Deckings include an upward hook and a receptacle. The upward hook is inserted into the receptacle. The receptacle has an opening immediately below a sidewall upper end portion that is continuous with the upper surface of the decking. The space between the deckings is restrained by engaging a tip of the upward hook behind the sidewall upper end. A fixture is mounted on the connection of the deckings. A base plate of the fixture extends from the portion of the deckings below the upward hook to the portion of the deckings below the receptacle. The base plate is fixed to the decking by a male screw, whereby downward movement of the upward hook is restricted.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connection structure of deckings which is placed on the ground for use as a temporary path for a vehicle, for example on a construction site.
2. Description of the Background Art
It is conventionally known to place a decking on the ground for use as a temporary path for a vehicle or the like, for example on a construction site. A plurality of such deckings are usually combined together for use, for example, on a construction site. Conventionally, a plurality of deckings have generally been simply arranged for use.
However, the above mentioned simple arrangement of the deckings may often cause a displacement in position of the deckings and a gap between the deckings when the vehicle or the like passes on the deckings. Thus, a troublesome operation for correcting the displacement in position of the deckings has been often required. One possible method to avoid such a complicated operation is to connect the deckings. In this case, however, damage may be caused in the connection between the deckings.


A method and apparatus is described for the generation of an alert configuration file. According to one embodiment, configuration information is stored in a relational database which a configuration generator uses to generate a text configuration file. The configuration information being stored in the relational database allows for access control and data validation. At periodic intervals, the text configuration file is compiled to reinitialize an alerts serve with the updated configuration information.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of network systems. More specifically, the invention relates to the generation of an alert configuration file.
2. Background of the Invention
The TelAlert program available from Telamon of Oakland, Calif. provide individuals the capability to transmit messages to remote destinations over various telecommunication delivery mechanisms. In one prior art technique, TelAlert is used by business enterprises to transmit alert messages to a multitude of remote destinations. Here, TelAlert transmits alert messages generated by monitoring management, help desk, and/or dispatch applications to the responsible enterprise support staff. For example, a network help desk may use TelAlert to dispatch an alert message to the pager of a network technician, indicating perhaps, that a specific router is inaccessible on the network. TelAlert may transmit alert messages by way of a number of telecommunication delivery mechanisms including pagers, telephones, email, loudspeakers, signboards, among other examples.
Configuration Methods
FIG. 1A illustrates a block diagram of a manner in which a TelAlert system is configured in the prior art. The TelAlert system is configured by way of two configuration methods. The first configuration method is where a TelAlert configuration file 115 (called a TelAlert.ini 115 file) is edited directly, using a text editor. The other configuration method uses the TelAdmin application 190, also available from Telamon of Oakland, Calif.
The telalert.ini 115 file stores configuration information defined by sections, definitions, and keywords, as will be further described below. Traditionally, the TelAlert system is configured by opening the telalert.ini 115 file in a text editor, typing the necessary configuration changes in the appropriate locations (e.g., sections), and then saving the telalert.ini file. The telalert.ini 115 file is then compiled into the telalert.sect 120 file to be used by the Telalert system to transmit alert messages, as will be further described below.
When editing the telalert.ini 115 file, configuration information may be entered and modified in more or less any order, since doing so is simply a matter of typing and initializing. However, one problem with editing the telalert.ini 115 file is that there is no way to perform validation checks to ensure the configuration information is valid. Errors in modification of keywords and relationships will not be discovered until the compilation of the telalert.sects 120 file is performed, thereby, compromising the integrity of the TelAlert system. For example, editing the telalert.ini 115 file does not allow for referential integrity checks (e.g., must define X before referencing to X), value validation checks (e.g., protect against placing a character type in a number type field), typographical error checking, nor provide enforcement of general TelAlert system limitations (e.g., enforce maximum message size to be less than or equal to 1920 characters, among other examples). Therefore, in some cases, inconsistency in the configuration information may not be discovered until after an alert message fails to alert the necessary support staff and thereby delaying its resolution.
In contrast, the TelAdmin application 190 allows an alternative configuration method to provide configuration information to the TelAlert system. Here, the TelAdmin application 190 is used to perform configuration modifications to the telalert.sects 120 file directly. The TelAdmin application 190 is a Microsoft Windows-based graphical configuration tool. Although the TelAdmin application 190 runs only on a Microsoft Windows NT platform, it may be used to configure TelAlert installations running on UNIX operating system based platforms.
The TelAdmin application 190 is not a simple graphical configuration-file editor, but rather a front end for a multiuser transactional database system. In this way, the TelAdmin application 190 is similar in design to a Microsoft Windows' Registry Editor that is well known in the art. FIG. 2 illustrates a view of the TelAdmin application user interface in the prior art. In FIG. 2, the TelAdmin application 190 displays a graphical representation of TelAlert's sections (for example, the Configuration and Destination sections) in a tree structure in the left pane of the main window 210. The definitions under each section (if any) are displayed in the right pane 220 when one clicks a section icon on the tree (much as the Microsoft Windows Registry Editor displays registry keys and values).
Depending on the type of keyword value, the end-user may provide a value by a pull-down list, type a string or number in a field, or set a time, date, or some other type of formatted data using spinners. The TelAdmin application relies on pull-down menus having options that are sometimes dynamically generated, based on the current state of the telalert.sects 120 file. When configuring a keyword that refers to another keyword (for example, a Port definition from a Configuration definition, or a Configuration definition from a Destination definition), the keyword referred to must already exist; otherwise, it will not appear among the options presented in the pull-down menu. However, again, the TelAdmin application has no way to ensure the existence of this configuration information prior to dynamically generating the pull-down menus.
When the TelAlert Administrator finishes making configuration changes, the administrator may click the 'Save' button to commit the changes, click 'Undo' button to undo any changes made, or click 'Cancel' button to dismiss the dialog without saving changes. However, upon saving the changes, the telalert.sects 120 file is instantly overridden and therefore no backup file is saved from which to back-out any erroneous configuration changes made.
In addition, each time the telalert.sects 120 file is edited or compiled, the transmission of alert messages are halted until the TelAlert system and telecommunication delivery mechanisms are reinitialized with the updated configuration information. Depending on the number of telecommunication delivery mechanisms, the reinitialization may take a substantial amount of time, thereby, again, delaying the delivery of an alert message to the necessary support staff. The problem may also be compounded, depending on the number of end-users updating the telalert.sects 120 file, causing a reinitialization each time the telalert.sects 120 file is updated. Thereby causing a substantial delay to the delivery and resolution of alert messages.
Furthermore, the TelAdmin application 190 may manage multiple TelAlert servers at once in a single instance of the TelAdmin application. By using the TelAdmin application 190, multiple end-users may simultaneously reconfigure the TelAlert system, and a record-locking system ensures that they do not accidentally overwrite each other's changes, by defining an Owner section and an Owner keyword within the TelAlert configuration file. However, the TelAdmin application 190 is limited to this level of granularity in its access control. Therefore, for example, department heads may use the TelAdmin application to define access rights that control which system administrators may configure which TelAlert sections and definitions.
In addition, when operating in an environment that manages multiple TelAlert systems, the TelAdmin application 190 is limited to "pushing" configuration information to the remote servers. Hence, only one remote server may be updated at any one time. This increases the amount of time to configure multiple systems.
While it is technically possible to switch from one configuration method to the other (that is, from using the TelAdmin application to editing telalert.ini 115 file, and vice-versa), care must be taken not to overwrite any of changes accidentally.

Alert management data infrastructure and configuration generator


There are provided systems and methods for reducing account churn rate through intelligent collaborative filtering. A user may utilize an online account with the service provider to perform various actions and generate account usage data, such as usage of various service subcategories of the service provider or different subcategorizations for the user. Based on the current user's usage of services and other subcategorizations of the user, the user may be compared to other past users that have left the service provider utilizing collaborative filtering for matching users and user vectorization. For example, a matrix of the past users may be made based on the number of matching user that fall into the same categorizations. Each row of the matrix may be vectorized and compared to current user. If this comparison indicates potential attrition of the account, a remediation action may be taken.

Multiple types of online entities may provide accounts for users, including transaction processors, messaging services including email and instant messaging services, social networking platforms, and/or media sharing platforms. Use of these services may require a user to generate and utilize an account with the service provider. For example, transaction processors may provide accounts to different types of users, including consumers, merchants, and other types of buyers or sellers. However, over time users may use their account less and less or may stop using their account to utilize a similar but different transaction processor. This account abandonment or attrition may occur as the user is unaware of particular services of the service provider/transaction processor or is unable to access those services. Often the entities provide such features, but users may not be integrated enough to utilize all those services. Moreover, unused accounts cause unnecessary data storage, which adversely impacts database systems of the service provider. Thus, the service providers may wish to reduce churn rate, or the amount or percentage of lost customers that discontinue use of their account. Without an intelligent engine to identify similarities between users, the service provider may be unable to reduce this churn rate.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, wherein showings therein are for purposes of illustrating embodiments of the present disclosure and not for purposes of limiting the same.

