‘Pacshim’ is a new variety of ivy pelargonium having a trailing growth habit, strong vigor, and bi-colored red and white flowers.

The present invention comprises a new and distinct cultivar of Pelargonium peltatum known by the varietal name 'Pacshim'. The new variety was discovered in Dresden, Germany in the Summer of 2005. The new variety is a result of a planned breeding program using the following procedure: a bulk of different genotypes were crossed to obtain big, single flowers with a dark red color; cuttings of the seedling with the best flowering characteristics and best growth habit were grown onto pelargonium variety 'Pactomgimex' (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 13,783) to transfer its bi-colored stripe pattern; when the grafted tips flowered bi-colored, cuttings were made and cloned of the resulting striped new variety, were tested for over two years; and, the most stable clone was selected as the new variety, 'Pacshim'. The purpose of the breeding program was to develop bi-colored, single flowering ivy pelargoniums with large flowers. The new variety exhibits a trailing habit, a bi-colored flower type, and all season flowering like 'Pactomgimex'. However, 'Pacshim' has single flowers, while 'Pactomgimex' has semi-double flowers. Further, the new variety is more vigorous and has bigger umbels than 'Pactomgimex'. The new variety was first asexually reproduced by cuttings in the Summer of 2005 in Dresden, Germany. The new variety has been trial and field tested and has been found to retain its distinctive characteristics and remain true to type through successive propagations.
The new variety was grown in a greenhouse in a 12 cm pot in Dresden Germany using four applications of cycocel 720 0.2%. The new variety was pinched twice during development. The new variety has a response time of twelve weeks from a rooted cutting to flowering in a 12 cm container.
The following traits have been repeatedly observed and are determined to be unique characteristics of 'Pacshim'. Characteristics that distinguish 'Pacshim' as a new and distinct cultivar from others known to the breeder include:                1) Strong vigor;        2) Good trailing habit;        3) All season flowering;        4) Stable bi-colored flowers; and        5) Big, single flowers.


Load demands in a power system are managed by determining whether load demands on one or more power system components need to be varied. If the load demands need to be varied, new load demands to be placed on the power system components are determined. The load demands on the power system components are controlled such that the load demands are substantially equal to the new load demands.

Power systems typically include redundant components to prevent power outages. FIG. 8 illustrates an example of using redundant components in a power system. An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) 810 and a UPS 820 supply power to a power distribution unit (PDU) 830, which may be connected to power supplies and electrical devices, i.e., the load, not shown. The UPS 810 and UPS 820 are redundant components and may equally share the load demand of the PDU 830. That is the PDU 830 may draw a substantially equal amount of current from the UPS 810 and the UPS 820 to meet the load demand on the PDU 830. If the UPS 810 fails, then the UPS 820 is available to meet the load demand of the PDU 830 on its own. However, the UPS 820 must be sufficiently provisioned, i.e., must have sufficient capacity, such that the UPS 820 can meet the load demand of the PDU 830 on its own. Furthermore, the UPS 820 may be sharing the load demand of another PDU 840 with another UPS (not shown), and if that UPS fails then the UPS 820 may have to support two loads on its own. Thus, the UPS 820 must be substantially over provisioned to prevent power outages.
Over provisioning components in a power system and using redundant components are fail-safe techniques, but these techniques dramatically increase operating and implementation costs. Typically, as the capacity of a UPS or other power system component increases, costs also increase. Furthermore, even if redundancy and over provisioning are used, the power system may still be susceptible to the "snow ball effect". For example, if the UPS 810 fails then the UPS 820 must meet the load demand of the PDUs 830 and 840. At peek demand intervals, the combined demand of the PDUs 830 and 840 may exceed the capacity of the UPS 820. For example, the UPS 820 may have been designed to have a capacity to meet a lower peek demand, but the peek demand may have increased over time. If the UPS 820 fails, the resulting increased loading may cause other UPSs in the power system to fail, realizing the snow ball effect.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A receiver/recorder for television transmissions whereby continuous recording of television transmission occurs from at least one channel onto a random-access rewritable recording medium. At each of a plurality of predetermined locations a binary code is periodically written to represent a filling of predetermined portions corresponding respectively to the predetermined locations. An indexing device responds to the binary code in order to automatically distinguish between a first in time recorded transmission on the medium from a second in time recorded transmission on the medium at a particular one of the predetermined locations.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a receiver/recorder of television transmissions.
2. Discussion of the Background
The video recorder is nowadays a very widespread machine. It is above all used to view cassettes prerecorded by specialised editors. In general these machines allow the automatic recording of television transmissions and, for this purpose, have available means for programming such recordings in advance. However the programming of a video recorder involves operations which are often considered complex by the user; furthermore care must be taken that a cassette is in fact inserted into the machine. This is why video recorders are used less to record television transmissions than to view prerecorded cassettes.

Receiver/recorder of television transmissions


A surgical tray corner protector includes a base, a side wall that extends from an outer edge of the base, and support members extending from the top surface of the base to form a tray support surface, providing improved drainage and air flow.

This invention relates to a corner protector for a surgical tray. More specifically, this invention relates to a surgical tray corner protector comprising a base, a side wall which extends from an outer edge of the base, and support members extending from the base to form a tray support surface, providing improved drainage and air flow.
In hospitals, surgery centers, and other healthcare facilities, surgical instruments must be sterilized prior to use. Normally, surgical instruments are placed in a surgical tray, which is wrapped in a sterilization wrap to protect the instruments from subsequent contamination. The wrapped surgical tray is then inserted into an autoclave and sterilized.
After sterilization, the wrapped tray is placed on a storage shelf or cart until it is needed for a surgical procedure. When the surgical instrument sterilization tray is needed, it is delivered to the operating room. Before the surgical tray is unwrapped, the integrity of the sterilization wrap is inspected to ensure that it does not contain any rips, tears or holes. If the wrap is compromised, the instruments are considered contaminated and can not be used.
Most sterilization wrap is susceptible to tearing and ripping. Handling by hospital staff is the primary cause of ripping of sterilization wrap on a surgical tray. Many of the surgical trays used in healthcare facilities are heavy and/or have sharp corners. When the wrapped surgical tray is slid across a surface, instead of being directly lifted, the corners of the surgical tray can puncture the wrap, thus destroying the sterile environment in which the surgical instruments are stored.
If the sterilization wrap on a surgical tray is torn, the surgical instruments must be rewrapped and sterilized again, which results in reprocessing costs and takes up staff time. In addition, surgical procedures may consequently be delayed. Thus, there is a need in the art for a surgical tray corner protector that will prevent sterilization wrap surrounding a sterile surgical tray from being ripped or tom by the corners of the tray, and, therefore, rendering the surgical instruments unsterile.


A switch for use in a virtual communications system having multiple local area networks interconnected by multiple switches includes a first communications port connected to a network resource and a second communications port connected to other switches in the virtual communications system. A control console detects a communication from the resource to an addressee. The addressee is a member of a local area network within one or more virtual networks which exclude the network resource. The local area network is interconnected to the second communications port by another switch. The control console appends a privileged header to the communication which is detected by the other switch. Responsive to detection of the privileged header the other switch directs the communication to the local area network.

