Current methods of embedding hidden data in an image inevitably distort the original image by noise. This distortion cannot generally be removed completely because of quantization, bit-replacement, or truncation at the grayscales 0 and 255. The distortion, though often small, may make the original image unacceptable for medical applications, or for military and law enforcement applications where an image must be inspected under unusual viewing conditions (e.g., after filtering or extreme zoom). The present invention provides high-capacity embedding of data that is lossless (or distortion-free) because, after embedded information is extracted from a cover image, we revert to an exact copy of the original image before the embedding took place. This new technique is a powerful tool for a variety of tasks, including lossless robust watermarking, lossless authentication with fragile watermarks, and steganalysis. The technique is applicable to raw, uncompressed formats (e.g., BMP, PCX, PGM, RAS, etc.), lossy image formats (JPEG, JPEG2000, wavelet), and palette formats (GIF, PNG).

This invention relates to embedding data into an object that comprises a collection of samples. The samples include a digital representation of an image; audio, video, and other binary files, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images; three-dimensional representations of spatial structures; etc. The original object before embedding is called the cover object; the object with embedded data is called the stego-object.
Applications that embed data can be divided into two groups, depending on the relationship between the embedded message and the cover object. The first group is steganographic applications, where the message has no relationship to the cover object. The only role for the cover object is to mask the very presence of communication. The content of the cover object has no value to either the sender or the decoder. It functions only to mask an embedded secret message. In a steganographic application for covertly communicating, the receiver has no interest in the original object. Thus such applications do not need lossless techniques for embedding data.
There is, however, a second group of applications in which the cover object is itself of interest. To distort the original object permanently by embedding data into it is unacceptable. Either the distortion must be eliminated or a technique found that restores the original object after the data is embedded.
This second group includes digital watermarking, watermarking for authentication and tamper detection, watermarking for distribution and access control, watermarking for broadcast monitoring, fingerprinting, and image augmentation. In a typical watermarking application, the hidden message has a close relation to the cover object. The hidden message may supply additional information about the cover object, e.g., its caption, ancillary data about its origin, author, sender, or recipient, a digital signature, an authentication code, etc.
Though hiding a message in the object increases its practical value, the act of embedding inevitably introduces some distortion. This distortion should be as small as possible consistent with meeting other requirements, such as minimal robustness and sufficient payload. Employing models of the human visual or audio system helps make the distortion from embedding less detectable to a human.
There are, however, some applications for which any distortion of the object is unacceptable, no matter how minimal. A good example is a medical image, where even the smallest modification cannot be allowed, both for legal reasons and to eliminate a potential risk that a physician will misinterpret an image. Other examples come from law enforcement and the military, where analysts inspect images and videos under special conditions. Under these conditions, which include extreme zoom, iterative filtering, and enhancement, common assumptions about the effects of distortion on visibility do not apply. Only a complete absence of distortion can satisfy the requirements placed on such an image.
Techniques for embedding data, especially high-capacity data, generally introduce some distortion into the original object. Such distortion is permanent; it cannot be reversed. As an example, take simple Least Significant Bit (LSB) embedding, which irreversibly replaces the LSB plane with the message bits.
The concept of embedding data losslessly appears in a patent assigned to The Eastman Kodak Company (Honsinger et al., Lossless Recovery of an Original Image Containing Embedded Data, U.S. Pat. No. 6,278,791, issued Aug. 21, 2001). The inventors describe a fragile invertible method of authentication based on a robust watermark in the spatial domain. Their technique for watermarking is spatial, additive, and non-adaptive; the lossless embedding was achieved by replacing regular addition by addition modulo 256. This type of addition will, however, introduce some disturbing artifacts that resemble a correlated salt-and-pepper noise when pixels with grayscales close to zero are modified to values close to 255 and vice versa. Another drawback of this technique is that its payload must be very small. Thus this technique is not suitable for general data embedding. Finally, the technique is not easily expandable to other image formats and different data types (audio, for example). A more detailed analysis and further generalization of this technique can be found in J. Fridrich et al., "Invertible Authentication," Proc. SPIE, Security and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents (San Jose, Calif., January 2001).
A different technique for lossless authentication and lossless embedding of data, based on lossless compression of bit-planes, starts with the lowest bit-plane and calculates its redundancy, defined as the difference between the number of pixels and the same bit-plane compressed with the JBIG lossless compression method (see K. Sayood, Introduction to Data Compression (San Francisco, 1996), 87–94) or some other method. Then the embedding method proceeds to higher bit-planes till the redundancy becomes greater or equal to the payload that needs to be embedded. If this technique is used for authentication, only 128 bits (for MD5 hash—see Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography, 2 ed. (NY, 1996)) need to be embedded. Most high quality images can be authenticated in the lowest three bit-planes. Noisy images may require the 4th or the 5th bit-plane.
The capacity of this technique can be traded for distortion by choosing different bit-planes, but the artifacts can quickly become visible depending on the length of the message and the noisiness of the original image. Overall, the method provides only small payloads and is not suitable for general data embedding.
Macq described a modification to the patchwork algorithm to achieve lossless embedding of a watermark. He also used addition modulo 256 and essentially embedded a one-bit watermark. It is unclear if this technique could be used for authentication or general data embedding with practical payloads. (B. Macq, "Lossless Multiresolution Transform for Image Authenticating Watermarking" Proc. EUSIPCO (Tampere, Finland, September 2000)).
Thus there is a need for simple, high-capacity techniques that do not introduce visible artifacts and, at the same time, remove the distortion inherent in the embedding of a hidden message in a cover object, where the cover object itself is the object of interest. It is also important that the techniques be general enough to apply to all object types, including images, video, audio, and other binary files comprising digital samples. In the case of digital images, the technique should be applicable to all image formats, including uncompressed formats, such as BMP, PGM, PCX, etc., palette formats, such as GIF, PNG, and lossy formats, such as JPEG, JPEG2000, wavelet formats, fractal formats, etc.

Lossless embedding of data in digital objects


A distortion-reducing anti-glare (DRAG) structure is disclosed, wherein the DRAG structure includes first and second transparent mediums. The first transparent medium has a first refractive index and a first light-scattering anti-glare (AG) surface. The first AG surface by itself reduces glare but introduces an amount of distortion to the transmitted light. A second transparent medium having a second refractive index greater than the first refractive index is selectively added to the first transparent medium to reduce the amount of distortion in the transmitted light.

There are numerous devices, applications and situations in which one needs to view an object through an intervening transparent medium. For example, most cell phones, computer displays, televisions and appliances employ displays that include a top transparent sheet as the transparent medium through which the displayed information or picture is viewed. Likewise, windows, windshields, glass for covering photographs and other artwork, aquariums and the like involve viewing an object through an intervening transparent medium.
A common problem that arises when viewing an object through an intervening transparent medium is glare. Glare may be defined as the substantially specular reflection of ambient light on the viewer side of the transparent medium from one or more surfaces of the transparent medium. Thus, glare light travels an optical path that extends from the source of the ambient light to the surface of the transparent medium and then to the viewer, with the angle of incidence being substantially the same as the angle of reflection. Object light, on the other hand, travels from the object through the transparent medium to the viewer. Glare makes it difficult to view an object through the intervening transparent medium when the optical paths of the glare light and the object light substantially overlap in the region between the transparent medium and the viewer.
Consequently, anti-glare surfaces are often applied to the viewer-side surface of the transparent medium to avoid or reduce the amount of glare. Such anti-glare surfaces are typically formed by providing some degree of roughness that spreads (i.e., scatters or diffuses) the light reflected by the surface over a certain angle. Typical anti-glare surfaces used in display applications comprise a coated or structured polymeric film (often a polarizing film) that is directly laminated to the surface of the front glass sheet forming the display (e.g., a liquid-crystal display (LCD)). The ideal parameters and processes used for anti-glare polymeric coatings are not necessarily the same as the ideal parameters used for a protective anti-glare cover glass. One reason for this is the anti-glare surface on a protective cover glass typically must be placed at a larger optical distance from the image-forming plane of the display device than would an anti-glare polymeric coating.
Random noise may be generated in an image viewed through such an anti-glare surface due to either excessive roughness or the shape of the features that form the roughened surface. Such noise is generally called "sparkle" or "dazzle" and may be characterized by a number referred to as the pixel power deviation (PPD). Sparkle may occur when anti-glare or light-scattering surfaces are employed on the surface of a transparent medium. Sparkle is associated with a very fine, grainy appearance that appears to shift as the viewing angle changes. This type of sparkle is observed, for example, when pixelated displays such as LCDs are viewed through an anti-glare surface. "Sparkle," as the term is used herein, is of a different type and origin than "speckle," which is an interference effect that arises in connection with rough surfaces illuminated by coherent light.
A major shortcoming of anti-glare and anti-sparkle surfaces is when applied to an intervening transparent medium disposed between the user and the object, they distort the optical path of the transmitted light. For example, conventional anti-glare and anti-sparkle surfaces relying on surface roughness tend to diffuse the object light, which makes the object look diffuse and thus less clear. The farther the object is located from the transparent medium, the more distorted the object appears when viewed through the transparent medium. Thus, there is a need for anti-glare and anti-sparkle surfaces having reduced optical distortion for object light when applied to a transparent medium.
A related application for embodiments of the present disclosure is the use of roughened surfaces on touch screens or other touch-sensitive surfaces through which light is transmitted. These may often be used to improve the "gliding feel" of fingers, styluses, or other probes over a touch screen surface. This may be accomplished through adding surface roughness, which reduces the effective contact area between probe and screen, thus reducing the effective friction or stick-slip effects, and providing a pleasing touch interface. These rough surfaces, while not used strictly to create an anti-glare effect, typically also will create the same problems as described above, such as distortion or sparkle effects for transmitted light. Thus, a related aspect of this disclosure is to create roughened surfaces to enhance touch screen or touch-sensitive-surface usability through reducing effective friction or creating an engineered friction surface, while at the same time minimizing negative optical effects imparted to the transmitted light.

