A liquid collecting tube for receiving blood or liquid for inspection is disclosed, which has a tubular member and a closure member for closing an open end of the tubular member and made of a material capable of being pierced by a piercing needle. The closing member includes a sealing member for holding the open end of the tubular member sealed when taking out the liquid form the tubular member with a take-out tool and a separable member separablly laminated on the outer side of the sealing member. The separable member is removed so that only the sealing member remains on the tubular member when taking out liquid. The sealing member is film-like and can be readily broken by the take-out tool such as a pipette.

This invention relates to a liquid collecting tube used for clinical test such as blood test.
This type of liquid collecting tube, for instance one for blood test, has a glass or plastic tubular member with a bottom and a closure member closing an open end of the tubular member. The closure member maintains the gas tightness of the tubular member, and also it can be bonded in close contact relation to the tubular member and re-seal a pierced portion after removal of a piercing needle. Typically, a rubber plug type closure member as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,886 is used. With recent automation of test systems, however, difficulties are produced in the handling of the rubber plug type closure member as noted above, and recently a film seal type closure member has been proposed, which is a film including a sealing member capable of re-sealing a potion thereof.
When testing collected blood in the liquid collecting tube, the blood is taken out of the tube. Usually a pipette is used as take-out tool for taking out the blood. When taking out the blood, the pipette should be inserted into the tube. With the tube with a rubber plug type closure member, the closure member is removed from the tube for inserting the pipette. In the case of a film seal type closure member, the pipette is also inserted after peeling off the entire film because a re-sealing member of the closure member can not be pierced by the pipette.
With a blood collecting tube for centrifugal separation of serum or plasma from blood, the film is peeled off after mixing the contained collected blood with a reagent or the like by turning down the tube. Therefore, scattering of attached blood is liable when peeling off the film even if due care is taken, thus giving rise to pollution by the scattered blood and also hazardous contagion of diseases to the operator. Further, since a force in excess of a necessary force is given momentarily to the tube when peeling off the film, not only the attached blood but also the contained blood is liable to be scattered due to vibrations, thus making the problems noted above more significant and also making the handling of the tube more difficult.


The present invention relates to a novel method for coating natural or synthetic nails comprising applying to the nails a quick drying nail enamel composition which dries in a period no greater than about three minutes. Methods for coating nails with numerous exemplary quick-drying nail enamel compositions are disclosed, some drying in less than two minutes, 90 seconds or even one minute. The compositions used in the method have acceptable static viscosities and may accommodate numerous pigments, including guanine, to produce nail enamels exhibiting favorable characteristics including acceptable durability, flexibility and gloss.

A large number of methods and compositions for beautify and strengthening the nails of humans are well known. Prior art methods include coating the nail of an animal, including humans with a composition including a film-forming polymer and additional ingredients such as pigment, plasticizer and solvents or alternatively, attaching preformed artificial nails to human nails with adhesives. Additional methods include adding crosslinkable polymers to nail coating compositions to mend, strengthen and elongate natural nails and repairing nails with a fabric patch
Most nail enamel compositions presently on the market or disclosed in the prior art dry in five minutes or longer. Even those nail enamels that claim to be quick-dry, i.e., dry in about five minutes are often not truly dry but rather are only dry to the touch. When a purportedly "dry" nail enamel of the prior art brushes up against a hard surface, the nail enamel often smudges leaving tack.
One nail polish drying composition disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,720 prepared from commercially available top coat nail polish, acrylic nail powder, acrylic nail primer and the adhesive "crazy glue" is described as being used in combination with commerically available colored nail polishes to alter the drying time of the nail polish to a period of more than three minutes. The compositions of this patent are used as base coats in combination with commercially available pigment containing nail polishes. The patent claims to dry from one to seven coats of pigment containing nail polish within a period ranging from about three to five minutes. This composition functions as a base coat or top coat and unlike the composition of the present invention, must be used in combination with a commerically available pigment nail polish to provide a lasting pigmented nail enamel finish.
A nail polish which can be used to coat a natural or synthetic nail which dries in less than three minutes without requiring an additional application of a base coat or top coat would be very desirable. Nail polishes which dry in a period of less than 150 seconds would be even more desirable, as would polishes that dry in periods less than about 90 seconds. A nail polish composition which would dry in a period of no greater than about 60 seconds would be especially useful in situations where "drying" time is important.
Working women need to have a product which can be easily applied and which dries in the shortest amount of time to avoid a situation where they are simply wasting precious time waiting for their nail polish to dry. In the manicure and pedicure industries, a colored nail polish composition which can dry in a period less than three minutes would provide a significant advantage over the prior art compositions.
Solvent mixtures for nail enamels of the prior art have covered a wide range of compositions and have included as many as six or seven solvents to control flow, viscosity, evaporation rate and drying time of the enamel. As discussed in Peirano, "Nail Lacquers and Removers", Cosmetics Science and Technology, Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1957, solvent or mixed solvents used as the volatile portion of nail enamels are of prime importance because of their direct effect on ease of application of enamel, on the rate of drying and hardening, on the viscosity of the enamels and on the characteristics of the final film. According to this reference, too rapid a rate of evaporation causes a poor flow of the enamel and also gives an uneven, streaky application. The reference also cites the importance of proper solvent balance during the drying stages of the lacquer. In general, due to the wide differences in evaporation rates of the solvents which are included in the prior art compositions, these compositions undergo many changes during the drying of the film. For example, during the course of evaporation of the solvent from the nail enamel on the nail, differential evaporation of the solvents within the composition may result in the presence of higher concentrations of certain solvents during drying, which in turn creates precipitation of the film forming polymer, resin and/or plasticizer, thereby destroying the integrity of the film and the appearance of the enamel. If the solvent becomes too lean to maintain the solubility of the resin in solution, the resin will precipitate, also resulting in unacceptable results.
The complicated character of the nail enamel mixtures of the prior art and the many possible combinations of volatile and nonvolatile components had, until the unexpected discovery of the present invention, made the determination of a proper solvent balance from the perspective of viscosity, solubility of the individual components and the acceptability of the deposited enamel (gloss) in combination with a drying time of less than three minutes virtually impossible. Until the discovery of the present invention, the identification of the evaporation rates o the individual solvents under various conditions had not removed the uncertainty involved in determining a suitable solvent balance incorporating quick-drying characteristics. Although the desirability of a quick drying nail enamel has been a long-felt need, the rate of drying of the nail enamels of the prior art has been limited by the aforementioned considerations. Thus, before the discovery of the present invention, simply incorporating low boiling solvent did not increase the likelihood that an acceptable solvent system for nail enamels would be found or that one could obtain a nail enamel composition which dried in under three minutes. In the present invention, the use of acetone in certain weight percentages of the composition, in combination with numerous solvents which provide acceptable viscosity, creates a consistent quick-drying solvent system which provides the nail enamel with favorable characteristics of drying time, viscosity, gloss, flexibility and durability.
Acetone, also known as 2-propanone, dimethylketone and beta-ketopropane is a volatile solvent which has a boiling point of 56.5.degree. C. and is miscible with an extremely large number of solvents including water, alcohol, dimethylformamide, chloroform, methylene chloride, toluene, esters, including methylacetate and ethylacetate, benzene and toluene, ethers and numerous oils and hydrocarbons, among others. The uniqueness of acetone for use in the present invention resides in the fact that acetone will interact with solvents used in nail enamels to produce a solvent system which evaporates in under three minutes.
It has surprisingly been discovered that the inclusion or specific weight percentages of acetone in combination with additional solvents in compositions for coating natural and synthetic nails produces a nail coating composition which dries in a period of time less than three minutes and produces a coating on a nail which is hard, flexible and has good wear characteristics including durability and high gloss. Moreover, the use of acetone in the volatile component of nail enamel compositions of the present invention within specific weight percentages provides a consistent basis upon which one of ordinary skill in the art may add additional solvents without dramatically adversely affecting the drying time of the nail enamel.

Quick-drying nail enamel compositions and method for coating a surface


Various embodiments herein include at least one of systems, methods, and software that efficiently segregate data from externally accessible systems. One such embodiment is a method performed by a first data processing system and includes receiving a call from a client of a user interaction service requesting data to populate a client application user interface. Next, a first object service obtains the requested data. The first object service is then executed to call a master data service to retrieve master data from a local database storing master data copied from master data stored by a second data processing system. Next, transaction data is retrieved via a remote service call over a network from the second data processing system. The retrieved data is then provided back to the calling user interaction service, which then transmits the data to the client application.