Local area networks (LANs) are used to facilitate communications between a number of users. Individual LAN's may be bridged together to allow a larger number of users to communicate amongst themselves. These bridged LAN's may be further interconnected with other bridged LAN's using routers to form even larger communications networks.
Prior art FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary interconnected bridged LAN system. The numerals 10, 20, 30, etc., are used to identify individual LAN's. Bridges between LAN's are designated by the numerals 5, 15, 25 and 35. A router between bridged LAN 100 and bridged LAN 200 is identified with the reference numeral 300. In the prior art bridged LAN system depicted, a user A is able to communicate with a user B without leaving the LAN 10. If user A desires to communicate with users C in LAN 20 or user D in LAN 30, the communication is transmitted via bridges 5 and/or 15.
If user A desires to communicate with user E, the communication must be routed via router 300 to bridged LAN 200. As will be understood in the art, bridges operate at layer 2 of the network model and transparently bridge two LANs. It is transparent to users A and C that communications between them are ported over bridge 5 because layer 2 bridges do not modify packets, except as necessary to comply with the type of destination LAN. However, if user A wishes to communicate with user E, the communication must be ported via router 300 which operates at level 3 of the network model. Accordingly, communications over routers flow at a slower rate than communications over a bridge, and are regulated by the routers.
Therefore, LAN network administrators generally attempt to connect together those users who frequently communicate with each other in bridged LAN's . However, if the bridged LAN becomes too large, it becomes unscaleable and may experience various well-known problems. Accordingly, routers are used to interconnect bridged LAN's so that the bridged LAN's themselves can be kept to an acceptable size. This results in delays in communications between users which are transmitted via the router 300. If, for example, in FIG. 1, user E and user A need to communicate frequently, it would be advantageous to interconnect LAN 10 and LAN 50 via a bridge rather than the router 300. This would require the rewiring of the system which is costly and may be impracticable under many circumstances, such as, if users A and E will only need to frequently communicate over a limited period of time.
Virtual LAN's (VLAN's) have recently been developed to address the deficiencies in interconnected bridged LAN systems of the type depicted in FIG. 1. VLAN's allow LAN's to be bridged in virtually any desired manner independent of physical topology with switches operating at layer 2. Hence, the switches are transparent to the user. Furthermore, the bridging of LAN's can be changed as desired without the need to rewire the network. Because members of one VLAN cannot communicate with the members of another VLAN, a fire wall is established to provide security which would not be obtainable in a hardwired LAN. Accordingly, the VLAN provides enhanced security over hardwired bridged LAN's.
For example, as shown in prior art FIG. 2, individual LAN's 10-90 are interconnected by layer 2 switches 5'-55'. A network management station (NMS) 290 controls the interconnection of the individual LAN's such that LAN's can be easily bridged to other LAN's on a long term or short term basis without the need to rewire the network. As depicted in FIG. 2, the NMS 290 has configured two VLAN's by instructing, e.g., programming, the switches 5'-35' and 55' such that LAN's 10-60 are bridged together to form VLAN 100' and LAN's 70-90 are bridged together by switches 45' and 55' to form VLAN 200'. This is possible because unlike the bridges 5-35 of FIG. 1 which include only two ports and are, accordingly, able to only transfer information from one LAN to another LAN, the switches 5'-55' are multiported and instructed by the NMS such that the network can be configured and reconfigured by simply changing the switch instructions.
As shown in FIG. 2, the switch 55' has been instructed to transmit communications from user A of LAN 10 to user E of LAN 50, since both users are configured within VLAN 100'. User A, however, is not allowed to communicate to with users H or F since these users are not configured within the VLAN 100' user group. This does not, however, prohibit users F and H, both of whom are members of VLAN 200', from communicating via switches 45' and 55'.
If, it becomes desirable to change the network configuration, this is easily accomplished by issuing commands from NMS 290 to the applicable switches 5'-55'. For example, if desired, user H could be easily added to VLAN 100' by simply reconfiguring VLAN 100' at the NMS 290 to cause an instruction to be issued to switch 55' to allow communications to flow from users A-D and E to user H via switch 55', i.e., to include LAN 90 in VLAN 100'. Because the switches 5'-55' are layer 2 switches, the bridge formed by the switch is transparent to the users within the VLAN. Hence, the transmission delays normally associated with routers, such as the router 300 of FIG. 1, are avoided. The power of the VLAN lies in its ability to dynamically control the network configuration through software on the NMS 290. More particularly, in accordance with its programmed instructions, the NMS 290 generates and transmits signals to instruct the switches 5'-55' to form the desired VLAN configurations.
Multicasting refers to the ability of a station on the network to simultaneously communicate a single message to a number of other stations on the network. In a typical LAN protocol, as shown in FIG. 3, the communication packet 400 includes a destination address 110 having six bytes, a source address 113 and a message portion 114. If the I/G (Individual/Group) bit 112 is set to zero, the packet is directed to a single specified address. However, if the I/G bit 112 is set to one, the packet is transmitted to all LAN's of the bridged LAN.
For example, referring to FIG. 1, if member A of bridged LAN 100 wishes to multicast to members B and C of bridged LAN 100, the I/G bit of the destination address of the message packet would be set at one. If the I/G bit of the destination address, i.e., the multicast address, is at one, the bridges 5 and 15 read this as a multicast address which is directed to all LAN's within the bridged LAN 100. It will be recognized that multicast communications are not routed by routers such as router 300 of FIG. 1. Accordingly, in a standard LAN system, multicast communications cannot be distributed between bridged LAN's. Further, because multicast communications within a bridged LAN are distributed to all individual LAN's, e.g., 10-30 in FIG. 1, whether or not the sender desires the message to reach any member of a particular LAN within the bridged LAN, network bandwidth may be unnecessarily utilized.
In a VLAN network, the aforementioned problems are avoided. First, because all switching is done at level 2, i.e., no level 3 routers exist in the system, multicast communications may be transmitted to network members on any LAN within the VLAN. Further, using the NMS 290, a VLAN can be configured to include only those individual LAN's which include members to whom it is desired to transmit the multicast. Accordingly, network bandwidth is not unnecessarily used to transmit multicast messages to individual LAN's which lack members to whom the multicast communication is addressed. As will be recognized by those skilled in the art, as multicasting continues to grow in popularity, the amount of wasted bandwidth utilization in standard LAN networks has increased. Hence, the reduction in this unnecessary bandwidth utilization and the ability to multicast to any user within a VLAN provides significant advantages over standard LAN architectures.
Further still, because VLANs can be rearranged or reconfigured dynamically, the members within a multicast group can be increased or decreased simply by modifying the multicast VLAN using the NMS 290 of FIG. 2. For example, if multicasting becomes excessive over VLAN 100', the NMS 290 can easily reconfigure the VLAN to exclude one or more LAN's to reduce the multicasting overhead on the VLAN. That is, VLAN 100' could be reconfigured to, for example, exclude LAN 60, thereby reducing the communications overhead of the VLAN.
Prior art FIG. 4 is a schematic of an exemplary VLAN system. The VLAN system includes LANs 205-260 which are connected by switches 270-280 to a high-speed LAN backbone 265. An NMS 290 is interconnected to the switches 270-280 via LAN 260. A trunk station 285 is connected to the high-speed LAN backbone 265. The LAN's 205-215, and 230-235 have designated members F-J. Each of the switches 270-280 is capable of directly interconnecting the respective LAN's connected by access port 305 or 310 thereto, and also interconnecting each of these LAN's to other LAN's directly connected by an access port to another of the switches via the high-speed LAN backbone 265. For example, switch 270 can be instructed by the NMS 290 to interconnect LAN 205 to LAN 215 by configuring a VLAN including LAN's 205 and 215, thereby facilitating communications between F and H. Switches 270 and 275 can also be instructed by the NMS 290 such that member F of LAN 205 can be interconnected by a virtual network to user I of LAN 230.
Prior art FIG. 5 depicts a VLAN communications packet 400' which is identical to the LAN communications packet 400 depicted in FIG. 3, except that a VLAN header 116 has been added to the packet. The header is appended by the initial switch to which the message packet is directed. The VLAN header identifies the resulting packet as a "VLAN" or "tagged" packet, and represents the particular VLAN from which the packet originated.
For example, if in FIG. 4 LAN's 205, 220 and 230 are within a single VLAN and member F of LAN 205 desires to communicate with member I of LAN 230, the message 114 of FIG. 5 with the destination address 110 attached is directed to access port 305 of the switch 270. The switch determines, based upon instructions previously received from the NMS, that the member I address falls within the applicable VLAN and, accordingly, adds the appropriate VLAN header to the packet to form packet 400', as shown in FIG. 5. The packet 400' is then directed via trunk port 315 to the high-speed backbone LAN 265 and read by switches 275 and 280.
Since switch 280 lacks any access ports connected to LAN's within the applicable VLAN, switch 280 discards the communication. Switch 275, however, identifies the VLAN header 116 of packet 400' as associated with a VLAN which includes LAN 230. The switch 275 accordingly removes the header and directs the communication, which now appears as message 400 in FIG. 3, to LAN 230 over which the member I receives the message.
Accordingly, VLANs have numerous advantages over conventional interconnected bridged LAN configurations. However, to obtain these advantages the system must remain under control of the NMS. Thus, in conventional VLAN systems the NMS must be configured within each VLAN. A significant problem can arise in the control of VLAN switches if an operator of the NMS inadvertently excludes itself from a configured VLAN or places itself in a VLAN in which no other LANs are included. In such situations, NMS control over the system configuration could be lost in whole or part.


A transistor includes: a source region; at least two drain regions; channels respectively disposed between the source region and each of the at least two drain regions; and a gate electrode provided on each of the channels. The at least two drain regions are electrically isolated from one another; and a drain electrode is provided on each of the drain regions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transistor such as a field effect transistor (hereinafter, referred to as a "FET") and a bipolar transistor, and a power amplifier.
2. Description of the Related Art
One conventionally well-known power amplifier, especially a power amplifier for amplifying high-frequency signals, is the one which employs a dual-gate FET as an active element in order to reduce current consumption at the time of low-output operation.
FIG. 15 shows the structure of a conventional high frequency power amplifier. In FIG. 15, the reference numerals 1 and 2 denote an AC power input terminal and an AC power output terminal, respectively. The reference numerals 3 and 4 represent an input impedance-matching circuit and an output impedance-matching circuit, respectively. The reference numerals 5, 6 and 7 denote a first gate voltage supply circuit, a second gate voltage supply circuit, and a drain voltage supply circuit, respectively. The reference numeral 8 represents a dual-gate FET. The reference numerals 9 and 10 represent variable negative power supplies. The reference numeral 11 denotes a positive power supply. The variable negative power supply 9 supplies a bias voltage to a first gate of the dual-gate FET 8 via the first gate voltage supply circuit 5. The positive power supply 11 supplies a power supply voltage for output to a drain of the dual-gate FET 8 via the drain voltage supply circuit 7.
An input signal is input from the AC power input terminal 1 and supplied to the first gate of the dual-gate FET 8 via the input impedance-matching circuit 3 so as to be amplified by the FET 8. The amplified signal is output from the AC power output terminal 2 via the output impedance-matching circuit 4.
Currant consumption at the time of low-output operation of the high frequency power amplifier can be reduced by regulating an output voltage of the variable negative power supply 10 and controlling a voltage supplied to a second gate of the dual-gate FET 8 from the variable negative power supply 10 via the second gate voltage supply circuit 6.
In the above-described conventional high frequency power amplifier, however, although the current consumption at the time of low-output operation can be reduced by controlling the voltage of the second gate of the dual-gate FET 8, since input/output impedance of the dual-gate FET 8 significantly varies along with changes in the voltage of the second gate, electrical mismatch occurs between the input impedance-matching circuit 3 and the output impedance-matching circuit 4.


