U.S. Pat. No. 5,908,264 to Hey and U.S. Pat. No. 518,914 to Basta disclose free-standing boat lifts with translating bunks that operate in this a manner. Since lifts are typically used along the shoreline, water depth has limited use of free-standing lifts for many locations. Certain existing watercraft lifts, however, attempt to address the above issues by using roller devices as the primary watercraft support platform. These watercraft lifts, however, are generally not as desirable due to limitations in lifting range, and that they require means to keep the boat from rolling off the bunks.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,687 to Hillman and Vierus employs rollers to allow a watercraft to enter and exit a channel within a modular floating system. This device, however, is limited in that the watercraft can be loaded on the lift smoothly, since the rollers need to be positioned high enough to lift the hull out of the water. The geometry lifts the front of the boat to approximately 30 degrees, which is widely considered to be undesirable to the user. Larger watercraft will require larger modular floating units that, in turn, will increase the minimum water level at which the lift will function properly. In addition, consumers on bodies of water that do not fluctuate much prefer using a freestanding lift, to eliminate effects from waves.
Two known devices use rollers to facilitate watercraft movement up a slope and out of the water. U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,247 to Smith discloses a watercraft lift with two stable rear legs and a front leg that is adjustable. Roller devices positioned on a central support beam are used to support the watercraft and to facilitate ingress and egress. The front of the boat is pulled on the lift using a winch. The watercraft needs to be stored with a front hook, to prevent the watercraft from accidental re-launching. This device is limited, since it requires a person connect the winch to the front of the boat, and winch the boat on the lift. This typically requires the user to disembark from the boat, which is undesirable. Similarly, the lifting height range of this device is limited, so the watercraft may remain subject to damage from moderate wave action or other perils meant to be avoided by the use of a watercraft lift. U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,728 to Schwitters is similar to Smith, but has the additional feature that allows the user to power on the lift without attaching the front of the boat to the winch. This invention also fails to address watercraft protection issues in that the aft portion of the watercraft is not significantly lifted from the water and may remain subject to damage from wave action as a result. Not lifting the rear of the boat from the water is undesirable, since most boat engines are in the rear. Again, relatively steep slope angles may cause additional operator difficulties when attempting to use the watercraft.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an apparatus that can convert existing free-standing translating bunks boat lifts for use in shallow water to get the benefit of sufficient lifting range, with the ability to be used in most locations.


The present invention provides a sculptured pile fabric having both a printed pattern and a sculpted surface of various pile heights. The fabric of the present invention has improved aesthetic qualities as compared with sculptured products of the prior art. This improved sculptured fabric is the result of a chemical sculpting method, in which the height of the pile surface is selectively reduced in a pattern configuration, and that is followed by an overall xe2x80x9cdilutexe2x80x9d dyeing process. This xe2x80x9cdilutexe2x80x9d dyeing process is similar to that used to xe2x80x9ctea stainxe2x80x9d textile products, wherein an overall hue is imparted to a textile by the use of a relatively dilute (low concentration) dyestuff. The resulting sculptured product has an appearance that emphasizes the sculptured areas, making the sculptured areas appear to have greater depth, especially when viewed at a distance.