Anti-glare and anti-sparkle transparent structures


The present invention is directed to (R)-(-)-4,5-dihydro-5-methyl-6-4-(2-propyl-3-oxo-1-cyclohexenyl)amino!ph enyl!-3(2H)-pyridazinone, the crystalline form thereof and a method for manufacturing the said compound and the said crystalline form.. The compound of the present invention has excellent inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation while giving less side effect, and therefore, it is useful to utilize the compound as an antithrombotic drug. In addition, the compound of the present invention has bronchodialatic effect as well, and it is therefore useful to utilize the compound for chemotherapy of chronic obstructive lung disease, such as asthma and bronchitis.. Moreover, the compound of the present invention is useful for chemotherapy of the diseases relating to the concentration of cAMP in cells, such as hypertension, ulcer, diabetes mellitus and cancer.. Again, crystalline form of the said compound is the most suitable form in order to supply stable and homogeneous bulk thereof.

It is well known in the art that pyridazinone compounds have an inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation, and the racemic modifications of the pyridazinone compound of the present invention are disclosed in WO 94/09784 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,663,172.
The said racemic modification has significant inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation, and the side effect caused thereby has been improved to an extent.
However, there is still such problems in the racemic modification that said racemic modifications is not enough chemically stable because of the noncrystalline state and further due to the influence generated from the remaining solvent and water therein, and therefore, the quality of the racemic modification have significantly varied in the industrial scale production. Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide optically active pyridazinone derivative which has an inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation, less side effect and higher physical stability.
The present invention is directed to a compound, (R)-(-)-4,5-dihydro-5-methyl-6-4-(2-propyl-3-oxo-1-cyclohexenyl)amino!ph enyl!-3(2H)-pyridazinone represented by the following general formula I!; ##STR1## the crystalline form thereof and methods for manufacturing the said compound and the crystalline form thereof.
The noncrystalline racemic modifications (.+-.)-(I)! of the compounds of the present invention can be manufactured according to the method disclosed in WO 94/09784, for example.
The crystalline optically active compound of the present invention, (R)-(-)-4,5-dihydro-5-methyl-6-4-(2-propyl-3-oxo-1-cyclohexenyl)amino!ph enyl!-3(2H)-pyridazinone, can be prepared by firstly obtaining the racemic modification of said compound either by means of optical resolution by using column chromatography for optical isomers separation or by using optically active raw material II! to thereby prepare said racemic modification, and subsequently conducting the crystallization of the racemic modification obtained in any of water, organic solvent or the admixture thereof according to a method generally known in the art, either after isolating the said optically active compound from the solvent or without such isolation. More specifically, the racemic modification can be prepared by taking a procedure, where firstly stirring the optically active compound in an solvent selected from a group consisting of water, hydrophilic organic solvent such as ethanol and the admixture thereof, at a temperature of from -20.degree. to 80.degree. C., more preferably from 0.degree. to 40.degree. C., then collecting the crystals precipitated, and finally drying said crystals according to a method generally-known in the art. In the procedure hereinabove, it is possible to hasten said crystallization by adding a piece of the crystals into the solvent as seed crystal. In case the admixture of water and an organic solvent is used for the solvent described above, it is preferable that the admixture contains water at a concentration of from 5 to 95%, and more preferably from 30 to 70%.
Whereas, in some cases, such crystalline optically active compound can be directly obtained from optical resolution by using column chromatography for optical isomers separation, however, it should be noted that such crystalline optically active compounds is naturally falling within the scope of the crystalline optically active compound of the present invention.
For the column chromatography for optical isomers separation, it is preferable to use CHIRALCEL OD, OJ, CHIRALPAK AD, AS (manufactured by Daicel Chemical industries, Ltd.) or SUMICHIRAL OA-25001 (manufactured by Sumika Chemical Analysis Service, Ltd.).
The manufacturing method of the crystalline optically active compound by using the optically active raw material (II) is shown as the following reaction formula. ##STR2##
The reaction is taken place in an inactive organic solvent, preferably in benzene, toluene, xylene, lower alcohols. DMF, DMSO or the like, in the presence of an acid catalyzer, such as hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, acetic acid, and p-toluenesulfonic acid, under applying heating to maintain temperature in a range of from room temperature to 200.degree. C. By removing water resulting in during the reaction by azeotropic distillation or the else, the reaction can be taken place more efficiently. The optical purity of the product can be increased by conducting the recrystallization of the product in any of ethyl acetate, chloroform, methanol, ethanol, and ethanol-water mixture. In particular, the objective product having high optical purity higher than 95% can be obtained by using a solvent mixture of benzene or toluene and DMSO or DMF, or the like, as a reaction solvent, and by using p-toluenesulfonic acid as an acid catalyzer at a concentration range of from 0.001 to 0.1 mole respective to 1 mol of the amino form.
(R)-6-(aminophenyl)-5-methylpyridazine-3(2H)-one II! can be manufactured according to a method generally known in the art. For example, the compound II! can be manufactured either from the racemic modification thereof by applying optical resolution according to the method described in WO 9212135 or the else, or from the optically active acid chloride thereof according to the following reaction formula. ##STR3##
(R)-(-)-4,5-dihydro-5-methyl-6-4-(2-propyl-3-oxo-1-cyclohexenyl) amino!phenyl!-3(2H)-pyridazinone according to the present invention or the pharmaceutically acceptable complex thereof can be administrated to human and animals by alone or together with commonly-used carriers for medical preparations. For the unit preparation form for administration, there is no particular limitation and any unit preparations can be selected appropriately depending upon the requirements. For examples of the unit preparations, oral use preparations, such as tablets, granules and solutions for oral administration, and parenteral use preparations, such as injections, are exemplified. There is no particular limitation in the dose of the active principle to be administrated, and therefore, the dose should be determined appropriately from the wide range basing on the route of administration, compound selected, and the objectives dosed, namely human or animals.
In the present invention, the oral use preparations, such as tablets, capsules and solution for oral administration, described above can be manufactured according to customary methods in the art. The tablets can be prepared by admixing the compound of the present invention or the pharmaceutically acceptable complex thereof with pharmaceutical fillers, such as starch, milk sugar, gelatin, magnesium stearate, talc and gum arabic. The capsules can be manufactured by admixing the compound of the present invention or the pharmaceutically acceptable complex thereof with inactive fillers or diluents for pharmaceutical use and then filling the admixture into hard gelatin capsules, soft capsules or the like. Also, medicated syrups and elixirs can be manufactured by admixing the compound of the present invention or the pharmaceutically acceptable complex thereof with sweetener such as sucrose, antiseptics, such as methyl- and propylparaben, coloring agents, seasoning agents, etc. Whereas, the parenteral use preparations can be manufactured according to customary methods in the art as well. Namely, the preparations for parenteral administration can be manufactured by dissolving the compound of the present invention or the pharmaceutically acceptable complex thereof in sterilized liquid carriers. For the liquid carrier, water and saline are preferably used. Liquid preparations having a desired transparency, stability and suitability for parenteral use can be manufactured by firstly dissolving approximately 1 to 500 mg of the active principle in polyethylene glycol, which is soluble in water and an organic solvent and having a molecular weight of from 200 to 5000. In such liquid preparations, any lubricants, such as polyvinyl pyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose and methyl cellulose, are preferably contained. In addition, antibacterial and antimold agents, such as benzyl alcohol, phenol and thyromethal, may be contained in the liquid preparation described above. Furthermore, isotonic agents, such as sucrose and sodium chloride, local anesthetics, stabilizers, buffer, etc. may be contained in the liquid preparations, if appropriate. In case of the preparations for parenteral administration, the preparations can be frozen in order to improve the stability thereof after filling them into containers, and it is possible to remove water from the preparations by using lyophilization technique generally known in the art. The lyophilized preparations can be readily used by re-preparing the lyophilized power just before the use.


