An image display device includes a beam splitter that splits an incident light entering from a subject side, an imaging device that converts a first optical image generated by an one-side incident light split by the beam splitter into an electrical signal and outputs the converted electrical signal as a capture image, a synthesis image generating unit that generates an electronic information image, a display panel that displays the electronic information image, and an optical prism that emits an optical image of the electronic information image projected from the display panel to be superimposed on a second optical image generated by the other-side split incident light.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image display device, an imaging apparatus mounted with the image display device as a finder device, and an image display method.
2. Related Art
For example, for a beginner who walks in mountains and sees Yatsugatake Peaks through binoculars, it is difficult to know which mountain is Akadake and what mountain is seen by the side thereof. Here, when each of optical images of mountains seen within the binoculars is synthesized with a mountain name to be displayed, usability of the binoculars is improved.
Or, in constructing a building in a vacant lot of a city, when a construction designer can observe a state where a CG image of a designed building stands up in the vacant lot together with an optical image of a surrounding building group by observing a group of buildings around the vacant lot through a finder device of a digital camera owned by himself, a landscape after the construction may be checked in advance. This provides convenience.
If a technology that when a person, who wants to go to a destination but gets lost, sees a corresponding direction through a finder of a digital camera, the location of the destination hidden by a building group or names of surrounding buildings are displayed within the finder, is achieved, the usefulness of the digital camera is improved.
There has already been a technology that when a lens of a digital camera is directed to a specific direction, and a capture image (a live view image) is displayed on an LCD display device at the rear surface of the camera, for example, information or a place name of a landmark, or a building name is displayed to be superimposed on a capture image (e.g., Patent Literature 1 (JP-A-2006-59136)).
When a main object is to know the landmark information or the building name, a live view image of a subject may be displayed on the LCD display device provided on, for example, the rear surface of the camera, and, for example, the building name may be displayed to be superimposed on the live view image. However, when a main object is to observe a subject, what is highly demanded is to directly see a clear optical image of the subject through binoculars or an observation window of an optical finder device.
Patent Literature 2 (JP-A-2011-253512) as described below discloses a device which displays electronic information, such as illustrated information, to be synthesized together with the field of view seen through an observation window when a subject is observed through, for example, binoculars or a magnifying glass.
When an optical image of the subject is directly observed with an eye, and, for example, a name of a landmark, as the electronic information, is displayed to be synthesized with the field of view, it is possible to observe a clear optical image and also to know required electronic information together with the image. However, Patent Literature 2 does not disclose how to specifically configure the device of realizing the technology.
A technology of displaying electronic information to be superimposed on an optical image may be realized by applying a conventional technology disclosed in, for example, Patent Literature 3 (JP-A-2010-107529) as described below. A digital camera disclosed in Patent Literature 3 is configured such that when a displayed image of a projection-type display device provided within an optical finder is projected to be superimposed on an optical image of a subject visible to an eye of a user through the optical finder. Accordingly, when required electronic information is displayed on the projection-type display device, the user becomes capable of seeing an image in which the electronic information is superimposed on the optical image, with his/her eye.
It is easy to display an optical image of a subject and relevant information thereof, such as names, at roughly matching positions around the optical image. However, for example, when a mountain range including a series of many mountains are seen through binoculars, wrong information may be provided to a user when each mounting name is displayed to be superimposed on a slightly shifted position. Accordingly, it is required to display electronic information at matching positions on an optical image of a subject with a high precision.
For example, Patent Literature 4 (JP-A-2009-200552) and Patent Literature 5 (JP-A-H03-292067) disclose a finder device in which an optical finder and an electronic viewfinder are combined with each other. A capture image of a subject displayed on the electronic viewfinder of the finder device is not an optical image of the subject which comes into the optical finder. The capture image is an optical image which is photographed by an imaging device through light-condensing at a photographing lens provided at a location slightly apart from the finder device.
That is, a parallax occurs between the optical image which has passed through the optical finder, and the capture image displayed on the electronic viewfinder. In a case of a single focal lens camera, the parallax may be easily corrected, because there is always a fixed relationship. However, when the photographing lens is a zoom lens, the parallax may be varied according to a magnification change. Thus, it becomes difficult to perform alignment of the optical image with the capture image with a high precision.

Image display device, imaging apparatus mounted with image display device as finder device, and image display method


An apparatus for delivering HIFU energy may include a probe with a plurality of leaves that provide a bowl-shaped HIFU therapy transducer. In once case, pins may slide within grooves in the leaves to deploy the leaves. In another case, spines may be configured to slide in a channel defined in each leaf. In other cases, a spring or a shape memory alloy may be used to deploy the leaves. In another implementation, a probe may be fitted with a flexible material that couples the HIFU therapy transducer to the probe and allows the transducer to be drawn to the side of the probe for insertion. In another implementation, a probe may have one or more inflatable bladders that form the HIFU therapy transducer. In yet another implementation, a probe may have an imaging component and a HIFU therapy transducer disposed thereon that rotate, as a unit, about a hinge.

The present application is directed to apparatus that provide therapeutic treatment of internal pathological conditions using high-intensity focused ultrasound energy, and more particularly, to providing improved apparatus for insertion and deployment of a HIFU therapy transducer, with or without an imaging component.
Delivery of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) energy has emerged as a precise, non-surgical, minimally-invasive treatment for benign and malignant tumors. (See, e.g., S. Vaezy, M. Andrew, P. Kaczkowski et al., "Image-guided acoustic therapy," Annu. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 3, 375-90 (2001)). At focal intensities 4-5 orders of magnitude greater than diagnostic ultrasound (typically about 0.1 W/cm2), HIFU (typically about 1000-10,000 W/cm2) can induce lesions or tissue necrosis at a small location deep in tissue while leaving tissue between the ultrasound source and focus unharmed. Tissue necrosis is a result of focal temperatures typically exceeding 70° C. which can occur with relatively short intervals of HIFU exposure. HIFU is currently being used clinically for the treatment of prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia, as well as malignant bone tumor and soft tissue sarcoma. Clinical trials for HIFU treatment of breast fibroadenomas and various stage 4 primary and metastatic cancer tumors of the kidney and liver are underway.
Uterine fibroid, as an example of a pathological condition in the female pelvis, is the most common pelvic tumor in women of reproductive age. Uterine fibroids, or leiomyoma, are benign tumors that cause abnormal uterine bleeding. The incidence of fibroids has been estimated to be 20-25% in women in their reproductive years, although autopsy studies show an incidence upwards of 75%. Approximately ⅓ of these women will have a tumor that is symptomatic requiring treatment. HIFU energy delivered using a transvaginal transducer can provide a feasibly minimally-invasive treatment for uterine fibroids.
Further development of HIFU devices for providing therapy in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as other fields of medical endeavor, is desired. In particular, improved devices are needed which can provide noninvasive therapeutic treatment of uterine fibroids, recurrent leiomyosarcoma, and other solid tumors of the uterine corpus and cervix, as well as abnormal uterine bleeding conditions and many other obstetric and gynecologic pathological conditions.
A major challenge for transvaginal HIFU treatment of uterine pathologies is the deployment of a HIFU therapy transducer having an aperture of adequate size. In general, devices with a larger HIFU aperture tend to optimize the focal length of the HIFU beam and the therapeutic effect of the focused ultrasound energy. However, the size and configuration of the HIFU aperture are generally limited by the size and shape of the vaginal cavity and the location of the cervix and vaginal fornices.
Even more challenging is the issue of transvaginal insertion of a HIFU therapy transducer through the rather narrow vaginal introitus. The present application addresses the problems of insertion of a probe with a HIFU transducer through small passages, such as the vaginal introitus, and deployment of the HIFU transducer, with or without an imaging component, within a body cavity in order to achieve optimal imaging and HIFU therapeutic effects.

Apparatus for delivering high intensity focused ultrasound energy to a treatment site internal to a patient's body


A positive resist composition with a broad DOF and a method for resist pattern formation are provided. This composition is a positive resist composition which includes a resin component (A) that exhibits increased alkali solubility under the action of acid and an acid generator component (B) that generates acid upon exposure, wherein the component (A) is a copolymer that contains n [wherein, n is an integer from 4 to 6] structural units with mutually different structures, and the proportion of each structural unit within the copolymer is greater than 0 mol % but no higher than 100/(n−1) mol %.

