A lining assembly for lining the inner wall of a branch pipe connected to a main pipe having a flexible tubular resin-impregnated liner that has one end externally reversed to form a collar to fit the inner wall of the main pipe. A first hermetic film covers the internal wall of the tubular liner and a second hermetic film covers the external wall of the tubular liner. An annular resin-absorbent flat felt backs the collar. A detectable resilient tube consisting of a tubular reinforcement material and a third hermetic film covering the internal wall of the tubular reinforcement material are provided, the upper end portion of the third hermetic film being detachably adhered to the second hermetic film covering the external wall of the flexible tubular resin-impregnated liner near the collar, and the detachable resilient tube enclosing in it a sufficient part of the flexible tubular film-covered liner which is in the vicinity of the collar to thereby support that part of the liner to be erect toward the opening of the branch pipe. A pressure proof-tube consisting of three detachable divisions, contains in it the flexible tubular resin-impregnated liner lengthwise, the front end of the pressure proof-tube being connected to the detachable resilient tube and the rear end being closed.

When an underground utility pipe or an underground industrial pipe, such as sewer pipe, gas pipe, and electric conduit pipe, becomes defective or too old, the pipe is repaired and reinforced without digging the earth to expose the pipe and disassembling the sections of the pipe. This non-digging method of repairing a pipe is known and practiced in the field of civil engineering. Typically, the method is disclosed by Japanese Provisionnal Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 60-242038.
According to the publication, this method of pipe repair comprises inserting a sufficiently long tubular flexible liner bag into the pipe to be repaired by means of a pressurized fluid, like air or water. The tubular liner bag is made of a flexible resin-absorbing material impregnated with a thermosetting resin, and has the outer surface coated with a hermetic film. More particularly, according to the publication, the tubular flexible liner bag is closed at one end and open at the other. The tubular flexible liner bag is first flattened, and, the closed end of the tubular liner bag is tied to a control other. The open end of the tubular liner bag is made to gape wide and is hooked at the end of the defective or old pipe in a manner such that the wide-opened end of the liner completely and fixedly covers and closes the pipe end. A portion of the liner is pushed into the pipe; then, a pressurized fluid is applied to the pushed in portion of the tubular liner such that the fluid urges the tubular liner to enter the defective pipe. Since one end of the tubular liner is hooked at the end of the pipe, it remains there while the rest of the flexible liner bag is turned inside out as it proceeds deeper in the pipe. (Hereinafter, this manner of insertion shall be called "reversing".) When the entire length of the tubular liner bag is reversed (or turned inside out) into the pipe, a control rope holds the closed end of the tubular liner bag to thereby control the length of the tubular liner in the pipe. Then, the reversed tubular liner is pressed against the inner wall of the defective pipe by the pressurized fluid, and the tubular flexible liner is hardened as the thermosetting resin impregnated into the liner is heated, which is effected by heating the fluid filling the tubular liner bag by means of a hot steam, etc. It is thus possible to line the inside wall of the defective or old pipe with a rigid liner without digging the ground and disassembling the pipe sections.
This method is applicable to a pipe branching out from a main pipe as well, and how it is conducted will be described next with reference to FIG. 15.
FIG. 15 is a vertical sectional view of the site, showing the conventional method of lining a pipe branching out from a main pipe. The reference numeral 23 designates a pressure proof bent tube inserted in a main pipe 20. A hermetic flexible bag 11 connected to the end of the tube 23 is reversely inserted in a branch pipe 21 together with a flexible tubular liner 15, and is for pressing the liner 15 onto the inner wall of the branch pipe 21. The bag 11 as well as the tube 23 is removed from the pipes 21, 22 after the pipe repair work is completed. Therefore, the bag 11 must be detachable from the liner 15.
According to this conventional method, first, the pressure proof tube 23 containing the furled flexible bag 11 and liner 15 in it is placed in the main pipe 20 in a manner such that the bent end of the tube 23 faces the entrance to the branch pipe 21, and when pressurized air or the like is supplied into the pressure proof tube 23, the flexible bag 11 together with the liner 15 is inflated and reversed into the branch pipe 21, and the liner 15 is pressed against the inner wall of the branch pipe 21. Then, the liner 15 is hardened by heating, or by some other procedure depending on the hardening property of the material of the liner 15. Finally, the flexible bag 11 is detached from the hard liner 15 and withdrawn from the branch pipe 21, leaving the branch pipe 21 closely lined with the liner 15.

Liner assembly for lining branch pipes and a method for manufacturing the liner assembly


A laser structure for obtaining an optical pulse of a very short duration by using the benefit of a passive mode locking and for improving a repetition rate of an output optical pulse was described. In general, a passively mode-locked laser generates a short optical pulse than a active mode locked laser does, while it has difficulties in increasing the repetition rate of the output optical pulse because the repetition rate of the passively mode-locked laser is determined by the length of the resonator. In accordance with the present invention, a delayed optical path is added to the linear loop of a conventional figure-8 optical fiber laser. The propagation time difference .DELTA.T between the delayed optical path and undelayed short optical path is adjusted to a divisor of the round trip time, T, of the original resonator by properly adjusting the length of the delayed optical path. Thus, the repetition rate of the output optical pulse of the mode locked laser can be increased from 1/T Hz to 1/.DELTA.T Hz. The optical fiber laser which can fully exploit the advantages of the passive mode locking and improve the repetition rate of the output optical pulse in accordance with the present invention can be applied to a wide range of applications including an optical communication and an ultra high speed analysis of optical phenomena.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of a passively mode-locked optical fiber laser, and more particularly, to a structure of a laser for increasing the repetition rate of passively mode-locked pulses.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an optical fiber laser uses a rare-earth-doped fiber as a gain medium. Since the rare-earth-doped fiber has a very wide gain bandwidth, the optical fiber laser is suitable for obtaining a very short optical pulse of which duration is below 10.sup.-12 second.
On the other hand, a mode locking technique is used to produce a high peak power an optical pulse, and is classified into active and passive mode lockings. The active mode locking technique uses the periodic loss of a resonator induced by a modulator, and the repetition rate of mode-locked pulse can be easily varied by adjusting the frequency of a signal supplied to a modulator. The time duration of an actively mode-locked pulse is usually longer than that of a passively mode-locked pulse.
The passive mode locking technique utilizes a saturable absorber of which transmission rate varies according to the intensity of input light, and can usually produce an optical pulse of which time duration is shorter than that by the active mode locking technique. However, the passive mode locking technique has a problem that the repetition rate of the output optical pulses is usually fixed to a cavity round trip frequency.
The conventional passive mode locking of an optical fiber laser thus described utilizes an intensity-dependent nonlinear effect of an optical fiber, and has been studied through two kinds of laser structure, one is a figure-8 laser which uses a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM), and the other is a ring laser which uses nonlinear polarization rotation.

Structure of a passively mode-locked optical fiber laser

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


An authority management method and device in a distributed environment, and a server are provided. The method includes: obtaining usage information of a user when the user uses an object storage product, the usage information including the user's behavior, status and feature; determining a matching degree between the usage information of the user and usage information predicted by a portrait model of the user; and applying a preset early warning mechanism to the user's access authorities according to the matching degree.

The rapid development of cloud computing has changed people's understanding of traditional infrastructure services, data storage, etc. As cloud computing can reduce the cost of storage and computing, cloud storage services are increasingly trusted by enterprises and individuals. However, the use of cloud storage may bring serious threats to important data, and when data are accessed by unauthorized access, the confidentiality and integrity of the data will be affected.
Currently, the authority management of cloud computing is implemented based on an Access Control List (ACL). The ACL is an access control list of a file/directory, and is used to control the packets into and out of the port. Specifically, different access authorities may be set for a given data resource, and different users may be authorized to operate according to different access authorities. The ACL includes two levels of ACL: a Bucket ACL and an Object ACL. In the bucket ACL, access authorities can be set for a resource in the bucket; and in the Object ACL, access authorities can be directly set for an object. If no access authority is set for the object, the operation is performed according to the bucket ACL.
In the traditional technology, the authority management based on the ACL is complicated, which may lead to misuse.

Authority management method and device in distributed environment, and server

BEIJING BAIDU NETCOM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


An electric drill is used with a specially designed arbor to attach a drill pad to the drill. The drill pad is removeably affixed to a sanding disc or a buffing disc by hook and loop fasteners. The attached discs are firmly affixed to the drill pad for use while sanding or buffing a surface. The discs are easily pulled from the drill pad and a replacement is easily attached without needing to use tools.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to sanding discs and buffing discs attachable to a drill pad for use with an electric drill. The present invention is particularly directed towards self-attaching discs affixed on a top surface with loops that adhere to hooks on the under surface of a drill pad. This hook and loop attachment adequately retains a spinning sandpaper or buffer disc during use and allows the discs to be easily detached and replaced.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The usual method of attaching a sanding disc to a drill pad is to adhere the sand paper to the bottom surface of a sanding disc by gluing and attaching the prepared sanding disc to the drill by a shank or by purchasing specially prepared sanding discs and attaching them by a shank to the drill chuck. For buffing, the buffer pad is usually fitted over the drill pad. Attaching and removing sanding discs to and from the drill pad requires time and tools to accomplish the task. When slip-over buffing pads are used, there is always the problem of the pad becoming loose or twisting around on the drill pad. Even if the buffing pad used is a fixed disc pad, tools and time are required for attaching it to the drill jaw.