Methods for forming a protective polymeric coating on a silicon or silicon-carbide electrode of a plasma processing chamber are provided. The polymeric coating provides protection to the underlying surface of the electrode with respect to exposure to constituents of plasma and gaseous reactants. The methods can be performed during a process of cleaning the chamber, or during a process for etching a semiconductor substrate in the chamber.

During the manufacture of semiconductor-based products, such as integrated circuits, etching and/or deposition steps are used to build up or remove layers of material on a semiconductor substrate. A conventional etching procedure energizes process gas into a plasma state to plasma etch material on the semiconductor substrate.
Interior surfaces of plasma processing chambers can be modified as a result of the plasma processes that are run within them. Surface modification can occur due to the flux of energetic ions, photons and various neutral atoms and molecules that are generated by the plasma discharge, as well as various reactions attendant in the processing of semiconductor substrates.

Methods for protecting silicon or silicon carbide electrode surfaces from morphological modification during plasma etch processing


The image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member for forming an electrostatic image, a developing apparatus for developing the electrostatic image on the image bearing member with a developer, a developer container for containing a replenishing developer, and dismountably mounted on a main body of the apparatus, and a developer replenishing apparatus for replenishing the replenishing developer in the developer container to the developing apparatus, wherein at least the image bearing member and the developing apparatus are provided in a cartridge which is dismountably mountable on the main body of the apparatus and the developer container is provided in a position not overlapping with a moving area of the cartridge in a dismounting or mounting operation of the cartridge.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a copying apparatus or a printer, for forming an image on a recording material utilizing an electrophotographic process.
2. Related Background Art
Current electrophotographic image forming apparatuses widely employ a dismountably mounted process cartridge integrating a photosensitive drum, a developing device and the like thereby facilitating maintenance or toner replenishment. Such a process cartridge is required to contain a toner of an amount corresponding to a service life of the photosensitive drum defined by a deterioration thereof, and therefore tends to become bulky.
Since the consumed toner amount varies significantly depending on the density of images formed by the user, the cartridge has to be replaced when the deterioration of the photosensitive drum or the consumption of the toner reaches a certain amount, and such cartridge replacement at a somewhat early stage when the photosensitive drum or the toner has a certain remaining capacity tends to increase the running cost.
For this reason, there has recently been commercialized an image forming apparatus in which a process cartridge and a toner cartridge for supplying a toner to a developing device in the process cartridge are constructed separately and rendered respectively mountable.
For example, as shown in FIGS. 12A and 12B, four process cartridges 200 for respectively forming yellow, magenta, cyan and black color images, and four toner cartridges 202 for respectively toner supply to the process cartridges 200 are mounted on a main body 201 of an apparatus, and toner images formed on photosensitive drums 200a in the process cartridges 200 are primary transferred in succession onto an intermediate transfer belt 203, and the primary transfer images are secondary transferred in a secondary transfer part 206 onto a transfer material conveyed from a sheet cassette 204 by conveying rollers 205. Then, such transfer material is conveyed to a fixing device 207 for heat fixation of the toner images and is discharged onto a discharge portion 208 in an upper part of the apparatus.
Such separation of the toner cartridge from the process cartridge enables a replacement of each cartridge according to the consumption in the running operation of each cartridge, thereby reducing the running cost.
Patent literature 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H06-110337;
Patent literature 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-202792.
However, in a prior image forming apparatus in which the process cartridges 200 and the toner cartridges 201 are individually mounted, the process cartridges 200 are positioned inside a frame member 209 of a main body 202. On the other hand, the toner cartridges 201 are positioned in an overlapping manner with the process cartridges 200, in a Z-axis direction which is a direction of a rotary axis of photosensitive drums 200a incorporated in the process cartridges 200. Further, as the toner cartridges 201 are positioned above the process cartridges 200 for toner supply thereto, the process cartridges 200 and the toner cartridges 201 mutually overlap also in a Y-axis direction.
Therefore, in case of a replacement of the toner cartridge 201, as shown in a lateral view in FIG. 13, cartridge replacement covers 210, 211 are opened and a toner cartridge 201 is taken out.
In case of a replacement of the process cartridge 200, the configuration requires operations of at first temporarily detaching a toner cartridge 201, then removing a process cartridge 200, then setting a new process cartridge 200, and setting the temporarily detached toner cartridge 201 on the set process cartridge 200.
Therefore, the user operability is poor in the replacement of the process cartridge. Also in case of the replacement of the process cartridge, as the toner cartridge is temporarily detached in a state containing remaining toner, the toner may drop from the toner cartridge 201 and may be scattered in the apparatus since the toner cartridge 201 is positioned in the frame member of the main body.
Furthermore, as exposure means 212 are positioned above the photosensitive drums 200a, the image transferred from the photosensitive drum 200a to the intermediate transfer belt 203 travels from P1 to P2 as shown in FIGS. 12A and 12B, so that the primary transferred image has to be conveyed over a long moving distance Q1 before the secondary transfer. Therefore the user has to wait a corresponding time for obtaining a printout, and there results a long first print time.
On the other hand, there can be conceived an image forming apparatus as shown in FIGS. 14A and 14B, in which exposure means 212 is positioned below the process cartridges 200 and the intermediate transfer belt 203 is positioned above the process cartridges. In such configuration, a moving distance Q2 of the image, transferred from the photosensitive drum 200a to the intermediate transfer belt 203, to the secondary transfer is shortened, thereby reducing the first printout time.
However, also in this configuration, the process cartridges 200 and the toner cartridges 201 are superposed in the direction of the rotary axis of the photosensitive drums 200a and in the direction of height of the apparatus, so that the toner cartridge 201 has to be removed at first in case of replacing the process cartridge 200. Also, as the exposure means 212 is positioned below the process cartridges 200 and the toner cartridges 201, a toner 213 spilt at the removal of the toner cartridge 201 may be deposited on the exposure means 212.

Image forming apparatus whose image bearing member and developing device are provided in a cartridge dismountably mounted to the apparatus


A device (20) for root-rolling a thread (T) on an object (O) includes: a body (21), an accumulator piston (24) mounted for sealed sliding movement within a body passageway (22), a coarse adjustment screw (25) threaded onto the body, a Belleville spring stack (26) compressed between the coarse adjustment screw and the accumulator piston, an actuator piston (28A or 28B) mounted for sealed sliding movement within a cylindrical opening (23) in the body, and a thread roll (32) rotatably mounted on the actuator piston. A fine adjustment screw is threaded (33) into a first opening (34) on the body, and communicates with a fluid chamber between the accumulator and actuator pistons. The positions of the coarse and fine adjustment screws may be selectively adjusted to controllably vary the fluid pressure within the chamber. The device may be mounted on a machine tool (35) and selectively moved toward the object to root-roll a thread on the object when the object and device are rotated relative to one another.

In the petroleum industry, lengths of pipe are threaded together to form a drill-string (i.e., a length of series-connected pipes). However, with the increasing popularity of extended-reach drilling, multi-lateral wells, and horizontal well applications, the stress and bending moments that are placed on the treaded connections in a drill-string, are increased. The increased number of pipe connections and increased stresses contribute to an increased chance of a downhole failure of the drill-string. The cost of repairing a single downhole failure may exceed one million dollars.
Cold root-rolling is the process of burnishing the root radius of a freshly-cut or previously-cut thread in a rotary shouldered connection. A hardened roll, similar in profile to the thread being burnished, is forced into contact with the root radius of the thread. Pressure is applied to cause the hardened roll to penetrate into the cut surface of the root radius. This deforms and cold-works the material, imparts an improved surface finish to the thread, and compacts and displaces the grains of the root material.
Industry experience has suggested that cold root-rolling may increase the fatigue life of a threaded connection from three to five times over a similar untreated connection under the same working conditions. Some studies have noted laboratory results suggesting that an improvement in fatigue life of up to twenty-seven times may result from the cold root-rolling process. See, e.g., Knight, M. J., Brennan, F. P. and Dover, W. D., "Fatigue Life Improvement of Threaded Connections by Cold Rolling", Journal of Strain Analysis, vol. 40, pp. 83-93 (Sep. 30, 2004). These various studies have attributed the increase in fatigue life to one or more of the following factors:
(1) Cold root-rolling creates a thin zone of residual compressive stress in the root region of the thread. This residual compressive stress offsets the tensile stresses produced in service, and lowers the overall stress in the critical stress region of the thread root.
(2) The burnishing effect of the smooth and hardened roll causes small scratches and ridges left by the thread-cutting operation to flatten into a more-uniform surface. These scratches may have small tip radii, and are believed to be the source of considerable stress concentrations. As a result, these scratches appear to be the crack propagation points for fatigue failures.
(3) Scratches provide prime locations for chemical erosion. The microscopic surface of a scratch is very jagged and porous. This exposes a large surface area, and numerous molecular bonding sites to the corrosive effects of liquids and gasses in a drill-string environment. Burnishing smoothes this surface, and reduces out-croppings and inclusions. It tends to reduce the area of the surface, and densely compresses the same.
(4) Cold root-rolling has a work-hardening effect of the surface of the material. On an atomic scale, compressive displacement of the crystalline lattice within the steel grain structure is believed to cause the crystal structure to change from a repetitive and uniform atomic structure to one with many dislocations in the pattern. These dislocations are believed to cause the crystal structure to interlock, and to become more resistant to further deformation. This increased resistance to further deformation helps to prevent cracks from starting, and helps to arrest microscopic cracks from growing into structural flaws that might threaten the integrity of the joint. In laboratory studies, cracks that have occurred in cold-rolled joints have exhibited a significantly-lower crack aspect ratio (i.e., the ratio of crack length to crack depth). A 30%-50% reduction in this ratio means that cracks that have occurred in cold-rolled joints are more likely to be deep and short, rather than long and shallow. A long and shallow crack is more likely to lead to a sudden and complete structural failure of the joint. A deep crack that partially penetrates the section wall is detectable via the pressure drop of circulating drilling fluids, and allows for an early recovery of a damaged drill-string prior to a complete structural failure of the joint.
Because of the foregoing advantages, cold root-rolling is now commonly performed on many freshly-cut and re-cut threads used on drill-string pipes used in the petroleum industry. It is a money-saving process. It can dramatically increase the fatigue life of each rotary-shouldered connection in a typical drill-string. It can also reduce the frequency of repairing connections in the field, and of having to fish for downhole failures.
One line of cold root-rolling products is available from Cutting Tools, Inc., 5050 Ashley Court, Houston, Tex. 77041.
Accordingly, it would be generally desirable to provide an improved device for cold root-rolling freshly-cut or re-cut threads on an object.


