A head support device is thin and assures excellent flexibility and shock resistance while applying a sufficient load to a head. A disk drive uses the head support device. The head support device comprises a support arm, a head disposed at one end of the support arm, which is mounted on a head slider so as to be opposed to a recording medium, an elastic member such as a plate spring which provides the support arm an activating force in a direction perpendicular to the recording medium when the support arm comes to a rotational center in vertical rotation against the recording medium, and a holder connected to the elastic member. When an external impact force is applied to the head slider, with a distance from an action point of load that activates the head slider toward the recording medium to an immovable point in the rotation of the head slider in a direction of pitch being Lo, and a length of head slider in a direction of air flow being Ls, then 0.5<Lo<Ls<2.

Recently, there has been a remarkable advance in technology of a disk drive (hereinafter also called a disk recording and reproducing unit) for performing recording and reproducing operation on a disk-like recording medium (hereinafter also called a recording medium) such as a hard disk and optical disk, and use is expanding in various fields in addition to its conventional use for computers. Such a disk drive is further required to be capable of higher density recording, stable recording and reproducing without damage to recording medium or the head slider even in case of receiving disturbance such as shocks, and is also required to be reduced in size so that it can be mounted on portable equipment.
As an example of a head support device of a disk drive having a conventional floating type head, a conventional head support device in a magnetic recording and reproducing unit such as a hard disk drive will be described by using the drawings.
FIG. 17 is a plan view showing a configuration of a head support device of a conventional magnetic recording and reproducing unit, and also showing a relationship between the head support device and magnetic recording medium (hereinafter also called disk).
In FIG. 17, head support arm 108 of head support device 100 comprises support arm 102 which is relatively low in rigidity, plate spring 103, and support arm 104 which is relatively high in rigidity, and head slider 101 provided with a magnetic head (not shown) is disposed on an underside of one end portion of the support arm 102.
Also, magnetic recording medium 107 is arranged so as to be rotated by spindle motor 109, and when the magnetic recording and reproducing unit is operated, the magnetic head mounted on the head slider 101 obtains a given amount of floatation due to a relationship between buoyancy created by air flow produced by rotation of the magnetic recording medium 5107 and activation of the head support device 100 which activates the head slider 101 toward the magnetic recording medium 107.
The head support device 100, during recording and reproducing operations, is rotated about bearing portion 105 via action of voice coil 106 disposed on the support arm 104, and thereby, the magnetic head mounted on the head slider 101 is positioned against a desired track of the magnetic recording and reproducing medium 107 in order to execute the recording and reproducing operation.
Next, configuration and action of a conventional head support device will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 18.
FIG. 18 is a perspective view of an essential portion of head support arm 108 comprising support arm 102, and head slider 101, in a conventional head support device. The head slider 101 is fixed on tongue-like portion 113 disposed at an end of flexure 115. Also, another end of the flexure 115 is fixed on the support arm 102. For example, a ginbal spring is used as the flexure 115, which is configured so as to be able to pitch and roll against the head slider 101. The head slider 101 is fixed onto the flexure 115, for example, by using adhesive, while the flexure 115 is fixed onto the support arm 102, for example, by welding. An end portion of support arm 102 is provided with dimple 114 which serves to apply a load to the head slider 101, and a predetermined load is applied to the head slider 101 via the dimple 114. The configuration of the head support arm 108 includes the support arm 102 having the dimple 114, the flexure 115 having the tongue-like portion 113, and the head slider 101.
By using such head support arm 108, when a recording and reproducing operation is executed on a magnetic recording and reproducing medium 107 (not shown in FIG. 18) while being rotated, the head slider 101 is subjected to three forces such as a load applied via the dimple 114, a positive force that acts to cause the head slider to rise up from the magnetic recording medium due to air flow, and a negative force that acts to cause the head slider to approach the magnetic recording medium, and then, the head slider 101 is floated due to balance of these forces, and in a state of maintaining an amount of floatation, the head slider executes the recording and reproducing operation via an information conversion element (not shown) while driving a rocking device for positioning the head slider to a predetermined track position.
However, in the conventional disk drive, when external shocks are applied to the unit, the head slider bumps against or comes into contact with a recording medium, causing the head slider and the recording medium to be worn or damaged, which may sometimes result in breakdown of data or damage to the disk drive. Accordingly, a method for preventing external vibration from being transmitted to a main body of the disk drive is proposed (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent H9-153277) in that there is provided a fitting member for receiving external vibration, and a main body of the disk drive is bonded to the fitting member by using a flexible heat insulating member. Thus, a disk drive which is strong against external vibration can be realized, but the disk drive in its entirety is relatively large in size, and it is difficult to mount such a disk drive in portable equipment required to be small-sized and light-weight.
Accordingly, it is necessary to improve shock resistance of a head slider and support arm, or head support arm itself, and at the same time to achieve objectives such as miniaturization of a disk drive and improvement of its shock resistance. Particularly, since the head slider is opposed to a recording medium while maintaining a delicate amount of floatation against the recording medium, it is required to prevent the head slider and the recording medium from being seriously damaged when shocks are applied thereto. However, a shape of a surface of the head slider opposing the recording medium is not usually devised for a purpose of improving shock resistance, but in many cases, improvements are made in various ways in order to stabilize an amount of floatation at an air outflow side of the head slider where an information conversion element is disposed, as against variations of skew angle and atmospheric pressure.
For example, there is a proposal of a head slider configuration such that a positive pressure generating section for generating great positive pressures, and a negative pressure generating section for generating negative pressures, are concentrated at an air outflow side of the head slider in order to increase rigidity of an air layer at the air outflow side (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent H-10-283622). In such a configuration, when the head slider pitches and changes in its floating posture, there exists a point as a focal point at which an amount of floatation does not vary, and a position of this focal point can be near an air outflow end of the head slider where an information conversion element is disposed. In this way, it is possible to execute stable recording or reproducing of information almost without change in an amount of floatation of the head slider near the information conversion element due to action of positive and negative pressures even in case of variations of skew angle, atmospheric pressure, external forces due to rocking, or load.
Also, as a head slider structure for reliably realizing a low-level amount of floatation, there is a proposal of a head slider configured in that there exists a position as an immovable point at which an amount of floatation does not vary, and the immovable point is positioned at an air outflow end side of the head slider (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent H8-227514). That is, in a head slider wherein, when a push load is applied in a direction of a recording medium, a positive pressure is generated that acts to float the head slider with viscous flow of air generated by rotation of the recording medium, and a negative pressure is generated by air flowing into a groove formed in a head slider surface, the head slider is constructed such that a center of negative pressure generation is positioned a little closer to an air inflow side of the head slider than to an action point of the push load.
Due to this structure, when an external force (moment) acts on the head slider to move it upwardly, a negative force acts to cope with the external force so that the head slider can be maintained in a stable state. That is, it is disclosed that even when an external force acts to move the head slider upwardly, a negative force will act against the external force, and since the air outflow end side of the head slider fitted with an information conversion element is substantially a rotational center of balance or an immovable point, a distance from the information conversion element to a recording medium surface remains almost unchanged.
As described above, in a head support device of a magnetic recording and reproducing unit, it has been necessary to apply a predetermined load to the head slider in a direction of a magnetic recording medium in order to prevent off-tracking of a magnetic head, mounted on the head slider, by maintaining the head slider in a stable state of floating even in case of external shock or vertical movement of the magnetic recording medium during a recording and reproducing operation. Also, during a recording and reproducing operation of a magnetic recording medium, it has been necessary for a head support device to have appropriate flexibility so that a head slider may follow vertical movement or the like of the magnetic recording medium. Further, in order to reduce size of a magnetic recording and reproducing unit, to reduce thickness in particular, it has been necessary to thin a head support device in a direction vertical to a magnetic recording medium surface.
However, in a conventional head support device, as described above, since it is configured in that a support arm is connected by a plate spring to a coupling portion, it is required to satisfy incompatible requirements in order to satisfy various requirements of the head support device. That is, specifically, firstly to obtain a stable floating status of a head slider with a magnetic head mounted thereon, it has been necessary for the plate spring to have a reaction force that is sufficient to apply a necessary load to the head slider.
Also, it has been necessary for the head support device to have appropriate flexibility in order to prevent a load applied by the head slider to a magnetic recording medium from being varied due to a vertical movement of the magnetic recording medium, or manufacturing variations or the like of a distance between the head slider and the magnetic recording medium of every magnetic recording and reproducing unit in mass-production. In the conventional head support device, it has been designed that there is provided a notch in plate spring 103 as shown in FIG. 17, which serves to lower rigidity of the plate spring 103 and to lessen a spring constant for a purpose of providing the date spring with flexibility.
Also, in case the support arm is structurally thinned in order to lower rigidity of the plate spring, frequency at a main resonance point, that is so-called resonant frequency, is low and causes a vibration mode such as twisting when the head support device is moved for positioning, and consequently, it takes much time for settling a vibration mode generated, resulting in a shortening of access time.
Further, in the conventional head support device, since a center of gravity is positioned a little closer to the magnetic head than to the plate spring, when strong shock or the like is exteriorly applied to the magnetic recording and reproducing unit, buoyancy due to air flow generated due to rotation of a magnetic recording medium is unbalanced against an activating force of the head support device which activates the head slider toward the magnetic recording medium, and then a phenomenon takes place such that the head slider jumps from the magnetic recording medium. As a result, the head slider bumps against the magnetic recording medium and may cause magnetic damage or mechanical damage to the magnetic recording medium.
Also, in the above example of a head slider, to prevent variation of an amount of floatation at an air outflow end of the head slider where an information conversion element is disposed, a surface of the head slider opposing a magnetic recording medium is provided and a load action point is arranged so that an immovable point or focal point is positioned at the air outflow end of the head slider. Accordingly, even when a floating posture is changed due to variation of a skew angle, atmospheric pressure, or load, an amount of floatation can be stabilized at an air outflow end side where the information conversion element is disposed. However, comparing such variation with an exteriorly applied shock, the shock is far greater than the variation, and therefore, it cannot be said that the proposal described above is effective to cope with shocks.
That is, when a great shock is applied to the head slider of which the immovable point or the focal point is positioned at the air outflow end, there may arise a situation such that the head slider is of negative pitch angle; that is, an amount of floatation at the air inflow end side of the head slider is less than an amount of floatation at the air outflow end side of the head slider. In this case, it is unable to form an air layer between the surface of the head slider opposing a magnetic recording medium and a surface of the magnetic recording medium, and thus the head slider does not float at all and is damaged due to bumping against the recording medium.
Also, in the proposal, the point at which an amount of floatation remains unchanged even in case of variation in skew angle or the like is defined as the focal point, and the surface of the head slider opposing the magnetic recording medium is shaped so that the position corresponds to the air outflow end of the head slider. Thus, nothing is mentioned about whether or not the immovable point corresponds to the focal point when external shocks are applied to the head slider.
Further, regarding a proposal of a configuration such that a position at which an amount of floatation remains unchanged is an immovable point, and the immovable point is positioned at an air outflow end side of the head slider, an amount of floatation at the air outflow end side of the head slider can be controlled in a case of such a rotational moment as to move the head slider upwardly, but in a direction perpendicular to a recording medium surface, especially in a case of a downward shock applied to the recording medium surface, where the head slider may bump against the recording medium surface even due to a slight shock.
Moreover, in a disk drive mounted in portable equipment, it is necessary to reduce a diametric size of a recording medium and also to lower a recording medium rotating speed, and speed of air flow on a surface of a head slider opposing the recording medium becomes lower as compared with the prior art. In case the recording medium rotating speed is at a low level, when a negative pitch angle is generated at the head slider due to shock, an air layer cannot be formed, and a possibility of bumping against the recording medium is very much increased, but nothing is disclosed about this matter in the above examples.
The above problems are not peculiar to a magnetic recording and reproducing unit, and there have arisen similar problems in a disk drive having a floating type head such as an optical disk drive and optical magnetic disk drive.