Self affixing sanding and buffing pads/system and apparatus


An assembled commutator has an insulating commutator body having a cylindrical outer surface, radially extending axial support means and an axial extension on the opposite side of the axial support means to the cylindrical outer surface. Three commutator segments each have an arcuate brush-contacting portion seated on the cylindrical outer surface of the commutator body, an axial terminal stem extending through a passage formed in the axial support means, and a radial terminal stem seated in one of three equiangularly extending radial grooves formed in the axial support means. An apertured insulating clamping member which is press-fitted on a first part of the axial extension clamps an apertured varistor which is seated on a second part of the axial extension in electrically conductive engagement with the radial terminal stems.

One way to fasten the metallic commutator segments to the insulating body of the commutator is to provide these segments as inserts in a molded plastic commutator body. However, this molding process requires precise and time-consuming positioning of the commutator segments and the resultant molder commutators have to be individually hand finished to remove the inevitable unwanted excessive pieces of plastic material.
To avoid this difficulty, the commutator body and the commutator segments are formed separately so as to cooperate with each other and are subsequently assembled in a manner which ensures that the segments are securely fastened to the commutator body.
Thus, as disclosed in the specification of UK Patent No. 2 105 527, it is known to provide a commutator comprising an insulating commutator body having a cylindrical outer surface and integral, radially extending axial support means formed with axially extending openings; at least three commutator segments mounted on the body, each having an arcuate brush contacting portion seated on the cylindrical outer surface of the body, radial positioning means extending axially from one end of the brush contacting portion into one of said axially extending openings, and a radial terminal stem; and an insulating clamping member for clamping the radial terminal stems between the axial support means and the insulating clamping member.
In this known construction, the radial terminal stem of each commutator segment extends radially from one end of the arcuate portion of the segment forming the brush contacting portion and the radial positioning means consist of two axial projections on opposite sides of the radial terminal stem. The clamping member is an annular ring which is press-fitted over the brush contacting portions of the commutator segments so as to clamp the radial stem portions against the axial support means. As a result, difficulty is encountered in fitting the clamping member. The two radial positioning means are also of limited effectiveness in that the proportion of the circumferential width of each segment available for use in the radial positioning means is limited because the central part, between the radial positioning means, is used to form the radial terminal stems. Moreover, when the segments are secured in position by the clamping member, the radial loading on the segments is provided solely, or almost solely, by the clamping member.


A retention test system and method for resistively switching memory devices is disclosed. One embodiment provides a plurality of memory cells configured to be changed over between a first state of high electrical resistance and a second state of low electrical resistance, wherein the system is configured to apply a bias voltage to at least one memory cell of the memory device to be tested.

The present invention relates to a resistive switching memory device, and to a retention test for resistively switching memory devices.
Resistively switching memory devices include resistive memory cells for storing information. The memory cells can be changed between a first state of electrical resistance and a second state of electrical resistance. One type of resistively switching memory devices is a CBRAM device based on conductive bridge junction (CBJ) memory cells.

Retention test system and method for resistively switching memory devices


The invention is an article of footwear having a sole comprised of one or more support elements formed of a resilient, compressible material. The support elements are designed such that impact forces generated by movements of a wearer deflect the support elements in a manner that produces a force directed to center the wearer""s foot above the sole. The directed deflection characteristics of the support elements are due to a downward cant of the support elements"" upper surfaces and flexion indentations that facilitate bending in one direction.