In recent years, in the production of semiconductor elements and liquid crystal display elements, advances in lithography techniques have lead to rapid progress in the field of miniaturization. Typically, these miniaturization techniques involve shortening the wavelength of the exposure light source. Conventionally, ultraviolet radiation typified by g-line and i-line radiation has been used, but nowadays KrF excimer lasers (248 nm) are the main light source used in mass production, and ArF excimer lasers (193 nm) are now also starting to be introduced in mass production. Furthermore, research is also being conducted into lithography techniques that use F2 excimer lasers (157 nm), EUV (extreme ultraviolet radiation), and EB (electron beams) and the like as the light source (radiation source).
Resists for use with these types of short wavelength light sources require a high resolution capable of reproducing patterns of minute dimensions, and a high level of sensitivity relative to these types of short wavelength light sources. One example of a known resist that satisfies these conditions is a chemically amplified resist, which includes a base resin and an acid generator (hereafter referred to as a PAG) that generates acid upon exposure, and these chemically amplified resists include positive resists in which the alkali solubility of the exposed portions increases, and negative resists in which the alkali solubility of the exposed portions decreases.
Until recently, polyhydroxystyrene (PHS) or derivative resins thereof in which the hydroxyl groups have been protected with acid-dissociable, dissolution-inhibiting groups (PHS-based resins), which exhibit high transparency relative to a KrF excimer laser (248 nm), have been used as the base resin component of chemically amplified resists. However because PHS-based resins contain aromatic rings such as benzene rings, their transparency is inadequate for light with wavelengths shorter than 248 nm, such as light of 193 nm. Accordingly, chemically amplified resists that use a PHS-based resin as the base resin component suffer from low levels of resolution in processes that, for example, use light of 193 nm.
As a result, resins that contain structural units derived from (meth)acrylate esters within the principal chain (acrylic resins) are now widely used as base resins for resists that use ArF excimer laser lithography, as they offer excellent transparency in the vicinity of 193 nm (for example, see patent reference 1 and patent reference 2).
[Patent Reference 1]
Japanese Patent (Granted) Publication No. 2,881,969
[Patent Reference 2]
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2003-241385

Positive resist composition and method for resist pattern formation


A WDM optical system includes first and second WDM's including an optical link therebetween. Each WDM includes circuitry for linking multiplexer and demultiplexer circuitry to a plurality of modular elements. The modular elements include a first set of modules for converting between native protocol media signals and common format signals. A second set of modules converts between the common format signals and optical signals at separate wavelengths for communication with the multiplexers and demultiplexers. A dual path transmit and receive optical link is provided between near and far end WDM's.

Wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical networks are known where light of multiple wavelengths is spacially dispersed such that each wavelength of light is spacially separated from every other wavelength of light. A plurality of signals having wavelengths of different lengths can be combined for transmission over a single fiber optic cable. For optical transmission systems such as in a backbone network with a great demand for communication, a further increase in capacity has been found by reducing the optical frequency spacing of a plurality of signal channels to increase the degree of multiplexing. WDM processing with a higher degree of multiplexing is called dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM). Also, it is known in optical transmission systems where there is not a large demand for communication, the degree of multiplexing can be decreased by increasing the optical frequency spacing of a plurality of signal channels. This has the effect of reducing costs for the system components. WDM processing with a lower degree of multiplexing is called coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM). In a CWDM system, inexpensive optical components can be used.
In WDM systems, and in particular CWDM systems, a variety of different media signals may be handled including coaxial, twisted pair (shielded and unshielded), and optical. WDM's including CWDM's are utilized to process these signals for transmission over fiber networks. In the case of multimode signals on fiber optic cables, WDM's can be used to process the signals for transmission on a multiplexed single cable system including a single mode fiber.
There is a need for conversion circuitry associated with the WDM's to convert the native protocol media signal (coaxial, twisted pair, multimode optical), into an appropriate signal for multichannel transmission on a single fiber optic cable. There is a further need to modularize such system components. In particular, there is a need to modularize the components of the system to address concerns that arise during initial setup, and modifications and upkeep of the system over time.


A Japanese type plum tree characterized by its low winter chilling adaptation to central and north Florida, and mid to late May ripening of dark red skin fruit with orange-yellow flesh and regular, high annual fruit production.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of plum tree, which will herein after be denominated varietally as `Gulfblaze` plum tree which is adapted in flowering, foliation, and annual production to central and north Florida. Contrast is made to `Gulfruby` plum for reliable description. This new variety is a promising candidate for commercial success in that it has disease resistance and adaptation for low to medium chill environments and produces red skin fruit ripening in mid to late May.


A method to control an optical receiver implemented with a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is disclosed. The SOA has a p-n junction operable in a PD mode when it is supplied with a zero or reverse bias. The SOA detects the magnitude of the incoming light and the driving current supplied thereto is adjusted based on thus detected magnitude of the incoming light such that the outgoing light provided to the PD has a magnitude within a preset range.

(i) Technical Field
The present application relates to a method to control an optical receiver implemented with a semiconductor optical amplifier (hereafter denoted as "SOA" in upstream of a semiconductor photodiode (hereafter denoted as "PD").
(ii) Related Background Arts
In the optical communication system, an optical signal transmitted from an optical transmitting device is received by an optical receiving device propagating through an optical fiber. For instance, a Japanese Patent Application published as JP-2003-0348021A has disclosed an optical communication system in which the optical signal transmitted from an optical transmitter, propagating in an optical fiber, and finally received by an optical receiver.
The optical receiver often detects the optical signal by a photodiode (hereafter denoted as "PD") after amplifying the optical signal by a semiconductor optical amplifier (hereafter denoted as "SOA") because the optical signal is attenuated during the propagating within the optical fiber. In such an arrangement, the light incoming to the SOA is monitored in the magnitude thereof, and the SOA is controlled in feedback based on the monitoring result.
However, when a portion of incoming light provided from the optical fiber is monitored and the SOA is controlled in feedback by the monitoring results, the rest portion of the incoming light provided from the optical fiber and entering the "SOA" is inevitably diminished, which lowers the magnitude of the outgoing light, degrades the noise figure (NF) or the preciseness of the signal detection by the PD, and so on.

Method to control optical receiver implemented with semiconductor optical amplifier and method to control optical communication

SUMITOMO ELECTRIC DEVICE INNOVATIONS, INC.


A vehicle mirror system includes a mirror unit which is held in space and supported above the front fender of the vehicle by support arms, the distal end of which is connected to the vehicle fender by suitable bracketry. The mounting bracketry is also utilized to affix and hold in place a visor which has a portion that extends generally between the headlight of the vehicle and the mirror unit to prevent at least a substantial portion of stray light from the headlight from reaching the mirror unit.

The present invention relates to a vehicle mirror, and more particularly to a shield or visor for preventing light from a vehicle headlight or headlight cluster of lights from reaching the mirror.
Motor vehicles, in particular larger vehicles such as buses, trucks and the like, require an array of mirrors mounted on exterior surfaces of such vehicles in order to improve the visibility and field of view of the driver in and around the vehicle. Typically, an automotive mirror element has attached to it a staff or pole and that pole is secured within a mount which is in turn attached to the body of the vehicle. One type of mirror is a parabolic or cross-view mirror that is traditionally used on school buses to permit the driver to see directly in front of the bus as well as to the side, which would normally not be visible without the aid of such a mirror. Such a mirror is illustrated in FIG. 1. As seen in FIG. 1, a cross-view mirror is mounted at the foremost corners of the vehicle. A drawback associated with these types of cross-view mirrors is that with aerodynamically designed headlights as shown in FIG. 1, there is the possibility of light from the headlight being reflected in the mirror.


A protective, sanitary cover for use on a shopping cart, infant seat and similar child seating devices. The cover is a strong, absorbent material having tabs which carry fasteners to secure the cover in place. Perforated areas are provided which can be removed or punched out to allow the child""s legs to extend through the cover and through the openings, such as the leg receiving openings in a shopping cart seat.