Apparatus with head and head support device having rotation supporting point

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A method of delivering personalized content to customers of a subscription television service for display on their televisions, the method comprising: (a) converting Internet-based content from an Internet based format to a format suitable for display on a customer's television through a customer's set top box, and (b) after the conversion, delivering the converted content to a set top box associated with that customer for display on that customer's television. With such a method, the customer's set top box need not be Internet-enabled. Preferably, the customer's subscription television service is a cable television service.

With current cable television VoD technology known to the inventors herein, cable customers are typically limited to viewing video content that is predetermined by the cable provider and made generally available to all of that cable provider's VoD customers (or at least all of a particular class of that cable provider's VoD customers). With this technology, the VoD system typically presents the customer with a menu that lists the predetermined VoD content options (e.g., movies and television programming provided by the major television networks, cable stations, and pay per view (PPV) providers). From this list, the customer can select a particular item of predetermined VoD content for viewing on the customer's television through a set top box (STB).
Furthermore, digital personal video recorder (PVR) technology has recently reached the television viewing market and is expected to experience explosive future growth. With PVR technology, television viewers are provided with, among other things, (1) the ability to digitally record and store television programming for later playback, (2) the ability to flexibly define what television programming is to be recorded and stored for later playback, and (3) the ability to "pause" and "rewind" "live" television broadcasts. PVR technology typically comes in two modes, (1) a "client-side" PVR wherein an enhanced customer STB performs the recording and storage of programming locally, and (2) a "server-side" PVR wherein the recording and storage of programming is performed by hardware and software located in the cable company's head end.
To the best of the inventors' knowledge, customers who use conventional VoD systems, client-side PVR, or server-side PVR are still limited by the degree to which they can "personalize" the content to be played on their televisions through the cable company system. That is, with these systems, customers are limited to recording and storing only the predetermined content made available to them via the major TV networks, cable stations, and PPV providers.
Some cable company systems provide a degree of freedom in the content that their customers can view on their televisions via those cable company systems' respective broadband Internet services, which can be generally referred to as "cable Internet" systems. With conventional cable Internet systems, a cable modem termination system (CMTS) located in a cable head end functions to interface the cable company head end with the Internet. When providing Internet content to a cable customer, the CMTS (1) receives packets from the Internet having an Internet protocol (IP) payload, (2) encapsulates those packets in an MPEG header appropriate to the cable system, and (3) forwards the MPEG encapsulated packet of IP content to either a cable modem associated with that customer (to view the content on that customer's PC) or an enhanced STB associated with that customer (to view the content on that customer's television).
The cable modem is typically in communication with the customer's PC and operates to remove the MPEG headers from received packets so that the received packets can be processed using standard Internet applications such as web browsers and the like. The enhanced STB is configured with specialized hardware and/or software to reformat the IP content payloads of the received packets to a format suitable for display on the customer's television (e.g., MPEG2 or the like). Such an STB can be referred to as an "Internet-enabled STB". The Internet-enabled STBs used in cable Internet systems are also often configured with a variety of hardware and/or software applications related to VoD technology and the like, as shown in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,218, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
Such cable Internet systems as described above suffer from shortcomings because the enhanced STBs required by such systems for customers to view Internet content on their televisions are costly to design, manufacture, implement, and maintain. As new STBs are designed and put into use, cable providers must maintain a field service staff dedicated to deploying the new STBs in the thousands/millions of homes served by that cable provider. As new functionality is added to those STBs, a similarly burdensome retrofit program would need to be deployed. Likewise, maintenance issues with enhanced Internet-enabled STBs creates staffing, cost, and customer service-related problems for cable providers.
As such, a need is felt in the art for improvements to cable systems wherein greater integration is provided between the functionality provided by VoD systems and the functionality provided by Internet services and wherein a greater degree of freedom over content choices is provided to customers. Furthermore, it is believed that there is a large percentage of the population who do not have broadband Internet access (or even computers) but do have cable television service that provides VoD service through a STB.
In view of the foregoing, the inventors herein believe that a need exists in the art for a cable system capable of providing Internet-based content, particularly personalized customer-specific Internet-based content, to cable television customers for display on their televisions independently of whether those customers subscribe to an Internet service and independently of whether those customers' STBs are Internet-enabled.
In an effort to fill these needs in the art, the inventors herein disclose a system and a method for delivering personalized content to customers of a subscription television service for display on their televisions, this system and method (a) converts Internet-based content from an Internet based format to a format suitable for display on a customer's television through a customer's set top box, and (b) after the conversion, delivers the converted content to a set top box associated with that customer for display on that customer's television. With the present invention, the customer's set top box need not be Internet-enabled.
Preferably, the subscription television service is a cable television service and the conversion is performed by a conversion and playback system located with a cable-head end. The content is preferably multimedia content such as video. Furthermore, the delivering step preferably comprises delivering the content to that customer's set top box in response to processing of a request from the customer submitted through a cable provider's video-on-demand system.
The present invention also preferably further comprises retrieving the Internet-based content from an Internet-based storage system having a messaging address associated with the customer, the retrieved content having an Internet-based data format. The Internet-content can be periodically pushed or pulled from the customer's messaging address within the storage system to a cable company's head end.
The present invention may further (a) associate the customer messaging address with an identifier for the customer's set top box, (b) determine the identifier for the customer's set top box at least partially from the request, and (c) responsive to the content request, select content retrieved from the customer messaging address that is associated with the determined identifier for display on the customer's television through the customer's set top box.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be in part apparent and in part pointed out in the following description and referenced figures

Method and system for on-demand delivery of personalized internet-based content to television viewers


A fiber amplifier module for amplifying a signal pulse includes an optically pumped double-pass fiber amplifier in which a fiber Bragg grating reflects an amplified pulse in between the first and second amplification passes, and transmits most forward-propagating amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) generated by the optical pumping. The reflected amplified pulse from the double-pass amplifier, and reverse-propagating ASE generated by the optical pumping are reflected from another fiber Bragg grating that again reflects the amplified pulse and transmits most of the ASE. The twice-reflected amplified pulse can be delivered from the amplifier as an output pulse or passed to another amplifier module for further amplification. The amplifier fiber is operated in a saturated or near saturated mode. This reduces amplification of any portion of the forward-propagating ASE that is reflected into reverse propagation by the fiber Bragg grating of the double-pass amplifier.