The invention relates to footwear, more particularly to athletic shoes, wherein a cushioning sole is provided with a stability control device to enhance the stability of a wearer""s foot, particularly during lateral motion. The sole includes a sole member which is compressible and resilient to thereby cushion foot impact, with the sole member having a stability control device that enhances lateral stability.
Sole design for modem athletic footwear is generally characterized by a multi-layer construction comprised of an outsole, midsole, and insole. The midsole is typically composed of a soft, foam material to attenuate impact forces generated by contact of the footwear with the ground during athletic activities. Other prior art midsoles use fluid or gas-filled bladders of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,183,156 and 4,219,945 of Marion F. Rudy. Although foam materials succeed in providing cushioning for the foot, foam materials also impart instability that increases in proportion to midsole thickness. For this reason, footwear design often involves a balance of cushioning and stability.
The typical motion of the foot during running proceeds as follows. First, the heel strikes the ground, followed by the ball of the foot. As the heel leaves the ground, the foot rolls forward so that the toes make contact, and finally the entire foot leaves the ground to begin another cycle. During the time that the foot is in contact with the ground, it typically rolls from the outside or lateral side to the inside or medial side, a process called pronation. That is, normally, the outside of the heel strikes first and the toes on the inside of the foot leave the ground last. While the foot is air borne and preparing for another cycle the opposite process, called supination, occurs. Pronation, the inward roll of the foot in contact with the ground, although normal, can be a potential source of foot and leg injury, particularly if it is excessive. The use of soft cushioning materials in the midsole of running shoes, while providing protection against impact forces, can encourage instability of the sub-talar joint of the ankle, thereby contributing to the tendency for over-pronation. This instability has been cited as a contributor to xe2x80x9crunners kneexe2x80x9d and other athletic injuries.
Various methods for resisting excessive pronation or instability of the sub-talar joint have been proposed and incorporated into prior art athletic shoes as xe2x80x9cstabilityxe2x80x9d devices. In general, these devices have been fashioned by modifying conventional shoe components, such as the heel counter, by modifying the midsole cushioning materials or adding a pronation control device to a midsole. Examples of these techniques are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,288,929; 4,354,318; 4,255,877; 4,287,675; 4,364,188; 4,364,189; 4,297,797; 4,445,283; and 5,247,742.
In addition to the control of pronation, another type of foot motion in athletics also places xe2x80x9cstabilizationxe2x80x9d demands on athletic footwear. This type of motion is lateral, sideways or cutting movements which frequently happen in sports like basketball, volleyball, football, soccer and the like. An athlete in such athletics may be required to perform a variety of motions including movement to the side; quickly executed direction changes, stops, and starts; movement in a backwards direction; and jumping. While making such movements, footwear instability may lead to excessive inversion or eversion of the ankle joint, otherwise known as ankle sprain. For example, an athlete may be required to perform a rapid, lateral movement on a surface with friction characteristics that prevent sliding of the sole relative to the surface. Upon contact with the surface, the lateral portion of the foot impacts the interior of the footwear causing the lateral side of the midsole to compress substantially more than the medial side. The downward incline on the interior of the footwear caused by the differential compression, in conjunction with the momentum of the athlete""s body, creates a situation wherein the shoe rolls towards the lateral side, causing an ankle sprain. Similar situations which cause excessive inversion or eversion comprise one of the most common types of injury associated with athletic activities. A shoe with high lateral (side-to-side) stability will minimize the effects of differential compression by returning to a condition of equilibriumxe2x80x94tending to center the foot over the sole.
The preceding example particularly arises when footwear incorporates a midsole with cushioning qualities that sacrifice stability. In order to compensate for this lack of stability, designers often incorporate devices into the upper that increase stiffness. These devices attempt to provide a stable upper to compensate for an instable sole. Such devices take the form of rigid members, elastic materials, or straps that add to the overall weight of the footwear, make the article of footwear cumbersome, or restrict plantar flexion and dorsi flexion. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,350 to Bunch et al. discloses an article of footwear with sheet springs attached to the ankle portion, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,152,082 to Culpepper discloses an ankle support including a plurality of stiff projections extending along the heel and ankle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,683 to Foxen et al. discloses a support in the form of a plurality of finger-like elements attached to the upper which does not add significant weight to the shoe and allows plantar and dorsi flexion.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,639 to Kilgore et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses an athletic shoe wherein a portion of the foam midsole is replaced with foam columns placed between a rigid upper and lower plate. FIGS. 1 and 2 depict this prior art shoe. As seen in FIG. 1, four support elements are incorporated in the midsole. Shoe 10 includes conventional upper 12 attached in a conventional manner to sole 14. Sole 14 includes midsole 18, and conventional outsole layer 20 formed of a conventional wear-resistant material such as a carbon-black rubber compound. Midsole 18 includes footframe 23, cushioning and stability component 24, midfoot wedge 40 and cushioning layer 22 made of a conventional cushioning material such as ethyl vinyl acetate (E.V.A.) or conventional non-microcellular polyurethane (PU) foam extending substantially throughout at least the forefoot portion of shoe 10.
Midsole 18 includes cushioning and stability component 24 extending rearwardly approximately from the forefoot to a location adjacent the posterior portion of cushioning layer 22. Cushioning and stability component 24 includes shell or envelope 26 having upper and lower plates 28 and 30, defining therebetween an open area of the sole, and a plurality of compliant elastomeric support elements 32 disposed in the open area. In a preferred embodiment of this prior art shoe, elements 32 have the shape of hollow, cylindrical columns or columns containing a plurality of interior voids. Furthermore, the columns of the prior art have flat upper surfaces, the upper surfaces being parallel with the outsole.
Shell 26 may be made from nylon or other suitable materials such as BP8929-2 RITEFLEX(trademark), a polyester elastomer manufactured by Hoechst-Celanese of Chatham, N.J., or a combination of nylon having glass mixed therewith, for example, nylon with 13% glass. Other suitable materials would include materials having a moderate flexural modulus and exhibiting high resistance to flexural fatigue. Support elements 32 are made from a material comprising a microcellular polyurethane, for example, a microcellular polyurethane-elastomer based on a polyester-alcohol and naphthalene-1,5-diisocyanate (NDI), such as the elastomeric foam material manufactured and sold under the name ELASTOCELL(trademark) by BASF Corporation. Other suitable polyurethane materials such as a microcellular polyurethane-elastomer based on a polyester-alcohol and methylenediphenylene-4,4xe2x80x2-diisocyanate (MDI) and a microcellular polyurethane-elastomer based on a polyester-alcohol and bitolyene (TODI) may be used. These materials exhibit a substantially uniform cell structure and small cell size as compared to the non-microcellular polyurethanes which have been used in prior art midsoles.
According to the ""639 patent, utilization of microcellular polyurethanes has several advantages. For example, microcellular polyurethanes are more resilient than non-microcellular polyurethanes, thereby restoring more of the input energy imparted during impact. Furthermore, microcellular polyurethanes are more durable. This latter fact combined with the fact that the deflection of a foam column made from microcellular polyurethanes is more predictable than for non-microcellular polyurethanes allows the midsole to be constructed so as to selectively distribute and attenuate the impact load.
With reference to FIG. 2a, shell 26 includes upper and lower plates 28 and 30 which define an interior volume. Shell 26 serves to increase torsional rigidity about the anterior-posterior axis of the shoe. Additionally, shell 26 helps distribute the load between support elements 32, thereby controlling foot motion and providing stability. In FIG. 2a, upper and lower plates 28 and 30 are joined such that shell 26 has the shape of a generally closed oval envelope. This embodiment has the advantages of ensuring that all of the columns are loaded substantially axially during footstrike, and of providing a torsional restoring moment to upper plate 28 with respect to lower plate 30 when the foot is everted or inverted. Thus, stability is enhanced, making this embodiment particularly useful in running shoes. In addition, the closed envelope limits the load on the adhesives which secure support elements 32 to shell 26. Midfoot wedge 40 is disposed at the front of shell 26 and prevents total collapse of the shell structure at this region, which would cause a loss of midfoot support.
As depicted in FIGS. 2b and 2c, upper and lower plates 28 and 30 need not be joined and could take the form of unconnected upper and lower plates, or could be joined in only one portion, for example, the front or back.
Support elements 32 may have an overall hollow cylindrical shape and may have smooth exterior surfaces. Alternatively, the outer surface may include spaced grooves formed around the entire circumference on the exterior surface. Support elements 32 may be made from the elastomeric foam materials discussed above such as microcellular ELASTOCELL(trademark) or other microcellular elastomeric materials having the same properties.
As shown in FIGS. 2a-2c, four support elements 32 may be disposed between the upper and lower plates. Elements 32 are generally disposed in a rectangular configuration, with a pair of anterior lateral and medial elements and a pair of posterior lateral and medial elements. Elements 32 are secured to the upper and lower plates by detents 34 and a suitable adhesive such as a solvent based urethane adhesive.
The use of microcellular as opposed to non-microcellular polyurethane foam for the columns allows for the gradual increase in stiffness to be obtained without having the stiffness be too great or small at the location of the initial impact.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a midsole according to the prior art included a plurality of hollow elements constructed from a microcellular foam material such as ELASTOCELL(copyright) NDI improves over the prior art non-microcellular polyurethane foams by providing a lower stiffness at the location of the initial impact which corresponds to lower initial loads, and a smooth transition to a much higher stiffness corresponding to the maximum load which is achieved beneath the calcaneus, with the higher load distributed throughout the rear of the midsole. In addition, the desired stiffness is achieved in a manner which avoids bottoming-out throughout the ground support phase, without increasing the weight and initial stiffness of the midsole beyond a desired level.
As noted, the prior art disclosed that the outer surface of support elements 32 may be escalloped to include a plurality of spaced grooves extending around the entire circumference of support elements 32. The use of an escalloped outer surface provides the advantage that large vertical compressions are facilitated by the pre-wrinkled shape, that is, the columns tend to be deflected more vertically. If the columns are designed with straight walls rather than escalloped walls, the tendency of the column to buckle is greater.
The present invention is directed to enhancing the lateral stability of shoes which use a cushioning and stability component of the type disclosed in the ""639 patent.
The present invention relates to an article of footwear having an upper and a sole attached to the upper. The sole includes one or more support elements formed of a resilient, compressible material, and which are designed such that impact forces generated by movements of the wearer deflect the support elements in a manner producing a force directed to center the wearer""s foot above the sole.
Directed deflection of the support elements is achieved by using a support element with a canted upper surface. Unlike the support elements as disclosed in the ""639 patent that have a flat upper surface, the support elements of the present invention utilize an upper surface with a downward slope directed toward the interior of the footwear. In order achieve directed deflection, the support elements are arranged such that portions of the support elements on the exterior of the footwear have a greater elevation than portions on the interior of the footwear. When the support elements are located in the heel area, the heel of the wearer is positioned such that the periphery of the calcaneus is above portions of the support elements having lesser elevation. This arrangement ensures that the area of maximum stress is on the portion of the support element on the interior of the footwear, thereby causing the support elements to have a deflection bias in the inward direction.
Another aspect that adds to the directed deflection characteristics of the footwear are flexion indentations on the exterior of the support elements. In the ""659 patent, indentations around the entire exterior surface. By placing indentations in only a selected portion of the exterior surface, the column will bend in the direction that the indentations are placed relative to the support element. As such, flexion indentations placed on portions of the support elements facing the interior of the footwear create a second mode of deflection bias in the support elements that also facilitates bending toward the interior of the footwear.
In a preferred embodiment, the article of footwear contains two forms of support elements, cylindrical columns and an aft support. Both the columns and aft support include a canted upper surface. However, only the columns include flexion indentations. The convex shape of the aft support element, in conjunction with a high aspect ratio of width to thickness, creates an inward deflection bias similar to that of the columns.
The article of footwear of the present invention may also contain a rigid heel plate for receiving the heel of the wearer. The outer surface of the heel plate includes locations for attaching to the upper surface of the support elements. The heel plate surrounds the bottom, medial, lateral, and aft portions of the heel, thereby countering excess movement. In addition, the rigid heel plate uniformly transfers impact forces from the heel to each individual support element.
The columns can be formed integral with a base portion formed of the same resilient, compressible material as the columns. A base plate formed of generally rigid material may also underlie the base portion and the support elements.
Together, these features form a system wherein movement of the wearer, including lateral movement, generates a force that tends to center the foot above the sole of the footwear. While the primary use for the system is in the heel area, the system can be used in other portions of the shoe, such as in the forefoot. As noted, the downward cant and flexion indentations create a deflection bias in the support elements. When the footwear comes into contact with the ground, the wearer""s foot impacts the interior of the heel plate. The impact is then uniformly transferred through the rigid heel plate to the support elements. The deflection bias in the support elements tends to stabilize the heel plate and calcaneus above the sole. In a conventional article of footwear where the foam midsole has no deflection bias, the impact force will cause one area of the midsole to compress differentially from an opposite area. With the added momentum of the athlete""s body, inversion or eversion may result. In contrast, the deflection bias of the present invention causes the support members to deflect toward the interior of the footwear, thereby enhancing lateral stability. As such, this system provides an article of footwear with high lateral stability.


A gridded ion propulsion system comprising two power controllers, four ion thrusters, and two switch assemblies. One switch assembly is connected to the two power controllers and to two of the four ion thrusters. The other switch assembly is connected to the two power controllers and to the other two ion thrusters. Each switch assembly has first and second switching states which can be selected to enable either power controller to supply power to any one of the four ion thrusters. Each switch assembly comprises a respective movable body and a respective multiplicity of switches which change state in unison when the movable body changes position. For example, the movable body may be a rotatable hollow shaft driven by a stepper motor.