Reducing account churn rate through intelligent collaborative filtering


A device for connecting a car door with a shaft door and for emergency unlocking of a car door consists of an entrainer arranged at the car door, which entrainer detachably connects, together with a roller pair arranged at the shaft door, the car door with the shaft door, and of a first locking mechanism for locking and unlocking the car door and of a second locking mechanism for locking and unlocking the shaft door. When the doors are closed and locked the entrainer is closed and can freely move between the two rollers of the roller pair when the elevator car is traveling between two floors or past a floor not to be served. The first locking mechanism is controlled directly.

The present invention relates to a device for connecting a car door with a shaft door and for locking and unlocking the doors, a device for emergency unlocking of the car door and a method for emergency unlocking of a car door, wherein an entrainer, which is arranged at the car door, detachably connects, together with rollers arranged at the shaft door, the car door with the shaft door and a first locking mechanism locks and unlocks the car door and a second locking mechanism locks and unlocks the shaft door.
The car door is a component of an elevator car which is arranged to be movable along stopping points. The stopping points form access points for the elevator car and they are provided with shaft doors. The car door together with the shaft doors regulates access of elevator passengers or goods to the elevator car or to the stopping point. For this purpose, the car door is temporarily connected at the stopping point with the shaft door. Constrained locking means or locking mechanisms keep the car door and the shaft door locked when the car door is not disposed in the access region of the stopping point or is disposed in free travel and unlocks the car door and the shaft door when the elevator car is disposed in the access region of the stopping point and an access command is present.
A device is shown in the European Patent Specification EP 1 266 860 A1 by means of which a car door of an elevator car disposed in the region of a stopping point is opened in common with a shaft door. If the elevator car is located outside a stopping point, the car door remains locked by the same device. An entrainer parallelogram is closed for free travel and opens for coupling with the shaft door between two coupling rollers arranged at the shaft door. The entrainer parallelogram is guided by means of parallel levers and comprises a third rail which is actuated in the presence of the coupling rollers and thus unlocks the car door and in the absence of the coupling rollers, for example between the floors, leaves the car door in the locked position.
A disadvantage of the known device resides in the fact that the third rail with smallest dimensions has to be guided and mounted on a second rail. Moreover, a force element is required to keep the third rail in its operating position. This has the consequence that the device is sensitive to dirt and wear and thus maintenance-intensive. It needs many components and is thus cost-intensive.
A further disadvantage is a lack of emergency unlocking. This makes emergency evacuation of the elevator passengers difficult when the elevator car remains standing in the vicinity of a stopping point.

Device for connecting a car door with a shaft door and for locking and unlocking the doors, a device for emergency unlocking of a car door and a method for emergency unlocking of a car door


A crank signal generated by a crank angle sensor has a front pulse missing portion and a back pulse missing portion in a pulse train of every predetermined angle interval. The level of a cam signal generated by a cam angle sensor becomes different in the pulse missing portion of the crank signal. A level different from that in the pulse missing portion continues for a period of predetermined angles before the pulse missing portion. A microcomputer determines each of the front and back pulse missing portions in the crank signal on the basis of the level of the cam signal in the pulse missing portion of the crank signal in two cycles of the rotation of a crankshaft of the engine and the duration of a different level before the pulse missing portion.

This application is based on and incorporates herein by reference Japanese Patent Applications No. 2000-19303 filed Jan. 27, 2000 and No. 2000-363045 filed Nov. 29, 2000.
The present invention relates to an engine control unit, and particularly to an engine control unit which determines cylinders to be controlled of an engine.
An engine control unit (ECU) is an electronic control unit for performing controls such as fuel injection control, ignition timing control, and idle speed control to operate an engine in an optimum state. Specifically, signals from various sensors for sensing engine operating states such as crank angle sensor and engine coolant temperature sensor are supplied to the ECU to control an optimum fuel injection amount, injection timing, ignition timing, and the like.
Controls synchronized with the engine speed such as ignition control and injection control, that is, controls synchronized with a crankshaft rotation position are performed by generating a signal of ignition pulses or the like after elapse of offset (delay) time from a predetermined crankshaft position indicated by the edge of a crank signal. Further, a cylinder to be controlled with respect to fuel injection and ignition must be determined accurately from time to time during engine operation.
It is, however, necessary to perform an arithmetic operation for converting the angle to time. There is a demand for reduction in processing load and improvement in accuracy.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an engine control unit with reduced processing load and improved accuracy and, moreover, capable of properly controlling the engine even when a cylinder determination signal includes noises.
According to the present invention, a crank signal and a can signal are generated by a crank angle sensor and a cam angle sensor in synchronism with rotation of a crankshaft and a camshaft of an engine, respectively. The crank signal is generated to have a front pulse missing portion and a back pulse missing portion in a pulse train of every predetermined angle interval. The cam signal is generated to have different levels in the pulse missing portions of the crank signal. A level different from that in the pulse missing portion continues for a period of predetermined angles before the pulse missing portion. A microcomputer determines each of the front and back pulse missing portions in the crank signal on the basis of the level of the cam signal in the pulse missing portion of the crank signal in two cycles of the rotation of the crankshaft of the engine and the duration of the different level before the pulse missing portion.

Engine control unit having cylinder determination function


A transform-rectifier module has a one-half turn secondary winding installed with very short, direct connections to four rectifiers. The core of the transformer has two parallel through holes. The secondary winding comprises two "Y" shaped windings. The "Y" legs of each winding are installed through the through holes from opposite sides of the core, and the ends of the "Y" windings connect to the four rectifiers. The common connections of the "Y" windings terminate on a ground plane. The rectifiers may be mounted on a common power plane which may also be a heat sink for the rectifiers and a mounting plate for the module as a whole. There is room through the through holes for a primary winding, which may be installed during manufacture or later. The modules may be used singly or in a matrix transformer-like arrangement. They are characterized by very low leakage inductance, high current capacity, good thermal properties and a low profile.

This invention relates to high frequency transformer and rectifier circuits, particularly transformer and rectifier circuits for switched mode power supplies and the like. The module may be used in a matrix transformer array as any other matrix transformer module, except that it will have a secondary turns of one-half turn. For more information about matrix transformers, please refer to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,665,357; 4,845,606; 4,942,353; 4,978,906; 5,093,646; and 5,479,146, the specifications and drawings of which are incorporated herein by reference.
"High frequency" may be hundreds of kilohertz, or even megahertz, but in very large transformers "high frequency" design techniques are advantageous even at commercial line frequency. Whenever parasitic reactive impedances are important, or the conductor dimensions are greater than the penetration depth, the teachings of this invention are applicable.
In high frequency power transformers, it is particularly important to reduce leakage inductance. This invention teaches several features which cooperate to accomplish that objective. First, the arrangement of the winding terminations are such that much of the leakage inductance in the external circuits proximate to the transformer is canceled. Second, the external circuits proximate to the transformer are arranged for low leakage inductance. Third, by using a half-turn arrangement, the number of primary turns needed is reduced by half. Since the primary leakage inductance is proportional to the square of the turns in the primary, the primary leakage inductance is reduced.
Additional benefits are that the design is inherently low profile, the thermal paths are very short and spread out, the component parts are inexpensive and very rugged.

Transformer and rectifier module with half-turn secondary windings


Video signal compression apparatus for analyzing an input video signal to determine the distribution of signal levels and compressing the input signal as a function of the distribution to produce an output video signal.

The present invention relates to a video signal compression apparatus for compressing component portions of a video signal according to compression ratios specific to each component which depend upon the frequency with which the particular component appears in the video signal.
During ordinary operation of a video camera system, the quantity of light incident upon the imaging device varies by several orders of magnitude. To facilitate the storage and reproduction of images comprised of such a range of light intensities, video signal compression techniques are employed to reduce the amount of information needed to represent such images.
In the art, an apparatus for compressing the intensity or luminance level of a video signal is referred to as a "knee circuit." Several examples of prior art knee circuits are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,357,279, Nakamura et al., which is also assigned to the assignee of the present application. Typically, a knee circuit processes an input video signal according to the fixed transfer function illustrated in FIG. 1. According to this function, output video level varies with input video level at a first constant rate until the single "knee point" is reached. The "knee point" is simply the input video level at which the transfer function changes. After the knee point, output video level varies with input video level at a second constant rate, wherein the second constant rate is less than the first constant rate.
Upon study it has been determined that the frequency with which a particular input video level occurs is not necessarily proportional to the input video level. For example, as illustrated in the histogram of FIG. 2, the distribution of input video levels may be generally concentrated around two particular input video signal levels. In this figure, the y-axis represents the number of occurrences while the x-axis represents input video intensity level. The number of occurrences preferably refers to the number of imaging elements, e.g. pixels, which register a particular intensity or luminance level in a given input image.
Application of the fixed transfer function described above to the input image represented by FIG. 2 clearly yields an inefficient allocation of the output video signal. According to such a compression scheme, input video levels are compressed at one of two different rates regardless of the actual frequency with which a particular input video level occurs. Consequently, some input video levels are unnecessarily excessively compressed while other input video levels are allocated too much of the output video signal and thus are compressed by a less than optimum amount.