The present invention relates to a protective sanitary cover and more particularly relates to a protective cover to shield children from germs and dirt that may be found on shopping carts, high chairs, infant seats, and similar publicly used seating devices. The cover the present invention also provides insulation and comfort to a child or infant within a shopping cart or infant seat.
Parents and custodians often place infants and small children in seating devices and conveyances such as shopping carts, infant seats, and strollers. Placing infants or young children in the child seats of public shopping carts presents the problems of sanitation and comfort. Since shopping carts and infant seats are available at such locations such as supermarkets, shopping malls and the like, these items are used by the public. Generally, these devices are not washed or disinfected between uses. Because of the repeated use of these devices by the public, these devices present problems of sanitation. Germs left as a result of the repeated use can easily be passed to the child occupant as a result of the child coming in contact with the shopping cart, car seat, public high chair, publicly used strollers.
Parents and custodians have become aware of this problem and employ a number of approaches to minimize the spread of germs to an infant or child using an infant seat, shopping cart seat, public high chair, the like. Some parents simply attempt to disinfect the device by use of disinfectant sprays or products such as disinfectant wipes which may be carried in a purse or pocket and unpackaged and used to wipe the surfaces. The difficulty with this approach is that it is virtually impossible for the parent or guardian to reach all of the surfaces particularly in an object such as a shopping cart.
Various prior art patents show covers for the protection of small children. U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,937 discloses a handle cover for a shopping cart which is formed from a padded fabric strip. Velcro fasteners are provided for securing the strip around the handle of a conventional shopping cart. The cover provides protection against germs, dirt and disease to small children riding in the shopping cart seat. A seat cover for providing added protection and comfort to the child riding in shopping cart seat includes strap fasteners for attachment to the handle cover. The seat cover and handle cover may be folded to compact sizes for convenient storage and transportation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,883,701 shows a disposable infant seat liner with shoulder straps receiving slotways and leg or crotch strap receiving slotways designed to fit infant seat liners having various strap placements. Infant seat handle or strap receiving slotways may also be included and may be of an arcuate shape for receiving infant carrier handles or waist straps. The strap receiving slotways may be selectively open by a user and may also be perforated to facilitate to selective opening.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,437 shows a portable, collapsible child safety seat for use within a shopping cart. The portable, collapsible child safety seat comprises a seat support frame securable to an interior rear wall of the shopping cart wherein the seat support frame comprises the first L-shape member and a second L-shaped member. The portable, collapsible child safety seat further comprises a collapsible seating member for suspending a child within the shopping cart.
A liner for a shopping cart child seat is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,250. The apparatus supports a seated infant in a shopping cart. Side members comfortably support the infant in an upright position while allowing the infant to move his head and arms freely. The backrest is padded and made of flexible material that conforms to an infants posture when seated. The base is padded and has an extension providing additional comfort to the infants legs when seated. An attachment strap holds the liner into the child""s seat while a restraining strap holds the child within the liner. The upper portion of the backrest folds down for easy storage and transportation of the liner when not in use. The liner is specifically configured to work cooperatively with the wire basket construction shopping cart having protruding wires which provide discomfort to a child sitting within the child seat without a liner.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,888 shows a shopping cart child seat cover made from pliable material having a seat section, a back section, a front section and two side sections. The seat section is sized and shaped to fit on the top of a seat bottom of a child seat portion of a shopping cart. Cover fasteners are positioned on portions of the back section of the child seat cover at which a portion of the back section that is positioned against a back wall the child seat engages a container side portion of the back section and hangs down over the top of the back wall of the child seat. In like manner, cover fasteners are provided on portions of the front and side sections of the seat cover. The pliable material is designed to be washable, soft and cushiony. Optional features may include a safety belt, bottle holder, toy holder and cushions.
All of the various prior devices and approaches to the problem of infant sanitation and comfort may provide partial solutions to the problem, but have certain deficiencies. Some covers and liners are not disposable and therefore are bulky and must be carried with the parent and installed in the cart or other device at the time of use and require laundering between uses. Several covers are found on the market may be folded to a compact size for storage and unfolded at the time of use. However, these covers are sometimes difficult to attach and do not accommodate shopping carts, infant seats and infant carriers of different sizes. Accordingly, there exists a need for a sanitary cover which is convenient and compact and which can easily be carried by the child or custodian and deployed and easily installed at time of use. Further there exists a need for a cover which may be a single-use device which is disposable or which may be reused at the election of the parent or custodian.
In view of the deficiencies of the prior art as set forth above, the present invention provides an improved sanitary cover for one or more children in shopping carts, high chairs, infant seat strollers and similar conveyance and child seating devices. The present invention is a sanitary seat cover that protects children from dirt, debris, contaminants common to most public infant devices such as shopping carts, high chairs and the like. The cover is configured to fit seats of various sizes and will protect up to two toddlers, as for example, two toddlers as seated in the seat of a larger size shopping cart. The material is a strong, cross-fiber sheeting similar to that used for such applications as sanitary dentist office bibs. Preferably the material is coated on one side with impervious coating to repel moisture. The soft fiber side of the material presents a comfortable surface for the infant while the non-porous side creates a barrier to moisture and other elements that may exist on the seat""s surface.
The cover is reusable and, for example, could be used by a parent or guardian several times during a shopping excursion. The seat attaches to the cart by fasteners that may be loop and hook-type fasteners such as the type sold under the Trademark Velcro(copyright) may be adhesive tabs which may be easily deployed at the time of use. Preferably the material is a biodegradable material which will degrade safely and naturally once disposal has occurred. The cover is of a size so that is large enough to cover all the surfaces which the child or infant may encounter while using the cover and the cover is dimensioned to extend over the handle front, rear and opposite sides of the seat area of a shopping cart. Perforated areas are provided which can be removed as required by the parent or guardian to allow the child""s legs to extend through the cover and through the openings such as the leg receiving openings in a shopping cart frame.
While the present invention in intended primarily for use in connection with shopping carts, product is also suitable for other applications which a parent may require a sanitary shield including car seats, public high chairs, strollers and the like. The above other objects and advantages will be more fully understood and appreciated from the following description, claims and drawings in which:

Sanitary cover for shopping carts and the like


The present invention relates to display of visual content on a client device using server-side rasterization of visual content. Visual content is rendered on a server system, transformed into bitmaps compatible with the display attributes of a client device, and transmitted for display on the client device. The invention allows the server to perform, in effect, as a remote browser for displaying Web pages, e-mail, e-mail attachments, electronic document and forms, database queries and results, drawings, presentations, and images at the client device. The approach is “remote” because the server does the rendering and the client provides the interface; “multi-level” because rendered visual content is represented as a multi-level set of raster representations; and constitutes a “browsing system” because the client and server share data about the source visual content element being browsed, and the client performs a specific browsing function assisted by the server.