This disclosure generally relates to apparatus and methods for optimizing the operation of ion thruster arrays.
Ion propulsion generally involves employing an ionized gas accelerated electrically across charged grids to develop thrust. The electrically accelerated particles can achieve very high speeds. The gas used is typically a noble gas, such as xenon. The principal advantage afforded by ion propulsion systems over conventional chemical propulsion systems is their very high efficiency. For example, with the same amount of fuel mass, an ion propulsion system can achieve a final velocity as much as ten times higher than that obtainable with a chemical propulsion system. Although they are efficient, ion propulsion systems develop very low thrust when compared with chemical propulsion systems. This reality has narrowed the range of ion propulsion applications. However, ion propulsion is well suited for space applications where low thrust is often acceptable and fuel efficiency is critical. Many spacecraft, including satellites as well as exploration vehicles, use ion propulsion systems.
For example, spacecraft such as communications satellites now commonly utilize ion propulsion for station keeping and other functions. Ion thrusters utilize electrical power generated by the solar cells of the satellite to supply energy to a propellant to generate the propulsion. In a typical satellite ion thruster, thrust is created by accelerating positive ions through a series of gridded electrodes at one end of a thrust chamber. The electrodes, known as an ion extraction assembly, create thousands of tiny beams of thrust. The beams are prevented from being electrically attracted back to the thruster by an external electron-emitting neutralizer. The power controller is the device which serves to provide electrical control and power to drive the ion thruster, including control of the emission currents in the discharge and neutralizer cathodes.
It is known to use an Xenon Ion Propulsion System (XIPS) to provide thrust for station keeping and transfer orbit of satellites. XIPS uses electricity from the Sun and a working gas to provide propulsion through acceleration of charged ions. A heritage satellite used four ion thrusters (two pairs) and had four separate power processing units (PPUs) so that all four thrusters would be capable of being turned on simultaneously. Consequently, this added considerably to the mass required to drive the ion thruster array.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,948,305 disclosed an XIPS comprising a power processing system having reduced mass. That power processing system allowed a single PPU to power a plurality of ion thrusters in an array with the voltage-regulated supplies common to certain elements of the ion thrusters. (The current-regulated supplies have individual outputs so as to provide desired controlled currents to the anodes, keepers and heaters.) The advantage of this approach is mass savings in the voltage-regulated supplies and a significant reduction in the overall packaging mass.
It is further known to equip a satellite with two redundant subsystems, each subsystem comprising one PPU wired to two ion thrusters. The two subsystems are completely independent, but both subsystems can be rendered inoperative if, for example, one subsystem has a thruster problem and the other subsystem has a PPU problem. To address this problem, an XIPS Relay Unit (XRU) was added between the ion thrusters and the PPU. This XRU allowed the ion thrusters and the PPU of the other redundant subsystem to be used. As a result, either PPU could fire any one of four ion thrusters. The addition of the XRU allowed for multiple failures in the PPU and thrusters, while maintaining a working subsystem. All that was required to maintain spacecraft control was thrust from one thruster. Each XRU consisted of a relay bank operated by a relay driver circuit. The ion thrusters and PPU were wired to give maximum redundancy.
A known XRU design utilized up to 36 relays to perform the switching function. That XRU was large in size and the 36 switching elements had to all work together to switch the individual 18 circuits. The ability to isolate either pair of thrusters was not available in the XRU using relays.
There is a need for a more reliable switching function that is significantly lighter, has a smaller envelope, and costs less than the XRU and allows either pair of thrusters to be isolated.

Rotary switch assembly for ion propulsion system


A foldable container includes a main bottom leaf generally rectangular shaped having an area generally equivalent to a bottom opening of the container and hingedly connected to a side wall, three small bottom leaves respectively hingedly connected to three remaining side walls having one small bottom leaf of the three small bottom leaves hingedly connected to the main bottom leaf and two other small bottom leaves hingedly connected with each other, whereby upon opening of a folded container comprised of such side walls and flaps, the main bottom leaf is fully evected to rest upon the remaining three bottom leaves for completely shielding the bottom opening of the container and the four side walls are opened to be a shape of rectangular tetrahydron.

P.A. Shoudy disclosed an edible material container in his U.S. Pat. No 2,596,087 comprising four interconnected side walls, several top closure flaps on the upper edges of two opposite side walls integrally hinged with respect to the side walls, and several bottom flaps 15, 16, 17 and 18 formed integrally with the respective side walls 11, 12, 13 and 14, which however may still have the following drawbacks:
1. After setting up the container by engaging the end 26 of the flap 16 with the recessed portion 24 between the two projecting portions 23 of the flap 18 and with the two reduced end portions 21, 22 of the two bottom flaps 15, 17, the end 26 of the flap 16 is too short to be stably and effectively locked by other bottom flaps 18, 15, 17 so that once loaded with heavy foods, the bottom closure may be leaked or "broken" by disengaging the several bottom flaps 15, 16, 17 and 18 to leak or lose the packed foods material in the container.
2. It requires many steps to set up the bottom closure by engaging the four bottom flaps with one another, causing inconvenience especially when rendered for take-out service in a quick-foods shop.
Therefore, the present inventor invents a container which can be quickly or instantly opened, extended or set up for carrying or storing materials in the container.

Foldable container with one-step unfolding operation

1F, No. 9, Wu-Kung 5th Rd., Wu-Ku Industrial Zone


A spinning reel includes a reel body having at a front position thereof a rotor rotatable by a force from a handle and an oscillating mechanism housed in the reel body. The oscillating mechanism includes a worm shaft rotatable by a force from a component associated with the handle, a pawl member engageable with an endless spiral groove defined in the worm shaft and a transmission member for transmitting a moving force from the pawl member to a spool shaft. A guide member is attached to the reel body. This guide member comes into sliding contact with the transmission member thus maintaining stable a posture of the transmission member during a movement thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spinning reel, and more particularly to a spinning reel including an oscillating mechanism housed in a reel body, the mechanism having a worm shaft rotatable by force from a component associated with a handle and a pawl member engageable with an endless spiral groove defined in a peripheral face of the worm shaft and a transmission member for transmitting a force from the pawl member to a spool shaft.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional spinning reel of the above-noted type, as shown in FIG. 12, the oscillating mechanism includes a worm shaft 11, a spool shaft 9 and a transmission member 13'. In this type of oscillating mechanism, in order to eliminate mechanical looseness resulting from play provided between the spiral groove 11A and the pawl member 12 and between the worm shaft 11 and the transmission member 13', a predetermined face of the transmission member 13' is placed in slight contact with a predetermined inner face of the reel body 2, so that during a movement of the transmission member 13' the sliding slight contact between the faces serves to stabilize the moving posture of the transmission member 13'.
Incidentally, such predetermined amount of play gap is generally provided between the worm shaft 11 and the transmission member 13' for the purpose of obtaining smooth mechanical movements of these members by avoiding distortion.
However, the reel body of the spinning reel is generally manufactured by molding of e.g. a resin material; and therefore, the reel body may be deformed, due to e.g. internal stress, when and after the molded reel is withdrawn from the metal mold. For instance, if such deformation occurs as denoted with a virtual line L in FIG. 12, within the moving stroke of the transmission member 13', there are formed a region where the transmission member 13' comes into too strong contact with the reel body 2 and a further region where these components 2, 13' hardly come into contact with each other. This interferes with smooth and uniform movement of the transmission member 13' and also creates undesirable looseness in the transmission member 13'.
The same inconvenience will occur if the reel is accidentally dropped onto or struck against a hard object such as a concrete face.
The unsmooth movement provides a user with uncomfortable and uneven operation feel.
Accordingly, the primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved spinning reel which constantly allows smooth spinning action even when deformation occurs in the reel body.

Spinning reel with oscillating mechanism


Disclosed is a method for managing extended neighbor cells of a mobile terminal designed to save power of a battery as well as search time at a visited location. The method is characterized by the steps of collecting information on cells which belong to neighboring different PLMN (Public Land Mobile Network) other than the PLMN to which a serving cell, which the mobile terminal is assigned to belongs, and of performing rescanning of HPLMN using the information on cells.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for reducing power consumption of a battery of a mobile terminal, and more particularly to a method for managing extended neighbor cells of a mobile terminal designed to save power of a battery as well as search time at a visited location.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) specification, each mobile terminal performs cell management using information on BCCH (broadcast control channel) allocation lists (hereinafter, called "BA lists"), which are included in system information 2 (2bis and 2ter) received in an idle mode by the mobile terminal and system information 5 (5bis and 5ter) received in a dedicated mode by the mobile terminal, both of which belong to various system information relayed through BCCHs in an RPLMN (registered public land mobile network) to which a serving cell belongs. The serving cell is that cell to which the mobile terminal is currently assigned. Each BCCH, as a channel for transmitting various system parameters, transmits various information on a frequency, such as an operator, an identifier, cell location, or cell location variation.
The system information 2 is a neighbor cell description which is used in an idle mode of the mobile terminal. The neighbor cell description represents BCCH frequencies used in the cells neighboring a serving cell that the mobile terminal is assigned to. For this reason, the neighbor cell description is called the BA list.
The conventional cell management is divided into information collection for performing cell reselection in the idle mode of the mobile terminal, and neighbor cell management for performing hand-over in the dedicated mode of the mobile terminal. This neighbor cell management becomes still more important, as a general packet radio service (hereinafter, referred to as "GPRS") is introduced. Thus, reselection by the network has been introduced, as well as automatic cell reselection by the mobile terminal.
According to the GSM specification, variation from the present GSM to a third generation GSM (3GSM) allows less complicated conditions that the mobile terminal can determine a home PLMN (HPLMN) when within a visited PLMN (VPLMN).
The time for rescanning the HPLMN may be previously stored at a subscriber interface module (SIM) or newly provided by an over-the-air technique, in which the time has an interval of 6 minutes and a basic value of 30 minutes, which is also gradually reduced to the minimum value of 6 minutes. There are increasing service providers, who make use of 6 minutes as the basic value.
To rescan the HPLMN, a mobile terminal must measure the electronic power of the frequencies received from its vicinities and find the frequency satisfying the conditions required by the GSM 03.22 specification. In this case, to search and find frequencies for either the HPLMN or SIM preferred PLMN with respect to new frequencies of a varying field requires great amounts of battery power, as well as considerable amounts of time.
Considering that different common carriers do not share a frequency band with each other within the same area, there is a problem in that attempts for frequent measurement of electric power and for the resulting synchronization of many frequencies brings about unnecessary consumption of battery power. For instance, at their worst, there is a possibility to be in the face of a circumstance in which electric power of peripheral frequencies must be measured at an interval of 6 minutes.