Organizations that provide online business systems typically do not want to store transaction data in areas that are less secure, such as outside of a firewall in a demilitarized zone (DMZ). At the same time, organizations do not want to develop parallel systems where one executes inside a firewall and the other outside a firewall in a DMZ. Further, even when an entity maintains systems on each side of a firewall, a system that accesses data inside the firewall from the DMZ, such data access is generally in efficient.

Efficiently segregating data from externally accessible systems


A water-absorbent sheet structure comprises a structure in which an absorbent layer containing a water-absorbent resin (A) and a water-absorbent resin (B) is sandwiched with fibrous webs from an upper side and a lower side of the absorbent layer, characterized in that the water-absorbent resin (A) and the water-absorbent resin (B) are contained in a total amount of from 100 to 1,000 g/m2, and that the water-absorbent resin (A) and the water-absorbent resin (B) have the following properties: (1) the water-absorbent resin (A) having a water-retention capacity of saline solution (Ra) from 15 to 55 g/g; (2) the water-absorbent resin (B) having a water-retention capacity of saline solution (Rb) from 10 to 50 g/g; and (3) Ra and Rb mentioned above satisfies the relationship of the following formula: Ra−Rb≧(g/g). The water-absorbent sheet structure of the present invention exhibits some effects that a water-absorbent sheet structure has excellent shape retaining ability even when the structure is thin, so that the water-absorbent sheet structure does not undergo deformation of the form before liquid absorption or after the absorption, and is capable of sufficiently exhibiting absorbent properties.

Absorbent articles represented by disposable diapers or the like have a structure in which an absorbent material for absorbing a liquid such as a body liquid is sandwiched with a flexible liquid-permeable surface sheet (top sheet) positioned on a side contacting a body and a liquid-impermeable backside sheet (back sheet) positioned on a side opposite to that contacting the body.
Conventionally, there have been increasing demands for thinning and light-weighing of absorbent articles, from the viewpoint of designing property, convenience upon carrying, and efficiency upon distribution. Further, in the recent years, there have been growing needs for so-called eco-friendly intentions, in which resources are effectively utilized so that use of natural materials that require a long time to grow such as trees is avoided as much as possible, from the viewpoint of environmental protection. Conventionally, a method for thinning that is generally carried out in absorbent articles is, for example, a method of reducing hydrophilic fibers such as crushed pulp of a wood material, which has a role of fixing a water-absorbent resin in an absorbent material, while increasing a water-absorbent resin.
An absorbent material in which a water-absorbent resin having a smaller volume and higher water-absorbent capacity is used in a large amount with a lowered proportion of a hydrophilic fiber being bulky and having lower water-absorbent properties is intended to achieve thinning by reducing bulky materials while obtaining absorption capacity matching the design of an absorbent article, so that it is considered as a reasonable improved method. However, when distribution or diffusion of a liquid upon actually using in an absorbent article such as disposable diapers is considered, there is a disadvantage that if a large amount of the water-absorbent resin is formed into a soft gel-like state by absorption of the liquid, a so-called "gel-blocking phenomenon" takes place, whereby liquid diffusibility is markedly lowered and a liquid permeation rate of the absorbent material is slowed down. This "gel-blocking phenomenon" is a phenomenon in which especially when an absorbent material in which water-absorbent resins are highly densified absorbs a liquid, water-absorbent resins existing near a surface layer absorb the liquid to form soft gels that are even more densified near the surface layer, so that a liquid permeation into an internal of an absorbent material is blocked, thereby making the internal of the water-absorbent resin incapable of efficiently absorbing the liquid.
In view of the above, conventionally, as a means of inhibiting gel-blocking phenomenon which takes place by reducing hydrophilic fibers while using a water-absorbent resin in a large amount, for example, proposals such as a method using an absorbent polymer having such properties as specified Saline Flow Conductivity and Performance under Pressure (see Patent Publication 1), and a method using a water-absorbent resin prepared by heat-treating a specified water-absorbent resin precursor with a specified surface crosslinking agent (see Patent Publication 2) have been made.
However, in these methods, the liquid absorbent properties as absorbent materials in which water-absorbent resins are used in large amounts are not satisfactory. In addition, there arise some problems that the water-absorbent resin is subjected to be mobile before use or during use because hydrophilic fibers that play a role of fixing the water-absorbent resin are reduced. The absorbent material in which the localization of the absorbent resin takes place is more likely to cause gel-blocking phenomenon.
Further, an absorbent material of which hydrophilic fibers that contribute to retention of the form are reduced has a lowered shape-retaining ability as an absorbent material, so that deformation in shapes such as twist-bending or tear before or after the absorption of a liquid is likely to take place. An absorbent material with deformation in shapes has markedly lowered liquid diffusibility, so that abilities inherently owned by the absorbent material cannot be exhibited. In order to try to avoid such phenomena, a ratio of hydrophilic fibers and a water-absorbent resin would be limited, thereby posing limitations in the thinning of an absorbent article.
In view of the above, in recent years, as a next generation style absorbent material which is capable of increasing a content of a water-absorbent resin while using hydrophilic fibers in an absorbent material as little as possible, studies have been widely made on an absorbent laminate that substantially does not contain hydrophilic fibers in an absorbent layer, a water-absorbent sheet or the like. The studies include, for example, a method of keeping a water-absorbent resin in reticulation of a bulky nonwoven fabric (see Patent Publication 3), a method of sealing a water-absorbent polymer between two sheets of meltblown nonwoven fabrics (see Patent Publication 4), a method of interposing water-absorbent polymer particles between a hydrophobic nonwoven fabric and a hydrophilic sheet (see Patent Publication 5), and the like.
However, in a case where hydrophilic fibers are hardly used, the gel-blocking phenomenon as mentioned above is likely to take place. Even in a case where gel-blocking phenomenon does not take place, a thing that would serve the role of conventional hydrophilic fibers by which a body fluid such as urine is temporarily subjected to water retention and diffusion of the liquid to an overall absorbent material is lacking, so that a liquid leakage is likely to occur in the absorbent laminate, without being able to sufficiently capture the liquid.
Further, when an adhesive is used for retaining the shape of an absorbent laminate, the surface of a water-absorbent resin is coated with an adhesive, so that liquid absorbent properties are likely to be lowered. Alternatively, an upper side and a lower side of nonwoven fabrics are firmly adhered with an adhesive to confine an water-absorbent resin in a pouched form or the like, so that the water-absorbent properties inherently owned by the water-absorbent resin are less likely to be exhibited.
When adhesive strength of an absorbent laminate is weakened in order to improve liquid absorbent properties of the above-mentioned absorbent laminate, not only a large amount of the absorbent resin is detached upon working on the laminate, thereby making unfavorable economically, but also the laminate is exfoliated due to deficiency in adhesive strength, so that there are some possibilities of loss of commercial values. In other words, if the adhesion is strengthened, the gel-blocking phenomenon or liquid leakage occurs, and if the adhesion is weakened, it would lead to the detachment of a water-absorbent resin and the breaking of the laminate, so that an absorbent laminate or a water-absorbent sheet for which the above-mentioned problems are solved is not yet obtained at present.
Studies on improvement of the balance between adhesion and the liquid absorbent properties in the water-absorbent sheets as described above are also made. The studies include, for example, a method of using an absorbent laminate comprising two sheets of nonwoven fabrics adhered with reticular layers provided between the nonwoven fabrics, comprising upper and lower two layers of hot melt adhesives (see Patent Publication 6), a method of applying a specified reactive hot melt to a substrate made of a nonwoven fabric or a film, thereby fixing a water-absorbent resin (see Patent Publication 7), a method of coating a fine cellulose and a water-absorbent resin with a network-like hot melt to hold them (see Patent Publication 8), and the like. However, even if properties of a nonwoven fabric, a water-absorbent resin, and an adhesive, or conditions of use thereof are defined, it is difficult to obtain a water-absorbent sheet having high liquid absorbent properties and shape retaining ability. In addition, if a specified adhesive or method of adhesion is used, it is not desirable from the viewpoint of economical advantages and productivity, even if the liquid absorbent properties were improved.
There is also a method of immobilizing a water-absorbent resin to a substrate without using an adhesive. The method includes, for example, a method of adhering water-absorbent polymer particles in the process of polymerization to a synthetic fibrous substrate to carry out polymerization on the fibrous substrate (see Patent Publication 9), a method of polymerizing a monomer aqueous composition containing acrylic acid and an acrylic acid salt as main components on a nonwoven fabric substrate by means of electron beam irradiation (see Patent Publication 10), and the like.
In these methods, while the synthetic fibrous substrate is penetrated into the polymer particles to be firmly adhered, there are some disadvantages that it is difficult to complete the polymerization reaction in the substrate, so that unreacted monomers and the like remain in the substrate in large amounts.