A rotary connector including a fixed housing 1 equipped with an outer cylindrical wall 6, a movable housing 2 provided with an inner cylindrical wall 7, and two flat cables 3, 4 housed in a storage section 8 defined between the fixed housing 1 and the movable housing 2 and wound in a manner of inverting their winding direction halfway. Both end portions of each of the flat cables 3, 4 are fixed to the circumferential surfaces of the outer cylindrical wall 6 and the inner cylindrical wall 7. Cable fetching sections 7a, 7b for taking out the flat cables 3, 4 from the inner cylindrical wall 7 are disposed in substantially 180-degree opposed relation to each other, and a movable side joint section 12 is provided in the movable housing 2 to gather up the separated flat cables 3, 4 in one place. One end portions of the flat cables 3, 4 are led out through the movable side joint section 12 to the exterior of the movable housing 2.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a rotary connector built in a steering system of a motor vehicle to be used as an electrical connection means for an air bag system or the like, and more particularly to a rotary connector which is of the type that a flexible cable is wound in reverse through an inverting section within a storage or containing section defined between a fixed housing and a movable housing.
2. Description of the Related Art
A rotary connector is made in such a manner that a flexible cable is wound and accommodated in between a fixed housing (a first housing) and a movable housing (a second housing) mounted rotatably with respect to this fixed housing, and is incorporated into a steering system of a motor vehicle to be used as an electrical connection means for an air bag inflater or the like fitted in a steering wheel placed under restrictions on number of revolutions. The aforesaid flexible cable has a belt-like configuration, so-called flat cable, which is constructed such that a base film carries conductors. For the use, the flat cable is wound to make a spiral configuration or wound and subsequently inverted halfway in the direction opposite to the previous winding direction. Of these winding methods, the inversion type can considerably shorten the necessary length of the flat cable. While this inversion type rotary connector commonly uses one flat cable, the increase in the number of conductors accompanying the increase in the number of circuits enlarges the width dimension of the flat cable, with the result that difficulty is experienced to thin the whole rotary connector. For coping with this multi-circuit problem, U.S. Pat. No. 3,763,455 discloses a rotary connector in which conductors are distributed to two flat cables.
FIG. 11 is a plan view schematically showing a structure of a cable reel in the same U.S. Patent. In the illustration, a movable housing 101 with an inner cylindrical wall is mounted rotatably relative to a fixed housing 100 with an outer cylindrical wall, and a first flat cable 103 and a second flat cable 104 are put in a ring-like storage section 102 defined between the fixed housing 100 and the movable housing 101. These flat cables 103, 104 are wound along the outer cylindrical wall of the fixed housing 100 and the inner cylindrical wall of the movable housing 101 in opposite directions within the storage section 102, respectively. In this instance, U-shaped inverting sections 103a, 104a are made at the turning points of the winding direction. In addition, The inner end portions of both the flat cables 103, 104 are respectively connected to cable fetching sections 107, 108 disposed in the vicinity of the inner cylindrical wall of the movable housing 101 to be led through these cable fetching sections 107, 108 to the outside of the movable housing 101. On the other hand, the outer end portions of both the flat cables 103, 104 are respectively connected to cable fetching sections 109, 110 located in the vicinity of the outer cylindrical wall of the fixed housing 100 to be led through these cable fetching sections 109, 110 to the outside of the fixed housing 100. Moreover, in the storage section 102, groups of pluralities of rollers 105, 106 are disposed along its circumferential directions, and the inverting section 103a of the first flat cable 103 is looped around one of one group of rollers 105, while the inverting section 104a of the second flat cable 104 is looped around one of the other group of rollers 106.
In the rotary connector thus constructed, when for example the movable housing 101 is rotated clockwise in FIG. 4 the inverting sections 103a, 104a of the flat cables 103, 104 are shifted clockwise within the storage section 102 by a quantity of rotation smaller than that of movable housing 101, so that the flat cables 103, 104 get into winding and tightening conditions in which the inner cylindrical wall side of the movable housing 101 increases in winding amount. Contrary to this, when the movable housing is rotated counterclockwise, the inverting sections 103a, 104a of the flat cables 103, 104 are shifted in the same directions by a rotation quantity smaller than that of the movable housing 101, so that the flat cables 103, 104 get into rewinding conditions in which the outer cylindrical wall side of the fixed housing 100 increases in winding amount. In these winding and rewinding conditions, the rollers 105, 106 are shifted in the same directions due to the forces from the inverting sections 103a, 104a of the flat cables 103, 104.
In the case of the above-mentioned prior rotary connector, since the cable fetching sections 107, 108 for fetching the first and second flat cables 103, 104 from the movable housing 101 are disposed to be close to each other, the inner end portion of the first flat cable 103 is wound by approximately one turn around the inner cylindrical wall of the movable housing 101 and then connected to one cable fetching section 107, whereas the inner end portion of the second flat cable 104 is not directly wound around the inner cylindrical wall but is wound outside the approximately one turn of the first flat cable 103 wound around the inner cylindrical wall and then connected to the other cable fetching section 108. For this reason, both the flat cables 103, 104 differ in winding condition relative to the inner cylindrical wall of the movable housing 101 from each other, and hence the winding diameter of the first flat cable 103 with respect to the inner cylindrical wall assumes the diameter D of the inner cylindrical wall while the winding diameter of the second flat cable 104 with respect to the inner cylindrical wall comes to a value (D+2t) obtained by adding twice the thickness t of the first flat cable 103 to the diameter D of the inner cylindrical wall, with the result that the winding diameters of both the flat cables 103, 104 differ from each other. Accordingly, the winding quantities or the rewinding quantities of both the flat cables 103, 104 to or from the inner cylindrical wall are different from each other, and hence, when the movable housing 101 moves, the inverting sections 103a, 104a of both the flat cables 103, 104 shift at different speeds within the storage section 102. Thus, for example, when the movable housing 101 is rotated in the winding and tightening direction, there is a possibility that the inverting section 103a of the first flat cable 103 collides against the rear end portion of the roller 106 group to be stopped from movement.


An apparatus for brewing coffee, in particular for a coffee machine (1), comprises a brewing chamber (19) which is enclosed by a housing (10) and has a base (12) with an outflow (40) provided on one side and a nozzle assembly (8, 9, 11) provided on the opposite side, the nozzle assembly (8, 9, 11) comprising a nozzle (11) for supplying a fluid. The base (12) can be moved within the housing (10) and, depending on the degree to which the brewing chamber (19) is filled, the base (12) can be fixed in different positions for the brewing operation. It is thus possible for the apparatus for brewing coffee, while being of straightforward construction, to be adapted in a flexible manner to the desired quantity of coffee.

There are coffee machines in which portion packs can be introduced into a holder, which can then be inserted into a closeable housing for a brewing operation. If a relatively large quantity of coffee is to be brewed, it is possible to insert another holder in order for two portion packs to be introduced. The disadvantage with this brewing apparatus is that different holders have to be used for different quantities of coffee or portion packs. This, on the one hand, involves laborious handling and, on the other hand, is inflexible since, depending on taste, finer apportioning of the quantity of coffee is desirable.


A method for estimating fracture aperture from multi-axial electromagnetic induction measurements made in a wellbore includes determining a fracture indicator and a fracture orientation indicator. The value of the fracture indicator is determined from components of the measurements made transverse to the tool axis. A relationship between the value of the fracture indicator and the fracture aperture for the subsurface formation is determined by estimating the fracture indicator using a plurality of values of fracture aperture and a resistivity of drilling fluid in the wellbore over a background formation with estimated horizontal resistivity and vertical resistivity. The fracture aperture is determined using the determined fracture indicator and the determined relationship.