Method for managing extended neighbor cells of mobile terminal


A dental syringe assembly has a handpiece connected to air and water lines and a tip for directing air and water flow into a patient""s mouth. The tip has an enlarged cap that is detachably engageable with a sleeve structure of a head member of the handpiece. The sleeve structure may be provided in a connection piece that fits within a socket in the head member so that the connection piece can rotate but is retained against removal. A non-return valve may be provided within the head member to prevent return flow of contaminated water.

This invention relates to dental syringe assemblies such as are used by dentists to direct air and/or water into a patients mouth for cleansing and drying purposes.
An assembly of this kind is described in prior patent specification WO 90/07912. The assembly described has a disposable plastics syringe tip which is connected via an adaptor to a handpiece body to which air and water are supplied. The tip can be discarded after use to avoid spread of infection between patients. The adaptor is selected for the particular handpiece body to permit use of a tip having a standardised connection. It is also possible to connect a disposable plastics syringe tip directly (i.e. without an adaptor) to a dedicated handpiece body.
Whilst this known arrangement provides an effective means of preventing transfer of infection via material retained within the tip, there is the possibility of infected material from one patient gaining access beyond the tip to the handpiece body or adaptor from where it can be passed on to the next patient through a fresh tip.
With a view to overcoming this problem, prior application PCT/GB 98/01754 proposes the provision of a non-return valve between the tip and the hand-piece body. This can prevent flow-back of infected material but, in the case where the valve is provided in the handpiece body there is the-problem of conveniently sterilising the valve itself.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved handpiece having means to avoid transfer of infection due to access of infected material beyond the tip and which is convenient to sterilise.
According to one aspect of the invention therefore there is provided a handpiece for a dental syringe assembly adapted to be connected on the one hand to sources of air and water, and on the other hand to a tip for directing flow of air and water from the handpiece into a patient""s mouth, characterised in that the handpiece is comprised of at least two releasably connectable members, and wherein one of said handpiece members has a non-return valve incorporated therein.
With this arrangement, the valve can help prevent draw back along the tip from the open end thereof of contaminated fluids and can also block access of infected material beyond the tip and thereby prevent transmission of infection between patients.
In addition, in so far as the handpiece members are separable cleansing and sterilisation can be effected in a particularly convenient manner, a consideration which is of upmost importance when providing instruments for dental treatment.
The separable members of the handpiece may comprise a head member which is adapted to be connected to the tip and a body member which is adapted to be connected to the air and water sources, the head member incorporating the non-return valve.
The body member may house a coupling or connecting member with conduits to channel the flow of air and water through the body to the head member. The conduits may be provided with shut off valves.
The body member may comprise a tubular structure which is screwed or otherwise releasably engaged relative to the head member. Where the aforesaid connecting member is provided the head member may be held in detachable engagement with the connecting member by the said releasable engagement of the tubular structure with the head member.
In the case where the syringe assembly is arranged for separate delivery of air and water, the non-return valve is preferably applied to the water delivery, although alternatively or additionally, the valve may be applied to the air delivery.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the tip has separate air and water passages which may be arranged coaxially or alongside each other and these are connected separately to air and water inlets at the handpiece body, and in this case the non return valve is preferably applied to the water passage only.
The non-return valve may be of any suitable form. In a preferred embodiment, the valve has a spring loaded valve member, such as a ball, which is urged into sealing engagement with a valve seat, fluid pressure during normal operation being sufficient to move the member off the seat to permit passage of fluid.
Other kinds of non-return valve can also be used. For example, in an alternative embodiment, the valve is of the constriction kind whereby valve parts, such as silicon rubber reeds, tend to collapse or are urged into sealing contact with each other but move apart in normal operation to permit passage of fluid.
In the case where the valve is applied to water delivery which is separated from air delivery, the valve may incorporate an outlet flow nozzle to direct flow into the water passage of the tip and help prevent communication, and hence transfer of material, between the air and water passages.
This nozzle may be such as to extend into the water passage of the tip and help form a seal therewith. The nozzle may be tapered to form a tight wedging fit within the tip passage and this may contribute to or establish a seal. Alternatively or additionally there may be an O-ring seal or other sealing arrangement to fit around the tip passage, for example an O-ring seal concentrically around the said nozzle whereby a tubular part of the tip defining an inlet to the water passage fits tightly between the nozzle and the O-ring seal.
As described in the above mentioned prior patent specification, the tip may be disposable and the handpiece may be adapted for detachable engagement for use with a standardised tip directly or via an adapter.
The handpiece may be adapted for detachable engagement with the tip via a bayonet connection, although other connections may also be used.
In a particularly preferred embodiment the handpiece incorporates a sleeve structure for detachable engagement with the tip, preferably via the aforesaid bayonet connection, and this sleeve structure preferably incorporates the said non-return valve and preferably also is incorporated in the aforesaid head member.
This sleeve structure may be located in a bore in the handpiece so as to be movable axially inwardly of the handpiece against the action of a spring to facilitate the aforesaid detachable interengagement. The sleeve structure, and hence the tip when connected thereto, may be rotatable when the sleeve structure is spring urged to an outer limit position whereas rotation may be resisted when the sleeve structure is pushed against the spring to an inner limit position. An appropriate toothed clutch or other mechanism or device may be provided to achieve this resistance. The resistance to rotation enables interengagement and disengagement of the tip and sleeve structure whilst free rotation, preferably through 360xc2x0, facilitates easy use of the tip. Connections of air and water to the tip preferably occur via the sleeve structure preferably such as to maintain flow during such rotation.
The above described sleeve structure advantageously provides a convenient means of attachment of a tip of the kind having a connection cap direct to a handpiece preferably using a bayonet connection.
Thus and in accordance with a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a dental syringe assembly comprising a handpiece adapted to be connected to sources of air and water and a tip for directing flow of air and water from the handpiece into a patients mouth, the tip having an enlarged connector cap at a rear end, and the handpiece having a body member and a head member, characterised in that the head member is provided with a sleeve structure and the connector cap of the tip is detachably interengageable with the sleeve structure.
Other aspects of the sleeve structure and the tip may be as described above.
The head member may be connected to the body member so as to be separable therefrom.
Preferably, the body member comprise a tubular structure which is releasably connected to the head member. Preferably also the body member houses a tubular structure which is releasably connected to the head member.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, the said sleeve structure is provided in a connection piece attached to the head member.
Preferably, the tip has inner and outer coaxial passages for the water and air flow and the said sleeve structure comprises a central inner bore to communicate with the inner coaxial passage within the cap, and an outer passageway defined by a recess around the inner bore to communicate with the outer coaxial passage within the cap.
Preferably also, the connection piece is attached to the head member within a socket of the head member, whereby air and water passageways in the head member are in sealed communication respectively with air and water passageways on the connection piece.
The connection piece preferably has a head part which projects externally of the head member of the handpiece, the sleeve structure being provided exclusively within this head part.
Further, the connection piece is preferably located within the socket so as to be rotatable about its axis whilst being retained against axial separation. The connection piece may be retained by a transverse assembly pin passed through the head member and engaging a peripheral groove in the connection piece.


A process performs multiple evaluations of text simultaneously. There are multiple counters, each with pattern-amount pairs. The pattern-amount pairs are accumulated into a single finite-state machine, with each state having a list of (counter, value) pairs instead of a single value. While the finite-state machine is applied to text, a score for each counter is accumulated by summing values for the counter from value lists of visited states. With one state transition per character, evaluating text using one finite-state machine for multiple counters is more efficient than using separate finite-state machines for counters or patterns.