The power noise removing circuit includes a decoupling capacitor group, a repair circuit unit, a monitoring pad, and a testing unit. The decoupling capacitor group includes a plurality of decoupling capacitors that store noise flowing into an internal power line. The decoupling capacitors are DRAM cell type capacitors. The repair circuit unit controls a connection of each of the decoupling capacitors in the decoupling capacitor group to an external input power line. The monitoring pad measures the amount of current leaking from the decoupling capacitor group. The testing unit controls a connection of the decoupling capacitor group to the monitoring pad. If the decoupling capacitor group is tested as being defective, the defective decoupling capacitor group is made inoperative by disconnection from the external input power line.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to a circuit for removing noise from the internal power line of a semiconductor device in order to minimize fluctuations in an internal voltage of the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Together with advancements in semiconductor memory design and processing techniques, semiconductor integrated circuits capable of operating at low operating voltages have been developed. For example, in dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) contained in portable electronic or/and communication equipment, the operating voltage has recently been lowered to 1.0V or less.
Each memory cell of a DRAM includes an access transistor which performs a switching function, and a capacitor (hereinafter, referred to as a cell capacitor) connected to the access transistor. Reading and writing of the DRAM is carried by selectively storing charges in the cell capacitors. Data is represented as 1 or 0 depending on the amount of charges stored in the cell capacitor. If external influences cause the amount of charges stored in the cell capacitor to vary, the data of the memory cell can be misread, resulting in a DRAM malfunction. Once source of malfunctions is the introduction of noise into the internal power line of the DRAM to such an extent that a resultant fluctuation in the power supply voltage level adversely effects the amount of charges stored in the cell capacitors.
In an effort to remove external noises, the internal power line may be equipped with decoupling capacitors. Conventional decoupling capacitors are MOS transistor type capacitors whose gates are connected to the internal power line, and whose sources and drains are coupled to a power supply ground.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the layout of a semiconductor memory device or chip having a conventional power noise removing circuit. The chip includes memory cells formed in each of memory cell array areas 110a, 110b, 110c, and 110d, an internal power generator 120 installed at a central region of the chip, an internal power line 130, and a plurality of decoupling capacitors MCi (where i is a positive integer) connected to the internal power line 130.
The surface area of the chip is divided into four the memory cell array areas 110a, 110b, 110c, and 110d, and each of these memory cells areas contain a plurality of sub arrays. Peripheral circuits are installed between the memory cell array areas.
The internal power line 130 has a mesh shape and is installed to supply an internal power voltage generated by the internal power generator 120 to each of the sub arrays. To reduce noise, the internal power line 130 is connected to the gate electrodes of the decoupling capacitors MCi. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 140 denotes an area where the decoupling capacitors MCi are arranged, and reference numeral 140a denotes a magnified portion of the area where the decoupling capacitors MCi are arranged.
As mentioned above, and as shown in FIG. 1, the decoupling capacitors MCi are MOS transistor type capacitors whose gates are connected to the internal power line 130 and whose sources and drains are coupled to a ground power supply.
If external noise flows into the internal power line 130, charges corresponding to the noise are stored in the MOS decoupling capacitors MCi and discharged to ground. Thus, fluctuation of the internal supply voltage is reduced.
Decoupling capacitors in the form of MOS transistors are convenient for designers to use. However, since each MOS decoupling capacitor has a low electrostatic capacity, many capacitors are needed to obtain an overall electrostatic capacity which is sufficient to remove power noise. Hence, the decoupling capacitors constitute overhead which increases the size of the chip.
In addition, current leakage through an MOS decoupling capacitor can occur if the capacitor contains a defective insulating oxide film, resulting in DRAM malfunctions. Conventional power noise removing circuits cannot completely isolate such defective decoupling capacitors from the power lines.

Semiconductor memory device having a circuit for removing noise from a power line of the memory device using a plurality of decoupling capactors


A method is disclosed for determining and predicting temporomandibular joint (TMJ) motion and to use the predictive model to prepare improved TMJ replacement joints, improved crown, cap or bridge contouring, improved teeth alignments and placements, and improved mouth guard and dentures.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for determining a guide plane of a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) in an animal including a human and using the guide plane to design dental prostheses, to aid in dental reconstruction surgery, to aid in orthodontic configurations and final teeth placement, to aid in cap design and contouring and to aid in the design of mouth guards to protect and properly align the jaw.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and a method for determining a guide plane of an TMJ in an animal including a human and using the guide plane to design dental prostheses, to aid in dental reconstruction surgery, to aid in orthodontic configurations and final teeth placement, to aid in cap design and contouring and to the design of mouth guards to protect and properly align the jaw, where the system includes obtaining digital images at a fixed focal length of a lower and upper jaw, scanning the digital image into 3-D images, transporting the 3-D images to a 3-D software program, using a derived mathematical function and determining contact planes of functional teeth surfaces (wear facets) and a glenoid fossa, Zola's tubercle. The invention also relates to methods for using the determined teeth data to design prosthesis, to design caps, to design mouth guards, to improve orthodontic configuration to produce improved teeth alignment, to augment teeth placement to relieve stress on the TM joint.
2. Description of the Related Art
Analysis of human skulls is a delicate and difficult process. Much of the significant work that has been done in this area of study, morphometrics, has been conducted using analog techniques, i.e., direct measurements, using instrument such as calipers, dividers, rulers, grids and/or custom designed "guides".
To better understand the functional relationship of dental occlusions and the bony morphology of the skull and mandible, direct measurement and/or analog models were insufficient at supplying necessary mathematical formula to develop a predictive model evidencing the relationship.
After determining that classical analysis using analog models and protocols derived thereform did not yield the desired mathematical described relationship, the inventors sought a more detailed measurements analytical approach. First, the inventors studied radiographic techniques and attempted correlation the radiographic data to photographic evidence. However, the distortional aspect of the radiograph data rendered such techniques useless. The inventors also attempted using 3-D, corrected CT Scan data, but this technique proved difficult to manage
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved method for determining the motion of the temporomandibular joint allowing for improved dental, medical and rehabilitative prostheses, mouth guards, teeth alignment, engaging surface contouring and other similar methods.

Method and system for morphometric analysis of human dental occlusal function and uses thereof


A system and method for controlling combustion in a direct injection spark ignition internal combustion engine inject fuel directly into a combustion chamber through an injector having an ignition jet or group of jets positioned primarily to support stratified charge formation and a mixing jet or group of jets positioned primarily to support homogeneous charge formation. The ignition jet(s) and mixing jet(s) produce discernibly different yet well connected fuel clouds within the cylinder to provide stable combustion and reduce cylinder wall wetting by appropriate selection of the axial/longitudinal angles and radial/circumferential angles of the ignition and mixing jets.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fuel injection for direct injection spark ignition internal combustion engines.
2. Background Art
Direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) internal combustion engines have been developed to reduce fuel consumption and feedgas emissions of gasoline engines. DISI combustion technologies can generally be classified as either homogeneous charge or stratified charge systems. In homogeneous charge systems, the engine operates only in the homogeneous mode where the air-fuel mixture of the charge in the combustion chamber is generally well-mixed or homogeneous throughout the chamber. Stratified charge combustion systems operate in a stratified mode with layers or strata of richer air/fuel ratio near the spark plug and progressively leaner layers below under certain operating conditions, such as low to medium load and low to medium engine speed, for example, while operating in a homogeneous mode otherwise. Systems designed for homogeneous mode operation generally use an injector having an evenly distributed fuel spray that is well mixed with air to create a homogeneous charge. Systems designed for stratified charge mode operation require the richer fuel-air mixture in the region of the spark plug gap location and generally use an injector having jets closely arranged to form a suitable fuel cloud around the spark plug. To operate in the homogeneous mode, stratified charge systems may require design compromises or additional devices such as a variable charge motion control device or air assisted injection to achieve sufficient charge homogeneity. These design compromises generally increase complexity and associated cost and may lower the efficiency of stratified mode operation.