This disclosure relates generally to the field of subsurface formation fracture evaluation. More specifically, the disclosure relates to techniques for evaluating fracture aperture using measurements from multi-axial electromagnetic induction well logging instruments.
A tri-axial electromagnetic induction well logging tool such as one sold under the trademark RT SCANNER, which is a trademark of Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Sugar Land, Tex., measures 9-component apparent conductivity tensors (σm(i, j, k), i, j=x, y, z) at a plurality of receiver spacings from a transmitter, wherein each spacing is represented by the index k. FIG. 2 schematically illustrates such a tri-axial tool 10 and the component tensor measurement C. The instrument 10 may include one or more multi-axial electromagnetic transmitters T disposed on the instrument 10, and have one or more multi-axial electromagnetic receivers (usually consisting of a main receiver RM and a balancing or "bucking" receiver RB to attenuate direct induction effects) at one or more axially spaced apart positions along the longitudinal axis z of the tool 10. The RT SCANNER instrument uses triaxial transmitters and receivers, wherein the transmitters and receivers have three, mutually orthogonal coils having magnetic dipole axes oriented along the tool axis z and along two other mutually orthogonal directions shown at x and y. The tool's measurements in the present example may be obtained in the frequency domain by energizing the transmitter T with a continuous wave (CW) having one or more discrete frequencies to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio. However, measurements of the same information content could also be obtained and used from time domain signals through a Fourier decomposition process by energizing the transmitter T with one or more types of transient currents. This is a well-known physics principle of frequency-time duality. Voltages induced in each coil of one of the receivers RM/RB is shown in the tensor C represented by the voltage V with a two letter subscript as explained above representing the axis (x, y or z) of the transmitter coil used and the axis of the receiver coil (x, y or z) used to make the particular voltage measurements. The voltage measurements in tensor C may be processed to obtain the described apparent conductivity tensors. Subsurface formation properties, such as horizontal and vertical conductivities (σh, σv), relative dip angle (θ) and the dip azimuthal direction (Φ), as well as borehole/tool properties, such as mud conductivity (σmud), wellbore diameter (hd), tool eccentering distance (decc), tool eccentering azimuthal angle (ψ), all affect the measurements of voltages used to determine the conductivity tensors.
FIG. 3A illustrates a top view, and FIG. 3B shows an oblique view of an eccentered tool 10 in a wellbore 12 through an anisotropic formation F with a non-zero dip angle (θ). Eccentering of the tool 10 is shown by decc and the azimuthal angle of the dip azimuth is represented by φ. The tool 10 eccentering azimuthal angle is shown by ψ. The above description is to provide a frame of reference to understand an example method according to the present disclosure.
Using a simplified model of layered anisotropic formation traversed obliquely by the wellbore 12, the response of the conductivity tensors depends on the above eight parameters in a very complicated manner. The effects of the wellbore and instrument orientation and position to the measured conductivity tensors may be very large even in oil base mud (OBM) environment. Through an inversion technique the above wellbore and formation parameters can be calculated and the borehole effects can be removed from the measured conductivity tensors.
The formation parameters (vertical and horizontal conductivities, dip and dip azimuth) may be displayed substantially in real-time (as computer by a processor near the wellbore, see FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B) to help make various decisions related to the drilling and completion of the well in a given field. The resistivites (the inverse of conductivities) of the subsurface formations determinable by a tool such as illustrated in FIG. 2 are known in the art to be used, for example, to delineate low resistivity laminated hydrocarbon bearing formations. The dip and dip azimuth are known to be used to map the structure of the formations in a scale much finer than that provided by, e.g., surface reflection seismic. One of the important items of information that may affect the drilling and completion decisions of any particular wellbore is whether the wellbore has traversed significant fracture zones. Fractures occur in the formation due to the tectonic force over the past geological time. Fractures could also be induced by the drilling operation. Large deep fracture systems can sometime be the key factor that allows the production of oil and gas from the pay zone. Large deep fracture system traversed by the borehole could also cause loss of drilling mud. Accordingly, knowing the location of the fracture zone and the fracture plane orientation can significantly improve the drilling and completion decision.
Very thin fractures with large planar extent filled with OBM may block the induced current in the formation resulting from electromagnetic induction effects of energizing the transmitter T on the tool and could produce significant anomalies in the inverted formation parameters compared with those from the same formation without the fractures. The size of such anomalies may depend on the formation resistivity (Rh, Rv), the size of the fracture plane, and the relative dip and azimuth between the fracture plane and the layering structure of the formation, among other things. If the fracture plane is nearly parallel to the layering structure of the formation, the effects of the fracture on measurements made by an instrument such as shown in FIG. 2 may be relatively small. On the other hand, if the fracture plane is perpendicular to the layering structure of the formation, the effect of the fracture may dominate the response of the tool. A fracture system often encountered by wellbores is that of substantially horizontal layered formations with vertical fractures. Accordingly, techniques for characterizing such fractures using multi-axial (e.g., tri-axial) electromagnetic induction measurements may be useful in this regard.

Fracture aperture estimation using multi-axial induction tool


An interior illumination lamp 10 including a design portion 20 in which a lens 54 is fixed to a bezel 22 of a housing 21 capable of being attached to an opening 13a provided at an interior member 13 of a vehicle 11, a functional portion 30 arranged to a rear side of the interior member 13 by being supported by the design portion 20 and having a light source 37, and a guide portion 26 in a groove-like shape provided for guiding an electric wire W/H connected to the functional portion 30, in which a clip 25 is arranged to a notched portion 26b provided at a wall portion 26a of the guide portion 26 and front ends of the wall portion 26a interposing the notched portions 26b are connected to ride over the notched portions 26b. That is, upper portions of the notched portions 26b of the clips 25 provided at the guide portion 26 are connected and therefore, the electric wire W/H wired along the guide portion 26 can be prevented from extruding from the notched portion 26b to be bit thereby. Further, erroneous wiring can be prevented by wiring an electric wire along the guide portion 26.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interior illumination lamp, for example, relates to an interior illumination lamp attached to a door, a ceiling or the like of an automobile.
2. Related Art
There is disclosed an interior illumination lamp of a background art shown in, for example, FIG. 5 in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2000-1141.
The interior illumination lamp 100 is used by being attached to, for example, a back door of a station wagon, and by changing an irradiating direction, a luggage room provided at a rear portion of the station wagon or a lower side of the opened back door can be irradiated.
As shown by FIG. 5, according to the interior illumination lamp 100, a lamp housing 102 is attached to a trim 101 forming a wall face of the back door and an opening 103 in a circular shape is provided on a front side of the lamp housing 102. A lamp support portion 104 having an inner face in a spherical shape is provided rearward from the opening 103 (right side of FIG. 5), and the inner side of the lamp support portion 104 is provided with a lamp main body 105 rotatably by 360 degrees in a predetermined range. Inside of the lamp main body 105 is mounted with a bulb 106 and a front face (left face of FIG. 5) is provided with a lens portion 107 projected from the opening 103 of the lamp housing 102. A space S is provided between the lens portion 107 and the opening 103 to restrict an amount of rotating the lamp main body 105.
Meanwhile, as shown by FIG. 6, there is also an interior illumination lamp 110A provided with the above-described interior illumination lamp 100 at inside of a vehicle compartment for irradiating light respectively to left and right seats. According to the interior illumination lamp 110A, inside of a functional portion main body 111 is provided with bulbs 112L, 112R constituting 2 pieces of light sources for the left and right seats. The respective bulbs 112L, 112R are attached respectively to bezels 113L, 113R, and by adjusting directions of the bezels 113L, 113R, light lay is irradiated to desired portions of the left and right seats. Further, electric parts of left and right switches 114L, 114R or the like are attached to between the left and right bulbs 112L, 112R, and the switch 114L is connected to a power source by a wire harness W/H.
According to such an interior illumination lamp 110A, there is a concern of misleading a path of wiring the wire harness W/H (wiring path shown in FIG. 6) and even when a problem is not particularly posed electrically, there is a case of biting the wire harness W/H by, for-example, a clip 115 for being attached to a roof or the like, and there is a case of bringing about a drawback in view of settlement of the wire harness W/H.


An information display system includes a frame, a pair of cameras arranged at both side ends of the frame, a transparent display fitted into the frame, a display position setting device that detects a target based on a feature extracted from image data captured by the pair of cameras, and sets, as a display position, a position at which a straight line connecting an eye of a user wearing the frame and the target passes through the transparent display, and a controller that controls the transparent display in such a way as to display a point light at the display position set by the display position setting device.