A text is a sequence of symbols or items. Each symbol or item is called a character. The set of all possible characters for a domain is called the alphabet. One example domain is texts that are news stories represented in computer memory, with the ASCII character set as the alphabet. Another example domain is texts that are genetic sequences represented on a computer hard disk, with the alphabet consisting of characters A, C, G, and T.
A pattern specifies a set of character sequences. The set may be as simple as a single sequence, e.g., {GACACT}. Alternatively, the set of sequences may be more complex, e.g., "any sequence that begins with GAC, then has an intermediate sequence with length a multiple of three, then ends with ACT."
A counter contains one or more pattern-amount pairs. For example, a counter corresponding to baseball news may contain patterns such as the word "baseball" and the phrase "relief pitcher". The amount for each pattern may correspond to how strongly the pattern indicates that a text is on the topic of baseball. The score for a counter on a text, starting at a position in the text, is the sum over counter patterns of the amounts associated with the patterns that occur in the text starting at the specified start position. The score for a counter on a text is the sum of counter scores at start positions. The start positions are determined by the domain. For example, for news the start of each word may be a start position. So if the counter pattern-amount pairs are ("ball", 0.5) and ("relief pitcher", 2.0) and the text is "The relief pitcher threw the ball," then the score is 2.5.
Computing the counter score for a text is called counter evaluation. A counter may be evaluated using a finite-state machine. A finite-state machine contains states. There is a specified start state. The machine transitions from state to state based on the sequence of characters in the text. The rules for transitions from a state may be represented as a list of pairs, each of the form (character, next state). Each pair is called a transition. When the machine is in the state and encounters a character in a pair, the machine transitions to the next state indicated by the pair. If the encountered character is not in any transition from the state, then the machine halts. Each state has a value. For a finite-state machine representing a counter, the value for a state reached immediately upon encountering one or more counter patterns is the sum of amounts corresponding to the patterns, and the values for other states are zero. To perform a counter evaluation, apply the machine corresponding to the counter starting at each start position in the text. Transition from state to state based on the character sequence, accumulating in a sum the value of each state that the machine visits.
A multi-counter contains a set of counters. The score for a multi-counter on a text is a list of scores for the counters in the multi-counter. Computing the multi-counter score for a text is called multi-counter evaluation. Multi-counter evaluation is useful to evaluate a news text for relevance to a set of topics, with each counter corresponding to a topic. Depending on topic relevance, a news story may be forwarded to people interested in the story. Also, the combination of topic scores may be used to evaluate when there is a shift in the focus of news. Multi-counter evaluation is useful to search a genetic sequence for indications that the sequence codes different protein families, with each counter corresponding to a protein family and each pattern corresponding to a code for a substructure commonly found among proteins of the family.
One method of multi-counter evaluation is to perform counter evaluations in sequence for each counter in the multi-counter. Another method is to use multiple computational resources to perform two or more counter evaluations at once. The first method is relatively slow, and the second method is relatively resource-intensive.

Finite-state machine augmented for multiple evaluations of text


A method of generating pronunciation information can include graphically presenting at least one activatable visual identifier corresponding to individual ones of a plurality of phonemes. Responsive to a selection of one of the visual identifiers, pronunciation information can be generated in accordance with the selected visual identifier. The pronunciation information can be compiled responsive to a selection of one of the plurality of visual identifiers.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of speech-driven applications, and more particularly, to developing speech driven applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a speech recognition system, a component known as a speech recognition engine or recognizer can produce text words from a received audio stream representing user speech. Pronunciations, known as baseforms, stored within the speech recognizer can be used to convert received speech to text. For example, the word spelled "the" can have multiple pronunciations. One phonetic representation can be "TH EE", while another phonetic representation can be "TH UH". Simply stated, the recognizer can process an audio stream and generate a phonetic representation of the speech. If a word exists in the speech recognition system vocabulary which matches the phonetic representation, the text word can be returned by the recognizer.
Presently, only speech that is defined within the recognizer (i.e. pronunciations with corresponding text words) can be recognized. Accordingly, the development of a comprehensive speech application can be problematic due to the tremendous number of words which exist in various languages as well as the rate at which new words are invented. Further complicating the problem, speech applications frequently are called upon to recognize "pseudo-words" (such as user-ids and/or passwords). Defining all possible words and pseudo words is not only impractical, but is cost prohibitive as well.
Still, to develop comprehensive speech applications, the application developer must develop pronunciations. These pronunciations can be used with speech recognition and text-to-speech systems. To date, however, pronunciations have been generated by developers using a phonology listing and a text editor. Specifically, the developer types the spelling of a word, types the phonological representation of the spelling, and then compiles the text and phonological representation to build a vocabulary. The vocabulary then must be tested, refined, and recompiled until an acceptable model is developed.

Method and apparatus for word pronunciation composition

International Business Machines Corporation


The adjustable LCD screen assembly for a writing machine includes base and an LCD screen assembly coupled to each other by a hinge assembly. An embodiment of the hinge assembly includes a pivot post and a pair locking set screws, Bellville spring washers, a screw, an anti-rotation washer, a first bracket and a second bracket. The hinge assembly mounts to the base along the first bracket and to the LCD screen assembly along the second bracket. The hinge assembly utilizes a compression mechanism including a spring mechanism to generate frictional force between the elements of the hinge assembly to hold the LCD screen assembly in place with respect to the base under “static conditions,” yet allows for infinite adjustability of the LCD screen assembly, within a given range of motion, under “pivoting conditions.”

Stenographic writing machines have been used for transcription for many years. A typical stenographic writing machine contains a keypad for shorthand writing and either a paper-based or liquid crystal display ("LCD") for viewing the written transcript. The keypad on a stenographic writing machine usually consists of a few keys which are associated with shorthand phrases and/or symbols. Typically, a stenographer uses the writing machine to transcribe conversations made in a legal forum.
A stenographic writing machine can be electronically or mechanically powered. Some electronic stenographic writing machines have LCD screens for easy display. An electronic display saves on the cost of paper and ink necessary for paper based stenographic writing machines. The electronic LCD display further provides for an ease of reviewing and correcting stenographic transcripts.
Currently, neither paper-based nor LCD writing machines have adjustable displays. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an LCD screen assembly that is adjustable, easy to use, and provides various operating positions for the user.

Adjustable LCD screen assembly for writing machine


A diagnostic for diagnosing fault conditions including leak and restriction conditions in a positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system of an internal combustion engine in which temperature of intake air passed to the PCV system and temperature of exhaust gas exhausted from the PCV system are monitored under test conditions and a temperature change across the PCV system generated therefrom for comparison to an expected temperature change reference as a function of current engine operating conditions. A significant persistent deviation of the temperature change away from the expected temperature change is indicated as a fault condition of the PCV system.

Internal combustion engine crankcase ventilation is generally understood to be required to remove combustion gases and unburned hydrocarbons, termed "blow-by gases," that leak by piston rings during combustion, leading to degradation in engine component materials and contamination of engine oil. Positive crankcase ventilation (PCV), purges blow-by gases from the engine crankcase, separates oil from the blow-by gases and returns the gases to an engine intake manifold to be consumed. PCV systems typically are relatively complex, including a purge control valve (PCV valve) and a plurality of flow lines with connections between the crankcase, the intake manifold, and a fresh air source. Flow restrictions in the PCV valve or in any of the flow lines, or leaks in the flow lines can interfere with effective purging of the blow-by gases, potentially leading to reduced engine performance and increased emissions. Currently, only when such restrictions or leaks are of an extreme character, for example as may cause perceptible degradation in engine performance, are they diagnosed and eventually treated. A performance or emissions penalty may be paid from the time the restriction of leak condition develops to the time of proper treatment thereof.
Copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/705,895, filed Aug. 28, 1996, U.S. Pat. No. 5,792,949 assigned to the assignee of this application, discloses diagnosing a PCV system by monitoring PCV system pressure during a stable engine operating condition. Pressure excursions outside a pressure range are diagnosed as a leak or a restriction condition in the PCV system and are indicated. PCV system pressure monitoring requires exposure of pressure transducers to high contaminant levels and substantial temperature variation in the PCV system, which may reduce transducer life or increase transducer cost. Further, such prior art diagnostic may be engine crankcase volume (and therefore engine application) sensitive, leading to significant calibration effort to transport the diagnostic between engine applications.
Copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/740,177, filed on the filing date of this application, attorney docket number H-197597, assigned to the assignee of this application, discloses diagnosing a PCV system by varying a restriction to flow through the PCV system and through synchronized sampling of engine intake mass airflow rate. If the sampled air rate changes in a manner significantly different than that expected for the controlled change in PCV system airflow restriction, a fault condition may be indicated. Such diagnostic requires an additional actuator which may be controlled in a manner intrusive upon other control operations and requires relatively complex synchronized parameter sampling to measure the impact of the varied PCV system flow on engine intake mass airflow rate. System cost and performance may be compromised under such approach.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for low cost, simple, non-intrusive diagnosis of a PCV system which may easily be applied over a range of engine applications.

Positive crankcase ventilation system diagnostic


A forward-tilting display container with fold-out display doors which is adjustable between an enclosed position and a display position. In the enclosed position, the fold-out display doors comprise a portion of the lid of the container, with the remainder of the lid defining a pedestal-forming portion. The lid is hingedly connected to a display panel on the side of the container. The container is adjusted to the display position by folding the lid back so that the display doors overlay the display panel and the pedestal-forming portion lies underneath the container. In the display position, the display doors are opened to expose both the display panel and the display doors, with the pedestal-forming portion of the lid supporting the container in a forward-tilting position.

It has long been known that containers may be simply and economically manufactured from a "blank", or flat sheet of paperboard, which is folded and glued to form a completed paperboard container. Such paperboard folding containers may be used in a variety of applications including storage, shipping and display of products such as candy, office supplies, small toys, and the like. Typically, the containers are packed with several of such items by the manufacturer, then sealed and shipped to various merchants for resale. Where the items are sold individually, it is a common practice among merchants to simply open the container and place the opened container on their store shelves, thus displaying the contents to the consumer and allowing the consumer to remove individual items from the container for purchase.
A graphic display on the face of the container is typically used to convey information about the product to the consumer. For example, the graphic display may indicate the trademark, price or other characteristic of the product. The graphic display may also be used to capture the attention of the consumer through any combination of colors, patterns, symbols, pictures, photographs and the like. It is well known that attractive eye-catching displays can result in increased sales of a product. Accordingly, especially where containers of one product are positioned adjacent to competitors products on the store shelves, there is a need to further enhance the visual impact that such containers and associated graphic displays have on the typical consumer. The present invention is directed to addressing this need.