An output of a knock sensor is A/D converted in a specified knock determination range. In a time-frequency analysis part, data of frequency, time, and vibration intensity are extracted at the same time from the knock sensor output signal and the time-varying patterns of vibration intensities in multiple frequency ranges are extracted. An edge direction and an edge intensity are computed by an edge extraction processing. A correlation value expressing a correlation between time-varying patterns of vibration intensities in multiple frequency ranges and a reference model expressing the feature of knock is computed in a mutual correlation/knock determination part. The correlation value is compared with a determination threshold. When the correlation value is larger than the determination threshold, it is determined that knock is caused. When the correlation value is not larger than the determination threshold, it is determined that knock is not caused.

As described in JP-2005-188297A, when a knock is caused, a phenomenon called "a low frequency shift" is caused. In the low frequency shift, a peak frequency of a vibration component specific to the knock gradually shifts to a lower frequency side. When a peak frequency of vibration component of one knock frequency range extracted from the output signal of the knock sensor gradually shifts to a lower frequency side, it is determined that a knock is caused.
JP-2006-29158A corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,988,483B1 describes an apparatus detecting a faulty of a knock sensor. This apparatus is provided with a bias means for pulling up and down an output of a knock sensor. A determination is made as to whether the knock sensor is faulty on the basis of the direct current component of the bias means.
JP-2004-270626A describes an apparatus detecting a faulty of a knock sensor. In this apparatus, a counter counts the number of times when the output signal of a knock sensor is smaller than a determination value for each cylinder. When the count value of the counter becomes larger than a specified value, it is determined that the knock sensor is faulty.
An internal combustion engine is provided with various systems such as a variable valve timing controller and a super-charger in order to improve an output, a fuel economy and an environmental performance. A direct injection engine varies fuel injection timing according to a combustion mode. Thus, many kinds of noises tend to superimpose on the signal of the knock sensor in a knock determination range. However, in the knock detection apparatus described in JP-2005-188297A, it is only determined whether a vibration component of one knock frequency range shifts to a lower frequency side in time sequence. Thus, as shown in FIG. 4, when a plurality of noises are superimposed on the signal of the knock sensor in time sequence in one knock determination range, there is a possibility of making an erroneous determination that one continuous vibration component will shift apparently to a lower frequency side. Therefore, when it is only determined whether the vibration component of one frequency range shifts to a lower frequency side, there is a possibility of making an erroneous determination that a knock is caused.

Knock detection device and knock detection system diagnosis device


Exercise bench assemblies having wheels with integral brakes that automatically engage and disengage during use of the bench assembly are disclosed. In one embodiment, an exercise bench assembly includes a support portion, and a frame assembly coupled to the support portion. A wheel assembly is coupled to the frame assembly and includes at least one wheel configured to rollably engage a support surface, and a braking device operatively associated with the at least one wheel. The braking device is configured to engage the at least one wheel to prevent the at least one wheel from rolling on the support surface when a user's weight is applied to the support portion, and to disengage from the at least one wheel to allow the at least one wheel to roll on the support surface when the weight of the user is removed from the support portion.

The advantages of weight-training exercise machines are widely recognized. Conventional weight-training exercise machines may feature single or multiple stations which enable a user to perform one or a variety of exercises for developing and toning different muscle groups. For example, the various stations of such exercise machines may include one or more stations that enable a user to exercise muscles of the arms and upper body using "press," "shrug," or "curl" types of movements, and one or more stations for exercising muscles of the legs using "squat," "press," or "extension" types of movements. Such weight machines provide the desired muscle training capability in a convenient, safe, and efficient manner.
Although prior art exercise apparatus and methods have achieved desirable results, there is room for improvement. For example, a user often desires to re-position a bench assembly of the exercise machine to perform various exercises. If the bench assembly is not equipped with wheels, the user must either pick the bench assembly up from the support surface, or drag the bench assembly across the floor surface. Either option may be inconvenient and may result in the user's dissatisfaction with the bench assembly. Alternately, if the bench assembly is equipped with wheels, the ease of re-positioning of the bench assembly may be improved. If the wheels remain free to roll, however, the bench assembly may undesirably shift or roll during the exercise. Furthermore, if the wheels are equipped with manually operated braking devices, the user is required to stoop to engage and disengage the braking device during re-positioning, and may forget to engage (or disengage) the braking device, thereby resulting in additional dissatisfaction with the bench assembly. Therefore, novel bench assemblies that mitigate these undesirable characteristics would have utility.


An image forming apparatus includes: an image bearing body for bearing a latent image; a plurality of attach/detach sections to each of which a developer container for containing developer used for developing the latent image can be attached; and a container attachment mechanism for allowing a developer container containing developer of a certain color to be attached to any of the plurality of attach/detach sections, and a developer container containing developer of a color other than the certain color to be attached only to a predetermined attach/detach section of among the plurality of attach/detach sections.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image forming apparatuses and image forming systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
(1) Printers having, for example, an image bearing body for bearing a latent image, and a plurality of attach/detach sections to each of which a developer container for containing developer used for developing the latent image can be attached, are known as image forming apparatuses. (See, for example, JP 2003-15409A and JP 2004-4466A.)
In this type of printer, a plurality of developer containers, each containing developer of a color different from one another, are attached to each of the attach/detach sections to form color images. Further, from the viewpoint of forming a large number of monochrome images, the above-mentioned printer may form monochrome images by allowing developer containers, each containing developer of the same certain color, to be attached to all of the plurality of attach/detach sections. It should be noted that, from the viewpoint of keeping the color-image quality high, it is preferable to attach each of the developer containers that contain the developer other than the single-color developer only to a predetermined one of the attach/detach sections.
In order to achieve this, there has been a demand for an image forming apparatus that allows, with ease and without giving rise to attachment errors, the developer container containing the single-color developer to be attached to any of the plurality of attach/detach sections, and each of the developer containers containing developer of a color other than the certain color to be attached only to a predetermined attach/detach section.
(2) Also known as image forming apparatuses are printers having, for example, an image bearing body for bearing a latent image, and an attach/detach section to which a developer container for containing developer used for developing the latent image can be attached. In this printer, the developer container is attached to the attach/detach section with a portion thereof covered by a lid unit. (See, for example, JP 2003-131471A.)
In this type of printer, there are cases in which the developer container is colored to have the same color as that of the developer contained therein, from the viewpoint of letting a user etc. distinguish the color of the developer contained in the developer container. Further, there are cases in which the front face of the lid unit is colored from the viewpoint of allowing a proper developer container to be attached to the attach/detach section.
In such cases, if the color of the lid unit is the same as that of the developer container at a boundary section between the lid unit and the developer container, then there is a possibility that the user etc. may incorrectly recognize the lid unit as a part of the developer container and may try to detach the developer container in a state where the lid unit is still covering a portion of the developer container. This may cause damages in the lid unit etc. when trying to detach the developer container from the attach/detach section.
(3) Also known as image forming apparatuses are printers having, for example, an image bearing body for bearing a latent image, and a plurality of attach/detach sections to each of which a developer container for containing developer used for developing the latent image can be attached. Such printers are capable of forming images using a plurality of types of developer (See, for example, JP 2003-15409A and JP 2004-4466A.)
Such printers are capable of handling a plurality of types of developer. However, in cases where the developer that can be used is determined in advance due to specifications of the printer etc. or in cases where a plurality of colors of developer are used when forming color images, the attach/detach section to which each of the developer containers containing the respective colors of developer can be attached is fixed in advance. In view of the above, there has been a demand for an image forming apparatus that allows a developer container containing a suitable developer to be easily attached to the attach/detach section.

Image forming apparatus and system with attachable and detachable developer container


The present invention provides HA polypeptides (e.g., H1 HA polypeptides) that bind to umbrella-topology glycans, and reagents and methods relating thereto. The present invention provides binding agents that bind to HA polypeptides (e.g., H1 HA polypeptides), and reagents and methods relating thereto. The present invention provides interfering agents that inhibit the binding of HA polypeptides (e.g., H1 HA polypeptides) to HA receptors, and reagents and methods relating thereto. The present invention provides compositions and methods for treating, preventing, and/or diagnosing influenza infection utilizing HA polypeptides, HA polypeptide binding agents, HA polypeptide interfering agents, and/or vaccine compositions comprising any of the foregoing.