Rendering is the process of converting visual content such as electronic documents (e.g., word-processing documents), spreadsheets, Web pages, electronic forms and electronic mail (e-mail) into an image format useful for generating a display. In some instances, a rendered image requires additional processing to convert it into data that can be viewed on a particular display device or class of display devices. For example, rendered image data can be represented in a canonical pixel resolution and format, which are then transformed into a bitmap for display on a particular display device or class of display devices.
The term "rasterizing" as used herein describes the process of generating a displayable bitmap image from input data. Rasterizing can include a rendering step, when the input data is in a non-image (or "source") form. A bitmap includes any ordered sequence of pixel data defining a displayable image, and can include, for example, data representing bi-tonal, grayscale, RGB, hue and saturation, and chrominance and luminance values. Thus, each visual content element of an image or other displayable file is accessed, interpreted and rasterized as a bitmap according to the display attributes of a display surface, which receives the rendered image. The contents of the display surface are then "painted" onto a bitmap display device.
Client-side rendering is a common method for rendering visual content. The client system in a client-server architecture controls a display device that displays the rendered visual content for viewing by the user. The client system generally includes a processor, memory, and bitmap display, and may be, for example, a personal computer (PC). The client accesses and then renders and displays the visual content. If client-side rendering requires the client to download and execute dynamic content, then the client is susceptible to viruses and other unwanted interference from outside sources.
Content layout and design intent are important considerations in the rendering of visual content. Visual content, such as a Web page, is generally designed to convey specific information and achieve a desired viewer reaction. This design is implicitly embedded in the "coding" of the visual content and its constituent component(s). Interpreting this coding is part of the rendering function. Typically, content layout is based on PC displays. Currently, there is relative uniformity in client processing power, memory, display attributes and software environment due, in part, to the widespread use of MICROSOFT WINDOWS and similar operating systems. Consequently, the display of visual content is relatively uniform for most viewers.
As wireless networking becomes widely accepted and new intelligent client devices (e.g., Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and cellular telephones) are introduced to the public, the reliance on client-side rendering may begin to decrease. Processing power, memory, and software implementation will soon vary significantly among different client devices, overturning long-standing assumptions about the preferred layout of visual content; the diversity of display formats and capabilities will require new methods of providing visual content to a viewer using such client devices.
Content transcoding is one approach that addresses some of the problems of display rendering on new classes of client devices. Transcoding is an operation in which a visual content element is converted from one source format to another, before a rasterizing (or rendering) function is performed. In content transcoding, constituent components of the visual content are analyzed, and a new set of constituent components is generated by a gateway server. Content transcoding is generally based on client-side display rendering of the "re-mapped" content. Re-mapping includes various conversions of the constituent components of the visual content to accommodate the rendering capabilities of the client device.
The transcoding function can include filtering or extractive steps, where certain types of encoded content are converted, transformed or removed from the derived source representation. Transcoding can also perform a complete translation from one source encoding format to another. Transcoding can be lossless (all of the visually significant encoding and data are preserved) or lossy (some portions are not preserved).
For example, an HTML document can be rendered by an HTML rendering function in one rasterizing mode. This HTML source can also be transcoded to a WML (Wireless Markup Language) format and then rasterized by a WML rendering function in a second rasterizing mode. The two different representations can be associated as a multi-modal set, based on their relationship to the original HTML-encoded visual content element.
Transcoding can also be used to generate a different version of the source visual content element using the same encoding format as the original. For example, an HTML document can be transcoded into another HTML document, while changing, translating or removing certain encoded data. For example, references to unwanted or objectionable content can be removed, automatic language translation can be applied to text components, or layout directives can be removed or changed to other layout directives.
Many current Web pages are defined in HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Some wireless telephones are programmed to render documents based on the Wireless Access Protocol (WAP). One type of transcoding gateway reads the HTML for the Web page and attempts to re-map this into equivalent WAP content. The wireless telephone then uses client-side rendering to render the WAP content for viewing on its bitmap display.
Transcoding can significantly alter the layout or contents of the re-mapped visual content as compared to the original, requiring sophisticated algorithms to preserve as much of the original intent as possible. An alternative to transcoding is to represent the same visual content in multiple forms, each form appropriate for client-side rendering on a given class of client devices. While not as technically challenging as transcoding, the additional time and cost to maintain multiple versions of the same content can be substantial.

Visual content browsing using rasterized representations


The present invention provides methods of purifying adeno-associated virus (AAV) particles. These AAV particles include AAV2, AAV4 and AAV5 particles. The present invention also provides AAV particles purified by the methods of the present invention.

The availability of high titer, high purity, AAV2 stocks has dramatically increased the understanding of this virus and its utility as a gene transfer vector. The rapid development of adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) as a vector system is the result of improvements in the production and purification of the virions. Gene-transfer vectors based on AAV have gained popularity due to a combination of attractive features. Wild type AAV is naturally defective for replication and considered to be nonpathogenic. Recombinant AAV vectors do not contain viral genes and can transduce both mitotic and post-mitotic cells (Alexander et al., 1994; Kaplitt et al., 1994; Russell et al., 1994; McCown et al., 1996). Efficient long-term gene transfer has been reported in a number of cell types including eye, CNS, and muscle (McCown et al., 1996; Xiao et al., 1996; Flannery et al., 1997; Snyder et al., 1997). Most pre-clinical studies and current Phase I clinical trials use vectors derived from AAV2. However, vectors derived from other AAV serotypes such as AAV4 and AAV5 have proven to be more efficient in transducing certain cell types than AAV2 and could be resistant to neutralizing antibodies against AAV2 (Rutledge et al., 1998). The difference in transduction efficiencies for these serotypes appears to be the result of different mechanisms of uptake (Chiorini et al., 1997; Chiorini et al., 1999). Therefore, gene therapy vectors based on other serotypes of AAV may be useful for transducing cell types that are not efficiently transduced by AAV2 or when there are neutralizing antibodies against AAV2.
Recent advances in the production and purification of high titer rAAV vector stocks have facilitated the transition to human clinical trials. The use of affinity chromatography based on AAV2s interaction with heparin sulfate has replaced density gradient centrifugation for purification of rAAV2. Additional improvements in rAAV stock preparations include the use of deoxycholate treatment of the cell lysate, iodixanol gradient separation prior to the affinity chromatography, have resulted in high titer rAAV2 (Clark et al., 1999; Zolotukhin et al., 1999). While this method is a significant improvement over CsCl gradient centrifugation alone, the procedure results in recovery of less than 50% of the starting transducing virus. The preparation also contains a significant percentage of empty particles, which could decrease the therapeutic index of the preparation. O'Riordan et al. have developed a scalable two-step purification procedure using ion-exchange chromatography followed by sulphate affinity chromatography (O'Riordan et al., 2000). However, not all AAV serotypes bind to heparan sulfate on the cell surface. Transduction with either AAV4 or AAV5 is insensitive to heparin sulfate competition, indicating distinct interactions for these serotypes. Instead, both AAV4 and AAV5 require sialic acid on the cell surface for binding and transduction (Kaludov et al., 2001). Thus the affinity chromatography approach used for AAV2 will not be useful for purifying these isolates.
The present invention provides a simple ion exchange method for purifying different AAV serotypes (AAV2, 4 and 5) that does not rely on the affinity of the virus for heparin sulfate or sialic acid. The procedure is fast, reproducible, efficient, and yields highly purified rAAV. It is also easily amenable for large-scale production of clinical grade vector. The final rAAV stock consists primarily of full particles as analyzed by electron microscopy. HPLC-purified virus also shows an improved particle-to-infectivity ratio compared to virus purified by conventional CsCl density gradients. This new purification method will facilitate high titer, high purity production of rAAV4 and rAAV5 and will further their development as gene transfer vectors for clinical applications.

Scalable purification of AAV2, AAV4 or AAV5 using ion-exchange chromatography

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary Department of Health and Human Services, NIH.


An LNG storage container carrier includes: one or more cargo holds provided on a hull such that upper portions thereof are opened; a plurality of first and second upper supports installed on the cargo holds in a width direction and a length direction to partition the upper portions of the cargo holds into a plurality of openings, wherein storage containers are vertically inserted into the openings and supported; and a lower support installed under the cargo holds and supporting the bottoms of the storage containers inserted into the openings. Accordingly, it is possible to efficiently and stably transport the storage containers storing LNG or PLNG pressurized at a predetermined pressure. Such storage containers may be transported through simple modification of the existing container carrier.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage container carrier, and more particularly, to an LNG storage container carrier, which is capable of efficiently and stably transporting LNG storage containers and capable of reducing manufacturing costs and time.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a cryogenic liquid produced by cooling natural gas (predominantly methane) to a cryogenic state of −162° C. at atmospheric pressure. The LNG takes up about 1/600th the volume of natural gas. The LNG is colorless and transparent. It has been known that the LNG is cost-efficient in terms of a long-distance transportation because of high transportation efficiency as compared to a gaseous state.
Since a large amount of cost is spent in the construction of production plants and the building of carriers, the LNG has been applied to a large-scale long-distance transportation in order for cost reduction. On the other hand, it has been known that a pipeline or compressed natural gas (CNG) is cost-efficient in terms of small-scale short-distance transportation. However, the transportation using the pipeline may have geographical restrictions and cause environmental pollution, and the CNG has low transportation efficiency.
A conventional method for distributing LNG to consumption places requires high costs and has difficulty in flexibly responding to various demands of consumption places. Also, since it is necessary to provide separate storage tanks at the consumption places, high infrastructure costs are needed and a lot of time and effort to unload LNG are needed.
In addition, natural gas has a liquefaction point of −163° C. at atmospheric pressure. If a predetermined pressure is applied, the liquefaction point of the natural gas further increases than at the atmospheric pressure. This characteristic may reduce processing steps in a liquefaction process, such as acid gas removal and natural gas liquid (NGL) fractionation. This leads to a reduction in facilities and facility capacity. Therefore, the LNG production costs may be reduced.
However, a conventional LNG storage tank installed in a vessel having a gasification facility or an LNG terminal has a limitation in size. In addition, it is unsuitable for cost-efficient storage of LNG while reflecting the above-described LNG characteristic. It is difficult to easily transport LNG to consumption places according to consumer's various demands.
To solve the above problems, a storage container for storing and carrying general LNG or PLNG pressurized at a predetermined pressure has been developed.
Such LNG storage containers are difficult to transport by a conventional LNG carrier or cargo ship. Therefore, there is a need for developing a carrier that can efficiently and stably transport an LNG storage container and can reduce manufacturing costs and time.