High power fiber lasers and amplifiers are effective converters of low brightness radiation (optical pump light) from diode-lasers to high brightness single-mode laser radiation. Such lasers and amplifiers have an "all-fiber" construction, and exhibit excellent stability and excellent beam quality. High power fiber lasers and amplifiers can be a viable alternative to "bulk" solid-state lasers for scientific and industrial applications.
A fiber laser has a higher overall efficiency than a bulk laser, for example, about twice the efficiency. In continuous wave (CW) operation, a fiber laser can have an optical-to-optical efficiency approaching 80%. Such a high efficiency is achieved by keeping optical pump light and signal light in a fiber core with no diffraction loss and no reflection from bulk intracavity elements. In pulsed operation, however, the efficiency of fiber lasers drops significantly, for example to between about 10% and −30% of the CW efficiency. A reason for this is as follows. In order to modulate (pulse) the light, bulk acousto-optical or electro-optical modulators are used. This requires that light is coupled out of a fiber in order to be modulated and then coupled back into another fiber. Coupling light out of a fiber and back into a fiber results in 20%–40% extra loss in a fiber laser cavity with bulk modulators.
For pulsed operation, a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) system is preferred. In such an arrangement, a relatively low power laser provides laser radiation pulses having desired characteristics. These pulses are then amplified to high power in an efficient fiber amplifier. The efficiency of the fiber amplifier determines the overall efficiency of the MOPA system.
One common MOPA system comprises a master oscillator and a multistage amplifier. The master oscillator can be a solid-state laser, a fiber laser, or a semiconductor laser that provides light pulses having required optical parameters. These parameters include spectral width, pulse repetition rate, and pulse length. In a pulsed (modulated) diode-laser, pulse length and pulse repetition rate can be independently controlled. In a solid-state laser, and in a fiber laser, pulse length changes with repetition rate.
In order to amplify low power pulses, for example, pulses with less than one-watt (<1.0 W) of power, to pulses having a power of 1.0 Kilowatts (KW) or more, multiple amplification stages are necessary. A rare-earth-ion-doped silica-fiber amplifier can provide high gain (up to about 30 dB) for a small signal. Such strong gain causes a self-excitation of the amplifier due to back-reflection from fiber ends. This is termed amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). Strong gain and back reflection can also give rise to cross-talk between amplifier stages in a multi-stage amplifier. ASE from one amplifier stage can be amplified in a second stage. This self excitation takes part of the stored energy (resulting from optical pumping) of the second stage, which would otherwise be available for signal amplification. This can lead to instability in a fiber MOPA system with multistage amplification.
Suppression of back reflection and isolation between amplifier stages is necessary to combat instability in a MOPA system with multistage amplification. Typically, rare-earth ions in silica have a broad spectrum of spontaneous (fluorescence) emission. By way of example, the fluorescence spectrum of an ytterbium (Yb) doped silica fiber has a fluorescence band extending from about 1020 nanometers (nm) to about 1180 nm, and a strong separate fluorescence peak at 976 nm. Because of this, broadband isolation is required.
In prior-art MOPA systems, bulk optical elements such as isolators, spectral filters, acousto-optic modulators and the like have been used between amplifier stages. Such bulk optical elements are at least partially effective, but have certain shortcomings. By way of example, an isolator provides only unidirectional isolation and an acousto-optical modulator introduces high insertion losses in a system and is only effective when in a closed condition. A narrow passband spectral filter can be effective in reducing the spectral width of ASE to about 1 nanometer. It is difficult, however, to make such a narrow-band spectral filter with strong (>15 dB) rejection of wavelengths in a broadband ASE spectrum corresponding, for example, to Yb ions.
Any MOPA system wherein isolation elements add loss may require more amplification stages than a system without such amplification stages. These additional stages add cost to a MOPA system in addition to the cost of the lossy, bulk isolation elements that create the need for these added stages. Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for providing more effective ASE and cross-talk suppression in a multistage MOPA system. There is also a need for such a method and apparatus that does not require bulk optical elements and that can provide, with less amplification stages, at least the same overall gain as a prior-art MOPA system.

Fiber amplifier with suppression of amplified spontaneous emission


An improved metallurgical powder composition comprising an iron-based powder and an alloying powder is provided. The composition contains a polyalkylene oxide having a number average molecular weight of at least about 7,000 as a binder. The binder of this invention permits the bonded powder composition to achieve compressibility equivalent to that of unbonded compositions and maintains resistance to dusting and segregation of the alloying powder.

The present invention relates to homogeneous iron-based powder mixtures of the kind containing iron or steel powders and at least one alloying powder. More particularly, the invention relates to such mixtures that contain a binder of high molecular weight polyalkylene oxide that not only provides resistance to segregation and/or dusting of the alloying powder but also provides lubricity during compaction, increasing the powder compressibility without increasing die ejection forces.
The use of powder metallurgical techniques in the production of metal parts is well established. In such manufacturing, iron or steel powders are often mixed with at least one other alloying element, also in particulate form, followed by compaction and sintering. The presence of the alloying element permits the attainment of strength and other mechanical properties in the sintered part at levels which could not be reached with unalloyed iron or steel powders alone.
The alloying ingredients that are normally used in iron-based powder mixtures, however, typically differ from the base iron or steel powders in particle size, shape, and density. For example, the average particle size of the iron-based powders normally used in the manufacture of sintered metal parts is typically about 70-100 microns. In contrast, the average particle size of most alloying ingredients used in conjunction with the iron-based powders is less than about 20 microns, most often less than 15 microns, and in some cases under 5 microns. Alloying powders are purposely used in such a finely-divided state to promote rapid homogenization of the alloy ingredients by solid-state diffusion during the sintering operation. This extremely fine size, together with the overall differences between the iron-based and alloying powders in particle size, shape, and density, make these powder mixtures susceptible to the undesirable separatory phenomena of segregation and dusting.
In general, powder compositions are prepared by dry-blending the iron-based powder and the alloying powder. Initially, a reasonably uniform blend is attained, but upon subsequent handling of the mixture, the difference in morphology between the two powder components immediately causes the two different powders to begin to separate. The dynamics of handling the powder mixture during storage and transfer cause the smaller alloying powder particles to migrate through the interstices of the iron-based powder matrix. The normal forces of gravity, particularly where the alloying powder is denser than the iron powder, cause the alloying powder to migrate downwardly toward the bottom of the mixture's container, resulting in a loss of homogeneity of the mixture (segregation). On the other hand, air currents which can develop within the powder matrix as a result of handling can cause the smaller alloying powders, particularly if they are less dense than the iron powders, to migrate upwardly. If these buoyant forces are high enough, some of the alloying particles can, in the phenomenon known as dusting, escape the mixture entirely, resulting in a decrease in the concentration of the alloy element.
Various organic binders have been used to bind or "glue" the finer alloying powder to the coarser iron-based particles to prevent segregation and dusting. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,483,905 to Engstrum teaches the use of a binding agent that is broadly described as being of "a sticky or fat character" in an amount up to about 1% by weight of the powder composition. U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,831 to Engstrum discloses the use of certain tall oils as binding agents. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,800 to Semel discloses the use of certain film-forming polymeric resins that are insoluble or substantially insoluble in water as binding agents. These binders are effective in preventing segregation and dusting, but like any of the other organic binders used by the prior art, they can adversely affect the compressibility of the powder even when present in only small amounts.
The "compressibility" of a powder blend is a measure of its performance under various conditions of compaction. In the art of powder metallurgy, a powder composition is generally compacted under great pressure in a die, and the compacted "green" part is then removed from the die and sintered. It is recognized in this art that the density (and usually the strength) of this green part vary directly with the compaction pressure. In terms of "compressibility", one powder composition is said to be more compressible than another if, at a given compaction pressure, it can be pressed to a higher green density, or alternatively, if it requires less compaction pressure to attain a specified green density.
It has been found that, although the green density generally increases with the compaction pressure, the relationship is not linear; the rate of density increase levels off significantly above compaction pressures of about 30-40 tsi as the attainable density thereafter begins to approach its theoretical maximum asymptotically. Moreover, the precise degree of change in the density-pressure curve varies with the powder composition. This "leveling-off" phenomenon is more pronounced in binder-containing powder compositions of the prior art, for example, than in their unbonded counterpart compositions. Therefore, although the bonded compositions are generally more compressible than their unbonded counterparts at compaction pressures below about 30 tsi, they are less compressible at higher compaction pressures, above about 40 tsi. Depending on the particular composition, the "cross-over" point at which the bonded and unbonded compositions exhibit equivalent compressibility occurs at a compaction pressure in the range of about 30-40 tsi. Because retaining high green density is important in most powder metallurgical applications, such a decrease in compressibility at the higher compaction pressures, which usually provide the best density characteristics, can be a significant disadvantage.
Metal powder compositions are also generally provided with a lubricant, such as a metal stearate or synthetic wax, in order to facilitate ejection of the compacted component from the die. The friction forces that must be overcome in order to remove a compacted part from the die, which generally increase with the pressure used to compact the part, are measured as the "stripping" and "sliding" pressures. The lubricants reduce these pressures, but the presence of the lubricants also adversely affects compressibility. Although the compressibility of bonded powder compositions can be increased by reducing the amount of lubricant used, the resulting decrease in lubricity can cause unacceptably large increases in the ejection forces, which can result in scoring of the die, loss of die life, and imperfections in the surface of the compacted part.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a binder that permits the bonded powder composition to achieve compressibility equivalent to that of unbonded compositions, that preferably permits the reduction in the amount of lubricant content by the amount of the binder incorporated into the composition, and that at the same time maintains resistance to dusting and segregation.