Augmented reality (AR) glasses are a wearable device that displays an image conforming to the real world on a lens. A user wearing the AR glasses can recognize additional information regarding an outside view seen through the lens by referring to the image displayed on the lens.
PTL 1 discloses a display device including a head mounted type first display unit that displays an image so that an outside view can be visually recognized, and a first control unit that causes the first display unit to display an image of an indicator based on image data included in guidance information received from an external second display device. The device of PTL 1 is characterized in that the image of the indicator is displayed at a position specified by data indicating a position of the indicator detected by the second display device among data included in the guidance information received by the first display unit.
PTL 2 discloses an information processing device including a recognition unit that recognizes a position of a gaze target associated with a user operation, and a line-of-sight detection unit that detects a line-of-sight position of a user at the time of the user operation. Further, the device of PTL 2 includes a line-of-sight detection adjustment unit that adjusts line-of-sight detection by the line-of-sight detection unit based on the recognized position of the gaze target and the line-of-sight position, and an application processing unit that executes predetermined application processing in accordance with a user operation on the gaze target. The device of PTL 2 is characterized in that the line-of-sight detection is adjusted based on the relationship between the line-of-sight position at the time of user operation for executing application processing and a display position of the gaze target.
PTL 3 discloses a glasses-type wearable terminal that can be worn by a worker who picks an article in a warehouse. The terminal of PTL 3 includes a display unit arranged in an eye frame portion, a camera unit that captures an image of a unique pattern attached to an article, and a sensor unit that detects a position of the terminal in the warehouse and a direction in which the eye frame portion faces. The terminal of PTL 3 displays, on a display unit, information regarding an article that can be present ahead of the line of sight of the worker, and performs image recognition of a unique pattern captured by the camera unit. Then, the terminal of PTL 3 compares the unique pattern subjected to the image recognition with the information regarding the article displayed on the display unit, thereby performing actual confirmation of the article to be picked.

Information display system and wearable device


A process for producing desulphurised iron in a solid form. The process includes (a) direct smelting an iron-containing metalliferous feed material and producing molten iron; (b) desulphurising molten iron produced in the direct smelting (a); and (c) casting desulphurised molten iron from the desulphurisation (b) into a solid form, such as pigs.

The term "iron-containing metalliferous feed material" is understood herein to include as iron ores, partly reduced iron ores, and iron-containing waste streams (for example, from steelmaking plants).
A known molten bath-based direct smelting process is generally referred to as the HIsmelt process. In the context of producing molten iron, the HIsmelt process includes the steps of:
(a) forming a bath of molten iron and slag in a direct smelting vessel;
(b) injecting into the bath: (i) a metalliferous feed material, typically iron ore in the form of fines; and (ii) a solid carbonaceous material, typically coal, which acts as a reductant of the iron ores and a source of energy; and
(c) smelting metalliferous feed material to iron in the bath.
The term "smelting" is herein understood to mean thermal processing wherein chemical reactions that reduce metal oxides take place to produce molten metal.
In the HIsmelt process metalliferous feed material and solid carbonaceous material are injected into the molten bath through a number of lances/tuyeres which are inclined to the vertical so as to extend downwardly and inwardly through the side wall of the smelting vessel and into a lower region of the vessel so as to deliver at least part of the solids material into the metal layer in the bottom of the vessel. To promote the post-combustion of reaction gases in an upper part of the vessel, a blast of hot oxygen-containing gas, typically air or oxygen-enriched air, which may be oxygen-enriched, is injected into an upper region of the vessel through a downwardly extending lance. Off-gases resulting from the post-combustion of reaction gases in the vessel are taken away from the upper part of the vessel through an off-gas duct. The vessel includes refractory-lined water cooled panels in the side wall and the roof of the vessel, and water is circulated continuously through the panels in a continuous circuit.
Typically, molten iron produced in direct smelting processes such as the HIsmelt process contains concentrations of sulphur that are considerably higher than sulphur concentrations specified for steel. Therefore, desulphurisation of iron produced in direct smelting processes is necessary in order for the iron to be used in the production of steel.


A lens driving mechanism for moving a lens in its optical axis direction has a lens frame for holding the lens, guide means for guiding the lens frame to be movable in the optical axis direction of the lens, and an actuator having an actuation portion that moves in a direction nearly parallel to the optical axis of the lens. In the lens driving mechanism, the lens frame and the actuation portion are directly or indirectly connected so that the lens frame does not move in the optical axis direction relative to the actuation portion of the actuator.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens driving mechanism for moving a lens in its optical axis direction.
2. Related Background Art
As a conventional lens driving mechanism, a mechanism shown in, e.g., FIG. 28 is known.
The lens driving mechanism comprises a lens frame 53 for holding a lens 54, a guide shaft 52 for guiding the lens frame 53 to be movable in the optical axis direction of the lens 54, a motor 55 having a rotating output shaft, a feed screw 59 which extends in a direction parallel to an optical axis C and is formed with a male screw on its outer circumferential surface, a nut member 58 formed with a female screw which meshes with the feed screw 59, and a stationary cylinder 51 which covers these members. The nut member 58 is buried in the lens frame 53, and moves integrally with the lens 54 and the lens frame 53. When the feed screw 59 rotates upon driving the motor 55, the nut member 58 moves in the direction parallel to the optical axis C, and the lens frame 53 and the lens 54 move in the optical axis direction upon movement of the nut member 58.
However, in the prior art, the nut member 58, the feed screw 59, and the like are required for moving the lens 54 in the optical axis direction, and the number of parts increases unwontedly. Furthermore, since the lens frame 53 is securely guided by the guide shaft 52 to accurately move in the optical axis direction alone, smooth rotation of the feed screw 59 is disturbed in association with the nut member 58 unless the feed screw 59 is accurately set to be parallel to the optical axis C, resulting in a heavy load on the motor 55. That is, unless the relative positional relationship among the nut member 58, the feed screw 59, and the motor 55 is determined with very high precision, an unwanted constraint force is produced, and a heavy load acts on the motor 55. As described above, since the prior art requires a large number of parts and high assembly precision, a large number of assembly steps is required.

Lens driving mechanism having an actuator


A thin imaging apparatus with an extremely low profile captures high quality images with outstanding resolution. The imaging apparatus has a light guide, incidence mirror, imaging device, and aperture unit. The incidence mirror reflects and guides light from a subject into the light guide, and the imaging device receives the light from the subject reflected by the incidence mirror and passing through the light guide.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an imaging apparatus such as a digital camera module, and relates more particularly to a thin imaging apparatus with an improved structure suitable for applications requiring an extremely thin profile such as in a portable information terminal.
2. Description of Related Art
Reductions in the size and improvement in the performance of CCD, CMOS sensor, and other types of imaging devices combined with advanced optical technologies such as aspheric lenses have enabled downsizing the imaging apparatus in which these imaging devices are used. As a result, imaging apparatus are increasingly being used in highly portable devices that can be taken anywhere, including compact digital cameras and cell phones with a built-in camera. Anticipating a variety of situations, even greater compactness and thinness are desired in the camera modules used in such portable devices.
The imaging apparatus used in a conventional camera module typically has a circular condenser lens with a CCD or CMOS sensor disposed at the focal plane of the lens for imaging. See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. 2003-255225, particularly pages 2 to 4, FIG. 1, and Table 1. FIG. 14 shows a conventional imaging apparatus as taught in Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. 2003-255225.
Referring to FIG. 14, the condenser lens system 101 is composed of two lens groups 101a, 101b. Incident light collected by the condenser lens system 101 passes a glass filter 102 and forms an image on the imaging device 103. Note that FIG. 14 is a section view, and the condenser lens system 101 has a circular shape concentric to the optical axis denoted by the dot-dash line in FIG. 14. Zoom and focus functions are achieved by adjusting the positions of the two collector lens groups 101a, 101b. The aperture diaphragm 104 controls the effective aperture ratio of the lens system.
In a conventional imaging apparatus the imaging device 103 must be positioned at the focal plane on which the subject image is formed by the condenser lens system 101 in order to achieve a clearly focused image, and the focal length of the condenser lens system 101 determines the distance between the condenser lens system 101 and the imaging surface of the imaging device 103. Reducing the size and thickness of conventional imaging apparatuses is thus focused almost solely on shortening the focal length of the condenser lens system 101, shortening the distance to the imaging device 103, and thus shortening the total length of the optical system.
Using the examples shown in Table 1 in Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. 2003-255225, the focal length can be varied in the range 2.46 to 4.74 mm and a zoom function thus achieved, but the total length of the lens system ranges from 10.79 to 12.91 mm, and an optical system significantly longer than the effective focal length is thus required. That the focal length must be shortened more than expected in order to shorten the total length of the optical system and achieve a lower profile will thus be obvious.
As taught in Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. 2002-196243, another means of achieving a lower profile is to fold the optical path using a combination of multiple prisms.
As noted above, the arrangement taught in Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. 2003-255225 reduces the size and thickness by shortening the focal length of the lens. The size of the images formed by this lens thus becomes smaller in proportion to the focal length, resulting in a drop in resolution relative to the size of the formed image if the pixel pitch of the imaging device remains the same. The pixel pitch of the imaging device must therefore be increased proportionally to the decrease in the focal length of the lens if image information of the same resolution is to be achieved.
The CCD and CMOS sensors that are currently used for the imaging device are already manufactured using the state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing processes, and increasing the pixel pitch requires an even higher resolution manufacturing process. Increasing the resolution of the manufacturing process increases the process cost while also significantly reducing yield. Increased device cost is thus unavoidable.
Furthermore, reducing the pixel pitch of the imaging device results in a drop in the light-receiving area of each pixel proportional to the square of the reduction rate of the pitch. Additional space is also needed outside the light-receiving area of each pixel to provide a matrix of lines for driving each pixel of the imaging device and charge transfer lines in a CCD, for example, and reducing the pixel pitch thus also reduces the effective aperture ratio enabling light detection. Light reception thus drops significantly, sufficient photoelectric conversion power is difficult to achieve, and image quality thus drops significantly.
Furthermore, the wavelength of visible light ranges from 200 nm to 800 nm, and the optical lens system becomes unable to resolve images at the wavelength level due to the diffraction limit. Even if an imaging device with a higher pixel pitch is achieved at the expense of yield, cost, and photoelectric conversion power, there is a limit to how much the size and thickness of the imaging apparatus can be reduced by reducing the focal length of the lens while maintaining high resolution due to the diffraction limit of light.
An optical system having a total length greater than the required focal length is therefore needed in a conventional imaging apparatus, and reducing the size and thickness of the imaging apparatus is thus even more difficult.
More succinctly, there is a limit to the reduction in size and thickness that can be achieved by shortening the focal length of the lens system in a conventional arrangement, and reducing the thickness (profile) is exceedingly difficult because of the difficulty in shortening the distance between the imaging device and lens, which is dependent upon the focal length of the lens.