Video signal compression apparatus utilizing multiple compression ratios


A latch mechanism having a quick turn and release feature where the latch mechanism comprises a first body member having at least one actuation device. A second body member is coupled to the first body member and includes at least one aperture and pin receiving channel formed therein. A pin element is coupled to the second body member and includes a first pin portion and a second pin portion. The first pin portion and the second pin portion are respectively arranged to extend axially within the pin receiving channel of the second body member such that an upward rotation of the actuation device in a counterclockwise direction releasably disengages the pin element from a shaft of one or more hinges of the door assembly to allow an operator to exit an operator cab of the work vehicle.

In many work vehicles, operator cabs are often designed with insufficient door removal options for rapid exit should a door jam or other issue occur. To address such concerns, some conventional approaches have employed the use of ratcheting devices as operator handles that requires downward clockwise rotation. Drawbacks to such approaches include increased costs, device failure due to wear, delayed release, and/or door jams.
As such, there is a need in the art for an improved and robust latch mechanism that is low cost, easily accessible, and which provides a quick release mechanism for operators.


When aluminium products are preheated in a preheating furnace up to about 500° C. before they are brazed with a flux in a heating furnace, a nitrogen atmosphere in the preheating furnace is made convectional by fans for improving heating efficiencies and also for having the oxygen which is brought into the preheating furnace as a disturbance thereof and scattered about in the nitrogen atmosphere, contacted to furnace inner walls of the preheating furnace which are made from carbonaceous materials, and reacted therewith so as to be changed to CO, resulting in keeping the oxygen concentration of nitrogen atmosphere low, whereby when the aluminium products are brazed by heating them in a continuous atmosphere furnace including said preheating furnace and said heating furnace, heating time thereof is shorten and the brazing is made more economically than before.

Brazing of aluminium products such as aluminium heat exchangers are generally performed by means of continuous atmosphere furnaces which are advantageous technologically and economically.
By a mesh belt circulating through a continuous atmosphere furnace, aluminium products are conveyed into the furnace, in which they successively pass through a moisture drying furnace, front chamber, preheating furnace, heating furnace, cooling chamber, and air cooling chamber, whereby the brazing completes. In the heating furnace, a solder material and flux which have been fitted in advance onto parts of the aluminium products to be brazed, are melted in order of flux first and solder next for having them brazed.
In order to braze the products satisfactorily, it is important that the products which are conveyed into the heating furnace, shall be brought to a brazing temperature promptly and evenly all over the products. For this end, that is, in order to heat the products evenly all over the products in such manner, they must be kept under a certain degree of temperature for a considerable period of time. In pracice, the products are heated to a temperature around melting points of the flux and solder in the preheating furnace, in advance of brazing them in the heating furnace.
While it is improtant as mentioned above to shorten the period of time for heating the products in the heating furnace, it is economical too to shorten a period of time for preheating the products in the preheaing furnace beforehand.
However, it is not easy at all to preheat the easily oxidizable aluminium products rapidly without adversely affecting their qualities.
Those fluxes which are used for brazing aluminium products, are fluoric compounds or alkali metal chlorides containing fluorides, and have a melting point of about 550° C. to 500° C. Solders of Al—Si systme which are generally used for brazing of this kind, have a melting point of 500˜630° C.
In other words, a heating range of a heating furnace of the continuous frunace for brazing aluminium products is 500˜630° C., while a preheating range of a preheating furnace thereof is up to 500° C.
It is known that a heating method primarily made by means of convection heat is more effective than heating primarily by radiation, for heating at a comparatively low temperature of less than 500° C. Therefore, it seems reasonable to employ the heating method primarily made by convection, also in the preheating furnace of the aluminium brazing furnace, heating range of which is up to 500° C.
However, surprisingly, in the preheating furnaces for brazing aluminium products, the heating method primarily made by means of convection has not been employed. This is on account of reasons stated below.
On one hand, a neutral gas such as nitrogen and the like is continuously supplied into a preheating furnace as its furnace atmosphere, so that aluminium products themselves and solders and fluxes for brazing them shall not be oxidized in the preheating furnace, temperature of which has been elevated. On the other hand, oxygen is inevitably brought into the furnace, adhering to the products or adhering to a mesh belt which transports the products. When the preheating furnace is heated by the heating method made primarily by radiation, such oxygen is scarcely dispersed in a furnace atmosphere.
However, when the atmosphere in the preheating furnace is agitated and heated by convection currents produced by fans, the oxygen entered into the furnace as a distrabance thereof is also stirred up and circulated in the preheating furnace, resulting in polluting its atmosphere. Especially, fluxes themselves which are to work as reducing and fluidizing agents, are oxidized at considerably large parts thereof, in advance of working in the heating furnace. Such will largely interfere with a succeeding brazing operation, even though the products are heated rapidly in the preheating furnace.
In view of the above, the object of this invention is to provide a brazing method of aluminium products and a furnace therefor, which are characterized in that the aluminium products can be preheated by the heating method which is made primarily by convection currents, rapidly and without interfering with brazing of the aluminium products in the heating furnace.
In other words, the subject of this invention is to make a heating time shorten so that the brazing of aluminium products can be operated more effectively than before, when they are brazed by heating in a continuous furnace comprising preheating and heating furnaces.

Method of brazing aluminum products and furnace therefor


A power button module includes a pressing member, a printed circuited board, a supporting member and a bottom cover. The supporting member defines a receiving hole therein and includes a mounting portion. The mounting portion includes a base body, a mounting section and a plurality of resilient arms interconnecting the base body and the mounting section, the pressing member is partially received in the receiving hole and fixed to the mounting section, the printed circuit board partially extends through the mounting section and connects with the pressing member. The printed circuit board comprises a contacting portion away from the pressing member. The bottom cover is fixed to the supporting member and receives the mounting portion. The bottom cover comprises an electrical connecting portion spaced from the contacting portion. The present invention further discloses an electronic device using the power button module.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an electronic device and a power button module thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Electronic device usually employs an electrical power button module to switch on/off the electronic device. The power button module of the electronic device includes a pressing member, a supporting member, a printed circuit board assembled on the supporting member, and a resilient clip positioned between the printed circuit board and the pressing member. When assembling the power button module, the pressing member extends through an opening on a housing of the electronic device, and the resilient clip is assembled on the pressing member. The supporting member is fixed to the housing of the electronic device and resists the resilient clip toward the pressing member. The printed circuit board is located between the resilient clip and the supporting member. However, during the assembly process of the power button module of the electronic device, manual labor is applied to press the pressing member and the resilient member, thereby assembling the supporting member to clamp the pressing member on the electronic device. Thus a high degree of assembly precision of the resilient clip is difficult to achieve, and the power button module assembly is labor-consuming.
Therefore, there is room for improvement in the art.

Electronic device and power button module thereof

Fu Tai Hua Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.


An ethylene polymerization catalyst system is provided. This catalyst system is produced by the process comprising forming an activated and reduced composition that is substantially free of titania and that comprises a fluorine compound, a chromium compound, and a catalyst support that consists essentially of silica.. An ethylene polymerization process is provided. This process uses the ethylene polymerization catalyst system above. This catalyst system is contacted with ethylene, in the presence of hydrogen and trialkylaluminum, under polymerization conditions, to produce a polyethylene resin.

This invention relates to the field of catalyst systems and catalyst processes.
Ethylene polymerized by chromium/silica catalyst technology is known in the art. The polyethylene resins produced by this technology will generally have a high molecular weight. Hydrogen, which is a known molecular weight reducer in titanium trichloride catalyst systems, will generally have little effect on the molecular weight of polyethylene resins produced by chromium/silica catalyst systems. This invention provides a chromium/silica catalyst system that has a high sensitivity to hydrogen. These chromium/silica catalyst systems will produce lower molecular weight polyethylene resins when hydrogen is used to modify the molecular weight of these polyethylene resins.


Information regarding requests made to a directory server by clients is collected. The requests including read, compare, search, write, and update requests. It is determined the number of the read, compare and search requests is greater than a threshold and/or whether the number of the write and update requests is greater than the threshold. In response to determining that either or both numbers are greater than the threshold, the following is performed. The process by which the directory server should be replicated is determined based on the information collected. The type of replication as to which the directory server should be replicated is also determined based on the information collected. A new directory server is then replicated from the directory server using the determined process. The new directory server has the determined type of replication.