Iron-based powder mixtures containing binder-lubricant


In a recording and reproducing apparatus having at least one program recorded in recording tracks on a recording medium, a management database is recorded on the recording tracks with the program so as to form a management database recording field. The management data is reproduced when the recording medium is loaded in the recording and reproducing apparatus to manage each program recorded on the recording tracks. In the case of a video tape recorder, the management data is recorded on video recording tracks, audio recording tracks and/or control signal recording tracks.

The present invention relates to a recording and reproducing apparatus and more particularly to a recording and reproducing apparatus which provides substantially easier control over the programs recorded or preset for later recording on a recording medium.
A tape recorded of the above-described type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,224,644.
In conventional video tape recorders for household use, a plurality of programs are recorded on a video tape in the running direction thereof, and a cue signal is recorded at the beginning of each program. When the user wants to reproduce a given program from the recorded video tape, a series of operations need to be carried out: putting the video tape recorder in search mode, fast forwarding of the tape up to the position where the cue signal of the program is located and then reproduced, putting the video tape recorder in reproducing mode, and reproducing from the tape to see if the program reached is indeed the one desired.
With the above-described conventional video tape recorders, the data about each of a plurality of programs recorded on the video tape is actually located at the beginning of each individual program. This arrangement involves one disadvantage. That is, whenever the user wants to see if a desired program is indeed recorded, wants to determine a program to be reproduced, wants to search for another program, or want to overwrite a new program onto a previously recorded program it is necessary to undergo the chores of repeatedly fast forwarding and reproducing the video tape on the video tape recorder in search of the desired program, which requires considerable time, until the desired program is located and accessed.
In addition, the prior art video tape recorders only detect, as program-descriptive data, the position of each program recorded on the video tape when searching therefor. Thus when it is necessary to use fairly complicated data such as timer presetting data, the need arises to write the presetting data in a separately provided timer preset memory.
However, using the above method fails to preserve the data specific to each of the individual video tapes because the timer preset memory is common to all video tapes used. So the presetting data above cannot be used as individual control data program.
If the use wants to control a large number of recorded or unrecorded video tapes or to keep control over a program "series" recorded on a plurality of video tapes, keeping a record of these tapes is a time-consuming and tiresome task. That task involves writing beforehand, onto labels of the video cassettes and cassette cases, control data indicating the contents of the programs recorded on the tape, the recording times for these programs, and the preferences for preserving or not preserving each recorded program.
The more programs and video tapes there are to be recorded or preset, the more troublesome and complicated are the chores involved in writing down the necessary control data, reading the data and making decisions based on the data. An acute need has been recognized to simplify as much as possible the necessary operations and record-keeping activities.
Especially, if a plurality of programs constituting, for example, a serial drama are recorded in a random order on one tape, viewing these programs later in the correct order requires the user to repeatedly carry out the chores described above so as to access each program. These aspects of the conventional devices are an inconvenience that has long annoyed their users.
The present invention relates to a recording and reproducing apparatus and, more particularly, to a video tape recorder for household use.
The typical conventional video tape recorder uses a detection head (called the control head) to detect the position data (cue signal) of any program recorded on the video tape in the running direction thereof. If a plurality of programs are recorded on the video tape and it is desired to reproduce any of the programs, the cue signal of the target program is searched for and ultimately reached.
Thus when any of the multiple programs recorded on the video tape is to be singled out and overwritten with a new program, the conventional video tape recorder reaches the target program by searching for its cue signal, and starts recording the new program onto the tape field containing the target program.
The conventional video tape recorder has the erase head located upstream of the magnetic head for recording and reproducing video signals and the control head downstream thereof in the running direction of the video tape. In operation, the downstream control head searches through program cue signals for the one corresponding to the target program. With the target program located, the erase head erases it sequentially and the downstream magnetic head records the new program in its place.
The fact that the erase head is located upstream of the control head in the conventional video tape recorder involves one disadvantage. That is, where the tape field containing the program to be erased is followed by a field containing a program to be preserved, the upstream erase head tends to erase the position data (cue signal) of the subsequent program field before the downstream detection head can detect the position data thereof. The inadvertent erasure of the position data can cause the program that should be preserved to be erased following the erasure of the preceding program from the video tape.
Household electronic appliances of the above-described type allow the user to record or preset the recording of a least one desired broadcast program. Using the preset data, the appliances execute sophisticated functions of diverse kinds. A number of ways have been devised to make the input of program presetting data easier. For example, switches for setting necessary items are provided as to be manually operated, and a bar code reading means is used to input the necessary data.
Conventional preset data input means have one common disadvantage. That is, these household use devices have their recording-related operations designated in machine-oriented terms. The items required by the machine are represented in characters and/or symbols which are arranged on an operation panel. The user at the operation panel selects and specifies one or a plurality of these items as needed.
The items which may be specified are established as such on the assumption that the user has a certain level of understanding of the functions and structure of the device in question (i.e., a working knowledge of the basics, expressed in such terms as "Recording Start Time," "Recording End Time" and "Input," which are explained in the instruction manual). In other words, those who have difficulty understanding such fundamentals for a device they want to operate may not be able to correctly input the program presetting data required.

Video tape recorder for recording management data on video tape


Ultraportable support (A, B, B′, C, D, E), comprising at least two feet (2) attached by means of hinges (3) allowing rotation of said feet (2), a locking system (5) of the hinges (3) allowing to maintain the feet (2) into different angular positions, the support further comprises at least two straps (4) whose width is substantially constant over the entire length, each of the straps (4) being attached to the two opposed feet (2) at a location of the foot distant from the hinges (3).

A large amount of support-like products do exist whose stated goal is to allow the user to work comfortably, even in the absence of a table, for example during traveling, in an armchair, on a bed, . . . . Many of these solutions, however, are limited to stationary applications, e.g. in the office or at home, because they are not portable at all or too heavy or cumbersome to be easily carried away.
Among these solutions, a lot of them however can be considered portable in the sense that the user can carry them away with him.
However, these known solutions usually have one or more disadvantages in practice, respectively, an advantage is obtained at the expense of other desired features. Thus, a disadvantage of portable support with folding feet is, for example, that they often require different settings at different places to find a position at least partially ergonomic. If ergonomics was the criterion of choice, the use of the support is often limited to certain situations, such as either sitting or lying down. Contrariwise, if lightness was the main criterion of development, stability, strength and/or flexibility are often lacking. The user comfort is also often sacrificed in order to offer an aesthetic solution.
In view of the existing solutions, it is clear that there is a need for a support type of products, but the great difficulty seems to reside in the apparent incompatibility requirements, respectively, in the apparent contradiction of the effects of the necessary measures to fulfill them.


A method as well as a bonding installation for machining of wood workpieces. At least one machining aggregate is provided where in the supplying and discharge region one conveying system each is arranged. Besides machining of the front end region by the machining aggregate also other machinings are carried out on the wood workpiece.