On Jun. 11, 2009 the World Health Organization raised the global pandemic alert level to phase 6, the pandemic phase, in response to the emergence and global spread of a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus henceforth referred to as 2009 A/H1N1 virus containing a unique combination of genes of swine origin (Garten et al., "Antigenic and Genetic Characteristics of Swine-Origin 2009 A(H1N1) Influenza Viruses Circulating in Humans" Science, May 22, 2009, Science Express Online; incorporated herein by reference). The emergence of this new strain can be traced back to March-April 2009 when there were reports of increased numbers of patients with influenza-like illness and associated hospitalizations and deaths in several areas of Mexico. In the period Mar.-Jun. 19, 2009, there have been over 44,000 laboratory-confirmed human cases of influenza 2009 A/H1N1 infections reported in 85 countries on 6 continents.
Given the rapid outbreak of this virus, there have been uncertainties associated with its virulence, transmissibility and its origins. Recent studies using epidemiological models to interpret data on outbreaks of the 2009H1N1 virus have indicated that its transmissibility is on the lower end of what was estimated for the 1918H1N1 pandemic. In most of the cases of human infection with the 2009H1N1 viruses, the symptoms have been relatively mild, however, there have been over 150 deaths reported. Additionally, a substantial portion (˜40%) of infected individuals experience gastrointestinal distress and vomiting, a percentage that is higher than what is typically observed for seasonal flu.

Compositions and methods for diagnosing and/or treating influenza infection


A milling cutter tool, including a basic body and a cutting body. The basic body includes an envelope surface and two opposite ends between which a geometrical center axis extends around which the basic body is rotated. The cutting body is fixed in a seating of the basic body and includes a pair of opposite main surfaces, a pair of opposite sides, and a pair of opposite end surfaces between which an imaginary, axial neutral plane extends situated halfway between the two main surfaces. The cutting body includes a set of chip removing teeth, which protrude from the envelope surface of the basic body, and are arranged in a row one after the other along at least one of the pair of opposite sides of the cutting body. Each one of the teeth includes a chip surface formed adjacent to a cutting edge from which the tooth extends between a pair of flanks along a length extension which is orientated at an angle (β) to the neutral plane. The angle (β) between the neutral plane of the cutting body and the length extension of each of the teeth is acute and amounts to at least 85°.

Before the invention is described in detail, it should be mentioned that the technique for chip removing machining of, above all, workpieces of metal is quickly developing. When blanks or workpieces were previously machined to finished products having some complexity, such as engine components, vehicle and craft components, machine parts, etc., the manufacture was carried out in a plurality of steps or stations, which individually required separate set-ups of one and the same blank. For instance, a first machining could be one or more turning operations. If the detail also required different forms of recesses, such as key grooves or bar grooves, the same was moved to a new set-up of another station, where milling followed. Should the same in addition be provided with different forms of holes or ducts, transfer was carried out to an additional set-up of a drilling machine or drilling station. More recent, machines were developed in which a magazine is included having a large number of tools, each one of which can be picked out of the magazine and brought to an active state for machining, and which after accomplishing the machining is brought back to the magazine to be replaced by another tool.
In order to make the manufacture more effective and reduce the time for, as well as the cost of, the machining, universal machines have recently been developed in the form of so-called MultiTask machines, in which a large number of program-controlled tools are included, which are flexibly movable in space and capable of executing multiple machining operations, such as turning, milling, drilling, grinding, etc., without the workpiece having to be removed from the machine or the set-up thereof in the same, and in which the need for time-consuming tool exchanges is reduced to a minimum. In such universal machines, partly new requirements are made on the tools in question, not only in respect of their capacity to execute conventional as well as new machining operations, but also in respect of the accessibility of the tools so far that the individual tools should be able to move in complicated paths of motion within a limited space and in spite of this be able to come into contact with those parts of the blank being machined which are difficult to access. This applies not at least to milling cutter tools, e.g., of the type that is used for the milling of notches of different types.
A previously known milling cutter tool is described in SE 0400384-4 (publication number 526.644). This known tool includes a cutting body, which has two diametrically opposed sets of teeth, which are orientated perpendicularly to the neutral plane of the cutting body, and situated in pairs right in front of each other. This means that each pair of teeth will operate in one and the same notch in the form of a straight notch, the two teeth of the pair going alternately in engagement with the workpiece after each half a revolution of rotation of the tool. This tool is useful for a plurality of different milling operations, but not for gear hobbing.
The present invention aims at obviating the above-mentioned shortcoming of the previously known milling cutter tool and at providing a milling cutter tool and a cutting body associated therewith, which are suitable for gear hobbing, in particular in MultiTask machines.
An object of the invention to provide a milling cutter tool, the cutting body of which is designed in such a way that the tool can, by simple feeding motions, be utilized for gear hobbing, in particular for the creation of bar grooves or splines in shafts or shaft spigots having a rotationally symmetrical, usually cylindrical shape.
Another object of the invention is to provide a tool having great accessibility so far that it should be possible to feed the tool by simple geometrical motions and to bring the tool quite close to shoulders and the like, in particular in order to optimize the length of milled bar grooves. In addition it should be possible to utilize the cutting body of the tool for up milling as well as down milling.

Milling cutter tool for chip removing machining, as well as a cutting body therefor


A drainage catheter, including a catheter tube body that can have a pig-tail loop in a distal end, a rigid member configured to be placed inside of the catheter, a pig-tail straightening sleeve configured to move axially along the tube body, the sleeve having a lip formed on an end of the sleeve, the lip being configured to be positioned towards the distal end of the tube body, thereby straightening the catheter tube body and facilitating entry of the rigid member into the catheter tube body when the pig-tail straightening sleeve is positioned to straighten the catheter tube body.

The present invention relates to catheters. In particular, the present invention relates to a catheter device including, a drainage catheter, at least one rigid member, such as a cannula, or a trocar, and a pig-tail straightener.
One problem often encountered in modern medicine relates to volumes of fluids that collect in a patient's tissue, body cavities, or other positions within a patient's body that exceed normal volumes. Collected fluids can contribute to infection, exert harmful pressure on the patient's organs, or otherwise impede the proper care and recovery of a patient. Drainage catheters have long been utilized to drain such excess volumes of fluids from a patient's body. Typically, the catheter is adapted to be introduced into the patient to the site where the excess fluid is accumulated. A plurality of drainage bores are positioned in the distal end of the catheter to allow passage of the fluids and any materials suspended in the fluids from the volume of fluid to the drainage bore of the catheter.
The distal end of drainage catheters are typically adapted to form an anchor configuration to secure the drainage catheter at the site where excess fluid is accumulated. However, the tissue surrounding drainage sites often does not provide a solid or reliable substrate to maintain the position of the catheter. As a result, the anchor configuration of the catheter is typically formed in a relatively large pigtail type loop that provides a reliable anchor regardless of the characteristics of the surrounding tissue. The pigtail loop is formed by curling the tip of the catheter tube such that the tip of the catheter contacts a more proximal position on the catheter tube. This is accomplished utilizing a suture that is threaded between the proximal position and the tip of the catheter. Some examples of such catheters are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/205,609 filed Aug. 17, 2005 which is incorporated herein by reference. When the suture is foreshortened, the tip of the catheter is securely positioned relative to the proximal position on the catheter tube. A portion of the distal end of the catheter tube between the tip of the catheter and the proximal position where the suture exits the catheter tube forms a resulting pig-tail type loop.
The pig-tail type loop may be formed in the catheter tube such that the catheter tube is biased towards the pig-tail configuration, or the catheter tube may maintain a pig-tail type after the catheter tube has been held in position for some time. In such circumstances, it may be difficult to straighten the pig-tail for insertion or removal. Cannulas, trocars and other rigid members can be inserted into the catheter tube to straighten out the pig-tail. In some cases, the cannula, trocar, or rigid member can be difficult to fully insert because the end of the cannula, trocar, or rigid member may catch on or puncture the wall of the catheter.
One approach has been to place a sleeve, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,667, over the catheter tube. The sleeve can slide along the length of the catheter tube to straighten the pig-tail for insertion or removal. However, these sleeves have the disadvantage of having an abrupt end, which can cause the sleeve to catch on or tear into the catheter member.
What is needed is a device that allows a practitioner to straighten a pig-tail in a catheter tube to allow for easier insertion or removal of the catheter tube while limiting or preventing damage to the catheter tube.