Ship for transporting a liquefied natural gas storage container

DAEWOO SHIPBUILDING & MARINE ENGINEERING CO., LTD.


An electrically powered axial-flow fan has a hub to house the motor and support the fan blades. Small blades or vanes on the inside of the hub function as a radial-flow blower to draw cooling air through cooling ports on the electric motor housing. The vanes inside the hub cooperate with a flange surrounding the motor to form a low pressure chamber under the hub to improve cooling flow through the motor. This motor cooling air flow is then ejected into the exhaust stream of the axial-flow fan.

An engine cooling fan and electric motor assembly is used to provide radiator and A/C condenser cooling airflow in engine compartments of many vehicles. The engine compartment itself is a high-temperature environment. To complicate matters, the motor generates its own internal heat during the normal course of operation. The internally generated heat is primarily due to Joule heating caused by electric current passing through its rotor and stator coils, and brush losses. High temperatures can greatly increase the wear of motor brushes and bearings, and significantly reduce motor life.
One solution to these problems is to provide cooling holes 44a, 44b in FIG. 4, to admit cooling air through the motor 22. The invention provides additional strategies to cool motor 22.

Fan hub assembly for effective motor cooling


A turbocharger system for use with an internal combustion engine includes an assisting motor-generator and control for enhancing turbocharged internal combustion engine performance with reduced losses inherent to turbochargers incorporating waste gates. The controlled assisting motor-generator provides enhanced turbocharger boost with reduced turbo lag below a boost pressure limit, and can generate electric current at high exhaust gas flow rates.

Turbochargers are well known and widely used with internal combustion engines for the purpose of increasing power output, decreasing fuel consumption and emissions, and compensating for air density loss during operation at high altitudes. Generally, turbochargers supply an increased charge air supply for the combustion process than can otherwise be induced through natural aspiration by utilizing exhaust gas energy to drive an air compressor. This increased air supply allows more fuel to be burned, thereby increasing power and output not otherwise obtainable from an engine having a given cylinder displacement under natural aspiration conditions. Additional benefits include the possibility of using lower-displacement, lighter engines with corresponding lower total vehicle weight to reduce fuel consumption, and use of available production engines to achieve improved performance characteristics and to accomplish a combination of increased power with reduced fuel consumption.
Some turbocharger applications include the incorporation of an intercooler for removing heat (both an ambient heat component and heat generated during charge air compression) from the charge air before it enters the engine, thereby providing an even more dense air charge to be delivered to the engine cylinders. Intercooled turbocharging applied to internal combustion engines such as diesel engines has been known to significantly increase the power output of a given engine size, in comparison with naturally aspirated engines of the same engine displacement.
Additional advantages of turbocharging include improvements in thermal efficiency through the use of some energy of the exhaust gas stream that would otherwise be lost to the environment, and the maintenance of sea level power ratings up to high altitudes.
At medium to high engine speeds, there is an abundance of energy in the engine exhaust gas stream and, over this operating speed range, the turbocharger is capable of supplying the engine cylinders with all the air needed for efficient combustion and maximum power and torque output for a given engine construction. In certain applications, however, an exhaust stream waste gate, i.e., vent, is needed to bleed off excess energy in the engine exhaust stream before it enters the turbocharger turbine to prevent the engine from being overcharged. Typically, the waste gate is set to open at a pressure below which undesirable predetonation or an unacceptably high internal engine cylinder pressure may be generated.
However, the turbocharged engine suffers an inherent deficiency in that at very low engine speeds, there is insufficient gas energy in the exhaust stream as may be found at higher engine speeds to produce significant levels of air charge pressure, and this energy deficiency prevents the turbocharger from providing a significant and readily available level of boost in the engine intake air system at low engine speeds. As a result, there is appreciable time lag between the time when the throttle is opened for the purpose of accelerating the engine from low speeds, such as idle speed, and when the turbocharger rotor is running fast enough to produce enough air charge pressure (boost pressure) to produce the desired acceleration while eliminating noticeable amounts of smoke when the engine is accelerated. Fuel control devices, such as rack limiters or aneroid controls, have been employed in the prior art to limit the amount of fuel delivered to the engine cylinder until the turbocharger is running fast enough to deliver sufficient air to produce generally smoke-free combustion. However, these fuel limiting devices are known to cause a noticeably slower response to throttle opening (turbo lag), with a corresponding sluggishness in engine and vehicle response.
Turbochargers are capable of very efficient operation at the mass flow and pressure conditions for which they are designed. However, when operated beyond design flow and pressure parameters, the component efficiencies of the turbine and compressor decrease. For example, if a turbocharger is designed and optimized to run at peak efficiency at the maximum speed and load range of a particular engine, then the efficiencies of the turbine and compressor components will likely be compromised at low engine speeds. In order to increase the amount of air delivered to the engine at or below torque peak, the turbocharger turbine is matched to the low engine speed range by decreasing the throat area of the turbine casing to increase the gas velocity entering the turbine wheel. This increases the rotational speed of the turbocharger rotor, but also imposes a higher back pressure in the engine exhaust system which is detrimental to engine performance especially at higher engine speeds and loads.
Specifically, an undesirable consequence of reducing the turbine casing throat area is that the smaller throat area causes the turbocharger rotor to "over-speed" when the engine is run at maximum load and speed and produces an air charge pressure which may exceed design limits due to an excess of exhaust gas energy at high engine speeds and loads. This consequence necessitates the use of a "waste gate" or exhaust gas bypass valve in the exhaust system that vents a portion of the exhaust gas stream outside of the turbine and limits the rotor speed to a fixed value. As a result, the maximum air charge pressure over the high engine speed range is limited to maintain engine cylinder pressures at controlled levels while effectively preventing operation above those constrained levels.
Typically, however, turbochargers are matched to existing engines to have good performance in the middle of the engine speed range, usually at the speed where maximum torque is required and generally not at maximum engine speed and load. Accordingly, this matching procedure also generally requires a waste gate in the exhaust system to prevent turbocharger over-speed at maximum engine speeds and loads in the manner described above. Regardless of how the turbocharger is matched, however, there is still a deficiency in exhaust gas flow at engine speeds below torque peak and at low engine speeds including idle speed.
The turbo lag period and deficiency in performance of the turbocharger at low engine speed and during acceleration can be mitigated and, in many instances, virtually eliminated by using an external power source to assist the turbocharger in responding to engine speed and load increases. One such method is to use an external electrical energy supply, such as energy stored in d.c. batteries to power an electric motor attached to the turbocharger rotating assembly that applies torque to the turbocharger rotor to maintain or increase rotor speed at low engine exhaust flow rates in order to supply sufficient charge air to reduce smoke and emissions during acceleration of the engine.
Turbocharging systems with integral assisting motors are more completely described in our pending U.S. patent applications Ser. Nos. 08/529,672 and 08/680,671, such disclosures being incorporated herein by reference.
Accordingly, there is still a need for an improved internal combustion engine system which improves engine performance, low-speed engine response and reduced emissions characteristics of a conventional internal combustion engine and an improved turbocharging system for controlling and optimizing turbocharged engine performance.