A directory server is a network server that provides directory services or naming services. A directory service provides a directory of names, profile information, and machine addresses of users and resources on a network. It is used to manage user accounts and network permissions. When sent a user name, a directory service returns the attributes of that individual, which may include a telephone number as well as an e-mail address. A naming service converts a name into a physical address on a network, some what similar to someone looking up a phone number in a telephone book by first and last name. Examples of directory servers include lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) servers, Active Directory (AD) servers, user location service (ULS) servers, and other types of directory servers.
For instance, an example directory server may include two suffixes: a first suffix including o=company and c=us, and a second suffix including o=company and c=in. In this example, "o" specifies an organization and "c" specifies a country. The directory server may also include two sub-trees: a first sub-tree including ou=unit, o=company, and c=us, and a second sub-tree including ou=unit, o=company, and c=in. In this example, "ou" specifies an organizational unit. In an example scenario relating to this directory server, it may be found that just the sub-tree including ou=unit, o=company, and c=us receives many requests from clients, where these requests specifically relate to particular directory entries and for particular attributes of those directory entries. As such, a network administrator may determine that the directory server in question is overloaded by requests, and has to be replicated to relieve the directory server of some of this congestion.
However, the network administrator is limited in the prior art as to how he or she can replicate the directory server. First, the administrator may manually replicate the entire directory of the directory server to a new directory server. However, this is disadvantageous, because just the sub-tree including ou=unit, o=company, and c=us has received many requests, and even then these requests are for just some of the directory entries and just for some of the attributes of these entries. Therefore, replicating the entire directory is overkill in relation to current needs.
Second, the administrator may manually replicate just the portion of the directory server relating to the suffix including o=company and c=us. This is also overkill to some extent, because just the sub-tree including ou=unit, o=company, and c=us has received many requests, and as before even these requests are for just some of the directory entries and for just some of the attributes of these entries. Third, the administrator may manually replicate just the portion of the directory server relating to the sub-tree including ou=unit, o=company, and c=us. Again, however, this is overkill to some extent, because the requests in question relate to just some of the directory entries and to just some of the attributes of these entries.
The prior art for directory replication is thus disadvantageous in at least two respects. First, the network administrator has to manually monitor the directory server and manually initiate replication of the directory server. That is, the directory server replication process is not autonomous. Second, the granularity at which the network administrator is able to replicate the directory server does not closely match or correlate to the requests made to the directory server that are causing the need for such replication. These and other shortcomings of the prior art are addressed by the present invention.

International Business Machines Corporation


A method for administration through files in a storage cluster is provided. The method includes distributing user data, including files, throughout a plurality of storage nodes having non-volatile solid-state memory, through erasure coding. The plurality of storage nodes are housed within a single chassis that couples the storage nodes as the storage cluster. The method includes receiving at the storage cluster a command to write a file or read a file, the file having a filename. The method includes determining whether the filename is reserved and determining an administrative action according to the file, responsive to determining that the filename is reserved. The method includes initiating the administrative action. A storage system is also provided.

Administrative actions, such as taking a snapshot of data or generating reports relating to data in a storage system, are typically requested and commenced using a specific administrative access, a communication protocol, and a communication path separate from ordinary user access to the storage system. This typically leads to a separate communication and authentication path, and a new administrative role, which must be defined, authorized and tracked. In current systems where a storage unit is separate from a host running an application, various communications protocols allow an application to interact with a storage unit in order to request an administrative action such as a snapshot. The above separations are not readily overcome by standard hard disk drives (HDDs) and protocols as applied to present storage systems. Solid-state memory, such as flash, is currently in use in solid-state drives (SSD) to augment or replace conventional hard disk drives (HDD), writable CD (compact disk) or writable DVD (digital versatile disk) drives, collectively known as spinning media, and tape drives, for storage of large amounts of data. Flash and other solid-state memories have characteristics that differ from spinning media. Yet, many solid-state drives are designed to conform to hard disk drive standards for compatibility reasons, which makes it difficult to provide enhanced features or take advantage of unique aspects of flash and other solid-state memory.
It is within this context that the embodiments arise.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Administrative actions via a reserved filename


In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, an information handling system may include a processor, a memory system communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory system comprising one or more persistent memory modules, each of the one or more persistent memory modules comprising a volatile memory and a non-volatile memory, and a management controller communicatively coupled to the processor and the memory system. The management controller may be configured to correlate temperature sensor information with one or more other operational parameters associated with the one or more persistent memory modules and predict a likelihood of degradation of the one or more persistent memory modules based on correlation of the temperature sensor information with the one or more other operational parameters.

As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems are increasingly using persistent memory technologies such as Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory Modules (NVDIMMs), including NVDIMM-N. An NVDIMM is a memory module that may retain data even when electrical power is removed either from an unexpected power loss, system crash or from a normal system shutdown. To enable such functionality, an NVDIMM may include a traditional dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which may store data during normal operation when electrical power is available from a power supply unit and a flash memory (e.g., NAND flash) to back up data present in the DRAM when a loss of electrical power from the power supply unit occurs. A battery, capacitor, or other energy storage device either internal or external to the NVDIMM may supply electrical energy for a "save" operation to transfer data from the DRAM to the flash memory in response to a power loss event from the power supply unit.
An existing problem with DRAM threshold policies is that both correctable and uncorrectable errors are marked as degraded even though advanced error correction code (ECC) capabilities and scrub protocols effectively address all correctable errors. In many cases, correctable errors are transient and will resolve themselves with little or no administrator intervention. However, uncorrectable errors may cause an information handling system to crash, increasing downtime and potentially causing data loss.
On NAND flash, the "retention" parameter is often the parameter used to define when failure occurs. The retention parameter is very sensitive to the external environment of a NAND flash, and high temperature tends to reduce duration of retention. A number of read cycles can also degrade retention.
Because an NVDIMM-N device may include both DRAM and NAND flash, an intelligent approach is desired to determine device degradation and replacement.

Systems and methods for predicting persistent memory device degradation based on operational parameters


A boiling water reactor control rod drive housing support bars having radiation shields to limit the travel of a control rod in the event that a control rod housing is ruptured and protect persons working under the reactor vessel from radiation exposure. The radiation shield includes radiation shield cups for surrounding the bottom portion of a control rod drive. The radiation shield cups are placed on support bars located in rows on opposing sides of the control rod drives. The radiation shield may be easily raised and lowered automatically by the control rod drive installation/removal machine.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to supports and, more particularly, to boiling water reactor control rod drive housing supports. Still more particularly, this invention relates to control rod drive housing support bars with radiation shields.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In boiling water rectors the control rod drive housing supports are generally located underneath the reactor vessel near the control rod housings. The control rod drive housing supports limit the travel of and support a control rod in the event that a control rod drive housing is ruptured. The supports prevent a nuclear excursion as a result of a housing failure, thus protecting the fuel barrier.
Typically, control rod drive housing supports consist of hanger rods that are attached and supported at their upper end at a beam structure immediately underneath the reactor pressure vessel and support bars which are bolted between the hanger rods below the control rod drives. Another grid of bars is installed on the support bars to transfer the load of a ruptured control rod drive housing to the support bars. Generally, a pair of grid bars support each control rod drive. Each pair of grid bars are held together by two grid clamps and a bolt.
In this support system of the prior art, when it is necessary to change or replace a control rod drive, the grid bars must be removed. In order to remove the grid bars the operator must manually unscrew the grid clamp bolt, remove the two grid clamps and then remove the grid bars, each weighing approximately forty pounds. The number of grid bars which must be removed depends on the number of control rods which must be replaced. Furthermore, since the grid bars are interlocking, they must be removed starting from the outer peripheral row.
Thus, if a large number of control rod drives must be replaced or if an inner control rod drive must be replaced, a large number of grid bars must be removed. The result is a time consuming and cumbersome process. Moreover, as the grid bars are heavy and awkward to handle, a dropped bar could result in serious injury. Further still, the persons handling the grid bars or working under the reactor pressure vessel are subject to substantial radiation doses. The more time a person must spend replacing the control rod drives, therefore, the more that person is subject to radiation.
Thus it is a problem in the prior art to adequately support a control rod drive housing in a boiling water reactor while allowing for quick and easy replacement of control rod drives and reducing and minimizing the radiation exposure of a person working under the reactor pressure vessel.

Control rod housing support bars with radiation shields


A device for the dosed output of a medium from a container through an opening in an upper housing part. A valve piston tip is associated with said opening for the closing thereof. A piston surface, which is pressed against a spring, is adjacent to the valve piston tip and is used as part of a valve piston, which is sealingly guided in a piston chamber in the upper part of the housing and forms a filling chamber which is connected to the container, between the upper part of the housing and the opening.