The present invention relates to sculptured textile substrates, and specifically pile fabrics, and to a process for producing such fabrics. More particularly, the present invention relates to a sculpturing process wherein the tensile strength of the fibers comprising the areas of the fabric to be sculptured is reduced so that the pile may be more easily removed in those selected areas by mechanical means. The process further includes a color wash or dye treatment that may be applied to the fabric to enhance the visual impact of the sculptured areas and, where necessary, eliminate any undesired bleached effect often seen in areas adjacent to the sculptured areas as a result of the sculpturing process.
In the production of pile fabrics, it is often desirable to provide a sculptured effect on the surface thereof in order to enhance the decorative appeal. Several techniques have been used to create such a sculptured surface, although none of these techniques has been completely satisfactory.
One of the early attempts to achieve such a sculptured effect was by means of a heated embossing roll or plate which has been engraved or otherwise treated to create a desired design in raised relief on the surface of the pile fabric. When using a heated embossing roll, depth is created by the partial or complete melting of the embossed areas. However, fibers may lose their individual integrity and become bonded together, thereby often making the feel or hand of the embossed areas harsh and undesirable. More recent embossing techniques have not been completely successful in, overcoming these problems.
Other sculpturing methods that utilize chemical means to shrink the fibers are known. Those processes that employ a chemical shrinking agent to create the embossed areas have been generally unsatisfactory because the embossed areas tend to have a harsh and undesirable hand.
An alternative method of creating a sculptured fabric uses chemicals to dissolve, completely or partially, those fibers that come into contact with the chemical solution. Use of solvents to dissolve fibers in selected areas has been largely unsuccessful since the solvent may destroy the entire pile length in the areas to be embossed, thereby exposing the backing of the fabric, which may not be desired. Even if total dissolution of the pile is avoided, fiber integrity may be compromised and a harsh, undesirable hand may be the inevitable result.
A satisfactory sculpturing process is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,845 to McBride et al., which is herein incorporated, in its entirety, by reference. The process involves the selective carving of a pile fabric with a chemical fiber-degrading agent that may be incorporated as part of the fabric dyeing process. The pile fabric is then finished by heating, neutralizing the degrading agent, washing, and drying. Finally, the degraded fibers are removed by mechanical means to provide a sculptured pile fabric. Because the fiber-degrading agent is known to attack the dye components in areas adjacent to the sculptured portions as well as the areas to which it is directly applied, the resulting sculptured fabric made by this prior art process frequently has bleached xe2x80x9chalo areasxe2x80x9d immediately adjacent to the sculptured regions. When viewed from a distance, these halo areas can be more apparent than the textured portion of the sculptured fabric, thereby degrading the overall appearance of the patterned area. A method to make these halo areas visually less prominent, or eliminate them entirely, has heretofore been unknown.
The present invention provides such a method, which comprises applying a dilute dye solution over the entire substrate surface, thereby coloring both the sculptured portions and the non-sculptured portions, but to a different degree. The sculptured areas tend to be more receptive to this application of dilute dye than the non-sculptured areas. Somewhat surprisingly, the non-sculptured areas immediately adjacent to the sculptured areas tend to have an intermediate affinity for the dilute dye, i.e., the relative concentration of dye is greatest in the sculptured areas, least in the central regions of non-sculptured areas, and intermediate in those non-sculptured xe2x80x9cboundary areasxe2x80x9d immediately adjacent to the sculptured areas. The result of this overall dyeing step is a dramatic reduction in the visual prominence of any xe2x80x9chalosxe2x80x9d surrounding the sculptured areas. Additionally, this step has the unexpected effect of giving the appearance of a greater depth of sculpturing to the finished sculptured pile fabric. For these reasons, the present invention represents a useful advancement over the prior art. It should be noted that, as used herein, the term xe2x80x9cfabricxe2x80x9d is used in a broad sense, and is intended to include carpets and rugs, in addition to upholstery fabrics and the like.
The present invention provides a sculptured pile fabric having both a printed pattern and a sculptured surface of various pile heights. The fabric of the present invention has improved aesthetic qualities as compared with sculptured products of the prior art. This improved sculptured fabric is the result of a chemical sculpting method, in which the height of the pile surface is selectively reduced in a pattern configuration, that is followed by an overall dyeing process involving the application of a dilute dye solution. This xe2x80x9cdilutexe2x80x9d dyeing process is similar to that used to xe2x80x9ctea stainxe2x80x9d textile products, wherein an overall shade is imparted to a textile by the use of a relatively dilute (low concentration) dyestuff. The resulting sculptured product has an appearance that emphasizes the sculptured areas, making the sculptured areas appear to have greater depth, especially when viewed at a distance.

Sculptured pile fabric having improved aesthetic characteristics


A lithium electrochemical cell including an anode and cathode assembly with the anode connected electrically to a conductive cell casing and an insulated cathode conductor extending through a lid at an end of the casing and connected to a cathode lead near the lid and with a first insulating component for insulating the casing from cell components therein and extending along and within the casing from a closed end thereof toward the lid, and which is characterized by a second insulating component for insulating the lid from components in the casing and extending along within the lid and toward the first insulating bag so as to prevent a short circuit between the lid or casing and the cathode assembly caused by formation of lithium clusters in the region between the lid or casing and the cathode connector. Preferably the second insulating component is in the form of a cup having a relatively thin base portion extending along the lid and a relatively thin wall portion extending from the base along within the casing and toward the first insulating component which also is in the form of a thin-walled cup. The walls of the first and second insulating components preferably meet in overlapping relation. The insulating arrangement is particularly adapted for use in a cell wherein the anode and cathode assembly comprises a plurality of cathode plates with anode sections interposed therebetween.