From the European patent specification 561 227 a bond machine for machining squared timbers or the like is known. Here several machining aggregates are proposed one behind the other. A first conveying system serves for the approaching of a wood wokpiece to the first machining aggregate, for example a cross-cut saw or a trim saw. After this first machining aggregate has machined on the front end of the wood workpiece, for example has clipped it, the wood workpiece is taken over by a second conveying system and passed to the other machining aggregates which are able to carry out very different machinings. The first machining aggregate is now free again by that in order to machine on a following wood workpiece.
The different machining steps, that are sawing, drilling, milling and so on are here provided in respective separate machining aggregates. This leads to a corresponding conveying way between the different machining aggregates, and the bond installation has, according to the state of the art, a corresponding length.

Method and machining installation for the machining of wood workpieces


In a vacuum cleaner a suction motor is installed in a front casing. The front casing has a first main body with a first suction opening connected to the suction motor. An opposite side face of the first main body is opened. A lower chamber communicates with the first main body by a penetrating hole. An upper chamber is installed on an upper part of the first main body. The lower chamber and the upper chamber communicate with each other by a rear casing which covers the front casing. An air guider is installed inside the front casing. The air guider has a second opened side face, an opposite second closed side face closed with a closing plate, and a top penetrating hole formed through a top surface of the second main body. The closing plate closes the opened side face of the first main body. Thus, air sucked into the suction motor is exhausted to an inside of the air guider. The air is guided to an outside of the air guider via the top penetrating hole, and downwardly guided along the outer surface of the cylindrical body of the air guider, and then flows into the lower chamber through the penetrating hole. The air flows into the upper chamber through the air flow path formed by the rear casing, and is exhausted to the outside of vacuum cleaner through the filter receiving part.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a noise absorbing device of a vacuum cleaner, and more particularly to a noise absorbing device of a vacuum cleaner of which efficiency for absorbing noise is increased due to an extended exhaust air flow path.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, several types of noise absorbing devices for vacuum cleaners have been proposed and widely used.
For example, Japanese U.M. Publication No. Sho. 62-45631 (applied on Oct. 23, 1981 and published on Dec. 7, 1987) discloses a noise absorbing device of a vacuum cleaner which is shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional vacuum cleaner comprises a suction motor 2 provided in a cleaner housing 1. In FIG. 1, the suction motor 2 is connected with a suction port 8. The air is exhausted to the rear portion of the suction motor 2 through the suction port 8. The exhaust port provided on the back of the housing 1 for exhausting the purified air to the outside is denoted by the numeral 3. The suction motor 2 for generating suction force communicates with the exhaust port 3 through both an air path 4 and an exhaust silencer 5. The exhaust silencer 5 defines an exhaust path 6 therein. In the above noise absorbing device, the exhaust path 6 of the exhaust silencer 5 is inclined upwardly from an air path 4 at an obtuse angle. With the inclined relationship between the exhaust path 6 and air path 4 of the housing 1, it is possible to suppress the turbulence noise caused by the exhaust air flow having already passed through the suction motor 2. In the above silencing device, the turbulence noise is partly absorbed and suppressed by a noise absorbing material 7.
However, the above noise absorbing device for a vacuum cleaner, while partly absorbing and suppressing the exhaust noise caused by exhaust air flow having passed through the suction motor 2, nevertheless has a problem that the exhaust air flow should pass through a relatively short path and be exhausted to the outside of the housing 1, so that it is impossible to achieve the desired noise absorbing and suppressing effect.
Moreover, the exhaust air passing through the suction motor 2 is exhausted not through a filter but directly through a chink of the assembled part of the housing 1 to the outside, which causes efficiency of the cleaning working to deteriorate.

Noise absorbing device for vacuum cleaner


A concealed camera comprising a housing, a subminiature camera and a peep hole of very small size through which the camera may perceive a large field of vision. With a high resolution camera and the tiny peep hole, the camera may be positioned or located in plain view as concealed within a myriad of functional objects, such as a clock, reflector, light or any other common looking device in the area of desired view or surveillance. Multiple concealed cameras may by employed and perhaps synchronized in a surveillance system such that the downstream viewed image may be automatically switched from one image to another as desired by the system user.

For safety and security reasons, these is a need for a versatile camera system which may be used for surveillance without detection. In a commercial or residential setting, these applications are both numerous and obvious. In an outside location, such as a loading dock, such a system is needed for security and safety of the personnel, vehicles and the goods involved. Additionally, in a motor vehicle, especially a heavy vehicle such as a tractor trailer or a garbage truck, concerns include vandalism, traffic safety and overcoming obscured or blind spots during normal operation and backing up the vehicle.
Drivers of highway trucks, garbage trucks and other large vehicles often have a very small field of vision as to traffic or obstacles behind their vehicles. In order to see a wider field, larger mirrors and more outwardly displaced mirrors are commonly found on these large vehicles. These mirrors, due to both their size and location, however, are susceptible to damage, wind resistance, wind noise and other driver distractions. Regardless of the mirror position, there will likely remain some area in the rear of the vehicle which is obscured from view, commonly known as a "blind spot." In fact, as the vehicle size increases, so does the rear blind spot.
Many commercial and industrial vehicles presently perform complicated and/or multiple tasks. For example, one typical garbage truck design involves a cantilevered powered arm which grasps and lifts a trash container, raising it to dump the contents into the waste bin of the truck. For an application such as this, multiple camera images would be beneficial to the driver. Some of these images might include the rear of the vehicle, the jaws of the cantilevered arm and the opening of the trash hopper of the vehicle. To date, none of the above delineated concerns or needs have been adequately addressed.
For example, the device described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,321 to Secor, includes cameras mounted on the sides of the vehicle in order to improve the blind spot view. The cameras contemplated in that invention are bulky objects, which protrude from the sides of the vehicle. As such, these cameras are highly susceptible to damage from inclement weather, scrapes on the side of the vehicle as well as falling road debris. In addition, any bumping of the camera or its mounting will likely disturb the field of vision of the camera, rendering it useless for the proposed task. Finally, these large cameras are clearly noticeable and detectable, making them excellent targets for vandalism, theft or other mistreatment. In addition, such a large system, when used for security purposes, is often counterproductive, as it alerts would be thieves of an important cargo.
Conventional camera systems are also typically visually undesirable. Large systems, as discussed above, are obtrusive and become targets for malcontents and criminals. Moreover, should the subject realize they are under surveillance they may either become uncomfortable and exit the premises or vehicle. Alternatively, if surveillance is perceived, the subject, whether they are an outside individual or even an employee, may take action to end the operation of the device, such as disconnection of power or damage to the camera. Lastly, conventional cameras may distract from the aesthetic appeal of the interior or exterior of the premises or vehicle on which they are mounted.
A concealed camera system was proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,065 to Steed, whereby a vehicle light serves as a cavity for a concealed camera. That system, however, is highly deficient for the above described needs. In the Steed system, the camera is mounted in a vehicular fixture and the camera views a field through a cover, which is typically a colored transparent surface. That system has numerous inherent shortcomings, such as the need for a vehicular light source, in part due to the colored covering over the lens. This would preclude its use without a light source and in some positions on a vehicle, the light may actually draw unwanted attention to the camera assembly. Similarly, having to view the image through a colored lens will necessarily distort or artificially color the image. Moreover, the colored lens will detract from and may even preclude the reception of a clear image, especially at night or in darkened conditions. Without a colored lens, the camera element would be clearly visible to an outside observer, defeating the stealth or concealed operation of the camera. Also, the Steed system does not describe nor contemplate the use of multiple synchronized cameras for different operations of a vehicle and the desirable automatic synchronization of the multiple cameras, other than a reliance upon the turn signal indicator elements which must be engaged by the operator.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a concealed camera system that requires no artificial light, that has a lens which may be directly exposed to the ambient image and is of a size whereby it may be placed in a variety of undetectable housings or concealment arrangements.