The invention relates to a device for the metered dispensation of a medium from a container through an opening in an upper housing part, with the opening being assigned a valve piston tip in order to be closed off, and with the valve piston tip as part of a valve piston being adjoined by a piston face which is supported against a spring, is sealingly guided in a piston space in the upper housing part and forms a filling space between itself and the opening, which filling space is connected to the container.
Flexible bottles are known for example for eye droplets from which a droplet can be dispensed in the manner of a pipette into the eye. This is cumbersome and imprecise.
A spray device is for example known from EP 0 688 608 A1, in which spray device a dispensing opening is closed off by a valve piston tip. Said valve piston tip is part of a valve piston which is mounted so as to be supported against a spring. The medium can be introduced through the interior of the valve piston and through corresponding openings in the valve piston into a filling space, with a pressure being exerted on a piston face, which has the effect that the valve piston is moved counter to a spring, and the valve piston tip thereby opens the dispensing opening.
The present invention is based on the object of developing a device of the above stated type with which a medium can be metered in a simple and precise manner.

Device for the metered dispensation of a medium


Losses are reduced in electrical conductors and filters, especially those made with superconducting cables or inductors, which carry currents having both direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) portions as in rectifier busses and power distribution systems. Superconducting cables and chokes are capable of passing direct current with practically zero losses, but they exhibit considerable AC losses. A low impedance AC bypass of the superconducting cables and chokes minimizes these losses.

While superconducting devices such as cables and chokes (inductors) are capable of passing direct current with practically zero losses, they do exhibit considerable AC losses. Described here is a method and apparatus for minimizing these losses in applications where current consists of both a DC component and an AC component. This commonly occurs in rectifier busses, power supplies and power distribution systems.
Currents flowing in networks are commonly categorized as either alternating currents (AC) or direct currents (DC). The notion of direct current is misleading, however, and in practice one actually means a current with frequency components below some lower cutoff frequency, usually below the first dominant harmonic of the current. This invention separates these currents in cables and chokes in such a way that one can take advantage of the benefit of superconducting technologies, which work best at very low (DC) frequencies.

Hybrid bypass networks for low-loss cables and ripple filter chokes


The present invention discloses a method of doping and preventing silicide formation in selective areas of a polysilicon gate in MOS, PMOS, NMOS or CMOS manufacturing technologies. The process includes the steps of: depositing a non-conformal dopant containing layer on the top surface of the body and the top surface of the polysilicon gate; removing a portion of the non-conformal dopant containing layer to expose the top surface of the polysilicon gate; and heating to diffuse dopant from the dopant containing layer. Silicidation is then provided by depositing a metal layer and annealing the metal layer. As a first alternative method, the heating and removing step may be reversed. As a second alternative method, after removal of the non-conformal layer, a metal layer can be deposited followed by a combination anneal of the metal layer and non-conformal dopant containing layer.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a method of forming a semiconductor and, more specifically, to a method of selectively doping, or selectively doping and preventing silicide formation in a single process.
2. Background Art
Heretofore, crystal damage or defects, such as extended loop dislocations that penetrate source/drain junctions, contribute to cell leakage resulting in reduced dynamic random access memory (DRAM) retention time (Rt) and cause much higher power consumption. These crystal defects have long been attributed to and directly modulated by the high dose ion implant required for source-drain doping.
Additional device leakage and DRAM Rt degradation is attributable to "over the spacer" titanium silicide (TiSi) stringers. These stringers also cause discrete failures in the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) logic products. Furthermore, these defects, typified by TiSi "creep", are also major contributors to chip field failures and reliability problems.

International Business Machines Corporation


A sound pickup transducer array, deployed within an enclosed area, is coupled to a sound recorder. A processor, coupled to the sound recorder, provides a button or speech recognizer through which a person in the enclosed area issues a command signifying the occurrence of a sound for which categorizing is requested. The processor is programmed to respond to the issued command by extracting and storing an audio snippet copied from the audio recorder, in a digital memory, where the snippet corresponds to sound captured before, during and after the issued command. The processor communicates the stored audio snippet to an artificial intelligence system trained to categorize sounds as to what produced them. The artificial intelligence system may employ trained model feature extraction, a neural network categorization system, and/or direction of sound arrival analysis.

As vehicle or ship interior spaces become quieter and quieter—through significant effort on the part of the designers—passengers become able to hear sounds once masked by engine and wind noise, ranging from benign but annoying rattles to an assortment of other ticking, whirring, grinding, buzzing and clunking sounds, all of which could be indicative an onboard system in the process of failing. Noise inside building may also be used to identify underlying problems related to HAVC and other systems.
Naturally, the vehicle owner or passenger wants to identify, diagnose and put a stop to all of these sounds by correcting the underlying causes. Unfortunately, this can be difficult. In the typical aircraft scenario, the abnormal sound heard by a passenger is reported to a member of the crew, who relays the report to the ground maintenance crew, who in turn, may need to contact the aircraft manufacturer's engineering department for guidance. The challenge usually involves trying to reproduce conditions so the maintenance crew and engineering department may hear what the passenger reported. However, when it comes to aircraft, there are many variables involved—yaw, pitch, roll, g-forces, turbulence, temperature, weather conditions, engine rpm, plane weight, runway surface conditions, landing gear position, and so forth. Any one or more of these variables may have a bearing on whether the abnormal sound heard by the passenger can be duplicated. Thus it can be largely hit or miss as to whether the sound can be identified, diagnosed and corrected. Similar discussions also apply to other passenger carrying vehicles such as automobiles or other enclosed area where people may be annoyed by noise issues.

Noise event location and classification in an enclosed area


The present invention relates to a method of scavenging residual burnt gas of a direct-injection internal-combustion engine, notably of diesel type, comprising at least one cylinder (10) including a combustion chamber (12), at least one exhaust means (14) with an exhaust valve (18) controlled by exhaust control means (42), at least one intake means (24) with an intake valve (28) controlled by intake control means (40) and a processing unit (44) receiving the values relative to the intake pressure (Pa) and to the exhaust pressure (Pe) of the engine. The method consists, when the engine runs under low speed and high load conditions, in carrying out a sequence of opening/closing of exhaust valves (18) during the exhaust phase of the engine, during this exhaust valve opening/closing sequence, in carrying out at least one sequence of opening/closing of intake valves (28) so as to achieve scavenging of the residual burnt gas.

Generally, the power delivered by an internal-combustion engine depends on the amount of air fed into the combustion chamber, this amount of air being itself proportional to the density of this air.
As it is well known, if high power is required, an increase in this amount of air is provided by compression of the air before it is fed into this combustion chamber. This operation, referred to as supercharging, can be carried out using any means such as a turbocompressor or a driven compressor such as a screw compressor.
Furthermore, in order to increase even further this amount of air in the cylinder, the residual burnt gas initially contained in the dead volume of the combustion chamber is discharged before the end of the engine exhaust phase and it is replaced by supercharged air. This stage is commonly referred to as burnt gas scavenging.
As described in document FR-A-2,886,342, this scavenging can consist in carrying out, at the end of the engine exhaust phase and at the start of the intake phase, overlapping of the exhaust and intake valves of a cylinder. This overlap is obtained by opening simultaneously these exhaust and intake valves for some degrees to some ten degrees of crank rotation angle.
The intake air is thus fed into the combustion chamber before the end of the exhaust phase by expelling the exhaust gas contained therein. This gas is thus discharged through the exhaust valve and replaced by intake air.
Although this type of engine gives satisfaction, it however involves drawbacks that are by no means insignificant.
In fact, such scavenging requires recesses of great depth in the piston, which consequently degrades the shape of the combustion chamber and the progress of the fuel mixture combustion. Furthermore, this type of engine concurrently requires modifying the opening angles of the exhaust valves and the closing angles of the intake valves.
The present invention aims to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks by means of a scavenging method of simple design allowing to improve the limit fuel/air ratio of the fuel mixture and to increase supercharging and filling of the combustion chamber without degrading the shape thereof. Furthermore, particle emissions are limited and the engine power is increased.

Residual burnt gas scavenging method with double intake valve lift in a direct-injection supercharged internal-combusion engine, notably of diesel type


The present disclosure provides methods of assessing DAR of ADC products that provide advantages over known methods. Specifically, methods of the disclosure can be used in high-throughput applications and/or without having to dilute ADC samples during the assessment.

Antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs) are an emerging class of drug molecules. Their ability to locate to a specific target and deliver a potent drug makes them an attractive option for developing a target based therapeutic product. ADCs are produced by chemically linking potent drug molecules to a monoclonal antibody via a selected chemical linker. The average number of drug molecules that are conjugated to the monoclonal antibody is called drug-to-antibody ratio, ("DAR"). DAR is an important quality attribute of ADC products, because it can impact product efficacy, safety and/or stability. Accordingly, methods of assessing DAR of ADC products in a reliable and high throughput manner are desirable.