This invention relates to the art of lithium batteries, and more particularly to a new and improved insulating arrangement and method for preventing internal loading and short circuiting in such batteries.
One area of use of the present invention is a multi plate lithium battery for delivering high current pulses, although the principles of the present invention can be variously applied. In lithium batteries wherein the lithium anode and the outer conductive case are at the same electrical potential, it has been determined according to the present invention that internal loading and short circuiting can result from formation of lithium clusters between cathode and anode surfaces. In particular, in prior lithium battery designs a cell stack assembly comprising a plurality of cathode plates with anode sections interposed therebetween was placed into a bag of insulating material. Cathode bridge components associated with the arrangement for electrical connection to the cathode plates and separator components were isolated from contact with other electrically conductive materials through the use of insulating straps strategically placed over the components.
Although the foregoing design functions well, skill is required to assemble such components. In addition, parts may shift in later handling and assembly operations, thus requiring an inordinate amount of care in further assembly. Such shifting of parts can expose the cathode bridge thereby providing a direct path between anode and cathode surfaces along which the above-mentioned lithium clusters can form.
It would, therefore, be highly desirable to provide a barrier which blocks such direct path between anode and cathode surfaces and which effectively isolates components of different electrical potential thereby preventing internal loading and short circuiting caused by lithium cluster formation.

Insulating enclosure for lithium batteries


A wheel end assembly includes a carrier and a wheel bearing assembly, and an outside inner race is integrally formed with a spindle of the wheel bearing assembly. The wheel end assembly includes: a carrier having a cylindrical member on its one side and a second through pipe on its other side; and a wheel bearing assembly comprising a spindle integrally formed with an outside inner race on its one side and having an insert groove on its other side, a hub having an outer race having ball receiving members receiving balls, an inside inner race provided on the inner side of the outer race by pressurization, and a seal member sealing a gap between the inside inner race and the outer race.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wheel end assembly, and more particularly, to a wheel end assembly having an outside inner race integrated spindle, wherein an outside inner race and a spindle are integrally formed.
2. Background of the Related Art
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a conventional wheel end assembly includes a carrier 1 and a wheel bearing assembly 3.
The carrier 1 is installed in a suspension (not shown) and the wheel bearing assembly 3 is connected to the carrier 1 by a spindle 2.
According to the conventional wheel end assembly, after the spindle 2 is pressurized to the carrier 1 in the inner side of a vehicle, the wheel bearing assembly 3 is assembled into the spindle 2. Also, a nut 6 and a washer 6a are provided on a projection portion of the spindle 2 passing through the wheel bearing assembly 3 and extending outwardly from a vehicle, so as to assemble the wheel bearing assembly 3 into the carrier 1.
The wheel bearing assembly 3 assembled into the carrier 1 includes an outer race 4, an inner race 5, a plurality of balls 3a and 3c, and ball receiving members 3b and 3d.
A flange 2a is formed on the other end of the spindle 2 such that the spindle 2 assembled into the wheel bearing assembly 3 is hooked to the carrier 1 in the inner side of a vehicle (not shown) when the carrier 1 is pressurized. Also, when the wheel bearing assembly 3 is assembled into the carrier 1, the spindle 2 is formed to extend outwardly from a vehicle.
A process of assembling the wheel bearing assembly 3 into the carrier 1 by using the conventional spindle 2 will be described below.
Ball receiving members 3b and 3d receiving the balls 3a and 3c are provided on the inner side of the outer race 4 where a hub bolt 4a is mounted. The inner race 5 includes an outside inner race 5a and an inside inner race 5b, and is provided in the inner side of the outer race 4.
The outside inner race 5a is provided on one side of the outer race 4 to make contact with the ball receiving member 3b receiving the ball 3a. The inside inner race 5b is provided on the other side of the outer race 4 to make contact with the ball receiving member 3d receiving the ball 3c.
When the ball receiving members 3b and 3d receiving the balls 3a and 3c are provided on the inner side of the outer race 4 and the inner race 5 having the outside inner race 5a and the inside inner race 5b are installed thereon, a shield member 7a and a seal member 7b are interposed between the outer race 4 and the inner race 5.
The shield member 7a is inserted in the direction of one side of the outer race 4 to be interposed between the outer race 4 and the outside inner race 5a. The seal member 7b are inserted in the direction of the other side of the outer race 4 to be interposed between the outer race 4 and the inside inner race 5b. In this manner, a gap between the outer race 4 and the inner race 5 is sealed.
When the shield member 7a and the seal member 7b are interposed between the outer race 4 and the inner race 5, pressure is supplied to the carrier 1 and the wheel bearing assembly 3 is pressurized to the spindle 2. Namely, the outer race 4 having the ball receiving members 3b and 3d, the shield member 7a and the seal member 7b on its inner side is provided on the spindle 2 through the pressurization. The washer 6a and the nut 6 are fixed to a projection portion of the spindle 2, and the wheel bearing assembly 3 is assembled into the spindle 2.
In this instance, a wheel speed sensor target 8 illustrated in FIG. 1 is provided on the outer circumference of the outer race 4 and senses the rotation speed of a wheel (not shown).
As described above, an inner race of a conventional wheel end assembly includes an outside inner race and an inside inner race. Thus, the number of assembly parts increases which also makes an assembly process complicated and increases manufacture and assembly cost.