A computer system is presented for facilitating storage and retrieval of user attribute information within a federated environment at entities that manage such information as a service. Through enrollment processes, certain domains inform online service providers of identities of attribute information providers that may be used to retrieve user attribute information for a particular user. When performing a user-specific operation with respect to a requested resource, e.g., for personalizing documents using user attribute information or for determining user access privileges for the resource, an e-commerce service provider requires user attribute information, which is retrieved from an attribute information provider that has been previously specified through an enrollment operation. The e-commerce service provider may store the identity of the user's attribute information providers in a persistent token, e.g., an HTTP cookie, that is available when the user sends a request for access to a resource.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for multicomputer data transferring. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for distributed data storage and data transfer of user information.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet has greatly facilitated the exchange of information for many purposes. Many applications have incorporated Internet-related standards, thereby enabling organizations to collaborate over the Internet while maintaining private networks. As Internet-connected applications have become more sophisticated, organizations have shown a desire to increase the level of collaboration, particularly within so-called federated environments.
In a federated environment, each user is typically registered in a home domain that provides certain fundamental services to a user. When a user logs into the user's home domain through some form of authentication process, the user is allowed to access secured resources that are supported by the home domain in accordance with the user's previously defined authorization attributes. In this manner, the user has a permanent relationship with the user's home domain.
In addition, the home domain may have a permanent relationship with many other domains in a federation or a federated environment, sometimes also called business-to-business (B2B) or e-community domains. Each domain or organization within a federated environment may share resources to some extent with users in other domains or organizations within the federated environment.
As users become more knowledgeable about the Internet, they expect enterprises to collaborate so that burdens on the user are reduced. These expectations also apply to management of informational characteristics about a user, sometimes referred to as user attributes. In some circumstances and under certain restrictions, a user might assume that once he or she has provided some user information to one computer system, the user information might be available throughout the user's current session without regard to the various computer boundaries that are sometimes invisible to the user. Enterprises generally try to fulfill these expectations in the operational characteristics of their deployed systems, not only to placate users but also to increase user efficiency, whether the user efficiency is related to employee productivity or customer satisfaction.
More specifically, with the current computing environment in which many applications use Web-based user interfaces that are accessible through a common browser, users expect more user-friendliness and low or infrequent barriers to movement from one Web-based application to another. In this context, users are coming to expect the ability to jump from interacting with an application on one Internet domain to another application on another domain with minimal regard to the information barriers between domains. Even if many systems provide easy-to-use Web-based interfaces, though, a user may still be forced to reckon with multiple user information requests or requirements that stymie user movement across a set of domains. Subjecting a user to multiple information requests or requirements in a short time frame significantly affects the user's efficiency.
Most systems that manage user attributes were designed to work within a single enterprise rather than in a federated environment of organizations which are loosely coupled. Hence, the barriers that are presented by user information requests or requirements are becoming increasingly burdensome as more organizations participate in federated computing environments.
As mentioned above, within a federated environment, a user that is a registered member of one organization can get access to a remote resource that is controlled by another organization; each organization is responsible for the administration of the organization's own registered users and resources, yet the computer systems of the federated organizations interoperate in some manner to share resources between registered members of the organizations. These systems have not offered significant user-level control over the extent to which user attributes are released to, or shared with, other organizations. However, privacy laws require that some organizations allow users to control the personally identifiable information that is released by an organization and to whom it is released. The demand for more privacy laws has increased as users have learned the ways in which private information can be abused.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method for user-level control over the storage, management, and distribution of user attributes within a federated environment while minimizing user inconvenience and/or information barriers between federated organizations.

Method and system for user enrollment of user attribute storage in a federated environment

International Business Machines Corporation


A method of forming ceramic elements for a drive system or similar apparatus includes providing highly efficient, light weight, durable, and wear and abrasion resistant sliding components. In particular, the method uses high precision tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (TZP) ceramic or alternatively zirconia-alumina ceramic composite for forming the components of drive system.

The use of metal drive chains and sprockets in drive systems to transfer mechanical power from one moving element of a machine to another moving element is very well known. Drive chains are commonly used in machines powered by electric motors or actuators, internal combustion engines, human-power and the like. A shortcoming of conventional metal drive system components, such as chains and sprockets, is that they require periodic lubrication which attracts contamination that ultimately erodes chain performance and useful life.
It is well understood that the lubricant is problematic in many manufacturing processes that are sensitive to contamination. For example, in the manufacture of photographic sensitized goods, contamination of the product by debris and lubricant from chain drive mechanisms is an issue which can affect product yield. Similarly, in the food packaging industry, contamination of the food product or package by chain lubricant or debris is unacceptable. Chain drive systems in bicycles require lubrication to lower friction thereby reducing the work required of the rider and also to reduce chain wear. Unfortunately for off-road bicycle applications, chain lubricants pick up and hold abrasive grit from the environment which itself causes excessive wear and abrasion and shortens chain life. An associated problem is chain ring (sprocket) wear. In high-performance bicycle applications, chain rings require replacement when their tooth height equals the tooth-to-tooth separation along the chain ring.
In some applications, for example, chains for high performance bicycles, chain stretch is a recognized problem, and is an indication of the end of useful chain life. Another problem associated with high-performance bicycle chain relates to unsmooth shifting when changing gear ratios. The problem has its origins in friction at both chain ring and rear sprocket because of side loading.
The problems associated with wear, abrasion, friction, stretch and contamination described above could be reduced or eliminated by the use of certain ceramic chains and sprockets/chain rings drive systems having the characteristics of high surface hardness, high bulk toughness and low coefficient of friction. Such components would exhibit long life because of low wear and low stretch, would not require lubrication and would be smooth in operation and shifting.
The use of ceramics in chains in the prior art has been limited. Bottger et al, WO 9413525 describe a metal crawler chain for tracked vehicles that incorporates ceramic bushes. Only the bushes are of ceramic (optionally) and the chain is in the form of a moving track which communicates with the earth and so does not transfer power from one moving element to another as in the present invention. Curtain and Stephens, U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,972 describe a chain feed mechanism for induction heat furnaces. The chain consists of alternating links of stainless steel and ceramic. Power is applied to the chain at the steel links only. Japanese patent 59218262 of Kumamoto describes a method of producing ceramic chains which consist of simple interlocking loop links. The chain of Kumamoto is unsuitable for use with the chain rings or sprockets which are related to the present invention, nor are the materials of Kumamoto suitable for the present invention. German patent 3005349 due to Lemmer describes the use of plurality of ceramic balls or links in the manufacture of printed circuit boards. The chain is laid down to cover circuit board components so as to hold them in place during wire trimming and soldering. The chain of Lemmer is not suitable for drive chain.
Our experience indicates that ceramic materials may have some unexpected advantages in such drive mechanism components, although the prior art currently does not support this conclusion. This is because most of the conventional high performance ceramics are extremely brittle. An example of a material having good hardness and strength is monolithic cubic spinel, however, this material is also highly brittle and is unusable for structural applications. Thus skilled artisans are more inclined to experiment with alternative metallic components in drive mechanisms. Repeated sliding of two surfaces of metal parts, as in this specific case of surfaces of chain links, separator rings and the sprockets, usually leads to excessive wear and abrasion of those surfaces leading to the loss of materials, contaminating the environment from the debris, and also creating a gap between the different components of the drive mechanism. This gap leads to the loss of power, and in some cases jamming and or breakage of the drive mechanism.
Therefore, a need persists for improved drive chain, and sprockets and method of making same so that the drive mechanism will have superior wear and abrasion resistance while being cost effective and easy to manufacture.

Method of forming self-lubricating, ceramic elements for a drive system or similar apparatus


An embodiment of the present invention describes a method for controlling character set conversion. A request for data from a first computing system using a first character set is received by a second computing system using a second character set. The first character set is a subset of the second character set. Prior to transmitting the requested data, the second computing system performs a simulated conversion of the data from the second character set to the first character set. The simulated conversion identifies the prospective character set conversion failures and error-handling response of the first computing system's character conversion routine. The second computing system identifies and stores prospective character conversion failures and uses this information to determine responsive action including preempting the data transmission.