Methods of assessing antibody-drug conjugates


A device for fixing a wire to a support member in which there is at least one opening and a support member for a cable duct including the fixing device.

The present invention relates to a fixing device for fixing a wire to a support member in which there is at least one opening.
The problem of fixing a wire to a support member often arises; for example, it arises when fixing a mesh structure made of wires welded together; one example of a mesh structure is a generally U-shaped cable duct which is made of longitudinal wires welded to transverse wires bent into a U shape; a cable duct is adapted to receive electrical, telephone or data cables, optical fibers, etc. This is known in the art.
The use of a fixing section having a plane surface adapted to receive the bottom of the cable duct and provided with lugs adapted to cooperate with the wires of the bottom of the cable duct to fix this kind of mesh structure has already been proposed, for example in the document FR-A-2 697 690.
According to that document, a sheetmetal fixing section has a plane surface on which rest longitudinal bottom wires of a cable duct of the kind shown in perspective in FIG. 4, which are welded to U-shaped transverse wires.
The plane surface of the section has at least two elongate openings in it in which lugs are formed by cutting and bending.
Before the fixing operation is performed, the lugs are conformed into a tongue that extends parallel to the plane surface of the section at a distance from that plane surface globally equal to the diameter of the longitudinal bottom wires.
To fix the cable duct, it is placed on the plane surface of the section and moved in translation so that the bottom wires engage under the tongues of the lugs up to the point at which they abut against the connection of each tongue to the plane surface of the section; the bottom wires repeat at predetermined intervals and the position of the lugs must of course correspond to those intervals.
To complete the fixing operation all that remains is to bend the tongues of the lugs toward the plane surface of the section and around the longitudinal bottom wires using any suitable tool, or preferably using a special tool such as the tool 100 shown in FIG. 6, which is marketed by the applicant.
The above arrangement is satisfactory for fixing a mesh structure, but has a number of drawbacks.
Firstly, the section with lugs matches only one particular type of wire mesh cable duct, with which it is designed to cooperate, the distance between the lugs having to correspond exactly to the distance between the longitudinal wires of the cable duct.
Secondly, the fixing sections must be perfectly aligned with each other if a sinuous route of the cable duct is to be avoided. Such alignment presupposes a similar alignment of the structures supporting the fixing sections, such as walls or posts, which cannot always be perfectly obtained.
A section with lugs is not suitable for fixing a structure which is not of the mesh kind, but of the globally solid kind; for example, U-shaped cross-section perforated sheetmetal cable ducts are known in the cable duct art; for these a section with no lugs is provided, having in a plane surface perforations with which openings in the bottom of the cable duct are aligned so that the cable duct can be fixed by means of nuts and bolts. The L-shaped section 11 shown in FIG. 1 is one example of a perforated section of this kind; it has a horizontal part 18 carrying a plane flange 12 and a vertical part 19 which is attached to a support member such as a wall 10; the plane top flange 12 incorporates perforations 13 which are preferably elongate to ensure that the perforations in the globally solid structure line up with them.
Thus two types of section are needed to fix a mesh structure and a globally solid structure.
An object of the present invention is to alleviate this drawback. It relates to a device for fixing a wire to a support member in which there is at least one opening, without lugs, so that a single type of support member can be used to fix at least one wire, such as longitudinal wires of a mesh structure, or a globally solid structure.
Another aim is for the wire fixing device to be suitable for more than one type of mesh structure with slightly different spacings of the longitudinal wires, of the order of a few millimeters at most.
Another aim is for the fixing device to accommodate imperfect alignment of the support members.
Another aim is for the fixing device to operate regardless of the position of the support member.
According to the invention, a fixing device which can be used to fix a wire to a support member having a plane flange in which there is at least one perforation is characterized in that it is made of sheetmetal and includes a globally plane baseplate from which emerges a lug adapted to be passed through said perforation and to engage over the wire.
The dimensions of the baseplate are such that it cannot pass through the opening or openings in the plane flange of the support member.
The lug advantageously includes a tongue parallel to the baseplate to which it is joined by a heelpiece and the tongue is at a distance from the baseplate globally equal to the diameter of the wire to be fixed plus the thickness of the plane flange of the support member.
The lug is preferably formed by the material originally occupying the cut-out in the baseplate; the cut-out is advantageously generally rectangular.
The tongue is preferably just above the cut-out that it overlies.
The edge of the cut-out facing the heelpiece of the lug and the edge of the baseplate near the heelpiece are preferably formed into inclined claws on the same side as the lug.
Alternatively, two facing edges of the cut-out carry inclined claws on the same side as the lug.
The baseplate preferably has two rims on the opposite side of the baseplate to the lug.
In a different embodiment of the invention the baseplate has two rims on the same side of the baseplate as the lug; said rims are preferably provided with claws.
In one particular application of the fixing device according to the invention the device is designed for fixing a mesh structure in the form of a cable duct.
The present invention also relates to a support system for a wire mesh cable duct consisting of the combination of at least one fixing device according to the invention and a support member in which there is at least one elongate perforation in a plane flange.
The support member is, for example, a section in the form of an angle-iron, an angle-bracket, a hanger, a swing-arm, etc. for fixing the cable duct to a vertical wall, to posts, or to a ceiling, using the bottom wires of the cable duct or the side wires.
The support member preferably has at least two perforations in it, there are preferably at least two associated fixing devices, and the perforations are preferably disposed on the flange of the support member to cooperate with different longitudinal wires of the cable duct.
In order to explain the subject matter of the invention, embodiments of the invention shown in the accompanying drawings by way of purely illustrative and non-limiting example will now be described.

Device for fixing a wire on a carrier element provided with at least an opening and carrier assembly for cable troughs comprising at least said device


A pedal assembly protects a driver, in which a pedal arm 50 is prevented from pivoting to a driver and forced to pivot forward away from the driver in a collision or a rear-end collision, so that it is possible to maximally preclude an injury of the leg of the driver due to the pedal arm 50.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a pedal assembly for protecting a driver in a vehicle, and more particularly to a pedal assembly for protecting a driver in a vehicle which can maximally preclude an injury of the driver's legs (hit against the shin, bending of the ankles, and the like) due to a pedal assembly in a collision or a rear-end collision.
2. Description of Related Art
In common vehicles, an acceleration pedal, a brake pedal, and a clutch pedal that are operated by a driver are mounted on the dash panel under the driver seat.
When the engine room is crushed by too large shock power generated in a collision or a rear-end collision, the driver's legs are injured by the pedals.
That is, as a dash panel 1 and a pedal member 2 are pushed rearward by shock power, a pedal arm 3 is correspondingly pushed rearward, as indicated by an arrow M1 and the lower end of the pedal pivots up about a pedal hinge shaft 4, as indicated by and arrow R1.
In this case, if the driver does not press down the pedal with a foot, the end of the pivoting pedal hits the shin of the driver and the driver's leg is injured, or when the driver presses down the pedal with a foot, the driver's ankle is thrown and bent back by the pivoting pedal, so that the driver is injured.
Therefore, in order to solve the problem, a pedal assembly with a safety mechanism that can minimize an injury of a leg of a driver by a pedal by separating a pedal member 2 from a cowl bracket 5 such that a pedal arm 3 moves down and by forcing the pedal arm 3 to pivot forward as indicated by the arrow R2 such that the pedal arm 3 moves away as far as possible from a leg of a driver, when the pedal member 2 is pushed rearward in a collision, has been proposed.
However, the pedal assembly described above has a defect that the cost and weight considerably increase because there are too many components in the safety mechanism, and particularly, the pedal arm 3 cannot be forced to pivot, when the pedal member 2 and the cowl bracket 5 are not separated, so that a leg of a driver is more seriously injured because the pedal arm 3 further pivots, and it is necessary to satisfy a condition that the cowl panel 6 should be pushed rearward further than a dash panel 1 even though the pedal member 2 is pushed rearward.
The information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.


An adaptive cascade proportional-integral-derivative controller produces a fixed controller output including a fixed proportional-integral-derivative and a fixed feedforward controller command, and an adaptive controller output including an adaptive cascade PID and an adaptive feedforward command all from a reference command. The fixed controller output and the adaptive controller output are added to produce a control command for a controlled system, which provides a measure of an output and a rate of change of the output as feedback for the controller.