Injection spray pattern for direct injection spark ignition engines


The invention provides an electronic camera system which operates an electronic camera in a minimum power mode when a not-genuine secondary battery is attached to the electronic camera. Namely, for the electronic camera which uses a detachable secondary battery as a power source, it determines from identification information whether the secondary battery is a genuine battery of the electronic camera. When determining that the secondary battery is a genuine battery, the electronic camera system allows the electronic camera to normally operate. When determining that the secondary battery is not a genuine battery, it places the electronic camera into the minimum power mode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device system and an electronic camera system to/from which a secondary battery is attached/detached. It particularly relates to an electronic device system and an electronic camera system suitable for preventing occurrence of accidents such as an explosion of a secondary battery and thereby preventing destruction of an electronic device and an electronic camera to which the secondary battery is attached, to ensure their users' safety.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a secondary battery such as a nickel-hydrogen battery, lithium-ion battery, or the like has been widely used as a battery to drive an electronic device such as an electronic camera because of its excellent economic efficiency.
Moreover, in order to extend the discharge time of the secondary battery, the realization of the higher-capacity secondary battery has been planned. Therefore, the energy storage amount per unit volume of the secondary battery has been increasing. Due to an increase in the internal temperature of the secondary battery along with overcharge, overdischarge, and so on, and an increase in the internal pressure of the secondary battery, the secondary battery may explode (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-96919).
To prevent such accidents as the explosion of the secondary battery, it is proposed to provide a protection circuit in the secondary battery (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-6524).
An example of the protection circuit of the secondary battery adopts a PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) thermistor in the protective circuit. For example, if an excessive current flows into the secondary battery and into the PTC thermistor, the resistance value of the PTC thermistor increases. Consequently, the current which flows into the PTC thermistor is restricted. This can inhibit overcharge and the like to the secondary battery, and accordingly prevent the explosion of the secondary battery due to an increase in the internal temperature of the secondary battery with the overcharge and an increase in the internal pressure thereof. Note that the PTC thermistor has a property that its resistance value decreases as the temperature decreases. Hence, the PTC thermistor is useful as a reusable nondestructive protective component.
Further, the internal temperature of the secondary battery is detected as a value of a current, and the detected current is allowed to flow into the PTC thermistor. As a result, when the internal temperature of the secondary battery increases and a large current flows, the resistance value of the PTC thermistor increases, thereby limiting the current flowing into the PTC thermistor. There has been proposed another technique of using this current restriction as a trigger to open an explosion preventing valve provided in the secondary battery and decrease the internal pressure thereof for the explosion prevention.
Furthermore, there has been proposed a technique of using a detachable fuel cell from a power source of the electronic device. In this case, it is important to ensure the safety of the electronic device and the fuel cell. In order to achieve this, there has been another technique of allowing the attachment of the fuel cell to the electronic device after confirming that the fuel cell attached to the power source section is a genuine part of the electronic device (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-280044).
In the prior arts, the protection circuit is provided in the secondary battery for prevention of the explosion of the electronic device with the secondary battery attached, so as to ensure their users' safety the explosion of the secondary battery.
However, in the world today, there are many so-called imitative batteries with no protection circuit provided.
Also, there are secondary batteries provided with the protection circuit which are not ones designed exclusively for the electronic device (hereinafter called a genuine battery) but non-genuine batteries.
If the above-described imitative batteries or non-genuine secondary batteries are attached to the electronic device such as a camera, there may cause not only the explosion of the secondary battery but also harm to a body of the electronic device and its user because it is not preventable of the increase in the internal temperature, the internal pressure and the like of the secondary battery. Accordingly, in the electronic device such as the electronic camera, it is necessary to exclude these imitative batteries and non-genuine secondary batteries with an unqualified protection circuit.

Electronic device system and electronic camera system


A method of processing a light-sensitive silver halide photographic material is disclosed. The method comprises a processing steps of developing, fixing and a washing or stabilizing, wherein a replenishing solution for the washing or the stabilizing step is an amount of not more than 3 liters per square meter of the light-sensitive material. The photographic material comprises a support, and a hydrophilic colloidal layer on each of the both side of the support, wherein either one of the hydrophilic colloidal layers contains a dye represented by a specific chemical formula.

Heretofore, a variety of dyes have been used for the various purposes, in silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials.
For example, there have been some instances where a colored layer so-called a filter layer may generally be provided to the outside of a light-sensitive emulsion layer,--that is, to the side thereof far from a support-. The filter layer is provided thereto when it is required to control the spectral composition of rays of light incident to the light-sensitive emulsion layer. When a plurality of the light-sensitive emulsion layers are provided as in a multilayered color light-sensitive material, there may be some instances where the filter layer may be interposed between the emulsion layers.
For preventing a halation, there may also be some instances where a colored layer is arranged either between a light-sensitive emulsion layer and a support or to the side of the support opposite to the light-sensitive emulsion layer. The arrangements are to inhibit the so-called halation, that is, an image blur produced by reason that a beam of incident light is scattered when or after passing through a light-sensitive emulsion layer and the scattered light is reflected on either the interface between the emulsion layer and the support or the surface of the light-sensitive material on the opposite side of the emulsion layer and the reflected light is incident again into the emulsion layer. The layer so arranged as above is called an antihalation layer. In the case of multilayered color light-sensitive materials, there may be some instances where the antihalation layers may be arranged each between the other layers.
Besides the above, the emulsion layers are sometimes so colored as to prevent an irradiation which makes an image-sharpness lowered by the rays of light scattered in the emulsion layers.
As mentioned above, a desired wavelength of light is absorbed by coloring the silver halide emulsion layers and other layers.
There may be some instances where a light-sensitive material provided thereonto with various kinds of colored layers may be unnecessarily colored, because a dye used for the coloration remains in the light-sensitive material already processed. It is, therefore, desired that the dye used for forming a colored layer should be decolored in the course of processing the light-sensitive material or should be removed by dissolving it in the course of processing the light-sensitive material so that the color may not remain in the light-sensitive material.
On the other hand, however, when using a dye capable of being dissolved out in the course of processing the light-sensitive material, there may be some instances where a sludge may be produced in a processing solution so as to produce a film-stain on the light-sensitive material subject to a processing treatment.
Besides the above, for the dye applicable to the colored layers of a light-sensitive material, it is required not only to satisfactorily perform a desired spectral absorption, but also not to affect the photographic characteristics of the light-sensitive material. However, none of the proposals was made for the techniques which can satisfy the above-mentioned requirements and can satisfactorily solve the above-mentioned problems of the remaining color and the stains produced by the sludge.

Method for processing a dye containing silver halide photographic light-sensitive material


A brick wall is constructed on spaced piers (11). The bottom courses (13, 14) of bricks in the brick wall are of opposed channel section and form a longitudinal bore therebetween. Steel reinforcing is located in the bore before it is filled with grout to form a composite brick bond beam spanning between adjacent piers (11). The bond beam provides a support for successive courses of bricks (19) laid thereon. The brick wall can be used as cladding for an existing wall (10). The bricks in the upper courses (19) may be of narrower width than those used to form the composite brick bond beams. The courses (19) may be secured to the external panels (21) of the existing wall by wall ties (20). Single skin walls may also be constructed according to this method.

The advantages of brick walls for houses and other buildings have long been recognised. Many owners of buildings having timber walls often wish to construct brick outer walls (or "cladding") for the building. However, known brick cladding methods are time consuming, labour intensive, and relatively expensive.
Normally, it is necessary to dig a trench around the building, close to the existing walls, in order to provide footings for the brick wall to be erected. Since water pipes, gas and/or electricity lines, telephone lines and other utilities are often located underground leading to the building, the construction of those footing trench requires the interruption of the services. Moreover, these service lines may be inadvertently cut or ruptured when digging the trench.
The footing trench also interferes with access to the building.
Another problem associated with such footing trenches is the weakening or removal of support for the existing building.
Trench footings are not recommended for reactive soils, such as clay, as the movement of the soil with changing environmental conditions causes movement of the foundations, and hence the brick wall supported by the foundations. This leads to cracking, and possible failure of the brick wall.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method of constructing a brick wall, particularly but not solely for use as a cladding wall, which overcomes or ameliorates the abovedescribed disadvantages, or which at least provides the builder with a useful choice.