Motor-generator assisted turbocharging systems for use with internal combustion engines and control method therefor


The ink cartridge comprises a cartridge body with an ink chamber. On one side of the cartridge body is provided an ink supply port, and an air channel is positioned on the opposite side. The ink chamber is composed of a main chamber and a communicating sub-chamber, and ink-out inspection prism being provided close to the communicating portion. A check valve through which the sub-chamber is communicated with the ink supply port is provided sideways between the sidewalls adjacent to the ink supply port. In this invention, the nominal volume of each ink cartridge is increased, and there is no such problem that a certain amount of ink continues to be fed after the ink-out indicative signal being sent out in case of no porous material. Further, the technical solution of the sideways-provided check valve improves the manufacturability and the ink supply stability.

The publication of the Chinese patent application CN1252353A discloses an invention named by "Ink tank, assembly and printing device using the assembly", the structure of the ink cartridge thereof has been described by an embodiment shown in FIG. 5 of CN1252353A. This ink cartridge is a type of the one having two chambers, an ink absorbent material, an ink supply port, and an air hole communicated with the atmosphere are provided in one chamber. The other chamber is a liquid storing chamber that is substantially closed. These two chambers are communicated with each other through a channel formed near the bottom portion of a partition wall. As the print head consumes the ink absorbed by the ink absorbent material, ink in the liquid storing chamber will be supplied to the ink absorbent material through the communicating channel between these two chambers. When the negative pressure in the liquid storing chamber has increased gradually during the ink supply, air then comes from the air hole and through the ink absorbent material will be supplied into the liquid storing chamber via the communicating channel, as a result of which the negative pressure in the liquid storing chamber will decrease, forming a substantially constant negative pressure applied to the print head. Therefore, ink supplied to the print head is kept stable. Furthermore, at the bottom of the liquid storing chamber, there is a triangular prism having a shape of an isosceles triangle whose apical angle is 90°. This prism together with a photoelectric device in the printer constitute an ink-out detection mechanism, the detecting principle of which is as follows: when the ink cartridge is sufficiently filled with ink, once the incident light comes to a plane that contains one oblique portion of the triangle, it will refract into the ink and be absorbed by the ink, so there may not any light signal received by a photoreceptor; when ink is consumed to be below the refracting point of the prism, the incident light will be reflected twice respectively by two planes that contain two oblique portions of the triangle respectively, and then comes to the photoreceptor parallelly, after the photoreceptor has received the light signal, the printer will send an ink-out indicative signal.
It should be pointed out that, sending the ink-out indicative signal by the printer only means that there is not any ink in the liquid storing chamber, while the other chamber still has a certain amount of ink because of the capillary action of the ink absorbent material therein. Therefore, even having received the ink-out indicative signal, a user still may continue to print for a certain amount. This offers an advantage to the printer user that he may deal with the subsequent printing operation. For example, after having received the ink-out signal, the user may continue to print numbers of the standard sheets in general. If the page numbers to be printed are beyond this number, it will be preferable to replace the ink cartridge, so as to avoid doing it at the midcourse of printing on several pages.
Furthermore, the present applicant once developed an ink cartridge, which mainly consists of: a gasbag assembly, which is made up of a cartridge body, a cap, a gasbag seating, a gasbag and an elastic retainer ring; a check valve assembly, which is made up of a valve cap, a valve body and a filter; and a sealing ring disposed in the ink supply port, the moving direction or the center line of the valve body is parallel with the center line of the ink supply port.
The most serious problem about the ink cartridge that takes the first structure described above is that the ink amount contained in each ink cartridge is relatively low. The ink absorbent material generally makes use of a sponge, which will occupy most volume of the chamber, so the volume used for storing ink becomes small relatively.
The cartridge taking the second structure described above has been used in some types of the printers and has achieved a good effect for ink supply. But with regard to some high-speed inkjet printers, in which the ink cartridge and the print head move back and forth simultaneously with a high speed, the acceleration at the turn-back point may be extremely high. In this case, the periphery of the valve body whose centerline is perpendicular to its moving direction will be subject to the inertia effect. The valve body made of rubber has a certain length in the axial direction, so a hole on the valve body will lose its stability and deform under the inertia effect applied to its periphery. Although this deformation can recover immediately after the inertia force has disappeared, there is still a certain amount of ink passing through the check valve, which ought to be in close state, during the deformation and the recovery. This will result in the ink to be excessively supplied, decreasing the printing quality.
Furthermore, with respect to some types of the printers, such as a color inkjet printer using five color cartridges, the chamber of the cartridge is so narrow that the dimension needed to dispose the check valve in a certain direction is smaller or slightly larger than the minimum dimension required for mounting the valve assembly, thus causing this ink cartridge not able to be assembled or causing the assembling to become difficult. Accordingly, assembling the ink cartridge equipped with the check valve in a narrow ink chamber will decrease the pass rate of products.
In addition, the ink cartridge using a check valve to control the ink supply has a certain space between an outlet of the check valve and the ink supply port. Generally, in order to prevent the ink from volatilizing, the ink supply port of an unused ink cartridge is always sealed with a sealing membrane or a sealing cap. However, with respect to some types of the printers that employ an ink supply needle to pierce the sealing membrane and to come into the ink supply port, when the ink supply needle is coming into the space described above, the ink in this space will be probably subject to an instant extrusion because of the reverse cut-off provided by the check valve. As a result of this, the ink will drop out along with the ink supply needle, contaminating the printer or the printing medium. Furthermore, when the ink cartridges are produced by a negative pressure ink-filling method, this space can not draw the negative pressure from the ink supply port located in the cartridge cap, causing the ink not to be filled or to be insufficiently filled into this space. Some printers with print heads having small self-sucking force will occur such a phenomenon during use that the ink is discontinuously supplied.

Print-Rite Unicorn Image Products, Co., Ltd.


Resource management architectures implemented in computer systems to manage resources are described. In one embodiment, a general architecture includes a resource manager and multiple resource providers that support one or more resource consumers such as a system component or application. Each provider is associated with a resource and acts as the manager for the resource when interfacing with the resource manager. The resource manager arbitrates access to the resources provided by the resource providers on behalf of the consumers. A policy manager sets various policies that are used by the resource manager to allocate resources. One policy is a priority-based policy that distinguishes among which applications and/or users have priority over others to use the resources. A resource consumer creates an “activity” at the resource manager and builds one or more “configurations” that describe various sets of preferred resources required to perform the activity. Each resource consumer can specify one or more configurations for each activity. If multiple configurations are specified, the resource consumer can rank them according to preference. This allows the resource consumers to be dynamically changed from one configuration to another as operating conditions change.

Computers are evolving well beyond their traditional desktop roots. In addition to conventional desktop applications (e.g., word processing, spreadsheets, email, etc.), today's personal computers (PCs) are asked to play audio and video files, play music CDs (compact discs), receive and display broadcast programming, and so forth. Much of this evolution is being driven by the continued convergence of computing, Internet, telephony, and entertainment technologies.
As a result, the look, feel, and functionality of computers are continuing to evolve for different consumer and operating environments. For instance, computers designed for home entertainment might be implemented as a set-top box or a game console, equipped with browser software, one or more tuners, EPG (electronic programming guide) software, different audio/video drivers, and gaming softward. Computers designed for office use may resemble conventional desktop PCs in appearance, but be implemented with broadcast tuners, DVD (digital video disks) drives, stereo speakers with surround sound, and so forth, to offer a more enhanced computing experience. The variety and funtionality of portable computers are even wider ranging as the demands of the mobile user increase.
As computers are asked to perform more diverse tasks, it is not uncommon for users to expect performance of multiple tasks simultaneously. Due to this increasing user demand, there is more demand being placed on the existing resources to handle the various tasks. This unfortunately leads to a greater likelihood that the computer may not have sufficient resources at a requested time to accomplish all of the tasks simultaneously.
This resource shortfall is perhaps most evident for computers designed for the home entertainment environment. Such computers must not only be able to perform multiple functions simultaneously, but must also satisfy the demands of multiple different users. For instance, one user may request that the entertainment computer record a program at a specific time while another user may request the computer to tune to a different program at the same time. This a problem if the computer only has one tuner because it cannot possibly accomplish both tasks concurrently.
In such situations, the computer is at a loss to distinguish which task should be performed and which should not. Today, applications obtain resources on firt-come or last-come basis. Accordingly, the applications control resource allocation irrespective of the user' desires. In the above example, if the television application seizes control of the tuner over the recorder application, the television application will control the resource (i.e., tuner) even though the users may be far more interested in recording the first program rather than watching the second program. Once the application obtains the resource, the resource is held by the application until it explicitly relinquishes the resource.
Thus, as the demand for resources continues to grow, there is greater need for techniques to manage the resources and their allocation to different users and/or applications.