Many controlled systems use proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers. However, a performance and stability of these controlled systems is sensitive to system parameters, such as inertia or stiffness and selected PID gains.
Adaptive control is one possible method for improving the performance of these controlled systems. However, adaptive control usually requires detailed process models or an approximation of these models to estimate the system parameters.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,612 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,691,615 describe motion controllers with adaptive control based on a motion system model to estimate and compensate for inertia, damping, friction, and gravity parameters and perform model-based adaptive control. U.S. Pat. No. 6,055,524 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,077 describe function approximation methods, such as neural networks and Laguerre functions, to approximate the system model and estimate the corresponding parameters. Other approaches, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,658,370, and references therein, describe some type of adaptive control by using a finite set of pre-designed sets of tuning constants, and a method to determine which set of tuning constants are optimum. That approach requires that at least one set of pre-designed tuning constants yields acceptable performance for an unknown system in operation. Other types of PID controllers use rule based adjustment of controller gains, such as fuzzy logic conditions.
Related approaches are described for adaptive parallel PID by Chang, W.-D., and J.-J Yan, "Adaptive robust PID controller design based on a sliding mode for uncertain chaotic systems," Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, 26, pp. 167-175, 2005, Iwai, Z., Mizumoto, L., Liu, L.; Shah, S. L.; Jiang, H., "Adaptive Stable PID Controller with Parallel Feedforward Compensator," Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, December, 2006, Pirabakaran, K., and V. M. Bacerra, "Automatic Tuning of PID Controllers Using Model Reference Adaptive Control Techniques," Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, December, 2001, and Xiong, A. and Y. Fan, "Application of a PID Controller using MRAC Techniques for Control of the DC Electromotor Drive,", IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, August, 2007.

Method and apparatus for adaptive cascade proportional-integral-derivative controller

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.


A push/pull door latch assembly for use in a door includes a handle assembly and a latch cylinder. The handle assembly has a stop configured for limiting the movement of the handle during the push or pull operation, and absorbing shock transmitted from a user's hand through the handle and a cam assembly that operates in response to the push or pull operation of the handle. The cam assembly operates the latch so as to unlock the door when the handle is pushed or pulled.

The present invention relates to door latch assemblies, and more particularly, to push and pull door latch assemblies that are typically used in hospitals and other facilities where it is desirable to be able to unlatch and open a door in one motion by pulling or pushing a handle in the latch assembly.
Push/pull type door latch assemblies are known in the art, and enable the user to easily open a door with one hand. These types of door handles enable a door to be opened inwardly into a room by pushing on an outside handle or pulling on an inside handle. Because no rotational movement is required to operate the handles, as is the case with conventional doorknobs, push/pull door latch assemblies are commonly used in hospitals and other institutions, and can be easily used in an emergency by the disabled or by young children.
In current applications, a pull handle of a door latch assembly is mounted on the side of the door toward which the door opens and a push handle of the door latch assembly is mounted on the opposite side thereof. These assemblies typically incorporate a cam which causes the pushing or pulling movement of the handle to rotate an elongate key extending perpendicularly through an opening in a latch cylinder. When rotated, the elongate key withdraws the door latch to release the door. Generally, only a small amount of force in one direction is sufficient to release the latch.
However, because of the generally high-traffic, high-pressure atmosphere in hospitals and the like, both the cam and the handle can become worn down and damaged due to repeated use of the assembly. Every time the door latch assembly is operated, the cam experiences a shock due to the pushing or pulling of the handle, which wears down the cam, particularly when the shock is excessive, as can happen in emergency situations. As either the cam or the handle become worn down, it can become more difficult for a user to push or pull on the door handle, which can lead to dangerous consequences in an emergency situation. These instances reduce the life of the apparatus and require replacement.
Therefore, there exists a need to better protect latch assemblies from the shock experienced during operation of the push/pull door latch assembly, thereby increasing the life of the assembly. There also exists a need to reduce the wear on the latch assembly, so that the ease of operating the push/pull handle remains consistent and reliable despite repeated use.

Low profile push/pull door latch assembly

Architectural Builders Hardware Mfg., Inc.


Provided are high temperature, venting food preparation bags used to package food products for storage, transportation, and preparation and methods for making and using the same. High temperature, venting food preparation bags are composed of a sealed end, an open end, at least one side wall composed of a first thermoplastic film having a vent, and a vent seal composed of a second thermoplastic film. The vent seal is fused to the sidewall via a non-adhesive seal thereby closing the vents. At elevated temperatures, the vent seal at least partially detaches from the side wall thereby opening the vents. Opening of the at least one vent is not dependent upon the accumulation of internal fluid or gaseous pressure, and is compatible with vacuum packaging techniques. Vented cooking techniques are provided that permit browning and crisping of beef and poultry without manipulating the food preparation bag during cooking.

Numerous packaging configurations have been adopted for use in food storage, preservation, and cooking. Because of their pliability and low weight, polymer films have been employed for these purposes. Conventional polymer film compositions used in low temperature cooking applications are composed of, for example, polypropylene and polyethylene. Low temperature cooking applications include for example, hot water cooking techniques, i.e., boil-in-a-bag applications. But, conventional bags are not well suited for high temperature cooking applications, such as cooking beef, because they either melt or adhere to food products retained in the bag.
In addition, conventional bags are often fabricated with seals, which incorporate an adhesive, i.e., adhesive-based seals. Although some adhesives provide a dependable seal for low temperature cooking techniques, many adhesives are incompatible with high temperature cooking applications because they either, mechanically fail during high temperature cooking applications, or the adhesive is unsuitable for use with food products at elevated temperatures.
The food packaging industry is constantly in search of stronger, more durable bags that are resistant to tearing and abrasion so as to completely isolate food products from the outside environment. Traditionally, conventional bags have provided preferred mechanical properties, such as tear resistance and durability, by increasing gauge thickness. However, because the amount of polymer used to make a film directly correlates to the overall cost of manufacturing a bag, the cost of using thicker films is often financially impracticable for many packaging applications.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved food preparation packages and methods of preparing and using the same that overcome the disadvantages associated with conventional food packages.


A curved-listing file hierarchy and a preview window for more efficiently displaying file hierarchy information on a data processing device. Curved-listing file hierarchies may allow more elements of a file hierarchy to be displayed in a smaller space. This may be especially useful for the smaller screens of some data processing devices like Personal Digital Assistants and cellular phones. A preview screen may allow a user to view preview information on a file in the hierarchy without actually opening the file.

Processors and memory devices may be getting smaller with advances in technology. As the processors and the memory devices get smaller, data processing devices that use the processors and the memory devices, may be made smaller and have more functionality than previous data processing devices. However, with the smaller size of the data processing devices, there may be several challenges to overcome. For example, as the data processing devices get smaller, input devices on the data processing devices may get smaller and, consequently, more difficult to use. As a result, it may be necessary to reduce the amount of input required from a user to perform tasks on the data processing device. An additional challenge is that smaller data processing devices typically require smaller screens which may be difficult to read. As such, data may need to be presented to the user in a more compact manner.
Certain data processing devices have been designed with screens that flip out in various ways. The flip-out screen may have dimensions as large as the largest dimensions of the overall data processing device when the flip-out screen is closed. However, even with the ability to flip out, the data processing device screen may still be very small and therefore still may need to present information to the user in a more compact manner.
One example of information that may need to be presented in a more compact manner to the user on the smaller screen is a hierarchy of files (e.g., applications, data files, . . . etc) stored on or accessible by the data processing device. In the current manner of presenting the file hierarchy, the headings, subheadings, applications, and filenames, may be branched along lines at right angles. This manner of presenting the file hierarchy may take up a significant amount of screen space. Because of the smaller screen, the number of filenames, applications, subheadings, and headings that may be viewed at once by the user may be limited. Because the user may only be able to view a small portion of the file hierarchy at a time, it may take the user a longer time to locate a file.