Thin imaging apparatus, a thin camera, and an imaging method

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


The invention relates to an electric machine (6) comprising a rotor and a stator, the rotor having a shaft (7) and the longitudinal extension of the electric machine (6) being defined by the shaft axis. The electric machine (6) can be cooled by means of a cooling circuit, the latter comprising at least one cooling pipe (3), which extends essentially in the longitudinal direction of the electric machine (6). The cooling circuit comprises a first circular distribution pipe (1) that forms almost a complete circle, which stretches over one plane, the axis of the longitudinal extension of the electric machine (6) being essentially perpendicular to said plane. According to the invention: at least one cooling pipe (3) can be connected in a water-tight manner to the first distribution pipe (1); the cooling circuit can be traversed by a coolant and has a first connection (10), which allows coolant to be supplied to the cooling circuit; and the cooling circuit has a second connection (9), which allows coolant to be evacuated from the cooling circuit. The first distribution pipe (1) is cast in one piece (2) from metal and said piece (2) has openings (4) for the cooling pipes (3) at the connection points of the first distribution pipe (1) to the cooling pipes (3). Once installed, the piece (2) is connected to the housing of the electric machine (6) so that it can conduct heat and/or forms an integral part of the housing.

The invention relates to an electric machine with a rotor and a stator, the rotor having a shaft, and the longitudinal extent of the electric machine being defined by the shaft axis, and the electric machine being capable of being cooled by means of a cooling circuit,                the cooling circuit having at least one cooling pipe, which extends substantially in the longitudinal extent of the electric machine,        the cooling circuit having a first circular, not quite circumferential distribution pipe, which spans a plane, and the axis of the longitudinal extent of the electric machine being substantially at right angles with respect to this plane,        at least one cooling pipe being capable of being tightly connected to the first distribution pipe,        it being possible for a coolant to flow through the cooling circuit,        the cooling circuit having a first connection, by means of which coolant can be supplied into the cooling circuit,        the cooling circuit having a second connection, by means of which coolant can be discharged from the cooling circuit.
Furthermore, the invention relates to a method for producing a cooling circuit of an electric machine.
Electric machines are used in a very large number of technical fields. In the case of electric machines it is necessary to draw a distinction between DC machines, AC machines and three-phase machines. Three-phase machines can be split into three-phase synchronous machines and three-phase asynchronous machines. All of these electric machines contain, inter alia, a stator at rest and a rotatably mounted rotor. All of these electric machines produce waste heat during operation, which waste heat under certain circumstances can destroy the electric machine or reduce its life.
DE 100 05 128 B4 has therefore proposed a stator which can be cooled and which has cooling channels.
One disadvantage, however, is the fact that the distribution channels are formed by large workpieces of the housing, which have corresponding depressions, needing to be mechanically processed and tightly connected to one another, which is comparatively time-consuming and cost-intensive and under certain circumstances has a limited durability.


An interactive dashboard providing scorecard presentation with subordinate reports is automatically generated and configured based on centrally managed metadata definitions. The dashboard may be customized based on subscriber credentials, past preferences, and the like. The dashboard may be deployed to one or more locations to be consumed and further customized by end users.

Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. Once an organization has analyzed its mission, identified all its stakeholders, and defined its goals, it needs a way to measure progress toward those goals. Key Performance Indicators are used to provide those measurements.
Scorecards are used to provide detailed and summary analysis of KPI's and aggregated KPI's such as KPI groups, objectives, and the like. Scorecard calculations are typically specific to a defined hierarchy of the above mentioned elements, selected targets, and status indicator schemes. Business logic applications that generate, author, and analyze scorecards are typically enterprise applications with multiple users (subscribers), designers, and administrators. It is not uncommon, for organizations to provide their raw performance data to a third party and receive scorecard representations, analysis results, and similar reports.
Scorecards and dashboards provide "at-a-glance" information about business performance across the enterprise. While scorecards provide a visual representation of standard KPIs, dashboards provide an illustrative representation of business performance across an entire organization. Dashboards highlight critical areas of interest against which further detailed information may be requested.
Some business applications are limited in coordinating scorecard services. Typically, manual configuration is required to create an interactive dashboard where a user can drill down across metrics in a scorecard. Other applications create a dashboard by first creating a website, then creating a storage container (also referred to as "list"), creating a special form of the web page for that list, and adding the appropriate web parts to configure them in the desired format with the desired associations.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.

Automated generation of dashboards for scorecard metrics and subordinate reporting


An apparatus, method, and system for providing dc offset reduction in a communications channel include two or more feedback loops to generate dc offset correction signals, which in turn are combined with an input analog signal and a processed digital signal thereby reducing dc offset. Each feedback loop may include an adaptive filter. At least one feedback loop may be responsive to an error signal that represents the difference between the delayed input of a first detector, and its output. Further, the dc offset correction signal, partially delayed, may be added to the error signal, thereby improving the response time of the dc offset correction loop.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of information storage, and more particularly to baseline wander correction and reduction of dc noise components in Hard Disk Drive (HDD) read channels.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hard disk drives (HDD) typically comprise at least one disk having a magnetic medium for storing information, a spindle, a controller for controlling disk rotational speed, a transducing head (for reading and writing data), a servo actuator assembly including a positioning controller for positioning the head over the appropriate disk track, and data channels for transmitting data to and from the disk. The transducing head reads data from and writes data to the disk in data blocks having either fixed or variable length. A data block comprises a preamble (for acquiring timing signals), timing bits, a position error field, address bits, data bits, and error correction bits. Data blocks are recorded in sectors in concentric tracks. A track may comprise several sectors. The number of sectors may depend on the radial location of the track on the disk. FIG. 1 shows a typical HDD as described above.
Data channels on HDD transmit and receive data via a communication medium. HDD and communication systems utilize similar techniques to encode data for storage and retrieval or for transmission and reception wherein data is encoded into a form in which it may be easily manipulated. Most modern applications of such systems encode data as numeric or digital information, wherein discrete numeric values are used to represent user data.
The storage or communication media do not directly manipulate such digital data. Rather, these media store or transmit analog signals representative of the digital data. For example, encoded digital information may be represented as magnetic flux transitions stored on a magnetic disk of an HDD. Two known ways of recording data magnetically on a disk are longitudinal recording and perpendicular recording. In longitudinal recording, as the name implies flux transitions are recorded side by side in a lengthwise fashion. In perpendicular recording the flux transitions are "stood on end," as it were. Details of implementation of longitudinal and perpendicular recording are very well known to ordinarily skilled artisans, and so need not be detailed here.
As disk drive data densities have increased, the need to put more flux transitions has become more acute. Perpendicular recording has been known for some time. However, problems associated with performing perpendicular recording have prevented its adoption.
Data recorded on a disk may be retrieved to decode the signals and reproduce the encoded digital data. A read channel reads or receives the encoded data and reproduces the original digital signal. In general, a read channel includes a transducer component that senses the analog signal and digital processing components that detect sequences of changes in the signal that represent encoded digital data. For example, a read channel used in a magnetic storage device includes a transducer head that senses the magnetic flux transitions and produces a continuous analog signal that must then be detected and decoded. In general, the shape of the continuous waveform represents the encoded digital data.
Analog signal processing circuitry, such as amplifiers, filters, and converters, introduces a dc offset that varies as a function of temperature and signal gain resulting in a signal level shift which, if uncorrected can degrade performance of the data recovery system. The dc offset raises or lowers the normal peaks and valleys of the analog signal and the changing levels of the dc offset cause baseline wander that adversely affects the read channel gain, stability and overall quality.
Varying dc offset causes baseline wander, which is low frequency disturbance of a radio frequency signal causing variations in the peak values of a signal. This dc offset can be a problem for both longitudinal and perpendicular recording. In perpendicular recording, the main cause of baseline wander in perpendicular recording is the pre-amplifier and the read channel are ac coupled. The ac coupling acts as a high pass filter. Since the perpendicular recording read back signal contains significant low frequency components, the high pass filter introduces baseline wander.
One known approach to canceling the dc offset is to block dc. Typically, blocking uses ac coupling, wherein a coupling capacitor is placed at the output of the analog circuit element. Blocking can lower dc offset arising on the analog input line. However, it does not remove any dc offset caused by digital signal processing. Thus, blocking is used on the communication line outside the read channel. One disadvantage of dc blocking is that the capacitors necessary for blocking the dc offset occupy considerable chip space, thereby making blocking unsuited for applications when a read channel is implemented on an integrated circuit. Accordingly, blocking is not a very effective technique for handling dc offset in a read channel.
Another approach, shown in FIG. 2, provides a feedback loop to remove as much of the dc noise as possible. In FIG. 2, an analog input signal passes through a filter, such as continuous time filter (CTF) 202, and is subtracted from a dc correction signal to form a corrected analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 204 samples the corrected analog signal to provide a digital signal. This digital signal passes through a finite impulse response (FIR) filter 205 to remove intersymbol interference, and then to a Viterbi algorithm bit detector 207. The bit detector 207 provides a digital estimate of the analog input signal. A summer subtracts the output of the bit detector from the input of the bit detector to form an error signal e0. This error signal is the difference between estimated data and the sampled data.
The error signal enters a loop filter 211, and is biased with a constant loop gain, μ1, and then is summed with the current value of the dc correction signal. The current value of the dc correction signal results from delaying the biased error signal. The dc correction signal is converted to an analog signal with a digital to analog converter (DAC) 228 and then is summed with the filtered input signal.
Copending, commonly assigned application Ser. No. 09/536,120 filed Mar. 27, 2000, incorporated herein by reference, shows still another approach wherein the dc correction circuitry has a first and a second feedback loop. Referring now to FIG. 3, a summer subtracts the output from the input of the bit detector from the input to form an error signal e0. This error signal is the difference between estimated data and the sampled data. This error signal, e0, provides the input to the first dc feedback loop, including a first loop filter 311. The first loop filter 311 includes a first biasing circuit, which is connected to the input to receive the error signal and to multiply the error signal by a first loop gain constant to produce a first product. The first product is an input to a first summer circuit. The first summer circuit is additionally connected to the output of the first dc feedback loop to receive a current first dc noise cancellation signal. The first summer circuit adds the first product with the current first dc offset cancellation signal to produce a next first dc offset cancellation signal. An accumulator circuit is connected to the first summer circuit to produce the feedback loop output.
A second summer combines the error signal, e0, and the output of the first feedback loop thereby restoring the first error correction signal. The output of that second summer is input to a second dc feedback loop, including a second loop filter 313. In the second loop filter 313, a second biasing circuit combines the restored first error correction signal and a second loop gain constant, μ2, to form a second product that is an input to a third summer circuit. The third summer circuit is additionally connected to the output of the second dc feedback loop to receive a current second dc offset cancellation signal. The third summer circuit adds the second product with the current second dc offset cancellation signal to produce a next second dc offset cancellation signal. A second accumulator is connected to the third summer circuit to produce the second dc offset cancellation signal. The second dc offset cancellation signal then passes to an digital-to-analog (DAC) converter 328 and is then recombined with the input signal.