Resource manager architecture with resource allocation utilizing priority-based preemption


Cigarette filters are supplied to the infeed portion (1) of a filter tip attachment machine by a unit (2) comprising rollers (11) which divert the filters (3) into an upstream hopper (8), and a channel (9) carrying the filters (3) from the upstream hopper (8) to a downstream hopper (4) where they are released to the infeed portion (1) of the machine. Located between the infeed rollers (11) and the feed channel (9) is a variable volume storage buffer (16) with a movable wall (28) attached to the top branch (23) of a conveyor belt (24); the Belt is driven by a motor (27) interlocked to sensors (31) which monitor and control the level of the mass of filters (3) occupying the upstream hopper (8), so that the size and capacity of the buffer (16) can be adjusted to accommodate fluctuations in the flow of filters through the hopper (8).

Conventional filter tip attachment machines are associated typically with filter makers designed to form a continuous filter rod such as can be advanced longitudinally though a cutter head and divided into discrete sticks of length corresponding to a multiple of the length of the filter tip attached to a single cigarette. The cut sticks are then intercepted and fed along a direction transverse to the longitudinal direction followed by the rod, utilizing diverter devices of conventional type such as will convert the axial movement the stick into a movement transverse to its longitudinal axis, and directed thus into the infeed hopper of a filter tip attachment machine. Thereafter, the filter sticks are taken up from the bottom of the hopper onto a roller with peripheral flutes and, still advancing in a direction transverse to their longitudinal axes, conveyed into a further cutting station where they are cut transversely in such a way as to generate double length filter plugs, that is to say plugs twice the length of the filter tip associated with a single cigarette.
It has been found that conventional units for feeding filters as outlined above are unable, when used in combination with ultra high speed filter tip attachment machines of the current generation, to guarantee a constant and correctly ordered supply of filter sticks to the hopper.
In addition, the feed units currently in use are not able to ensure a swift and precise compensation of differences in output between the filter making and filter tip attachment machines.
The object of the present invention is to provide a unit for feeding filters to a filter tip attachment machine that will be unaffected by the drawbacks mentioned above.

Unit for feeding filters to a filter tip attachment machine


Methods are provided for dynamically defining network access control rules. A placeholder for a parameter of an interface to an endpoint such as a data processing system or virtual machine may be provided in a network access control rule, instead of a static parameter. The parameter may be dynamically determined, by a firewall or a hypervisor for example, and the placeholder may be replaced with the dynamically determined parameter.

The present invention relates to methods for defining network access control rules. A network access control rule may be used by a data processing system to filter packets sent to and received from an endpoint. For example, a firewall hosted on a network component may have one or more network access control rules that it uses to filter packets sent to or received from one or more data processing systems behind the firewall. As another example, a hypervisor may have one or more network access control rules that it uses to filter packets sent to or received from one or more logical or "virtual" machines under the hypervisor's control.
One or more network control rules often are defined for each individual endpoint. However, as more endpoints such as data processing systems and virtual machines are added to networks, data centers and cloud computing systems, more network access rules are required to filter packets sent to and received from these endpoints. Some systems may have hundreds or even thousands of endpoints. Accordingly, scalability becomes an issue as the cost of administration and management of network access control rules increases.
These issues may arise both in the context of a plurality of physical data processing systems behind a network control system such as a firewall, as well as in the context of a plurality of virtual machines. For example, one or more virtual machines may be hosted on a data processing system and may share the data processing system's resources. A hypervisor may control and/or manage these virtual machines. An administrator that wishes to impose a general policy that is applicable to each virtual machine may be required to define a separate network access control rule for each virtual machine. For example, an administrator may wish to define a separate rule for dropping egress packets from each virtual machine where the egress packets have source MAC addresses that does not match the virtual machine's MAC address (e.g., to prevent MAC address spoofing).

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Dynamically defining rules for network access

International Business Machines Corporation


A first node that transmits TCP packets to and receives TCP packets from a second node splits a target TCP packet throughput across multiple consecutive time slots, each slot having a target throughput value. If a current slot's achieved throughput value does not match the current slot's target throughput value, the target throughput value for the current slot and/or a subsequent slot is adjusted. Transmit throughput from the first node to the second node is controlled by transmitting TCP packets from the first node to the second node according to a target throughput value for the current slot. Receive throughput from the second node to the first node is controlled by dynamically calculating an advertised receive window size according to a target throughput value for the current slot and communicating the advertised receive window size to the second node.

Devices such as firewalls, server load balancers, and deep packet inspection devices intercept application traffic travelling over TCP connections and may forward them after some level of processing. Other devices operate as end points for TCP connections and may serve the application level requests received over those connections. For both types of devices, one measurement of performance is the rate at which they can process bytes coming from both directions (client and server) without any errors.
In order to measure this rate, a tool is needed which can initiate data from a client and receive data from server at a certain configured rate. An ideal approach could be to divide the configured rate among client and server and let each side generate data based the unidirectional rate calculated for that respective side. This approach has the disadvantage, however, that both sides must be controlled. For example, in a simple network in which a piece of test equipment communicates with a device under test (DUT), the tester can directly control how much traffic it transmits to the DUT but is not likely to be able to directly control how much traffic the DUT transmits to the tester. Even if the DUT can be directly controlled by the tester, this approach works well only if both sides can generate data independent of each other.
For most ISO Layer 7 protocols, however, that is not the case. Most of the Layer 7 protocols are request/response based and hence the initiation rate of one side may be dependent upon the initiation rate of the other side. For example, the initiation rate of a server that provides responses to requests that are generated by a client is dependent upon the initiation rate of the requests. In a request/response protocol, the response rate is driven by the request rate; there is no mechanism by which the response rate can be controlled independently of the request rate. Even if the protocol did have such a mechanism, where the client and server are running on two different systems with timers that are not in sync with each other, it is difficult if not impossible to provide the coordination and control necessary to implement the ideal approach described above.
As a result of these limitations, a conventional approach is to attempt to control the bi-directional data rate from one end, e.g., via the client in a client-server arrangement. Although the client can directly control the rate of data transmitted, such as controlling the number of requests that are issued, and thus indirectly control the number of responses that the client can be expected to receive, the client cannot directly control the rate of data received. For example, a client has no direct control over a server's transmitted data rate. The same difficulty applies regardless of which end is being controlled. For example, when the server side is being controlled, the server's transmitted rate may be controlled but the server's received data rate, i.e., the clients transmitted data rate, cannot be controlled from the server side alone. Even when there is indirect control of the other party's data rate, such as where a request-response protocol is being used, conventional systems don't control the receive rate independently of the transmit rate.
Accordingly, in light of these difficulties associated with conventional solutions, there exists a need for methods, systems, and computer readable media for controlling both transmit and receive throughput over a TCP connection. Even more desirable is the ability to control both Tx and Rx throughput via a device that is either at one end of the connection or that intercepts traffic between the two ends of the connection.