Drainage catheter with pig-tail straightener


A semiconductor laser is fabricated on a substrate having a laser section and a modulator section by forming a light waveguide having an active layer that extends across the laser section and the modulator section from a high reflectivity end portion to a low reflectivity end portion. The light waveguide is enclosed by an embedding structure in which first and second high resistance regions are produced on the opposite sides of the light waveguide for confining electrons between the high resistance regions. On the embedding structure are first and second contact regions corresponding respectively to the laser section and the modulator section. Portions of the substrate other an the first and second elongated contact regions are covered with an insulating layer. First and second electrodes are formed on the insulating layer for establishing ohmic contact with the first and second elongated contact regions, respectively.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to semiconductor or lasers and more specifically to a modulator-integrated semiconductor laser.
2. Description of the Related Art
For optical communications systems, semiconductor lasers essential elements and their ability to modulate the laser beam with information signals is an important factor to achieve high speed transmission. One approach to achieving this goal is to reduce the device capacitance. In conventional semiconductor lasers, a light waveguide including the active layer of the laser is buried in an InP embedding layer and a contact layer such as InGaAs or InGaAsP is formed on the embedding layer. Through the contact layer, the embedding layer are selectively implanted with proton to create high resistance regions on the opposite side portions of the active layer, As a result of the carrier confinement effect of the high resistance regions, injection current is efficiently utilized by the active layer. An electrode is then formed on the contact layer. Although the contact layer is formed of the material known to exhibit inability to become highly resistive when subjected to a beam of protons, the electrode that extends over the full area of the device contributes to an increase in the device capacitance, which prevents the laser from operating at a speed of 10 Gb/s or higher.
Another approach to reducing device capacitance is to employ a pad electrode structure. However, the InP embedding layer is less of the ability to become highly resistive than is the InGaAs or IGaAsP contact layer. Thus, parasitic capacitances may exist between the proton implanted high resistance regions and the electrode.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a semiconductor laser having a reduced capacitance, and a method of fabricating the laser for high speed operation.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor laser comprising a semiconductor substrate having a laser section and a modulator section, and a light waveguide having an active layer on the substrate and extending across the laser section and the modulator section from a high reflectivity end portion to a low reflectivity end portion. An embedding structure encloses the light waveguide. The embedding structure has a pair of high resistance regions one on each side of the light waveguide for confining electrons between the high resistance regions. First and second elongated contact regions are formed on the embedding structure corresponding respectively to the laser section and the modulator section. An insulating layer is provided for covering portions other than the first and second elongated contact regions. First and second electrodes are formed on the insulating layer for establishing ohmic contact with the first and second elongated contact regions, respectively.
According to a second aspect, the present invention provides a method of fabricating a seniconductor laser comprising the steps of (a) forming a light waveguide having an active layer on a semiconductor substrate having a laser section and a modulator section, the light waveguide extending across the laser section and the modulator section from a high reflectivity end portion to a low reflectivity end portion, (b) forming an embedding structure for enclosing the light waveguide, (c) forming first and second elongated contact regions on the embedding structure corresponding respectively to the laser section and the modulator section and producing first and second high resistance regions in the embedding structure on opposite sides of the light waveguide so that electrons are confined between the first and second high resistance regions, (d) forming an insulating layer for covering portions of the semiconductor laser other than the first and second elongated contact regions, and (e) forming first and second electrodes on the insulating layer for establishing ohmic contact with the first and second elongated contact regions, respectively.

Modulator-integrated semiconductor laser and method of fabricating the same


A suturing device includes a hollow needle. The hollow needle has a length extending between a proximal end and a distal end and defining a lumen having an inner diameter. The suturing device further includes a length of surgical suture having a leading end and a trailing end and an outer diameter smaller than the inner diameter of the lumen. At least a portion of the surgical suture is located within the lumen of the hollow needle. A surgical kit including the suturing device and methods of using the suturing device of the present invention are also disclosed.

The devices and techniques currently used for suturing are based on the devices and techniques used in sewing, i.e., the sharp tip of a needle to which a thread or suture is attached, generally by passing a portion of the leading end of the thread or suture through a small hole at the blunt end of the needle (i.e., the eye of the needle), is pushed into the material (fabric or tissue) being sewn or sutured by applying a force on the blunt end of the needle, forming a hole as it passes, until the needle emerges out of the material or tissue in another location; then the sharp end of the needle is grasped and pulled through the hole until it passes completely through, dragging the attached thread or suture behind the needle through the hole. This process is repeated to make multiple sutures or stitches. Thus, suturing requires either two hands or a sequential process of pushing the needle into a material followed by pulling the needle out of the material.
In laparoscopic and arthroscopic surgeries, where suturing is accomplished using an instrument (manual or robotic) inserted into the body of the patient that is controlled by a surgeon, this suturing process can be cumbersome and slow. The process often requires two different instruments, one for inserting the needle and another for drawing the needle out. There is a need for suturing tools that enable faster and easier suturing, preferably requiring only a single instrument.
In addition, there are circumstances where it is not desirable or it is very difficult or cumbersome to pass the needle through the tissue, and a tool that allows sutures to be made without fully piercing the tissue would be extremely useful. In other circumstances, such as when suturing in difficult to reach places within the abdomen, a suturing device that allows single-handed, rapid suturing would be extremely useful. In additional circumstances, such as on the battlefield or in clinics where sophisticated medical tools are unavailable and/or there is a need for speed, a simple, easy-to-use suturing device is needed.
Automatic and mechanical suturing devices, such as Covidien's Endo Stitch® and SILS® Stitch endscopic suturing devices, require a cumbersome means of passing a double-tipped needle back and forth between the two mandibles of a mechanical jaw, and require a fair amount of clearance to properly access a suture site. There is therefore also a need for suturing tools and techniques that can be mechanized or automated in a straightforward manner and into a more compact device appropriate for endoscopic surgeries.
The present invention is directed to overcoming these and other deficiencies in the art.

Suturing device and methods of use thereof

THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK


Transaction management is facilitated using an approach involving the use of transaction characteristics to authenticate transaction information. According to an example embodiment, a computer processing system is programmed to process a shipment transaction involving a shipper and a carrier. The system is particularly suited to efficiently automate the payment of a shipment transaction and to efficiently provide access to relevant shipment information. The system includes a shipper processor that receives transaction document information such as purchase order information and assists in generating a bill of lading for the transaction. A shipper access terminal interfaces between the shipper processor and a central processor arrangement to control the quantity, quality, and timeliness of information transferred to the central processor arrangement. The central processor arrangement stores selective transaction information such as shipment information and generates reports regarding the transactions, with each transaction having particular information associated with it (e.g., shipper ID, carrier ID and other information). A carrier processor provides proof of delivery to the central processor arrangement. The central processor communicates with one or more financial institutions so that the carrier is paid and shipper billed for the relevant transaction.