DC-offset compensation loops for magnetic recording system


A method and apparatus for determining an orientation of a document including Korean text are presented. A binarized pixel image is created from the document image. Contiguous pixels are grouped and labeled using a bounding box. A spanning stroke may be detected from a group of the contiguous pixels. The orientation of the document is determined by comparing counts associated with spanning strokes in the left, right, top, and bottom halves of the bounding boxes.

1. Field of the Invention
The present subject matter relates generally to determining an orientation of a document, and more specifically to determining an orientation of a document based on a specific feature of Korean characters included in an image of the document.
2. Related Art
When large documents must be scanned in for archiving purposes, it is quite important that all pages of the document are scanned faultlessly, since when scan errors are later detected, the original documents may no longer be available. Therefore, it is necessary to check each scan image for quality. However, checking the quality of each scanned image requires much time and effort and poses an undue burden on the personnel performing the scan job. Moreover, checking the large numbers of images is boring and error-prone.
One way of circumventing the human checking process is using an automated system that automatically checks each new scanned image and if possible corrects faulty images by relevant image processing techniques.
Conventionally, the following method has been used in order to detect the orientation (upright or inverted) of a character string. In the traditional method, character recognition is performed on the assumption that the character string is in an upright state; an evaluation value (number of points) in relation to the recognition result of each character is obtained, and an average or a like value of the evaluation values of the respective characters is calculated in order to obtain a first overall evaluation value. Subsequently, character recognition is performed on the assumption the character string is in an inverted state (rotated by 180 degrees); a second evaluation value in relation to the recognition result of each character is obtained, and an average or a like value of the respective characters is calculated in order to obtain an overall evaluation value. After this, on the basis of these two overall evaluation values, character recognition which provides a higher recognition rate is specified in order to detect whether the character string is in an upright state or in an inverted state.
Techniques that classify document script into two broad classes, Han and Latin, are disclosed in A. L. Spitz, "Determination of the Script and Language Content of Document Images," IEEE Trans PAMI, 19(3), pp 235-245, March 1997. These techniques use upward concavity and optical density to determine the script and language. However, it does not determine the orientation of the script.
Recognizing text in an image sequence is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,031,553 issued to Myers et al. In this patent, the text orientation is identified by projecting a set of characters at different orientations and detecting the base and top lines. Projections at a fixed number of angles are used to identify the text orientation.
However, there is no disclosure about using a specific character feature of a language to determine an orientation of a document.

Method and apparatus for determining an orientation of a document including Korean characters


A method of mapping two-dimensional textures onto a three-dimensional object yields the correct result in terms of pattern placement, scale, repeat and flow of various textures. This is accomplished by providing a unique user interface to control the texture mapping process. The user controls how the texture should flow and where the texture should be "cut and seamed" to fit the geometry of the three-dimensional object by clicking and dragging directly on the rendered surface of the object. The user is presented with two simultaneous windows: one providing a view of the three-dimensional object being wrapped with texture and the other providing a view of the two-dimensional texture with object surface polygons projected thereon. The texture mapping process is controlled from both windows. The three-dimensional object window gives the user control of the texture flow on the surface of the object. The two-dimensional texture window gives the user control of the orientation of the texture and permits the introduction of mapping distortion to simulate stretching of the texture, if desired.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of computer-aided design (CAD) systems, and particularly to a system for rendering three dimensional objects with surface textures applied thereto.
2. Prior Art
The runaway increase in computer performance/price ratio in recent years has made sophisticated CAD systems available to nearly anyone. Such systems have evolved beyond those intended for use by professional designers and engineers to include a wide variety of consumer applications. For example, CAD systems have been developed for providing point-of-sale demonstrations of product features and options. One application for such a system allows prospective purchasers of furniture to view an item in any of the available finishes or fabrics prior to making a purchase decision.
Texture mapping is a well-known feature of computer graphics systems. In a typical system, a three-dimensional object to be rendered is modeled with a wire frame defining a large number of polygonal surface areas. A mapping function is then determined between a two-dimensional (u,v) texture space and the three-dimensional (x,y,z) object space. Conventional texture mapping processes utilize various projection methods, such as cubic, cylindrical or spherical. One of the primary objectives of these methods is to cover the object surface or parts thereof with seamless texture. Each of these conventional methods introduces some degree of texture distortion as a necessary cost of seamless texture mapping. This is acceptable in most applications where relatively uniform surface textures are desired.
In many other applications, the distortions inherent in prior art projection methods are not acceptable due to the appearance of elasticity in the surface. If the texture mapping is intended to depict a relatively inelastic surface covering on an object, such as fabric on upholstered furniture, seamless mapping is not required. Indeed, seams are a desirable artifact contributing to a more realistic appearance.

Method and apparatus for mapping a two-dimensional texture onto a three-dimensional surface


The invention provides a rigid endoscope relay optical system that can be fabricated at lower costs while its brightness is kept intact by reducing parts count. The rigid endoscope optical system has an elongate insert and is adapted to implement image transfer using relay lenses Re1 to Re7. The relay lenses Re1 to Re7 each have at least two rod lenses and satisfy nd>2, where nd stands for the refractive index on d-line basis of each rod lens in the relay lens.

The present invention relates to a rigid endoscope and an image transfer optical system for that rigid endoscope.
A viewing optical system for the rigid endoscope generally comprises a relay optical system adapted to transfer images formed through an objective lens to a viewer side wherein an elongate rod lens is used to relay the image odd-numbered times.
A rigid endoscope for the urinary organs of infants and little children has an insert of about φ3 mm. In the industry fields, there is an ultra-fine rigid endoscope having an insert diameter of about φ1 mm to 3 mm that is used for the inside observation or the like of automotive engines.
In order for the fine-diameter rigid endoscope to gain brightness, it is required to implement a lot more relays with an increased NA (numerical aperture).
With a typical prior art endoscope having a lens outer diameter of φ1.1 mm and a total relay length of about 230 mm, nine relays are implemented to achieve NA=0.068.
With such prior arts, however, there are the following problems. As nine relays are implemented with 3 lenses per relay, it requires as many as 27 lenses: this is not preferable for production costs, because of an increased parts count and much time taken for assembling.