A method and apparatus for computer text retrieval which involves annotating at least selected text subdivisions, preferably with natural language questions, assertions or noun phrases. However, the annotations may also initially be generated in a structured form. Annotations are, if required, converted to a structured form and are stored in that form. Searching for relevant text subdivisions involves entering a query in natural language or structured form, converting natural language queries to structured form, matching the structured form query against stored annotations and retrieving text subdivisions connected to matched annotations. The annotation process may be aided by utilizing various techniques for automatically or semiautomatically generating the annotations.

Although computer programs can analyze some simple, isolated sentences in English and other natural languages, computer programs are not likely to be able to understand free-form natural language text for many years. Consequently, there are large bodies of text which are difficult to access and are, therefore, either not utilized at all or significantly under-utilized.
The standard technique for accessing such free-form texts is by means of a "key word" combination, generally with boolean connections between the words or terms. An "inverted" file or key word index may be provided to reduce the time required for such search.
Such key word searching techniques have a number of drawbacks. First, such systems are not adapted to accept a search request in the form which would normally be posed by a user. Instead, the user must be able to determine the terms and the boolean connections which will yield the desired information. Such a procedure requires a certain level of sophistication on the part of the user. Even with a sophisticated and experienced user, because of the vagaries of the natural language utilized, and for other reasons, a search is frequently drawn too broadly so as to yield far more "hits" than the user wishes to review, or is drawn too narrowly so that relevant items are missed. In many instances, a search strategy is evolved by trial and error so that an acceptable number of relevant hits are obtained. While some front end programs are available for assisting a user in developing a search strategy, the use of such front-end programs is also time-consuming and, depending on the skill of the user, may still not result, at least initially, in a proper search strategy being evolved.
A second problem with key word searches is that they in fact require that every word of the text be looked at during a search. Since textual databases such as those containing legal cases, scientific or medical papers, patents and the like may contain millions of words of text, a full key word search can often be a time-consuming procedure. This problem is generally dealt with through use of inverted file indexes which lead a user to an area containing a particular key word so that the entire body of text need not be searched. However, inverted file arrangements are not appropriate in all situations. The basic problem is the size of the inverted index, which can equal, or even exceed, the size of the main document file. Further, in order to maintain the usefulness of the inverted file, it is necessary that the large inverted file of key words be updated each time the main database is updated. For these and other reasons, inverted files are generally appropriate only if:
(1) the vocabulary of the text or database is homogeneous and standardized, as in medicine and law, and relatively free of spelling errors;
(2) contiguous word and word proximity processing (where the location of the search words in the text is important) is not necessary and, hence, extensive location information is not required (i.e. extensive boolean connections between words are not critical in the key word search process);
(3) a limited class of text words (rather than the full text) are used for search purposes so that only these terms need appear in the inverted index;
(4) the database is not too large.
When the criteria indicated above are not met, an inverted file may be of only limited use in reducing the time required for a given search.
Thus, since the quantity of text is ever increasing, it becomes progressively more difficult to rapidly locate relevant text to a particular question, assertion or the like; and it becomes virtually impossible to locate all text relevant to such an item. However, particularly in such areas as law and patents, failure to locate a relevant precedent or patent can have catastrophic results.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved method and apparatus for retrieving relevant text from large databases, and in particular for permitting such retrieval to be accomplished by a relatively unsophisticated user. Preferably, the user should merely be required to present a query in English (or other natural language) in a way which is normal for the user, with little or no preconditions attached.
It should also be possible to complete searches on all types of text, and to complete the search expeditiously. To improve the response time on database searches, it is preferable that it not be necessary to refer to each word of the text during a retrieval operation and it is also desirable that, once relevant text is located, it be possible to locate other relevant text from the initially-located relevant text without necessarily requiring further search of the textual material.

Method and apparatus for generating and utlizing annotations to facilitate computer text retrieval


A sharpener to sharpen the edge of a food slicer blade includes a non-planar abrasive surfaced rotatable disk mounted on a supporting structure. The supporting structure includes one or more surfaces designed to align with at least one of a push bar, thickness control plate and the surface of the food carriage of the food slicer when the abrasive surface of the disk is in contact with the edge of the slicer blade.

There are a wide variety of sharpeners for slicer blades. Most of these are permanently mounted on the food slicer and are easily activated when the slicer blade becomes dull from use and needs sharpening.
The sharpeners now available are in general designed to be dedicated to a particular slicer with a particular blade size. Virtually all commercially available sharpeners are designed to sharpen only fine edge blades and they are not recommended for or used for serrated blades. Many of the modern slicers, particularly for home use, use serrated blades because they are more efficient and require less power for cutting than the fine edge blades. Generally serrated blades must be sharpened by hand. Fine edge blades when dulled are not as effective as serrated blades. However, both types of blades are used on modern slicers and hence a sharpener should ideally be able to sharpen either type of blade.
There is a need for a sharpener that can be used on a wide variety of food slicers made by different manufacturers. None of the existing sharpeners are versatile enough to accommodate the wide variety of blade sizes and the design of various food carriages that are provided to advance the food into the blade. Existing food slicers are sold with a wide range of blade diameters ranging from about 6″ to 12″ for the home and with much larger blades if sold for commercial purposes.


A steady state value of each parameter in a set of one or more parameters of a computer system under test is defined, and acts related to the parameter are performed while the system under test is processing one or more test workloads. The acts can include comparing a working value of the parameter with the steady state value of the parameter, as well as operating on one or more workloads to bring the working value closer to a steady state value. This can include increasing or decreasing the working value of the parameter, such as by admitting one or more workloads to the system under test or cancelling one or more workloads from the system under test.

Bugs and other failures to handle normal and exceptional conditions during execution of computer software can result in substantial harm to the software owner or provider, including financial losses, damage to property, and even personal injury, depending on the failure and the type of software.
In order to identify bugs in software and hardware prior to the general release or use by the software developer or publisher, programmers often use one or more computer testing systems to identify and fix errors. Such computer testing systems can include software running on the system under test, software running on another remote computer system that may be dedicated to managing computer tests, or some combination of these. Such computer testing systems are often used to reveal bugs and other failures during the development process, before the software is put in production.
Computer systems that are tested by such computer testing systems include not only individual personal computers, but also network servers, such as wide area network servers (such as Internet Web servers), database servers, and file servers. Information providers, such as search engine providers, often need to scale their operations so that they are able to service high rates of requests without sacrificing reliability. One way of doing this is to incorporate multiple servers into a networked system. A collection of servers such as this is sometime referred to as a server "farm" or "cluster." Typically, in such a farm or cluster, multiple individual servers operate to render services and responses. As with other computer systems, software and hardware used in such server farms and clusters are typically tested prior to general release or use.
The tests performed on computer systems can include stress testing, long-haul testing, and combinations of these, in addition to other types of testing. Stress testing intentionally puts a system under excessive load, typically by submitting a high rate of workloads to the system under test, while possibly denying the system resources to process the workloads. The system under test may not ultimately process the workloads, but the system is expected to fail gracefully, without corruption or loss of data. On the other hand, long-haul testing typically tries to approximate average or typical usage of a system under test with enough resources to satisfy workloads, repeated over a long period. While satisfying an individual action or operation might take seconds or minutes, long-haul testing usually is designed as a long running set of operations that are typically performed over days or weeks, making sure that the system under test remains operable throughout the test period. Long-haul testing is often able to reveal bugs in a system under test that would not have been apparent from stress testing or other types of computer testing that are done over short periods of time. Such bugs may include resource leak bugs, timing bugs, hardware-related bugs, and counter-overflow bugs.
In long-haul testing, an experienced programmer often chooses a workload level that the programmer would expect to be placed on the system under test during actual use of the system. For example, the programmer may expect that a certain server system would typically serve about ten client machines having about one-hundred users, and that each user would execute a certain number of operations involving the server system. Thus, programmers configure the testing system to subject the server system under test to that level of machines, users, and operations during the long-haul test.


The present technology relates to engineered human Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 (FGF2) proteins and methods of using the same. In particular, the methods and compositions relate to FGF2 mutants with increased thermostability compared to the wild-type protein and method for using the proteins in the culturing of embryonic stem cells.

Human embryonic stem cells are typically cultured in media that contains basic fibroblast growth factor proteins. The growth factors are usually supplied in the form of fibroblast feeder layers or by the use of fibroblast-conditioned media. Supplementing such media with recombinant growth factors and cytokines helps boost self-renewal and differentiation of both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells.
In this regard, Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 (FGF2) is an important component of human embryonic stem cell culture media because it helps maintain the cells in an undifferentiated state. Thus, one function of FGF2 is to prolong the pluripotency period of the cells and, consequently, their ability to differentiate into various different cell types. See Xu C, et al. (2005) Stem Cells 23:315-323. Sufficiently high concentrations of FGF2 permit the culture of human embryonic stem cells in fibroblast unconditioned medium, which does not contain fibroblasts. See Levenstein M E, et al. (2006) Stem Cells 24:568-574.
FGF2 is however more rapidly degraded in fibroblast unconditioned medium than in fibroblast-conditioned medium when incubated with embryonic stem cells for prolonged periods at 37° C. See Levenstein M E, et al. (2006) Stem Cells 24:568-574. Consequently, it is usually necessary to supplement the unconditioned medium with fresh FGF2 on a daily basis, in order to maintain an effective concentration in the culture. The short half-life of FGF2 in culture is of concern in the industry from a cost perspective, especially in the context of manufacturing schemes that employ large-scale cell cultures to produce stem cell-based therapeutics.