The growing trend toward multinational organizations has given rise to a corresponding need for fast, efficient, and accurate data conversion between various computer character sets generally corresponding to different human languages.
Typically in computing systems, the internal representation of characters is designed for one alphabet. For example, a computing system may be designed to represent western European characters corresponding to the languages that use this alphabet (e.g., English, French, German, etc.), but would not be able to represent languages using other characters (Cyrillic, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, etc.)
Computer representation of characters typically assigns every character of the alphabet a unique numeric value. This means that a character set that represents each character using 8-bits can have only 256 characters. A 256-character character set is sufficient to represent the western European alphabet or Cyrillic (though not concurrently), but is insufficient for languages that employ more characters (e.g., Japanese, Chinese, etc.). Languages having large character sets have employed a two-byte (16 bit) representation of characters. Such character sets may employ a multi-byte encoding, with, for example, the first byte indicating the number of bytes used to represent the character. Such encoding did not provide the capability to combine character sets. So, for example, it was not possible to combine western European and Japanese or Japanese and Chinese character sets.
Unicode was developed to cover all major languages and character sets. Unicode represents each character using 16 bits and therefore can uniquely identify more than 60,000 characters. This means that a Unicode character set acts as a superset for all the existing character sets for various languages, alphabets, or character sets.
However, the majority of extant systems are not Unicode and there is, therefore, substantial need for conversion between various character sets. A computing system using Unicode can communicate with external computing systems employing various character sets, but there must be a conversion between Unicode and the character set of the external computing system.
A character set conversion problem may occur when converting code between Unicode and other character sets. For example, consider a multinational organization having a Unicode-based central computing system communicating data between two external computing systems the first using a Chinese character set and the second using a Japanese character set. There may be a need to send data from the first external computing system to the second external computing system. Chinese character set characters converted to Unicode may not be entirely convertible to Japanese character set characters. So, when the Japanese external computing system attempts to convert the Unicode it will not be able to represent Chinese character set characters. This will cause a character conversion failure.
Typically, one of two strategies is employed when a character conversion failure occurs. The first is to use a replacement character for the unknown character. The replacement character indicates that proper conversion did not take place for the particular character, but the conversion continues. The second, known as a "hard error" means that the conversion is halted, that is, the data is not converted.
Depending on the situation, either strategy may be preferable. For example, for display data it may be better to provide as much valid data as possible and provide a substitute character where proper conversion has not occurred. On the other hand, invalid conversion of a financial transaction may warrant termination of the conversion and other corrective action. In either case it may be prudent to provide a notification of the failed conversion. This could take the form of an entry to a log file or event log and may precipitate manual corrective intervention.
The character conversion can be done in one of two places, it can be done at the central Unicode-based computing system, or it can be done at the external computing system. If the conversion is done at the central computing system, there are usually specified error-handling procedures and corrective mechanisms. That is, the central computing system has complete control of the conversion. However, if the data conduit is a Unicode-enabled communication stream (e.g., xml), then the Unicode-based system simply transmits the Unicode data and the external computing system must complete the character conversion. That is, the outgoing data format must match the format supported by the data communications stream.
Typically, data sent across a communication stream may consist of three types: textual data content, non-textual data content, and message format and control information. The textual data content is that portion of the data that is encoded using the character set of the communication stream and is converted to the character set of the external computing system upon receipt. The non-textual data content (e.g., image data), on the other hand is not subject to character conversion. The format and control information, which may or may not be textual, is not part of the data content and subject to character conversion when received by the external system. External computing systems use a variety of format and control information, which may employ a hierarchical or other structured format. A central computing system may use a single hierarchical format when storing data internally. Such a central computing system may store metadata, which is data that describes how to convert the internally stored data into the format and control information of an external system. This metadata, which is not transmitted with the message data, describes how to add any necessary format and control data required for the particular message format being transmitted. That is, as data is received from various systems over various communications streams, the particular message format and control information is replaced with common message format and control information. When the data is transferred over a given communication stream, the common message format and control information is replaced with message format and control information corresponding to the communication stream. The outgoing communications stream often supports Unicode, necessitating character conversion at the external computing system.
The problem with performing the character conversion on the external computing system is that many of these external computing systems, using various character sets, provide only limited or constrained error handling capabilities. For example, some database systems provide character substitution only with no hard error or notification capabilities. This can be extremely problematic where a hard error or notification is required. If the external computing system ignores conversion errors, the data on the external computing system may be corrupted. This may cause the external computing system to behave in an incorrect fashion.
Moreover, at a later time, the corrupted data may be sent back to the central computing system. Typically, a standard substitution character is a common character (e.g., "?") and may go unnoticed by the central computing system. Because the central computing system is unaware of the data corruption, the central computing system stores the corrupt data in its database, overwriting the valid data. This is known as round-trip error and can significantly compound the problem of corrupt data as other internal and external applications access the corrupt data. The problem is compounded if the now corrupt data is subsequently sent to other external computing systems.
Even if the external computing system handles the character conversion errors in an appropriate manner, the external computing system does not provide notification of the error to the central computing system. This means that corrective action (e.g., validation and retransmission, updating log file, etc.) does not occur.

Methods and apparatuses for character conversion control


A network device and a method for its operation are disclosed. The network device has a first interface to a client device to allow reception of client device signals and a second interface to a packet network to allow transmission and reception of modem relay signals. A processor translates between modem relay signals received or transmitted on the second interface and client device signals received or transmitted on the first interface. In one implementation the modem relay originator and the client device are collapsed into one device and the first interface is implemented as a virtual interface.

1. Field
This disclosure relates to modem relay signals over packet networks, more particularly to methods and devices to originate modem relay signals.
2. Background
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is in the process of approving a new standard for modem sessions over packet networks. This may be referred to as modem over Internet Protocol (V.MoIP) or modem relay. The data network, such as an IP network, relays the signals that are normally exchanged between modems. Modem signals are received by an ingress gateway, encapsulated and transmitting across the data network. An egress gateway then takes the packets received containing the encapsulated signals and converts them back to modem signals, then transmits them to the receiving device, such as a Remote Access Server (RAS).
However, some users have packet network access, such as through DSL (Digital Subscriber Loop) or cable modems. These users typically have to use a 'standard' modem if they want to access an RAS device, since the RAS devices require modem signaling, which may also be referred to as PSTN (public switched telephone network) signaling. This eliminates any advantage they may gain from their packet network access. It would be useful if there were other alternatives to allow users access to a packet network interface with the ability to perform modem relay.


An open-cell carbon nanotube foam is made of a plurality of separated carbon nanotubes. The foam exhibits a Poisson's ratio substantially equal to zero, a compressibility of at least 85%, a recovery rate of at least 120 mm/min, a compressive strength of at least 12 MPa, a sag factor of at least 4, a fatigue resistance to no more than 15% permanent deformation when subjected to at least 1,000 compressive cycles at a strain of 85%, and/or a resilience of between 25% and 30%. The carbon nanotubes may be multiwalled carbon nanotubes that are aligned parallel to a thickness of a film comprising the foam.

The present invention relates generally to open-cell foams and more particularly to carbon nanotube foams.
Structural foams have a variety of applications in modern society, such as in construction, energy dissipation, cushioning, and packaging. See L. J. Gibson and M. F. Ashby, Cellular Solids, Structure and Properties (Pergamon, New York, 1997); N. C. Hilyard & A. Cunningham, Low Density Cellular Plastics, Physical Basis of Behavior (Chapman and Hall, London, UK, 1994). The struts between adjacent cells form the architecture of a foam, and it is the bending and buckling of these struts that allow the foam to be compressed. The properties of the struts (e.g., composition, geometry, dimension) dictate the compressive behavior of foams. See J. H. Kinney et al., "Three-dimensional imaging of large compressive deformations in elastomeric foams," J. Appl. Poly. Sci. 80, 1746-1755 (2001); H. X. Zhu et al., "Analysis of the high strain compression of open-cell foams," J. Mech. Phys. Solids 45, 1875-1904 (1997).
Compressive strength and compressibility are two important factors that determine the performance and applications of foams. These two factors, however, are of opposing nature. By increasing a foam's volume fraction of cells (i.e., void area between struts), the foam's compressibility is increased while the strength is decreased. See Hilyard & Cunningham (1994); D. Klempner & K. C. Frisch, Handbook of Polymeric Foams and Foam Technology (Hanser, New York, 1991), ch. 4, 6, 9; H. X. Zhu et al., "Analysis of the elastic properties of open-cell foams with tetrakaidecahedral cells," J. Mech. Phys. Solids. 45, 319-343 (1997). For a foam at a fixed chemical composition, its modulus (Ef) decreases with increasing relative cell volume (φ) as Ef=CE(1−φ)2, where C is a constant (close to unity), and E is the cell edge modulus. See Hilyard & Cunningham (1994). Although metallic foams, such as Al foams, have a relatively higher compressive strength than polymeric foams, metallic foams have poor resilience upon load release due to permanent deformation of the metallic cell structure. See L. J. Gibson, "Mechanical behavior of metallic foams," Annu. Rev. Mater. Sci. 30, 191-227 (2000). Thus, there currently exists a need in the art for structural foams with high compressive strength, compressibility, and resilience.
Individual carbon nanotubes possess exceptional mechanical strength, low density, and high elasticity. See M. S. Dresselhaus et al., Science of Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes (Academic, San Diego, 1996); R. H. Baughman et al., "Carbon nanotubes—the route toward applications," Science 297, 787-792 (2002); D. Qian et al., "Mechanics of carbon nanotubes," Appl. Mech. Rev. 55, 495-533 (2002). For example, an individual nanotube exhibits extreme structural flexibility and can be repeatedly bent through large angles and strains without structural failure. See supra Qian et al. (2002). See S. Iijima et al., "Structural flexibility of carbon nanotubes," J. Chem. Phys. 104, 2089-2092 (1996); V. Sazonova et al., "A tunable carbon nanotube electromechanical oscillator," Nature 431, 284-287 (2004); M. R. Falvo et al., "Bending and buckling of carbon nanotubes under large strain," Nature 389, 582-584 (1997). The ability of an individual nanotube to adopt and switch between various buckled morphologies makes it capable of accommodating and sustaining large local strains while maintaining structure integrity. See B. I. Yakobson et al., "Nanomechanics of carbon tubes: instabilities beyond linear response," Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2511-2514 (1996); O. Lourie et al., "Buckling and collapse of embedded carbon nanotubes," Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1638-1641 (1998). However, to create a carbon nanotube foam for real-world applications, a scalable method is needed to produce a foam containing many nanotubes that collectively contribute to the foam's unique properties up to macroscale levels.