A three element fluid torque converter has a variable pitch stator. The stator blades have two principal orientations, closed and open. The blades are biased toward the closed position by a spring loaded annular piston. In the closed position, the blades block approximately 75% to 90% of the annular area between a stator core and a stator shell. An inlet angle for the stator blades is between 30 degrees and 70 degrees in the closed position. This combination reduces creep torque without any significant increase in driveline noise and vibration when the engine is idling. As engine speed and torque are increased, the blades overcome the spring bias to rotate to the open position thereby increasing the torque transmitted to effectively propel the vehicle.

Torque converters having variable pitch stators are desirable for reducing the tendency of the vehicle to creep when the vehicle is idling and the transmission is in a drive gear range. Reduction of creep torque offers several benefits. Fuel economy can be increased. The engine load at idle can be decreased, thereby reducing engine vibration perceived by the driver. And further, for vehicles requiring elevated idle speeds to satisfy high electrical power requirements at idle, idle speed can be increased while maintaining the same creep power.
Variable pitch stators are well known in the art of torque converter design. In most such stators, each stator blade is mounted for rotation about a blade axis passing through the blade. These blade axes typically intersect the torque converter axis.
Both active and passive means are used to provide blade rotation. U.S. Pat. No. 3,398,532, issued to Egbert et al. on Aug. 27, 1968, shows an example of active rotation with the blades being rotated to one of three positions by axial motion of a fluid driven piston. U.S. Pat. No. 2,015,300, issued to C. Dell et al. on Sep. 24, 1935, shows a passive system, wherein the blades rotate in response to fluid force against the blades.
The angle of the stator blades with respect to the torque converter axis changes as the blades are rotated about their respective blade axes. Generally, when the stator blades are rotated to a high inlet angle or closed position, the torque converter capacity for multiplying input torque at a given engine speed is substantially reduced. The blades are typically in the closed position when the vehicle engine is idling. This has the effect of reducing the torque transmitted to the vehicle wheels, thereby substantially reducing the tendency of the vehicle to creep.
However, the disruption of the fluid flow within the torque converter caused by the blades being in the closed position results in vibrations being generated within the torque converter. These vibrations are transmitted through the vehicle to the driver as audible noise and unpleasant vibrations. This condition typically occurs at idle. Also, variable pitch stators have been contributors to harshness of torque converter clutch engaging and disengaging.

Variable pitch stator with passive control


The same orthosis can be used to sequentially move joints of different fingers of a hand. A hand cuff of the orthosis is mounted on the hand. Mechanisms operable to move the joints are connected to the hand cuff at locations aligned with the fingers. The mechanisms are connected with the fingers. The joints of the fingers are moved by operating the mechanisms. The joints and first and second portions of the fingers define on one side of the joints outer sectors which decrease in angle as the joints are extended. Force is applied to the first and second portions of the fingers to move the joints by providing relative rotation between internally and externally threaded members disposed in the outer sectors. Actuator members connected with the internally or externally threaded members are moved along paths that extend through the joints.

The present invention relates to new and improved method for moving joints of fingers.
A known splint for supporting and injuring hand is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,320. The splint disclosed in this patent allows movement of the fingers of the hand and urges the fingers toward an extended condition under the influence of elastic bands.
A known joint extension splint is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,269. The splint disclosed in this patent has an adjustable finger support for a joint of the finger. Support sections of the support are connected to portions of the finger on opposite sides of the joint. A screw jack operates with hinged attachments to the undersides of the support sections to provide controlled extension of the finger.


A computer-implemented method of training a neural network to improve a characteristic of a protein comprises collecting a set of amino acid sequences from a database, compiling each amino acid sequence into a three-dimensional crystallographic structure of a folded protein, training a neural network with a subset of the three-dimensional crystallographic structures, identifying, with the neural network, a candidate residue to mutate in a target protein, and identifying, with the neural network, a predicted amino acid residue to substitute for the candidate residue, to produce a mutated protein, wherein the mutated protein demonstrates an improvement in a characteristic over the target protein. A system for improving a characteristic of a protein is also described. Improved blue fluorescent proteins generated using the system are also described.

Protein engineering is a transformative approach in biotechnology and biomedicine aimed at either imparting novel functionality on existing proteins or making proteins more persistent in non-native environments. A design consideration that influences both manners of engineering is the overall stability of the protein. In the former case, gain-of-function mutations are introduced that expand the role of a protein through rational design or directed evolution, frequently at a thermodynamic cost. As most natural proteins are only marginally stable, functional mutations that destabilize a protein to the point of unfolding may be missed, while increasing stability before a selection has been shown to promote the evolvability of a protein.
A significant barrier in the translation from useful naturally occurring biocatalyst to industrial use is the adaptation of a protein to radically different environmental conditions, temperature, and solvents. Increasing the stability of a protein can alleviate many of these pressures to allow for large quantity expression with higher yields and lower cost. Thus, stabilization is critical to the success of many protein engineering efforts.
Numerous methods exist to engineer proteins, and all generally represent a compromise between how quickly and accurately protein variants can be measured, and how efficiently the landscape of protein variants can be sampled. Techniques such as mutagenic Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) require minimal knowledge about the relationship between sequence and function, yet rely on high-throughput screens or selections to segregate large libraries of protein variants. Structural data and computational approaches can be used to narrow the search space, and concomitantly reduce the amount of downstream characterization. These tools become increasingly important for proteins where the desired properties are difficult to measure, especially at scale. However, due to our incomplete understanding of protein sequence/structure/function relationships, different computational tools for protein engineering will often provide completely different or even conflicting solutions. This is especially true for properties such as stability and folding, which are often the result of many small interactions distributed throughout the entire protein sequence.
Typically, computational methods will identify residues that destabilize a protein by performing computationally intensive folding simulations. The level of detail involved in these simulations varies—some go as far as invoking quantum mechanics (MOE) to explain molecular interactions while others use more coarse grained methods (Rosetta). To a first approximation, coarse grained approaches identify problematic residues by either looking for gaps in a protein structure (RosettaVIP), doing fast local free energy calculations (foldX), or finding residues that are evolutionary outliers (PROSS). A better fitting residue is then suggested by hydrophobic packing or reversion to evolutionary consensus. Then, the effect of these substitutions on stability of a protein is estimated via energetic simulation of the mutant. In total, this process (residue identification, substitution suggestion, refolding & free energy calculations) can take anywhere from several hours to days.
Machine learning is an attractive alternative as it requires no foreknowledge about particular protein features or time-consuming manual inspection and assignment of individual structural features. Recently, Torng and Altman (Torng et al., "3D deep convolutional neural networks for amino acid environment similarity analysis," BMC Bioinformatics, 18:302, 2017, incorporated herein by reference) described a general framework that applies 3D convolutional neural networks (3DCNN) to protein structural analysis by predicting the identity of amino acids given information about the surrounding protein microenvironment. This neural network achieved 42% predictive accuracy in assigning amino acids relative to the wild-type sequence, and outperformed other computational methods which relied on identifying pre-assigned structure-based features. Furthermore, given structural data for a model protein, T4 lysozyme, the 3D CNN typically predicted the wild-type residue at locations where mutations are known to be destabilizing, and displayed a strong preference for the wild-type residue when given the structures of these known destabilizing mutants.

System and method for increasing synthesized protein stability

Board of Regents, The University of Texas System


An apparatus includes a first circuit, a second circuit, and a third circuit. The first circuit may be configured to buffer a plurality of antenna carrier sample streams. The second circuit is coupled to the first circuit and may be configured to generate message data through pipelined processing and mapping of the antenna carrier samples. The third circuit is coupled to the second circuit and may be configured to generate a master frame in response to the processed and mapped message data.

In mobile communications, industry standardization of radio interface protocols used to connect radio frequency (RF) and baseband (BB) modules in modern base stations is increasing. The radio interface protocols transfer baseband data over high speed long distance serial links between Remote Radio Heads (RF Modules) and Baseband Processors. Conventional radio interfaces connecting radio frequency (RF) and baseband (BB) modules have a built-in capability of combining and distributing samples. While combining samples, input samples that are targeted to the same antenna and carrier at the same instant in time are added together so that a single output sample stream is formed. The single sample stream is then transferred to the desired RF module. Conventionally, the summing is located in front of a transmitter of the transceiver and adds together the samples in the payloads of the messages.
It would be desirable to have a method and/or apparatus for implementing scalable mapping with integrated summing of samples for multiple streams in a radio interface frame.

Scalable mapping with integrated summing of samples for multiple streams in a radio interface frame

Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.