Processing business transactions such as shipment transactions between parties has been a manually intensive effort and has experienced little change. For example, shipment transaction processes involve a goods transport path and a payment process path. The goods transport path typically starts when a carrier picks up the goods at the shipper's warehouse dock. The carrier receives a copy of a transaction document, for example a bill of lading (BOL), from the shipper. This type of transaction document includes information associated with the shipment transaction that is used by the shipper and carrier to track the shipment of goods. The carrier transports the goods to the receiver where the receiver signs a copy of the BOL to verify receipt of the goods. After the carrier has delivered the goods to the receiver, the carrier also submits the receiver's signed copy of the BOL to the carrier's headquarters.
The payment process path starts when the carrier picks up the goods from the shipper. The carrier sends a copy of the BOL to the carrier's headquarters for processing. The carrier headquarters rates the BOL. Rating involves determining the shipment cost which takes into the account various shipment parameters such as the size, weight, type of material, and destination of the shipment. The carrier creates an invoice, sets up an accounts receivable, and sends the invoice to the shipper's accounts payable department. The shipper, either internally or via a third party, audits the invoice to ensure the final cost is proper.
One of the more burdensome aspects of traditional transaction processes involves reaching agreement as to the final cost. If there is a dispute as to final cost, the parties to the transaction begin a burdensome and sometimes lengthy negotiation process in an attempt to settle the dispute. For example, if the dispute is resolved in a transaction involving shippers and carriers, the shipper sets up an accounts payable for the transaction. The shipper will then send payment to the carrier and clear the accounts payable. Traditionally, the process for paying the carrier and clearing the accounts payable involves several manually intensive steps. Upon receipt of payment, the carrier clears the accounts receivable. Traditionally, the process for clearing an accounts receivable includes the carrier manually inputting final payment information into the accounts receivable system.
The traditional approach can lead to many disadvantages for a transaction between one party and another party. Typically, however, there are multiple parties involved in multiple transactions, which makes the situation more complex, and that much more slow and inefficient. The process is manually intensive in that it relies on the hard copy of transaction documents (e.g., purchase orders, invoices and/or a BOL for proof of delivery and payment), resulting in a series of repetitive and time consuming steps. Also, in the instance where a BOL is used, each BOL is often rated multiple times by multiple parties creating excessive redundancy. Similarly, other transaction documents are also often kept on file at multiple locations, which also creates redundancy.
Traditional transaction systems are also highly susceptible to billing errors and fraud. For example, there is no connection between the delivery of goods and when the shipper is billed for delivery in shipping-type transaction systems. This may result in double billing, no billing at all, or overbilling the shipper for freight delivery charges. Also, an auditing error may occur that results in incorrect billing or payment. In addition, the carrier waits a disproportionately long time for payment while the invoice is being audited and/or disputed. For example, traditionally, a delivery takes about five days whereas payment takes about thirty days. This unnecessary delay adversely affects the carrier's working capital resources.
Additional costs arise as a result of existing inefficiencies in a variety of transaction processing approaches. Many of the costs are individually small, but very large in the aggregate. For example, typical parties to transactions incur administrative costs such as those relating to the cost to create and deliver the initial invoice, costs of resolving billing disputes, costs of providing a signed copy of the BOL to the shipper, and costs of posting accounts receivable. In addition, the cost of parsing, recognizing and categorizing documents related to these and other items add to the administrative costs of transactions.
An additional challenge to transaction management involves the inability to obtain immediate information regarding a shipment. Since the process is largely conducted manually, it is very difficult to track a shipment. To learn of the status of a shipment or payment, there are various manual steps involved. For example, if the shipper wants to know if the carrier delivered the goods and if the payment has been made, the shipper must call the carrier and the appropriate financial institution. Shipping-related information such as BOL-type documents and others is typically not readily available to other parties to the transaction without direct access to shipper-attributed systems.
There have been numerous attempts to improve existing transaction management approaches, such as existing shipment and payment processes. Some improvements have been made, for instance, to each separate step of completing a shipment transaction, but the entire method remains relatively unchanged. For example, freight agents are used by shippers to schedule shipments and to process the invoice from the carrier. Also, third party service providers have taken over the role of managing the shipper's accounts payable department.
Another attempt to improve this burdensome transaction process involves the use of the Internet. Carriers have offered Internet access to their shipment information. Shippers access the carrier's Internet address and find out the immediate status of the shipment. A disadvantage of this system arises when, as in many applications, the shipper is using multiple carriers. In this typical situation, the shipper separately accesses the address of each carrier in order to find out the status of each shipment. This is unduly time consuming.
Another disadvantage of traditional systems is that reference numbers used by different parties to identify a particular transaction are not compatible. For example, carriers maintain shipment data organized by reference numbers generated by the carrier, so shippers typically must access the data using the carrier's reference number rather than the shipper's reference number. The shipper and carrier track each shipment using multiple reference numbers.
The above and other difficulties in the management and coordination of business transactions have presented challenges to the effective and efficient management thereof.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Automated transaction processing system and approach


A non-ratcheting socket tool for loosening or tightening nuts or bolts, especially when the nut or bolt head is located in a crowded area where there is inadequate space to pivot or rotate a handle of a wrench or ratchet. The gear head socket tool includes a slim streamlined housing including a straight beveled gear coaxially arranged around a sleeve or ring having a plurality of internal nut/bolt gripping wrench teeth, wherein the straight beveled gear teeth mate with beveled pinion gear teeth perpendicular thereto. An extension bar is inserted into the end of the gear head housing perpendicular to the gear head. Rotation of the extension bar with a ratchet, a breaker bar, strong arm or a power tool such as a pneumatic or electric impact wrench, or drill motor provides perpendicular torque to drive the gear head socket rotating the teeth turning the nut or bolt.

Many different tools are well known in the art for tightening and loosening nuts and bolts. Simple open end and box end wrenches have been used for decades. Pliers, slip joint pliers and adjustable wrenches are also well known. Interchangeable sockets which can be applied to ratchets provide a quicker method to tighten or loosen and remove nuts and bolts holding various mechanical devices together. Such a gear head socket tool provides the ability to drive a socket which is applied to a nut or bolt either clockwise or counter-clockwise without the need to remove the socket from the nut or bolt after rotating the ratchet handle by a selected angle. However, situations arise wherein there is not enough room to connect a ratchet to a socket engaging a nut or bolt and to rotate a wrench or ratchet handle.


A rotary connector device capable of reducing the number of components and enhancing assembly workability provided with: a stationary member; a rotary member to be attached to the stationary member to be capable of relative rotation with respect to the stationary member, the rotary member including a steering wheel insertion hole into which an insertion convex portion of a steering wheel is to be inserted; and an intermediate stationary member provided to be movable between a locked position and a lock released position with respect to the rotary member, wherein the intermediate stationary member is provided with a regulating portion, the regulating portion being configured to, at the locked position, regulate relative rotation of the rotary member when the regulating portion is engaged with the stationary member.

A rotary connector device in the related art includes a stationary member which is attached to a vehicle body side, a rotary member which is attached to the stationary member to be capable of relative rotation with respect to the stationary member and to which a steering wheel is to be attached, and an intermediate stationary mechanism which temporarily fixes a rotation position of the rotary member at an intermediate position (Patent Literature 1).
The intermediate stationary mechanism includes an intermediate stationary member movable between a locked position and a lock released position, and a spiral spring that biases the intermediate stationary member toward the locked position. At the locked position, the intermediate stationary member locks (namely, temporarily fixes) relative rotation of the rotary member. At the lock released position, the intermediate stationary member unlocks the lock.
In this intermediate stationary mechanism, when the intermediate stationary member is biased toward the locked position by the spiral spring, the rotation position of the rotary member is temporarily fixed at the intermediate position. Then, when an insertion convex portion of a steering wheel is inserted into an insertion hole of the rotary member, the intermediate stationary member is moved from the locked position to the lock released position. As a result, the rotary member transitions from a state of being locked (namely, temporarily fixed) at a rotation intermediate position to a state capable of relative rotation.


Solid-State Drive (SSD) burst buffer nodes are interposed into a parallel supercomputing cluster to enable fast burst checkpoint of cluster memory to or from nearby interconnected solid-state storage with asynchronous migration between the burst buffer nodes and slower more distant disk storage. The SSD nodes also perform tasks offloaded from the compute nodes or associated with the checkpoint data. For example, the data for the next job is preloaded in the SSD node and very fast uploaded to the respective compute node just before the next job starts. During a job, the SSD nodes perform fast visualization and statistical analysis upon the checkpoint data. The SSD nodes can also perform data reduction and encryption of the checkpoint data.

Parallel supercomputing clusters are used for numerical simulation of complex systems and processes. For example, parallel supercomputing clusters are used for weather forecasting, climate change modeling, and scientific research. Compute nodes perform similar computations of the simulation in parallel and exchange intermediate results over a mesh of high-speed interconnections using a Message Passing Interface (MPI) protocol. The Message Passing Interface is a standardized and portable message passing system designed to function on a wide variety of parallel computers.
Because the time to complete a numerical simulation is often much larger than the mean time to interrupt (MTTI) of a compute node due to a software or hardware error, a checkpoint technique is used to recover from such an interrupt. The checkpoint technique periodically saves checkpoint data representing the computational state of the compute nodes, so that the supercomputing cluster may recover from the interrupt by re-starting execution from a checkpoint saved in data storage.
Very large parallel supercomputing clusters have been assembled from rack-mounted commodity servers and switches. The rack-mounted commodity servers for the supercomputing cluster are configured to function either as compute nodes that perform the calculations of the simulation, or input-output (I/O) nodes that save the checkpoint data in a magnetic disk storage array. One I/O node is sufficient for storing all the checkpoint data from one group of about eight to sixteen compute nodes. The intermediate results and checkpoint data are exchanged between the nodes using high-speed InfiBand (IB) data links and switches. A slower speed Gigabit Ethernet network links each of the nodes to a control station computer providing an administrative node for the supercomputer. Such a supercomputer is described in Komernicki et al., "Roadrunner Hardware and Software Overview," IBM Redbook REDP-4477-00, January 2009, IBM Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.

Method and apparatus for offloading compute resources to a flash co-processing appliance


There is provided an image processing apparatus including an image correcting amount computing unit for computing a proper amount of image correction based on image data of an image of an original delivered from an image input unit; an image processing unit for performing image processing based on the thus computed proper amount of image correction; and a display unit for displaying for monitoring a processed image. The proper amount of image correction automatically computed by the image correcting amount computing unit is evaluated for a degree of correctness and a warning is given when the degree of correctness is low. The image processing method which is implemented in the above apparatus is also provided. Images having a possibility of being erroneously identified during image processing are subjected to operator's judgment whereby outputting of defective prints can be reduced.