Forward-tilting display container with fold-out doors


Apparatus for tensioning a ligament graft includes a hydraulic tensioning cylinder with a piston having a distal end for holding and affixing, relative to the distal end of the piston, a free end of a ligament graft, where the other end of the ligament graft is affixed to a patient. An inflation device, in hydraulic communication with a cylinder, moves the piston to tension the graft.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to surgical devices and methods for adjusting tension of ligament grafts. The invention has particular utility in connection with establishing ligament graft tension in knee surgery applications, and will be described in connection with such utility, although other utilities are contemplated.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Treatment of knee instability due, for example, to rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament has been a mixture of ligament repair, augmentation or substitution by tendon transfer. The most common technique at the present time is the use of an autogenous patella tendon graft with bone harvested from the patella and the tibial tuberosity. The patella tendon graft and bone plugs are fed into tunnels within the femur and tibia and secured at each end.
Successful tendon graft surgery is dependent on several factors including graft selection, tunnel placement, isometric placement, bone preparation, fixation devices, correct tensioning of the graft, and post-surgical rehabilitation, all of which have been thoroughly studied. All of the above factors are highly critical, and any variation from optimal control can result in graft failure. By way of example, theoretically, isometric placement is possible where the ligament remains at the same tension throughout the range of knee flexion and extension. However, this is difficult to achieve in practice. Many recent developments have attempted to define the isometric points for insertion of the drill and have demonstrated the effect of incorrect placement.
For the ligament to be functional, it not only has to be inserted isometrically, but it has to be correctly tensioned in order to allow a full range of motion. Various techniques have been developed for determining correct graft tensioning during a patella tendon reconstruction, none of which have been completely satisfactory since existing techniques do not permit measurement through full range of motion. In particular, excessive graft tension has been found to be detrimental to success in a continuous passive motion. Any graft material that is highly tensioned will be more subject to abrasion at the bony edges of tunnels or the notch and also subject to more frequent fixation failure. Thus, the importance for correct tensioning. Moreover a significant variable that has received little attention is the precise preloader tension applied to the graft before fixation. Another technical problem is to ensure that once proper tension on the graft is set, that the tension is maintained, without change, during fixation of the ends of the this ligament. Moreover, no method is believed to be currently available which permits tension to be incrementally increased while the range of motion and stability is continuously examined.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide the system, i.e. method and apparatus which overcomes the aforesaid and other disadvantages of the prior art. Another object of the present invention is to provide the method and apparatus which is uniquely suited for establishment of proper skeletal referenced ligament graft tension. It is a specific object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for establishing proper skeletal referenced ligament graft tension and fixation of a cruciate ligament graft during knee surgery.


The present invention allows a pair to be formed between a plurality of discrete volumes and the progress thereof to be managed by means of a remote operation from a management server. Management server 10 instructs respective host computers 20, 30 to generate configuration files 23, 33. Next, management server 10 instructs host computers 20, 30 to start up HORCM (Hitachi Remote Copy Module) instances 24, 34. The generation of the configuration files and the startup of the HORCM instances can be separated. In one mode, configuration files are generated and the HORCM instances are started up, while, in another mode, only configuration files are generated. In yet another mode, the HORCM instances are started up when predetermined conditions are fulfilled. A more flexible operation can thus be performed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage system that connects a storage device, such as, for example, a disk array subsystem, and a host computer via a communication network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data management systems, which handle large volumes of data, such as, for example, those used by local governments, corporations, and so forth, for example, manage data by using a storage subsystem such as a disk array device. A disk array device is formed by arranging a multiplicity of disks in the form of an array, and is constructed based on, for example, a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Inexpensive Disks) scheme. In a disk array device, a logical volume (LU) constituting a logical storage region can be constructed on a physical disk. The disk array device provides a host computer such as an application server with a logical volume.
The host computer and disk array device are connected via a communication network such as a SAN (Storage Area Network), for example. Each host computer connected to the SAN is capable of reading and writing data by accessing a self-allocated logical volume (or a logical volume for which the host computer has access rights) among the logical volumes included in the disk array device.
A technology that provides a SAN with a management server; connects each host computer, storage device, and so forth, to a management server by means of a LAN (Local Area Network); and performs integrated control is also known (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-63063).
A data group used by the host computer that is executing a variety of tasks must be backed up at regular or irregular intervals. The volume content of the host computer (task server) providing a client with task services is copied to a host computer (backup server) that performs backup processing. Further, the volume content that is copied to the backup server is backed up to a backup device such as, for example, a tape device.
For example, when a task server volume is backed up, each logical volume is allocated to a task server and backup server, and a copy pair consisting of a primary volume, which is to be the copy source, and a secondary volume, which is to be the copy destination, is established. Volume copying is then executed when the opportunity arises.
Therefore, the storage system must be reconfigured in accordance with occasional backup requests. However, even when a management server is provided, the labor involved in setting and changing storage configuration information via a network is complicated and time-consuming. When, for example, a storage administrator reconfigures a storage system and so forth, the reconfiguration must be reported by telephone, email, or the like, to the administrator of each host computer sharing the storage. Furthermore, because configuration information held by each host computer must also be changed in accordance with the reconfiguration to the storage system, an administrator who is to perform management work for each host computer is then required. Therefore, when setting adjustments are to be made to the storage configuration information, the storage administrator must contact the administrators of all the host computers involved and the administrator of each host computer must then perform the complex and time-consuming work of setting and changing storage configuration information.

Network storage configuration management


The invention relates to a mobile unit for cleaning a sewer network from a manhole, the unit comprising a suction hose, a cleaner hose, and a support and guide arm comprising a horizontal portion movable in swiveling about a vertical axis and in horizontal translation relative to the mobile unit, said arm further including a vertical portion connected to the horizontal portion and presenting a bottom module movable in swiveling and in vertical translation relative to said horizontal portion, the suction and cleaner hoses being connected to said bottom module, whereby the positioning of the bottom module corresponds substantially to the positioning of the working ends of the suction and cleaner hoses.

The term mobile unit covers both a self-propelled assembly such as a wheeled vehicle of the truck type, and an assembly that itself towed, such as a trailer, a wagon, or indeed an assembly suitable for mounting on a trailer or on the chassis of a vehicle.
There exists trucks, known as jetter-trucks, that can be used for applying both a water-jet and suction to sewer networks, i.e. for enabling the deposits that accumulate in manholes and the adjacent channels to be removed by means of a cleaner hose having a cleaner head that delivers a high-pressure water-jet, and by means of a suction hose for sucking up the liquid residue and sludge.
It will be understood that equipment of that type must enable the operator, who remains close to the manhole situated in a roadway, to place the cleaner hose with the cleaner head at its end in the manhole in the desired location(s), to hold it in position throughout the high-pressure cleaning operation while causing water to be delivered at high pressure, and then to raise it back onto the truck. Thereafter, the operator needs to perform the same positioning, control, retention, and raising operations using the suction hose.
From the above, it can thus be understood that the operator needs to perform a large amount of handling while not having a good view of the position inside the manhole, and thus while not guaranteeing that cleaning will be performed properly and that no zones will be left unwashed and/or with debris that has not been sucked up.
Furthermore, in particular when raising the hoses, and more particularly the cleaner hose, splashing can arise outside the manhole that, combined with possible dirtying of the hoses, can lead to situations and to handling difficulties that can sometimes be most uncomfortable for the operator.
Document DE 102 46 041 discloses a cleaning vehicle having an arm mounted on the vehicle that is movable relative to the vehicle to swivel about a vertical axis and to move in horizontal translation, the arm carrying a suction hose and a cleaner hose.
Document EP 0 698 696 also discloses a cleaning vehicle fitted with a high-pressure cleaner hose and a suction hose mounted on a horizontal-swiveling telescopic boom.
Nevertheless, it is desirable to achieve greater accuracy in the positioning of the suction and cleaner hoses, in particular over the manhole, and in particular close to the manhole, and in the manhole, both vertically (height/depth) and in a radial direction about a vertical axis running along the manhole.