Oxygen-rich exhaust gases, for example those emanating from internal combustion engines, e.g., diesel engines, are catalytically treated/converted to reduce emissions of NO.sub.x, in the presence of a catalytically effective amount of a spinel mass oxide essentially having the formula ZnAl.sub.2 O.sub.4 which was prepared by forming a solution or suspension of the salts of the constituent elements of the mass oxide, drying by atomizing the solution or suspension and calcining the salts of the constituent elements of the mass oxide so as to result in the spinel mass oxide.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the treatment/conversion of "oxygen-rich" exhaust gases by means of spinel-based catalysts, for reducing emissions of the oxides of nitrogen ("NO.sub.x ").
2. Description of the Prior Art
Emissions of oxides of nitrogen, NO.sub.x, from exhaust gases, in particular from automotive engines, can be reduced by "three-way" catalysts which utilize, stoichiometrically, the reducing gases present in the exhaust mixture. Any excess oxygen results in a severe deterioration of catalyst performance.
Certain engines, such as diesel engines or lean burning engines, economize on fuel, but emit exhaust gases which permanently contain a large excess of oxygen, for example an excess of at least 5%. A standard three-way catalyst is thus of no value for the conversion of NO.sub.x emissions from these engines. Further, limiting NO.sub.x emissions has become imperative because of the increasingly strict regulations governing automotive exhaust emissions which now cover this type of engine.
Serious need thus exists in this art for an effective catalyst which can improvedly reduce NO.sub.x emissions.

Spinel-based catalysts for reducing exhaust emissions of NO.sub.x


The present invention relates to an improved blade-switchable utility knife. The utility knife comprises a housing, a blade slider, a slide actuator, a switch actuator, and a pair of blades. By switching the switch actuator, a corresponding blade is pushed and pressed by either a first auxiliary reacting portion or a second auxiliary reacting portion to remain in an operative position thereof, and is moved together with the blade slider. Accordingly, the present invention has advantages and effects of quick switch of blades for use and convenient carrying, etc.

Conventional utility knifes are generally designed to fix a blade onto a blade sliding seat so as to allow the blade to be extendable out of a shell of the utility knife or retractable back in the shell via moving of the blade sliding seat.
However, conventional utility knifes can only be equipped with one blade for use. When the blade in use becomes worn out and dull during its use process or different blades are required for use, it is necessary to firstly dismantle the originally installed blade from the blade sliding seat and replace it with another blade. It is rather inconvenient for use.
Furthermore, it is rather inconvenient and time-consuming to replace different blades in the abovementioned way when continuously and alternately using different types of blades is necessary for accomplishment of any particular work content. Generally speaking, under such circumstances, two or more utility knifes are prepared to perform such work content for the sake of saving time. However, such working manner further causes problems of inconvenient carrying and being costly, etc.
Accordingly, it is necessary to invent improved products to overcome the above-mentioned shortcomings and problems.


Methods and arrangements for enforcing demand management in electrical grids. Electrical power is provided from an electrical network to at least one substation, the electrical network including an electrical generation grid in communication with the at least one substation, the at least one substation comprising a power limiter. Electrical power is provided from the at least one substation to a plurality of locations, each location comprising a smart power demand manager which controls electrical power delivery to at least power-drawing item. There is detected, with respect to the electrical network, at least one discrepancy comprising at least one of: an unbalanced network load; an unscheduled network load; a change in network supply; and a change in network condition. In response to such detection, electrical power delivery is controlled via employing the power limiter of the at least one substation in collaboration with at least one smart power demand manager.

Electricity use can vary dramatically in relatively short time frames, and instantaneous generation costs can thereby increase sharply as additional higher-cost ("peaking") sources are brought on-line. To accommodate this, energy demand management, also known as demand side management (DSM), has emerged as a broad set of programs and efforts to modify consumer demand for energy, usually through various methods such as financial incentives and education.
It has been argued that DSM has been ineffective because it has often resulted in higher utility costs for consumers and less profit for utilities. A fundamental problem with DSM is the difficulty in ensuring any reliability of demand reduction. For example, if a utility has to reduce load for the sake of grid stability, e.g., due to a lack of renewable energy or for cost reasons, even as drastic a measure as increasing prices may not lead to a reduction in demand in reality. Another major problem of DSM is connected with privacy, in that consumers often need to provide some detailed information about specifics of their usage to their electric company. Needless to say, consumers often find this to be highly intrusive.

Enforcing fine-grained demand management in smart grids