Loop menu navigation apparatus and method


A method of growing a non-polar m-plane nitride semiconductor. A (11-23) plane sapphire substrate is prepared, and a non-polar (10-10) nitride semiconductor is grown on the sapphire substrate. The present invention can also be applied to a method for manufacturing other m-plane hexagonal semiconductors.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a nitride semiconductor and, more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a non-polar m-plane nitride semiconductor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a group III nitride semiconductor is characterized by capability of emitting light in a wide range including the entire visible ray region and extended to the ultra-violet ray region, and has gained attention as a light emitting device material for realizing blue or green.
A nitride semiconductor is grown on a composite substrate such as sapphire (Al2O3) or silicon carbide (SiC) through vapor phase growth methods like Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD), Hydride Vapor Phase Epitaxy (HVPE) or Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE).
Conventionally, a nitride single crystal grown in a c-axis [0001] of the composite substrate has been mainly used for the nitride light emitting device, which however, exhibits strong piezoelectricity, degrading the efficiency of the light emitting device. That is, in the active layer of the c-plane nitride layer, an electric field stemming from the piezoelectric effects, i.e., a piezoelectric field is applied in an opposite direction from an external electric field due to the peculiar characteristics of GaN. As shown in FIG. 1a, the wave functions of an electron and a hole are spatially in disagreement, resulting in degraded recombination efficiency.
Recently, in order to increase the light emission efficiency by controlling such polarization characteristics, there have been actively sought ways to grow and apply an a-plane or m-plane non-polar nitride layer to the light emitting device. Unlike the polar nitride layer, the non-polar nitride layer does not entail polarization, and thus no electric field is applied internally. Therefore, in the active layer with the non-polar nitride layer adopted, the wave functions of the electron and hole almost ideally coincide with each other as shown in FIG. 1b.
As a conventional method of growing a non-polar nitride layer, U.S. Patent No. 2003/0198837 (published on Oct. 23, 2003 and invented by Michael D. Craven et al.) suggests using an r-plane (10-12) sapphire substrate or an a-plane hexagonal substrate such as ZnO or SiC to grow an a-plane (10-10) nitride layer.
However, not as stable as the m-plane nitride layer in terms of surface energy, it is known that stripe patterns are formed on the surface of the a-plane nitride layer during growth. Additionally, as in FIG. 2, macro pits are formed on the surface due to the anisotropy in growth rate along with c-axis. Such pits provide paths for leakage current in the light emitting device, thus causing significant deterioration of the light emission efficiency.
On the other hand, the m-plane (10-10) nitride semiconductor is non-polar like the a-plane, but has lower surface energy and thus is more stable, thereby resulting in a relatively planar surface during the growth. Such an m-plane nitride semiconductor has a unique lattice constant, so the substrates such as LiAlO2, m-plane ZnO and m-plane SiC have been used experimentally as a growth substrate.
However, these substrates have demerits as a growth substrate for the m-plane nitride semiconductor. For example, the LiAlO2 substrate is too expensive, the ZnO substrate is chemically unstable, and the SiC substrate is limited in area like the ZnO substrate, hindering the growth of the m-plane semiconductor.

Method of growing non-polar m-plane nitride semiconductor


Various embodiments are directed to an ear-worn electronic device configured to be worn by a wearer. The device includes an enclosure configured to be supported by or in an ear of the wearer. Electronic circuitry is disposed in the enclosure and includes a wireless transceiver. An antenna is situated in or on the enclosure and coupled to the wireless transceiver. The antenna includes a first antenna element, a second antenna element, and a chip antenna operably coupled to the first and second antenna elements.

Hearing devices provide sound for the wearer. Some examples of hearing devices are headsets, hearing aids, speakers, cochlear implants, bone conduction devices, and personal listening devices. Hearing devices may be capable of performing wireless communication with other devices. For example, hearing aids provide amplification to compensate for hearing loss by transmitting amplified sounds to their ear canals. The sounds may be detected from the wearer's environment using the microphone in a hearing aid and/or received from a streaming device via a wireless link. Wireless communication may also be performed for programming the hearing aid and receiving information from the hearing aid. For performing such wireless communication, hearing devices such as hearing aids may each include a wireless transceiver and an antenna.
Some hearing devices, such as hearing aids, are small and have limited space that restricts the size and location the antenna can occupy. Increasing the size of the antenna may not be practical or possible in some applications to achieve desirable wireless communication performance. Further, in addition to size constraints, the form factor of small hearing devices may limit the antenna design options to particular geometries. Such geometries may be complex to design and may rely upon exotic materials, which can be expensive and time-intensive to design and manufacture.
There is a need for antennas with improved wireless communication performance that may be designed and manufactured at a reasonable cost.

Ear-worn electronic device incorporating chip antenna loading of antenna structure


A system described herein may allow for the actuating of venting apparatuses, without needing to supply electrical power. For example, a self-actuating material may be used, which may be responsive to heat, to open and/or close the venting apparatus. When the temperature of an apparatus, to which the venting apparatus is affixed, exceeds a threshold temperature, the venting apparatus may open. On the other hand, when the temperature of an apparatus, to which the venting apparatus is affixed, exceeds a threshold temperature, the venting apparatus may close.

Equipment (e.g., telecommunications equipment, power delivery equipment, etc.) that is installed outdoors is often subject to harsh conditions, such as excessive heat or cold, moisture, and pests (e.g., insects, vermin, rodents, etc.). One potential option to address these conditions is to place vents, holes, outlets, and/or other constructs that allow airflow and/or moisture drainage. However, solving one problem may introduce others. For instance, adding vents or holes to allow heat to escape the equipment may allow moisture or pests to enter the equipment. Another approach, which entails using motorized flaps or other electronics, may solve the above issues but may necessitate the need for a power source (and potentially costly or difficult to maintain electrical components) to actuate the motorized flaps and/or other electronics.

Systems and methods for using dynamic materials in no-power actuation of telecommunications maintenance hardware


A surface mountable electronic device comprising a body incorporating an electronic device and having a substantially planar mounting surface and another surface extending from the mounting surface, at least one electrical lead extending from the device, and a terminal of conductive material having a first portion fixedly received in the body and extending through the other surface, a second portion extending from the first portion and electrically connected to the lead and a third portion extending along the mounting surface for providing electrical connection to a circuit. A recess preferably is provided in the other surface of the body for receiving the first portion of the terminal. The recess in the body is elongated to allow positioning of the terminal at selected locations along the recess and to accommodate at least another terminal having a first portion fixedly received in the recess in spaced relation to the first-named terminal, a second portion extending from the first portion for electrical connection to the lead and a third portion extending along the mounting surface for providing electrical connection to a circuit.

This invention relates to the art of electronic devices, and more particularly to a new and improved terminal structure for surface mountable electronic devices and a method of making the same.
A principal area of use of the present invention is in surface mountable electronic devices, although the principles of the invention can be variously applied. Surface mountable electronic devices have electrodes or terminals, rather than wire leads, and are mounted directly on the circuit paths of a circuit card, board or substrate thereby avoiding the need for lead-receiving apertures in the cord or board. It would be highly desirable to provide a terminal structure for surface mountable electronic devices wherein a portion of the terminal forms the surface mount lead and another portion of the same terminal is used for connection to the electrical lead of the device. It also would be highly desirable to provide a surface mountable electronic device having flexibility in location of electrodes or terminals and having the capability of including multiple terminals.

Terminal for surface mountable electronic device


A safety device for restraining the forward movement of a two-wheeled bicycle used for training a child, said device including a cord controller that allows for the extending, retracting and locking said cord to a manual handle, a spring clip fastener on the free end of said cord and a flexible strap that connects at one end by a loop to a bicycle seat post with the other end to a fastening ring that allows the ring to be fastened to the spring clip on the cord. The cord controller allows the user to walk behind a young child who is learning to ride a two-wheeled bike to prevent the child from accelerating away from the adult during training whereby the adult can restrain the forward movement of the bicycle whenever necessary.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a safety device for teaching a child how to ride a two-wheeled bicycle that includes training wheels and, specifically, to an extendable, lockable strap restraint that connects to a two-wheeled bicycle to prevent a child from speeding away from an adult supervisor while the child is learning to ride a bicycle.
2. Description of Related Art
Teaching a child to ride a two-wheeled bicycle is a common activity for parents of a young child. Typically, training begins on a two-wheeled bicycle that has training wheels to prevent the bicycle from falling over. With the training, the child's confidence can be gained while learning how to balance the bicycle in motion. A safety problem arises because a child can quickly learn to accelerate a two-wheeled bicycle (even with training wheels) away from the adult supervisor during the training. Such lunging or lurching motion, where the child accelerates the bicycle, can result in a very dangerous move for the child especially around other people or traffic. Therefore, a suitable restraint device is necessary to protect the child from bolting away from the adult supervisor. Holding onto the bicycle by an adult during training can be very uncomfortable because of having to bend down to grasp the bicycle.
Devices have been shown in the prior art to aid in the ability of an adult who properly teaches and supervises a child while the child is learning to ride a bicycle. Examples are found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,488,302 issued Coates on Dec. 3, 2002 entitled "Bicycle Training Handle." Another example is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,958 issued to Gawlik on Feb. 26, 2002 entitled "Bicycle Training Device." Both of these devices use rigid bars connected to a portion of the bicycle for balancing the child learning. The bar is rigid and not retractable or extendable.
Other examples are found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,040 issued to Nanassi on Jan. 17, 1995 entitled "Bicycle Training Aid" and U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,494 issued to Singleton on Jul. 2, 1996 entitled "Handle for Control of Mobile Riding Toys." The '040 patent teaches a strap attached to the rider's back while the '494 patent uses a handle that is detachable to the bicycle.
In order to achieve the benefit of training, the child must have moments where the adult is not holding the bike rigidly in an upright position but allows the child to feel the normal operation of the bicycle. However, the child and the bicycle must be restrained or have the ability to restrain of necessity if the child should try to accelerate rapidly away from the adult supervisor. Also, the supervisor needs to be able to control the bicycle from a comfortable position.

Restraining device for child's two-wheeled bicycle training