Mobile unit for cleaning a sewer network

Veolia Eau - Compagnie Generale Des Eaux


A print-receptive, pill-resistant, knitted fabric and printed article of apparel. The fabric is knitted from yarn formed from high-tenacity, staple synthetic fiber having a tenacity value of greater than about 4 grams/denier and preferably about 6 grams/denier. The resulting knitted fabric has a pilling resistance value of greater than about 3. In the preferred embodiment, the high-tenacity, staple synthetic fiber is selected from the group consisting of air jet spun polyester; nylon; acrylic; and polypropylene. The use of staple fibers improves the hand, drape and comfort of the knitted fabric. Also, in the preferred embodiment, the knitted fabric is a double-knit fabric having a front side and a back side, the front side being formed from the high-tenacity, staple synthetic fiber and the back side being substantially formed from cellulosic yarns, such as cotton and synthetic cellulosic fibers. This construction improves both comfort and opacity of the knitted fabric while, at the same time, provides a print-receptive face and good print resolution of the article of apparel after multiple home washings.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to circular knitted fabric and, more particularly, to a pill-resistant knitted fabric and article of apparel having a print-receptive face and good print resolution even after multiple home washings.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
The term circular knitting covers those weft knitting machines having needle beds arranged in circular cylinders and/or dials including latch, bearded and occasionally compound needle machinery. Such machines produce a wide variety of fabric structures, garments, hosiery and other articles and a variety of diameters and machine gauges. Such machines have the needles fixed in a revolving circle with the loop formation and knitting action being achieved by ancillary elements moving yarn and loops along the needle stems producing a fabric tube with the technical face facing backwards. Large diameter circular knitting machines are generally used to produce either fleece or jersey fabrics as well as other fabric constructions. The following discussion is taken generally from Spencer, David J., Knitting Technology, (2d. ed. 1989), which is a general treatment of knitting technology and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Knitted fabrics are progressively built up by converting newly fed yarn into new loops in the needle hooks, the needles then draw these new loops head first through the old loops, which have been retained from the previous knitting cycle. The needles at the same time release, cast off or knock-over old loops so that they hang suspended by their heads from the feet of the new loops whose heads are still held in the hooks of the needles. A cohesive structure is thus produced by a combination of the intermeshed loops and the yarn joining those loops together through which it passes.
Knitted loops are arranged in rows and columns roughly equivalent to the warp and weft of woven structures termed "courses" and "wales" respectively. A course is a predominately horizontal row of loops (in an upright fabric) produced by adjacent needles during the same knitting cycle. A wale is a predominantly vertical column of needle loops produced by the same needle knitting at successive knitting cycles and thus intermeshing each new loop through the previous loop.
"Yarn count" indicates the linear density (yarn diameter or fineness) to which that particular yarn has been spun. The choice of yarn count is restricted by the type of knitting machine employed and the knitting construction. The yarn count, in turn, influences the cost, weight, opacity, hand and drape of the resulting knitted structure. In general, staple spun yarns tend to be comparatively more expensive the finer their count, because finer fibers and a more exacting spinning process are necessary in order to prevent the yarn from showing an irregular appearance.
The conventional technique for painting or decorating fabrics, such as Tee shirts, is screen-printing. In a typical screen printing operation, a separate screen is made for each color to be applied. A first screen is brought into registry with the fabric surface and a first color painted thereon. A second, third, and fourth screen, if necessary, each representing different colors, is then brought into registry with the surface and the additional colors painted or brushed thereon through the pattern in the screen.
In the textile industry, the problems associated with screen printing have been overcome, to some extent, by a process known as "heat-transfer printing" in which a carrier consisting usually of paper or aluminum foil is printed with sublimable dyes temporarily affixed to the carrier by the use of binders. The carrier so printed is then laid with the printed side adjacent the fabric to be printed, and is then heated under pressure to a temperature in the range of 160° C. to 220° C. on the unprinted side of the carrier to sublime the dyes onto the fabric.
Heat-transfer printing techniques have been attempted onto a wide variety of sheet-like articles such as wood, metals, glass, ceramics, and certain synthetic resins by providing such articles with a surface layer or coating of a thermoplastic resin which adheres to the surface of the substrate and accepts the sublimable dyes. See e.g., German patent No. DE 2,642,350; French Pat. No. 2,230,794; and British Pat. No. 1,517,832. Similarly the surface of the article to be printed may be coated with a thermosetting resin (published European patent application No. 14,901) which receives the dyes. Characteristic of all of the above approaches is that the transfer of the dyes by sublimation onto a thermosetting or thermoplastic resin is effected by means of heat supplied or generated by an external source.
Natural fibers, such as cotton and rayon, do not readily accept or retain sublimable dyes. Because of this shortcoming, polyester/cotton blends dyed in this way exhibit "grin through" since the cotton portion of the fabric remains undyed. In addition, polyester/cotton blends are notorious for "pilling" which further degrades the printed image after a few home washings. While it is generally believed that pilling only occurs with polyester/cotton blends, pilling will also occur in knitted 100% polyester fabrics if staple yarns are used. However, this is not usually observed since polyester staple fibers are seldom used without first being blended with cotton fibers because 100% polyester fabric is uncomfortable to wear against the skin. Consequently, most 100% polyester fabrics that are used for apparel are usually either knitted or woven continuous multi-filament yarns because of the high strength and low cost of these yarns.
Woven 100% synthetic fabric is an ideal substrate for receiving sublimable dyes because of the composition of the yarn and the stability of a woven construction. Unfortunately, the hand, drape, opacity and comfort of a woven 100% polyester fabric are even more unacceptable to the average consumer than the poor appearance of "grin through". As a result, 100% polyester sublimable dyed woven fabrics are usually reserved for banners and other non-apparel uses.
Thus, there remains a need for a new and improved fabric that is print receptive to sublimable dyes like a 100% synthetic fabric and pill-resistant like a continuous multi-filament synthetic fabric while, at the same time, provides the comfort and appearance of a knitted cotton or cotton/polyester stable blend which is suitable for apparel articles, such as Tee shirts.

Print-receptive, pill-resistant, knitted fabric


In one embodiment, a message is received at a caching node in a network including an indication of the message's urgency. The message is transmitted to child nodes of the caching node, and upon transmitting the message, a retransmission timer is initiated when the message is urgent, based on the indication of the message's urgency. Then, one or more acknowledgements of receipt of the transmitted message are received from one or more of the child nodes, respectively. Upon expiration of the retransmission timer, when it is determined that one or more of the child nodes did not receive the transmitted message based on the received acknowledgements, the message is retransmitted to the child nodes.

Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), e.g., sensor networks, have a myriad of applications, such as Smart Grid and Smart Cities. Various challenges are presented with LLNs, such as lossy links, low bandwidth, battery operation, low memory and/or processing capability, etc. As LLN deployments are typically very large, e.g., containing hundreds of routers which manage millions of nodes, effectively managing network-wide configuration changes can present a challenge. Such network-wide changes include, for example, firmware migrations and configuration changes. In doing so, point-to-multipoint messaging may be utilized, which encompasses both large file upgrades handled by a centralized application, and short message transmissions sent by a server to a large set of nodes. Short message transmissions are helpful when urgent delivery of a message to a large set of nodes is required, e.g., in the case of rolling back a migration decision. Importantly, the inability to reliably propagate a short message through the network can impede the roll back and thus lead to major network disruption.

Lightweight multicast acknowledgement technique in communication networks


A decoding apparatus includes: a decoding section for decoding input encoded data; an output section for outputting data decoded by the decoding section, in accordance with an output control signal; a plurality of copyright information detection sections for detecting different types of copyright information from the data decoded by the decoding section and each outputting the detected copyright information; an output control section for outputting the output control signal in accordance with the copyright information detected by at least one of the plurality of copyright information detection sections; and a detection control section for controlling the plurality of copyright information detection sections so that at least one of the plurality of copyright information detection sections has a period of time in which the at least one copyright information detection section does not perform process.

The present invention relates to a decoding apparatus for decoding encoded video and audio data, and particularly relates to copyright protection technology.
The amount of information in digitized video and audio data is usually reduced by high-efficiency coding process and then the resultant data is multiplexed so as to be recorded on a recording medium or transmitted. The major examples of the recording medium include a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc). The major examples of the transmission include distribution via digital television broadcast or the Internet.
Video data is encoded mainly according to the MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Experts Group-2) standard, the MPEG-4 standard, or the like, while audio data is encoded mainly in accordance with Dolby Digital, DTS (Digital Theater Systems), MPEG Audio, PCM (Pulse Code Modulation), or the like.
Audio data encoded according to these encoding methods will be hereinafter referred to as "encoded audio data". In many cases, multiple channels of audio data are encoded as encoded audio data.
If video and audio are converted into digital data, they can be recorded or transmitted more conveniently, while replication thereof without degradation becomes possible, leading to the problem of copyright infringement. In order to deal with this problem, a technique for embedding copyright information in video and audio data has been developed. Although detailed explanation of this technique will be omitted herein, this kind of technique has already been employed in DVD-Audio and the like, for example.
In the future, multiple types of copyright protection techniques may be employed according to the characteristics of contents. In that case, when a medium on which a plurality of contents can be recorded is played back, it is necessary to detect multiple types of copyright information.
For example, the pamphlet of International Publication No. WO2002/065783 discloses a technique for detecting two kinds of copyright information for images.
The disclosed technique, however, achieves commonality of processing by taking advantage of the fact that these two types of copyright information are both for images. Techniques to be developed in the future will not necessarily have commonalities with the prior technique. Therefore, detection of multiple types of copyright information may require simultaneous operation of a plurality of copyright information detectors, which may cause an increase in the amount of computation necessary for the detection.

Decoding apparatus for controlling sequence of operations for a plurality of copyright information detection sections