This invention relates to an apparatus and a method for image processing. More specifically, the invention relates to an apparatus and a method for image processing in which an image having a strong possibility of failing in computing a proper amount of image correction in an image correcting amount computing unit, such as an image belonging to a group that contains images taken with unusual types of light sources and images having a color failure, or a group that contains images taken with backlight and images taken with an electronic flash is subjected to an operator's judgment.
Heretofore, images recorded on photographic films such as negative and reversal films (which are hereunder referred to simply as "films") have been commonly printed on light-sensitive materials (photographic papers) by means of direct (analog) exposure in which the film images are projected onto the light-sensitive materials to achieve their areal exposure.
A new technology has recently been introduced and this is a printer that relies upon digital exposure. Briefly, an image recorded on a film is read photoelectrically, converted to digital signals and subjected to various image processing steps to produce image data for recording purposes; recording light that has been modulated in accordance with the image data is used to scan and expose a light-sensitive material to record a latent image, which is subsequently developed to produce a finished print (photograph). The printer operating on this principle has been commercialized as a digital photoprinter.
In the digital photoprinter, the image is converted to digital image data which is processed to determine exposing conditions for printing. Hence, the digital photoprinter is capable of performing effective image processing operations such as the correction of washed-out highlights or flat shadows due to photography with backlight or an electronic flash, sharpening and the correction of color or density failure and this enables the production of high-quality prints that have been impossible to attain by the conventional direct exposure technique. What is more, by image data processing, a plurality of images can be assembled into one composite image or a single image can be divided into more than one image and even characters can be assembled; thus, prints can be output after editing/processing is done in accordance with a specific use.
Outputting images as prints is not the sole capability of the digital photoprinter; the image data can be supplied into a computer or the like and stored in recording media such as a floppy disk; hence, the image data can be put to various non-photographic uses.
Having these features, the digital photoprinter is basically composed of an image input machine having a scanner (image reading apparatus) that reads an image on a film photoelectrically and an image processing apparatus that processes the image read with the scanner to produce output image data (exposing conditions) as well as an image output machine having a printer (image recording apparatus) that scan exposes a light-sensitive material in accordance with the image data output from the image input machine to record a latent image and a light-sensitive material processor (developing apparatus) that performs development and other necessary processing on the exposed material to produce a print.
In the scanner, reading light issuing from a light source is allowed to be incident on the film, from which projected light bearing the image recorded on the film is produced and focused by an imaging lens to form a sharp image on an image sensor such as a CCD sensor; the image is then read by photoelectric conversion and sent to the image processing apparatus as image data of the image on the film (i.e., image data signals) after being optionally subjected to various image processing steps.
In the image processing apparatus, image processing conditions are set on the basis of the image data read with the scanner and image processing as determined by the thus set conditions is performed on the read image data and the resulting output image data for image recording (i.e., exposing conditions) are sent to the printer.
In the printer, if it is of a type that relies upon exposure by scanning with an optical beam, the latter is modulated in accordance with the image data sent from the image processing apparatus and deflected in a main scanning direction as the light-sensitive material is transported in an auxiliary scanning direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction, whereby a latent image is formed as the result of exposure (printing) of the light-sensitive material with the image bearing optical beam. Development and other processing as determined by the light-sensitive material are then performed in the processor to produce a print reproducing the image that was recorded on the film.
It is empirically known that the transmittances of three colors R, G and B are approximately equal to each other for an image recorded on a correctly exposed film, and that an approximately correct print is obtained by performing image correction so that the average value thereof is approximately equal to a specified value (Evans' principle).
However, scenes taken under unusual types of light sources including a fluorescent lamp and a tungsten lamp, or color failure scenes in which highly saturated colors occupy a large area in the background such as lawn, blue sky or sea do not meet the assumption of the transmittances of three colors R, G and B as mentioned above. Further, in the scene taken with backlight or an electronic flash, the luminance is significantly different between the principle subject and the background. Therefore, the approximately correct print cannot be obtained by the corrective control of the image based on the average value.
To solve this problem, various methods have been proposed to identify these scenes by analyzing the images recorded on a film. However, the conventional methods have not so far attained complete identification of these scenes.
Also in the photoprinter having the layout and functions as mentioned above, image processing function was primarily improved, which enabled production of preferable prints by performing effective correction for most of images on a film. For the particular images as mentioned above however, output prints obtained were often based on erroneous image processing.
Film images that may be subjected to the erroneous image processing in the digital photoprinter include those taken under unusual types of light sources including the above-mentioned fluorescent lamp and tungsten lamp, which are erroneously identified as those having color failure. Both the images have extremely deviated color balance, hence the identification thereof is difficult. The erroneous identification leads to the reversion of the direction in which the correction is performed.
Another example is an image taken with backlight, which is erroneously identified as an image taken with an electronic flash. Extremely high contrast is the feature of both the images. In this case, erroneous identification also leads to the reversion of the direction in which the correction is performed.

Apparatus and method for image processing


A query string expressed in terms of an object model is received. The query includes a first instruction identifying a type of objects and a second instruction identifying selected objects of the identified type to be retrieved. The query may also include one or more statements identifying additional associated types to be retrieved. The query is translated into a database specific language, and a database is queried with the translated query. Query results are received from the database and are translated into an object model. The object model may be displayed on a display device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of database management, and, more specifically, to presenting a query to a database expressed in terms of an object model.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Data that is stored in a database may be modeled according to an object model. The object model includes objects that each have a unique identifier. An object can be categorized by its type. All elements of a given type have a common set of properties and a common set of defined operations. The state of an object is defined by the values it carries for its set of properties. Properties can be either "primitive" properties or "link" properties. Primitive properties are properties of the object itself. Link properties are relationships between the object and one or more other objects. Typically, the values of an object's properties can change over time.
Some existing query languages enable a user to run queries on data that is stored in a database and modeled according to an object model. Such "object model" query languages have been designed with syntax that is similar to structured query language (SQL), which is used to query relational databases. Designing such an object model query language with such similar syntax as SQL makes the language more intuitive and familiar to the author of a query. Specifically, such an object model query language may include a "select" statement, a "from" statement, and a "where" statement. The select statement identifies the type of objects to be retrieved. The "from" statement identifies the objects from which the type is selected. The "where" statement is a predicate identifying a condition of a property of the selected object type that must be satisfied. Such object model query languages may also include dot expressions. Dot expressions are used to identify a property of an object. Dot expressions may identify either a primitive property or a link property.
Although such existing queries including three instructions may be intuitive and familiar to a query author, such queries may often be long and complex. The length and complexity of a query is increased when the query includes multiple link properties. Such queries including multiple link properties may have multiple dot expressions in each of the three statements. The length and complexity of object queries would be greatly reduced if, rather than including three instructions, object queries included only two instructions; a first instruction identifying a type of objects and a second instruction identifying selected objects of the identified type to be retrieved.
Furthermore, existing object model query languages are limited in that they enable a query author to identify only a single type of object to be retrieved. It is often desirable to retrieve not only a single object type, but to retrieve a specified object type and all related object types. For example, an existing object query requesting "all customers that live in California" will retrieve only "customer" objects that have related address objects with a state property equal to California. However, a query author may wish to retrieve not only "customer" objects but also the related "address" object and possibly other related objects. In existing object model query languages, a query author wishing to retrieve multiple object types must issue multiple queries. Thus, the effectiveness of object queries could be vastly improved by enabling a query author to identify a specified object type and multiple related object types to be retrieved.

System and method for presenting a query expressed in terms of an object model


A cleaning device includes a cleaning component that cleans the surface of a charging component that charges an image carrier that has a surface on which an electrostatic latent image is to be formed. The cleaning component is a hollow body that cleans the surface of the charging component while being rotated by rotation of the charging component.

1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cleaning device that cleans the surface of a charging component that charges the surface of a photosensitive body, and to an image forming apparatus provided with this cleaning device.
2. Related Art
In some charging devices, toner, dust and the like stuck to the surface of a charging component are cleaned off by using a cleaning component.

Cleaning device and image forming apparatus


A telephone interface to an Internet payment processing system. The interface may be installed on equipment used to process a card transactions. When a request for authorization is initiated, the interface dials a telephone number and establishes a connection to a communications server. The interface creates a message comprising the transaction data that conforms to the hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) and transmits it over the telephone line to the communications server. The communications server establishes a TCP/IP connection to a web server and the HTTP message is forwarded to the web server where transaction data is extracted from the HTTP message and formatted for submission to a card transaction processing network. The transaction is submitted and an authorization code approving or denying the request is returned from the network to the web server, to the communications server, and then to the merchant terminal using the telephone line.