Thermostable variants of fibroblast growth factors


A piezoelectric motor comprising: a piezoelectric vibrator (50) having a surface comprising a localized non-planar shaped first surface region thereon which first surface region has a shape different from the shape of the surface on which it is located; and a friction nub (52) formed with a second surface region that is substantially a negative relief of the first surface region, which first and second regions are bonded together. Preferably the friction nub (52) is detachably mounted to the vibrator (50) via a boss (54) waving a protuberance (56) of conical shape. Alternatively the friction nub (52) has a protuberance (76) which is form-fitted to a recess (72) in the vibrator (50) or boss (70), respectively. First and second surface regions can also be threading surfaces.

A piezoelectric motor uses a piezoelectric vibrator to transduce electrical energy into kinetic energy that the motor transmits to a moveable body to which the motor is coupled. The motor is generally coupled to a body that it moves by resiliently pressing the motor to the body so that a surface region, hereinafter referred to as a "coupling surface", of the piezoelectric vibrator contacts a surface region of the body. Electrodes in the motor are electrified to excite vibrations in the vibrator that cause the coupling surface to vibrate. Motion is transmitted from the vibrating coupling surface to move the body by frictional forces between the coupling surface and the surface region of the body to which the coupling surface is pressed.
The frictional forces coupling a piezoelectric motor to a body it moves might abrade the motor's coupling surface and in time might damage the coupling surface to the extent that the motor is no longer serviceable. Traveling wave piezoelectric motors that use vibrators formed from relatively soft piezoelectric material are worn out relatively quickly by abrasion. Typically, a traveling wave piezoelectric motor wears out after transmitting kinetic energy to a body that it moves that is equivalent to moving the body a cumulative "travel distance" on the order of hundreds of kilometers.
A piezoelectric standing wave motor of a type described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,653, to Zumeris et al, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, comprises a vibrator formed from a ceramic piezoelectric crystal. A hard wear resistant nub, hereinafter referred to as a "friction nub", preferably formed from a hard tough ceramic material is bonded to a surface region of vibrator. To transmit motion from the vibrator to a moveable body, the friction nub, rather than a surface region of the piezoelectric crystal, is pressed to the body. The friction nub is substantially more resistant to abrasion than the piezoelectric ceramic. As a result, the operational lifetime of the motor is considerably increased over that of piezoelectric motors without such nubs. The motor is capable of being used to transmit kinetic energy to the body equivalent to travel distances well in excess of 10,000 kilometers before the friction nub wears and motor performance degrades.
Even though a friction nub extends the operational lifetime of a piezoelectric motor substantially, it is desirable to have piezoelectric motors characterized by operational lifetimes greater than operational lifetimes of piezoelectric motors that transmit motion to a body via a friction nub.

Replaceable friction coupling for piezoelectric motors


An image sensor includes a pixel group comprising a plurality of photodiodes configured to produce photocharges produced in response to light incident on the plurality of photodiodes, a floating diffusion region configured to receive and accumulate the photocharges produced by the plurality of photodiodes, a plurality of transfer transistors coupled to the plurality of photodiodes, respectively, each of the plurality of transfer transistors configured to transfer the photocharges produced by the corresponding photodiode, and a common transfer transistor coupled between the plurality of transfer transistors and the floating diffusion region and configured to transfer the photocharges produced by the plurality of photodiodes to the floating diffusion region.

An image sensor is a device that captures light from an optical image or one or more objects by using the property of a photosensitive semiconductor element that converts incident light into an electrical signal. Recently, with the development of automotive, medical, computer, and communication industries, the demand for high-performance image sensors is increasing in various devices such as smartphones, digital cameras, game machines, devices that operate using the Internet of Things, robots, security cameras and medical micro cameras.
One common type of image sensor is a charge coupled device (CCD). Another common type of image sensing device is a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor. CCD image sensors have advantages over the CMOS image sensor in terms of noise characteristics and image quality. However, CMOS image sensors are now widely used due to certain advantages over the CCD counterparts, including, e.g., higher frame rates and shutter speed. Also, CMOS image sensors and signal processing circuitry may be integrated into a single chip, making it easy to miniaturize a product and consume very low power. Further, using the CMOS process technology may result in lower manufacturing costs. Such characteristics of CMOS image sensors make these sensors better suited for implementation in mobile devices.

Image sensor including a plurality of transfer transistors coupled between photodiode and floating diffusion region


An input apparatus for a portable electronic device capable of detecting the unintentional erroneous input operations and separating the intended correct input operations effectively. The apparatus includes an input unit for allowing a user to enter inputs by a prescribed input operation, an input movement monitoring unit for monitoring a movement of the user at a time of the input operation and a processing unit for processing the inputs entered at the input unit according to the input operation made by the user at the input unit and the movement of the user monitored by the input movement monitoring unit. The apparatus can be adapted to a pen input type electronic device, a slide control type electronic device, and a button control type electronic device. The movement monitored by the input movement monitoring unit can also be utilized as a control command for controlling the operation of the electronic device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input apparatus for entering data, command, etc. in a portable type electronic instrument such as an electronic pocketbook.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, in conjunction with the considerable reduction of sizes of the electronic devices, the portable type electronic devices such as a portable electronic pocketbook have been developed for practical use and becoming popular. Such a portable type electronic device can be operated while holding it in hand or placing it on lap, so that it is operable even in a circumstances in which an ample space for firmly settling it cannot be found, and consequently the potential for its utilization has been increased considerably. As a result, there is an expectation for the utilization of such a portable type electronic device for the so called mobile computing in which a computing device can be carried around all the times and used whenever necessary at wide range of locations.
On the other hand, such a portable type electronic device is associated with a problem that it is difficult to secure the satisfactory handling of the device as it is quite compact and to be operated without being firmly fixed. For instance, in a case of operating it while holding it in hand, there are greater chances for making erroneous operations due to the vibration of the device held in hand. In particular, when the input apparatus adopted in such a portable type electronic device is of a type for entering the handwriting characters or of a type requiring a continuous input operation such as a slide control type, it is prone to have the unintentional movements due to the vibration mixed up with the intended input operations, such that it becomes difficult to separate out the data entered by the intended input operations alone. Moreover, in a case of displaying the data entered by the input operation, the erroneous data entered by the unintentional movements due to the vibration are also going to be displayed, and such erroneous data display may interfere with the correct operations of the device.
In addition, there is a general trend to make such a portable type electronic device even more compact so that the operation units to be operated by a user are also becoming increasingly compact, and consequently there are greater chances for making erroneous operations as there are greater chances for a user to touch the uninterested operation units accidentally.
In the conventional portable type electronic device, such erroneous operations are detected by the scheme in which the propriety of each operation in the input operation procedure is judged by matching with the prescribed checking list. In this scheme, the input operation procedure is detected by the same input means as that used for entering the data.
Now, the erroneous operations occurring in the portable type electronic device can be generally classified into the following two cases. One is a case in which the content entered by the input operation is erroneous despite of the fact that the operation itself is a proper one according to the correct input operation procedure as the user correctly recognizes the input operation procedure. The other one is a case of the unintentional operation made by the user due to the vibration of the device or some other causes.
In order to detect the erroneous operation of the former case, there is a need to utilize a checking list including not Just the correct input operation procedure itself but also the knowledge concerning its semantic contents. Such an error detection scheme requires a highly complicated matching process and it is not easy to compile all the necessary knowledge in advance, so that the use of this scheme is limited to a case in which the highly sophisticated judgement of the errors is demanded regardless of the cost required for its implementation.
As for the detection of the erroneous operation of the latter case, when the input operation procedure is standardized, it can be realized relatively easily by checking whether each operation of the input operation procedure is enlisted on the checking list which contains the entire correct input operation procedure. However, when the types of the possible operations are numerous or when the non-standardized input operations are involved, either the matching process becomes difficult as the checking list takes an enormous size or the construction of the checking list itself becomes practically impossible so that the effective detection of the erroneous operation is not feasible.
Thus, in the conventional portable type electronic device, the correct input operations and the erroneous input operations can be distinguished from each other only in very limited cases.
In particular, in the conventional erroneous operation detection scheme, the judgement of the intentional correct input operation and the unintentional erroneous input operation is based on the analysis of the input data, so that there have been cases in which it cannot be helped but judging it as the intended input operation no matter what it really is, as long as the entered input data is in compliance with the prescribed correct input operation procedure.