Super-compressible carbon nanotube films and micro-bundles


A telephone apparatus and method for stabilizing a call in a no power operation (NPO) mode. A sub-controller controls the NPO mode by at least one of a central office line voltage and an external supply voltage, and a main controller performs a booting operation in response to the external supply voltage to control an operation of the sub-controller under the condition that the external supply voltage is provided. A power-on detector detects a power-on state to output a power-on detection signal to the sub-controller, whereupon, during a call connection in the NPO mode, the sub-controller outputs a booting hold or reset signal to the main controller to prevent the main controller from booting a program masked in an internal ROM area. A hook-on signal based on a hook-on state of a handset, causes the sub-controller to block the output of the hold or reset signal, enabling the main controller to perform the booting operation after a call termination occurs.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone apparatus, and more particularly to a telephone apparatus which includes at least two processors and provides supplementary services as well as a voice communication service through a public telephone network or the Internet, and a method for controlling the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a telephone apparatus has been used as basic equipment for conducting a telephone conversation by transmitting and receiving voice signals to/from another party through a public telephone network or the Internet. A noticeable progress of technologies associated with the Internet has allowed the telephone apparatus to send and receive E-mails and short message service (SMS) messages. In order to send and receive the E-mails and SMS messages in a wired telephone terminal, the telephone apparatus needs to use at least two processors. This is because it is necessary to efficiently control the generation of uniform resource locators (URLs), mail accounts and SMS messages, the operation of a modem, etc., in a distributed manner, as well as a voice communication function.
A representative example of such a composite telephone apparatus is shown in Korean Patent Application No. 2001-61064 filed on Sep. 29, 2001 by this applicant and entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING TELEPHONE NUMBER-BASED E-MAIL SERVICE AND TELEPHONE USING THE SAME. In this application, there is provided a system comprising a sub-controller (described as an "SMS processor" in this application) for performing various control operations required for voice communication, and a main controller for mainly controlling the entire operation of a multifunctional telephone, including an operation of controlling the sending of E-mails and SMS messages. The sub-controller controls a basic operation of the telephone to generate a dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signal, and a specific operation to generate SMS messages. The main controller controls the generation of the E-mails and SMS messages, and the operation of a modem.
Such a multifunctional telephone apparatus having two processors as mentioned above, that is, a main controller and sub-controller, is constructed to operate various circuits by an external supply voltage. For example, the telephone apparatus is constructed to operate the respective circuits with a DC voltage of a predetermined level outputted from a DC adapter. This composite telephone apparatus, which operates its internal respective circuits with the external supply voltage, is adapted to maintain a basic telephone function of a handset as it is by a −48V speech loop voltage supplied over a telephone line when the external supply voltage is not inputted due to a power failure, etc. This is typically called a no power operation (NPO) function.
The operation of the telephone apparatus can be performed in such an NPO mode by full-wave rectifying the loop voltage and supplying the resulting voltage to the sub-controller (typically, a 4-bit microcomputer) which controls the basic telephone function.
In the telephone apparatus, however, when the external supply voltage is again supplied owing to the power failure recovery during a call connection in the NPO mode, the main controller, which includes a higher-level processor than that of the sub-controller, boots a program masked in a read only memory (ROM) area in response to a power-on reset signal to initialize the sub-controller and peripheral circuits controlled thereby. As a result, the telephone apparatus has a disadvantage in that the call connection in the NPO mode is not maintained and the apparatus is not operated until the booting by the main controller is completed. Namely, if the external supply voltage is again supplied owing to the power failure recovery in the NPO mode, the call connection state is not maintained, thereby causing great inconvenience to a user.

Telephone apparatus for stabilizing call in no power operation mode and method for controlling the same


A skin treatment composition containing ionic calcium and a dermatologically acceptable water-soluble, water-miscible or water-based carrier is provided for treating a skin condition in a mammal, such as dry skin, dry scalp, a burn, sunburn, irritation or minor wound. The ionic calcium is preferably present as the water soluble calcium glycerophosphate salt. The composition may be present in a formulation such as bar soap, liquid soap, bath, lotion, cream, gel, or ointment, and may also be useful for stimulating more youthful skin cells and for improving the appearance of the skin. Methods for treating skin conditions and for accelerating cellular repair include topically applying to the skin an effective amount of ionic calcium, preferably as calcium glycerophosphate, and an α-hydroxy acid such as lactic acid.

The epidermis of humans and animals is composed of three layers: the stratum basale, the stratum spinosum and the stratum corneum, as best shown in FIG. 1. The stratum basale, the innermost layer, is the only layer in which active cell division occurs. When division transpires, a daughter cell, called a keratinocyte, begins to undergo terminal differentiation. By this process, the keratinocyte is sequentially transformed into a cell of the spinosum and then into one of the corneum. Among the changes occurring during differentiation are increased synthesis of ceramide, loss of the nucleus, cell death and replacement of the cytoplasm with keratin. As keratinocytes reach the outermost stratum corneum layer, they are shed to the environment.
The stratum corneum provides a mechanical barrier to the external environment, and the concentration of ceramide in this layer is directly correlated with moisture retention. Consequently, agents which increase ceramide content will also improve moisture retention. Further, acceleration of keratinocyte differentiation increases the turnover rate of the stratum corneum, thereby minimizing the appearance of excessively dry skin, known as xerosis.
The biochemical sequence of events in keratinocyte differentiation is complex and poorly understood. Regardless of the details, it appears that agents which induce the synthesis of ceramide (a sphingolipid), as shown in FIG. 2, are associated with the induction of keratinocyte differentiation. Such agents include UVA radiation (Maziere, et al. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 281(2):289-294, 2001), L-lactic acid (Rawlings, et al. Archives of Dermatological Research, 288(7):383-390, 1996), lactic acid bacteria (DiMarzio, et al. Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 113(1): 98-106, 1999) and extracellular calcium (Watanabe, et al, J. Biol. Chem., 273 (16): 9651-5, 1998).
L-lactic acid, but not D-lactic acid, has recently been used as an effective treatment for xerosis. It is most likely efficacious because it promotes keratinocyte differentiation and ceramide synthesis (Rawling, et al; Arch. of Derm. Res., 288(7):383-90, 1996). The stereospecificity suggests that the action of L-lactic acid is not simply one of pH adjustment. Rather, the observation that the carbon label from L-lactic acid is incorporated into ceramide suggests that L-lactic acid provides an increased substrate for ceramide synthesis.
The normal pH of the stratum corneum is somewhat acidic, 5.80 in men and 5.54 in women (Ehlers, et al. Skin Research and Technology, 7(2):90-4, 2001). Maintenance of normal skin flora is pH dependent, and even modest increases in pH (0.1 to 0.2 pH units) are sufficient to foster growth of undesirable microorganisms such as Candida albicans (Runeman, et al. Acta Dermato-Venereologica 80(6): 421-4, 2000). Therefore, it is important that products designed for application to the skin have carefully controlled pH levels.
It has been found that the membranes of human keratinocytes possess a calcium-sensing protein that responds to increases in extracellular calcium, thereby initiating terminal differentiation (Oda, et al. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 275(2): 1183-90, 2000). Furthermore, researchers have shown that the addition of calcium to culture media will initiate in vitro differentiation in cultured human keratinocytes by activating a number of protein kinases, and calcium is thought to act very early in the differentiation process (Schmidt, et al. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 275(52):41011-7, 2000).
Current methods for the stimulation of more youthful skin cells and for promoting the appearance of younger skin include skin peels, such as those utilizing glycolic acid. The pH of such peels may be as low as 2.0, a hydrogen ion concentration more than 3000 times greater than that measured on the surface of normal skin. Thus, it is not surprising that the use of glycolic acid peels may be accompanied by redness and irritation. Alternatively, retinoid compounds have been used topically for their ability to stimulate keratinocyte differentiation and promote collagen and elastin synthesis. However, they may also induce photosensitivity, limiting their utility in susceptible individuals.
For these reasons, there remains a need in the art for a method for stimulating more youthful looking skin without producing undesirable side effects, and which would also be useful for accelerating the healing of wounds without encouraging the growth of undesirable organisms such as Candida albicans.

Compositions and methods for treating skin conditions