Many merchants today rely on the Internet for processing of credit and debit card transactions. Point-of-sale (POS) terminals that merchants use may be equipped with a DSL, cable, or other components for establishing high-speed Internet connections to facilitate processing of card transactions using an Internet payment processing system. The terminals are equipped with software that extracts transaction data from every card that is swiped and then routes the data for processing using a high-speed Internet connection device. An Internet-based merchant that sells only on the Internet and uses a personal computer rather than a POS terminal for processing transactions may similarly rely on a high-speed Internet connection for processing of card transactions. The PC may be equipped with software that allows the PC to operate as a virtual POS that routes transaction data for processing using an Internet connection.
A high-speed Internet connection to an Internet payment processing system for processing card transaction provides many benefits to merchants. The connection is persistent so there is no need for the card processing device to make a telephone call. As a result, transaction response time is typically one to three seconds. Transactions are processed very quickly so customer wait time is reduced and transaction volume at the merchant site is increased. The addition of new terminals is quick and inexpensive. Finally, transactions are easily routed to any Internet payment gateway.
The same high-speed connection that provides many benefits to merchants when it functions can cause significant inconveniences to the merchant when it malfunctions. The loss of the connection—which can occur for a variety of reasons—results in a loss of the ability to process card transactions through the Internet payment processing system. The inability to process card transactions can be very costly to the merchant. The merchant may lose sales as he is forced to process transactions using another method. Some customers may not wait for a transaction to be processed using a slower method. If the merchant is unable to process transactions at the time of the sale, transaction data must be recorded for later processing. Depending upon the method used to record the transaction data (e.g., manually), it is possible that some of the information required for later processing may be lost or may not be recorded at all. Even if all of the necessary information is recorded for later processing of the transactions, the merchant will need to spend a considerable amount of time entering or transferring transaction data once the connection is functional again.
Another disadvantage of a high-speed Internet connection as an interface to an Internet payment processing system is the cost. The use of a high-speed connection requires the merchant to enter into a contract with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that provides the necessary equipment and service. Customers incur a one time charge for equipment and installation of the equipment and a monthly charge for use of the connection. For merchants that do not process a large volume of transactions each month, the cost of installing and maintaining a high-speed connection can significantly reduce the merchant's profitability. For some merchants, a high-speed connection may not be cost effective.
Although high-speed connections for card transaction processing are very useful, there may be time when the connection is unavailable or it is not economical for a merchant to maintain the connection. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative interface to an Internet payment processing system.

Telephone interface to internet payment processing system


Method and apparatus to track a contact using a sensor in a two-dimensional radar system, determine a closest point of approach (CPA) for the contact, determine a time to closest point of approach (TCPA) for the contact, and estimate an altitude for the contact from the closest point of approach (CPA) and a cross line of sight distance during the time to closest point of approach (TCPA).

As is known in the art, conventional maritime radars for shipboard navigation and for coastal surveillance (e.g., land-based Vessel Tracking Systems (VTS)) detect and measure the position of ships and other discrete contacts in a two-dimensional space. This space is typically idealized as a local-level (tangent) plane to the Earth coordinatized in natural radar polar coordinates of range R and true azimuth A or in cartesian coordinates (x,y) with positive x pointing in an Easterly direction and positive y pointing North. When these radars are also configured with Automatic Radar Plotting Aids (ARPA), the position of a contact is tracked over time, and a velocity vector is derived.
Shipboard ARPA radars are used to automatically alert the ship's watch of collision potentials by automatically detecting and tracking other ships and generating an alert under certain conditions involving the relative motion of ownship and the contact under track by the radar. By assuming both ownship and the contact under track will keep their velocities constant, it is possible to compute a Closest Point of Approach (CPA) and a Time until Closest Point of Approach (TCPA). If both CPA and TCPA are smaller than selected limits, then a collision potential alert is issued.

Methods and apparatus for providing target altitude estimation in a two dimensional radar system


A solid-state imaging includes a comparing circuit, an inverting circuit, and a masking circuit, and performs column parallel AD conversion processing of analog pixel signals outputted from a plurality of pixels arranged in a two-dimensional matrix form. The comparing circuit outputs a difference signal obtained by comparing each of the pixel signals outputted from the pixels with a reference signal having a ramp waveform. The inverting circuit inverts a logic of the difference signal outputted from the comparing circuit. The masking circuit masks an output of an output signal of the inverting circuit to a circuit in a subsequent stage during an input offset canceling period in which the comparing circuit is canceling an input offset between the pixel signal and the reference signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid-state imaging device, a driving method thereof, and an imaging apparatus using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
As solid-state imaging devices, there have been proposed complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors implementing a column-parallel AD conversion scheme (hereinafter called "column AD conversion scheme") in which pixels are two-dimensionally arranged in a matrix form with one Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC) provided for each column.
Furthermore, in recent years, CMOS image sensors implementing a column AD conversion scheme suitably improved for image pickup at high-speed have been proposed. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-278135 discloses a CMOS image sensor implementing a column AD conversion scheme, which has achieved higher frame rate and high resolution without increasing its circuitry scale by using an up/down counter.
FIG. 1 shows a simple configuration example of the CMOS image sensor implementing a column AD conversion scheme, in which a pixel signal of each of the pixels arranged two-dimensionally in a matrix form are inputted to the up/down counter.
A pixel (Pixel) 1 supplies an analog pixel signal responsive to an amount of light received, to a voltage comparing unit (Comp) 3. The voltage comparing unit 3 also receives a reference signal from a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 2 as a reference voltage supplying circuit. The reference signal has a so-called ramp (RAMP) waveform in which a level (voltage) changes with time in the form of a ramp.
The voltage comparing unit 3 outputs a difference signal obtained by comparing the pixel signal from the pixel 1 with the reference signal from the DAC 2, to an up/down counter (CNT) 4. For example, if the reference signal is larger than the pixel signal, a Hi (High) difference signal is supplied to the up/down counter 4, whereas if the reference signal is smaller than the pixel signal, a Lo (Low) difference signal is supplied to the up/down counter 4.
During a Pre-Charge Phase (P-phase) ADC enable period, the up/down counter (CNT) 4 down-counts only a period in which the Hi difference signal is supplied. During a Data Phase (D-phase) ADC enable period, the up-down counter 4 up-counts only a period in which the Hi difference signal is supplied. The P-phase ADC enable period is a period for measuring a reset component ΔV which is a fluctuation component of the pixel 1, whereas the D-phase ADC enable period is a period for measuring (signal component Vsig+reset component ΔV). By combining a count during the P-phase ADC enable period and a count during the D-phase ADC enable period, only the signal component Vsig is obtained from (signal component Vsig+reset component ΔV)−(reset component ΔV). This is how CDS processing is achieved.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a detailed configuration of the voltage comparing unit 3.
The voltage comparing unit 3 includes an analog circuit 11 and a logic circuit (digital circuit) 12.
In the analog circuit 11, the pixel signal from the pixel 1 is inputted to a comparator 23 via a capacitive element 21, and the reference signal from the DAC 2 is inputted to the comparator 23 via a capacitive element 22. The comparator 23 outputs the difference signal between the pixel signal and the reference signal, and an inverter 24 inverts and amplifies the difference signal, and outputs the resultant signal to the logic circuit 12.
In the logic circuit 12, the difference signal from the inverter 24 of the analog circuit 11 is inverted and amplified by an inverter 25, and the resultant signal is outputted to the up/down counter 4. The inverter 25 can be constructed by combining, e.g., a PMOS transistor and an NMOS transistor.
In the voltage comparing unit 3 constructed above, a preprocessing for generating the difference signal is performed to cancel an input offset between the pixel signal and the reference signal. The preprocessing is a processing for bringing two input nodes of the comparator 23 into conduction. This processing is called "autozero (AZ) processing".
Referring to FIGS. 3A and 3B, signals within the voltage comparing unit 3 during the CDS processing and the AZ processing which is a pre-processing thereof will be described. FIG. 3A is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of the voltage comparing unit 3, and FIG. 3B is a waveform diagram showing the circuit operation of a pixel.
During an AZ processing period, an AZ control signal becomes active (High), thereby making the potentials of the pixel signal and the reference signal inputted to the comparator 23 equal to cancel the input offset therebetween. It is noted in FIG. 3B that the vertical axis is common to the pixel signal and the reference signal and that the pixel signal overlaps with the reference signal having the same potential during periods indicated by a dotted line in which the pixel signal is not shown.
In the up/down counter 4 of the subsequent stage, down-counting is performed during a period in which the reference signal is larger than the pixel signal, of the P-phase ADC enable period defined by a P-phase ADC enable pulse(not shown), and up-counting is performed during a period in which the reference signal is larger than the pixel signal, of the D-phase ADC enable period defined by a D-phase ADC enable pulse(not shown).

Solid-state imaging device, driving control method thereof, and imaging apparatus