Input apparatus suitable for portable electronic device


A vehicle display lighting device the lighting device includes a light emitting assembly arranged along the outer circumference of the display dial in front of the front surface. The light emitting assembly directs lights across at least the front surface of the display dial. The lighting device also includes a control assembly for controlling the operation of the light emitting assembly. The light emitting assembly may one or more light sources for emitting light, and a transmitting assembly for radiating the light from the light source across at least the front surface of the display dial.

This invention relates to a vehicle display lighting device, particularly, to a lighting device using a light emitting diode (LED) to directly illuminate an interior of a vehicle display such as a speedometer, a tachometer, etc.
There are numerous conventional vehicle display lighting devices used to illuminate a dashboard display of a vehicle. These conventional lighting devices include indirect lighting devices, edge-light lighting devices, transmission lighting devices, and direct lighting devices.
The indirect lighting device has a light source disposed inside a vehicle display or at a rear side of a display dial. The light from the light source radiates toward a front side of the display dial and is reflected by an interior surface of a display case. The reflected light indirectly lights up various symbols on the display dial and an indicator pointer.
The edge-light lighting device includes a display dial having a light guide plate formed of a transparent synthetic resin. A light source is arranged inside the vehicle display to direct the light toward an edge portion of the dial. The display dial guides the light therein and radiates the incident light toward a front side of the display dial, thereby illuminating the symbols of the display dial as well as the indicator pointer.
The transmission lighting device has a display dial formed from a transparent or semi-transparent material. A display surface of the display dial is made opaque except for the symbols and indicia formed thereon, which are transparent or semi-transparent and form light-transmitting portions. A light source is arranged inside the vehicle display so as to emit light from the rear side of the display dial toward the light-transmitting portions corresponding to the symbols. The symbols of the display dial and the indicator pointer are illuminated.
The direct lighting device has a light source disposed either at/or in front of the display dial. The light source directly illuminates the front surface of the display dial including the display symbols and the indicator pointer.
In each of the lighting devices described above, an incandescent lamp is generally used as the light source. With the exception of the direct lighting device, the light source is disposed inside the vehicle display, which requires a special space inside the vehicle display for installation of the light source. This increases the thickness or depth of the vehicle display and results in a complicated internal structure. Moreover, since the light is radiated from inside the vehicle display to the front side of the display dial, a transmission path of the light becomes comparatively long. Consequently, the light is attenuated, so that luminous efficacy of the light source is possibly lowered. Each of these devices has potential advantages but poses significant drawbacks. The transmission lighting device is known for increasing visibility of the vehicle display. Its luminous efficacy, however, is lessened depending on a transmissivity of the light-transmitting portion of the dial. The conventional direct lighting device is ideal in a viewpoint of the luminous efficacy. The direct lighting device, however, radiates the light from either an upper front side or lower front side of the display dial, while an optical axis thereof is inclined to the plane of the display dial. As a result, the illumination differs between the upper side and the lower side of the display dial. Furthermore, the indicator pointer casts a shadow on the front surface of the display dial. Thus, the visibility of the display is reduced.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle display lighting device having a simplified internal structure.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle display lighting device that results in a vehicle display having a reduced thickness.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle display lighting device having improved luminous efficacy.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle display lighting device having uniform illumination across the entire display dial.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle display lighting device that prevents an indicator pointer from casting a shadow on the display dial.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention are set forth, in part, in the description which follows, and, in part, will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the description and/or practice of the invention.
In response to the foregoing challenges, applicants have developed an innovative vehicle display lighting device for a vehicle display having a display dial. The display dial has a front surface, an outer circumference and at least one indicator pointer spaced from the front surface. In accordance with the present invention, the lighting device includes a light emitting assembly arranged along the outer circumference of the display dial in front of the front surface. The light emitting assembly directs lights across at least the front surface of the display dial. The lighting device also includes a control assembly for controlling the operation of the light emitting assembly.
In accordance with the present invention, it is contemplated that the light emitting assembly may include one or more light sources for emitting light, and a transmitting assembly for radiating the light from the light source across at least the front surface of the display dial.
The transmitting assembly is positioned adjacent the outer circumference of the display dial. The transmitting assembly may include a light guide ring positioned adjacent the outer circumference of the display dial. The light from the light sources is transmitted through the light guide ring. The light guide ring may include a coating on at least one surface to direct light from the light source inwardly to the center of the front surface.
It is contemplated that the light guide ring may direct light only across the front surface of the display dial. With this arrangement, the light guide ring is positioned adjacent the outer circumference between the front surface and the indicator pointer.
It is also contemplated that the light guide ring may direct light across the front surface of the display dial and the indicator pointer. With this arrangement, the light guide ring may be positioned adjacent the outer circumference in front of the front surface and the indicator pointer. Alternatively, the light guide ring may positioned adjacent the outer circumference such that the light guide ring extends from the front surface to a point in front of the indicator pointer.
In accordance with the present invention, the light guide ring includes a pair of free ends. At least one light source may be positioned adjacent each free of the light guide ring. A light source housing is secured to each free end of the light guide ring. The lighting device also includes a flexible printed circuit board. Each light source housing is secured to the flexible printed circuit board. The light sources are electrically connected to the flexible printed circuit board. The control assembly is also electrically connected to the flexible printed circuit board.
Alternatively, the transmitting assembly may include a reflection mirror positioned adjacent the outer circumference of the display dial. The light from the light source is reflected by the reflection mirror toward the center of the front surface. It is contemplated that a plurality of light sources may be located adjacent the outer circumference of the display dial adjacent the reflection mirror.
In accordance with the present invention, the light emitting assembly may include plurality of light sources for emitting light. The plurality of light sources are located adjacent the outer circumference of the display dial. The light sources are electrically connected to a flexible printed circuit board that is positioned adjacent the outer circumference of the display dial. The plurality of light sources may emit light only across the front surface of the display dial. With this arrangement, the light sources are positioned adjacent the outer circumference between the front surface and the indicator pointer. It is also contemplated that the light sources may emit light across the front surface of the display dial and the indicator pointer. With this arrangement, the light sources are positioned adjacent the outer circumference in front of the front surface and the indicator pointer.
In response to the foregoing challenges, applicants have also developed an innovative lighting device having a support member positioned in front of the front surface and the indicator pointer. The support member includes an end portion that covers a portion of the front surface and the indicator pointer. The lighting device further includes a light emitting assembly located on the support member. The light emitting assembly may include a plurality of light sources for emitting light. The light emitting assembly is adapted to direct light across the front surface and the indicator pointer of the display dial. The lighting device also includes a control assembly for controlling the operation of the light emitting assembly.


Pacing related timing is determined for an implantable medical device (IMD) by pacing at an RV pacing site, a first LV pacing site and a second LV pacing site in accordance with a first site, a second site and a third site pacing order, and further in accordance with a first inter-electrode pacing delay between pacing at the first site and pacing at the second site and a second inter-electrode pacing delay between pacing at the second site and pacing at the third site. At least one of a sensed event or a paced event is detected for at each of the second site and the third site. The first inter-electrode pacing delay and the second inter-electrode pacing delay are adjusted to avoid sensed events in favor of paced events at each of the second site and the third site. An atrio-ventricular delay may also be adjusted to avoid sensed events or lack of capture due to possible fusion at the first site, in favor of paced events at the first site.

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to cardiac stimulation devices and more particularly to systems and methods for determining pacing related parameters.
The normal electrical conduction of the heart allows electrical propagation to be transmitted from the sinoatrial node (SA) through both atria and forward to the atrioventricular node (AV). Normal physiology allows further propagation from the AV node to the ventricle or Purkinje Fibers and respective bundle branches and subdivisions. The SA and AV nodes stimulate the myocardium. Time ordered stimulation of the myocardium allows efficient contraction of all four chambers of the heart, thereby allowing selective blood perfusion through both the lungs and systemic circulation.
Implantable medical devices (IMDs) such as cardiac pacemakers or cardioverter defibrillators are used today for a variety of reasons to maintain an adequate heart rate. Recently, lead configurations have been introduced that include multiple electrodes located in, or proximate to, the left ventricle. IMDs are configured to monitor the electrical activity and pace in various chambers of a patient's heart. To do so, the IMD has a variety of operational parameters that can be adjusted to maintain desired cardiac function. Examples of such operational parameters are the delays between when combinations of electrodes deliver pacing pulses when no intrinsic event occurs, such as atrioventricular delay (hereinafter "AV delay"), right ventricle (RV) to left ventricle (LV) delay (hereinafter "RVLV delay" or "interventricular delay") or LV to LV delay (hereinafter: LVLV delay" or "intraventricular delay"), and the like. The proper setting of these delays establishes and maintains the desired cardiac function, and results in an improved hemodynamic response.
Heretofore, IMDs have afforded the clinician certain parameters to program. However, clinician programmed settings may not result in the desired hemodynamic performance in all patients or under conditions for a particular patient.
A need remains for a process to search automatically for certain pacing related parameters, such as AV delay, RV to LV delay, and/or LV to LV delay.

Systems and methods for determining pacing related parameters