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for controlling Tx and Rx throughput over TCP


Provided is a display panel including: an array substrate; an opposite substrate facing the array substrate and including a second base substrate and a common electrode disposed on the second base substrate; and a liquid crystal layer disposed between the array substrate and the opposite substrate. The array substrate includes: a first base substrate disposed in a display area and a non-display area; a photosensitive polymer organic layer disposed in a first non-display area and extending to a pad area, the photosensitive polymer organic layer having a taper shape at an end portion of the first non-display area; a thin film transistor disposed on the first base substrate in the display area; a pixel electrode connected to the thin film transistor; and a signal input pad connected to the thin film transistor and disposed on the photosensitive polymer organic layer in the pad area.

1. Field of Disclosure
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a display panel and a method of manufacturing the same. More particularly, exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a display panel capable of reducing a pad area connected to an external circuit module and a method of manufacturing the display panel.
2. Discussion of Background
In general, a display device includes a display panel for displaying an image and an external circuit module for applying various control signals to the display panel. The display panel and the external circuit module are accommodated in a receiving container, e.g., a chassis. In addition, the display panel and the external circuit module are connected to each other through an electrical wiring member, such as a tape carrier package including a driver integrated circuit and a flexible printed circuit board.
The electrical wiring member is attached to a side portion of the display panel and connected to the external circuit module. Accordingly, the display panel includes an area to be connected to the external circuit module, and the receiving container secures a space in which the electrical wiring member is accommodated. In recent years, various researches have been performed to reduce the non-display area of the display panel, such as an area for the external circuit module and a space for the electrical wiring member.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and, therefore, it may contain information that does not form any part of the prior art nor what the prior art may suggest to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Display panel and method of manufacturing the same


A crochet galloon machine for warp knitting comprises a front grooved bar (4), a plurality of needles (5) disposed consecutively in side by side relationship along the front grooved bar (4) and movable with a reciprocating motion along a first direction (A), a plurality of eye-pointed needles (8) disposed in front of the needles (5), a plurality of threading tubes (10) disposed above the needles (5). An assembly of interacting levers imparts movement both to the needles 5 and the front grooved bar 4 and is adapted to give the latter an alternated motion component along a second direction (B) substantially parallel to the first motion direction (A), so as to accompany movement of the needles (5) in their longitudinal reciprocating motion and avoid very long needles (5), subject to bending vibrations, to be adopted.

It is known that in crochet galloon machines for warp knitting, such as crochet galloon looms of the type described in EP0393297, formation of the article of manufacture takes place at a front grooved bar having a horizontal extension and being rigidly supported, at the respective opposite ends, between two side posts being part of the machine base. Operating on the front grooved bar is a plurality of needles disposed consecutively in side by side relationship and simultaneously operated in a reciprocating motion in the direction of their longitudinal extension. A plurality of eye-pointed needles disposed consecutively in side by side relationship operate in front of the needles; they are parallel to the front grooved bar and supported by a guide bar engaged by means of the posts with possibility of sliding and carrying out angular oscillation on the longitudinal extension axis thereof. The guide bar is submitted to the combined action of transverse actuating means giving the eye-pointed needles a reciprocating motion in a direction parallel to the front grooved bar, as well as of angular oscillation means by effect of which the ends of the eye-pointed needles carry out a reciprocating motion in a substantially vertical direction, by alternately moving to a higher level and a lower level relative to the needles themselves.
Movements of the needles and the eye-pointed needles are synchronised in such a manner that when the needles are in a forward or advanced position towards the eye-pointed needles, the latter are in a raised position and carry out a translation motion, each moving from one side to the other of at least one respective needle. During this step the warp yarn of each eye-pointed needle is disposed on either side of the needle, so that it engages in the hooked portion provided on the end of the needle itself.
When the needles move backwards from the forward position, the warp yarn engaged in the hooked portion of each needle forms a loop that is guided through the loop of the knitting stitch formed in the preceding operating cycle, while the stitch itself, retained by the front grooved bar, is discharged from the needle end when said needle is about to reach the end of stroke of the back-moving step. Meanwhile, the eye-pointed needles are brought to a slightly lower level than the needles. When the needles are about to be brought back to the forward position, the eye-pointed needles are horizontally translated in a direction opposite to the horizontal movement previously carried out, so that the warp yarns form new knitting stitches sliding along the needles during the moving forward step. When the needles come close to the forward position again, the eye-pointed needles go back to a slightly higher level than said needles to give rise to a new knitting cycle.
Co-operation between needles and eye-pointed needles gives rise to a sequence of knitting stitches, forming a plurality of parallel chains moving little by little downwards from the front grooved bar.
The chains are further interlaced with the weft yarns carried by respective threading tubes operating above the needles, and disposed consecutively in side by side relationship, parallel to the front grooved bar. The threading tubes are supported by one or more carrier slide bars the opposite ends of which are slidably guided through lifting plates in turn slidably engaged in a vertical direction on the base posts.
Each carrier slide bar is submitted to the action of respective horizontal actuating means giving each threading tube a reciprocating motion parallel to the extension of the front grooved bar. The carrier slide bars are further simultaneously operated with a reciprocating oscillation in a vertical direction, upon command of a kinematic mechanism acting on the lifting plates.
Operation of the carrier slide bars is co-ordinated with that of the needles and the eye-pointed needles, so that each weft yarn is selectively laid on either side of one or more needles to pass below said needles when they reach the return end of stroke and start the advancing motion towards the eye-pointed needles again.
The weft yarn placed under the needles will be interknitted with the knitting stitches formed by the warp yarns in the subsequent operating cycle.
After the above statements, it is to be pointed out that within the field concerning development and improvement of the textile machines, in order to face the increasing market requirements, many efforts are spent in an attempt to increase productivity of the machines themselves and complexity of the articles of manufacture produced by them.
It is also to be pointed out that one of the greatest limitations is presently represented by the maximum number of carrier slide bars disposed in a fan-shaped conformation between the lifting plates to cause the ends of the respective threading tubes to converge as much as possible towards a common alignment direction.
Based on the above considerations it has been found that presently the greatest constraints to productivity of the crochet galloon machines is due to the fact that, to equip the machines with a great number of carrier slide bars, greater than sixteen, it is necessary to use very long needles projecting in overhanging from the needle bar, in order to enable them to reach all threading tubes without the needle bar interfering with the front grooved bar.
In fact, due to said important length, during reciprocation at high speed along their longitudinal extension, the needles would inevitably tend to bend.
These bending deformations bring to an inexact positioning of the individual needles relative to the threading tubes and the eye-pointed needles, and sometimes even to mechanical interferences with consequent risks of damaging and/or breaking these components.


A method and system are provided for the shaping and polishing of the surface of a material selected from the group consisting of electrically semi-conductive materials and conductive materials. An electrically non-conductive polishing lap incorporates a conductive electrode such that, when the polishing lap is placed on the material's surface, the electrode is placed in spaced-apart juxtaposition with respect to the material's surface. A liquid electrolyte is disposed between the material's surface and the electrode. The electrolyte has an electrochemical stability constant such that cathodic material deposition on the electrode is not supported when a current flows through the electrode, the electrolyte and the material. As the polishing lap and the material surface experience relative movement, current flows through the electrode based on (i) adherence to Faraday's Law, and (ii) a pre-processing profile of the surface and a desired post-processing profile of the surface.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the concurrent shaping and polishing of electrically-conductive materials. More specifically, the invention is method and system for deterministically shaping and polishing an electrically-conductive material by employing electrochemical and mechanical shaping/polishing at the same time.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical component fabrication using metals or ceramic materials involves many grinding and/or machining plus polishing steps to achieve the proper form to the tolerances required by imaging or photonic focusing instruments. Conventional manufacturing methods require many days or even months of precise shaping and polishing to improve selected areas of the component. This improvement comes from precise measurements and, usually, manual operations to apply additional polishing to the measured discrepancy.
More modern methods used to overcome the extreme obstacles of manufacturing precise optics (e.g., those used in space exploration or short wavelength light imaging) include selective ion plasma etching and magnetorheological polishing with ferro-fluids in a magnetic field. While both techniques can be accomplished with computer control, the methods are extremely costly and equipment intensive.
Ion plasma etching requires placement of the optical component in a vacuum chamber, expensive radio-frequency amplifiers, and vacuum compatible controllers to selectively remove "high" areas from the component. In order to measure the work progress, the vacuum must be released and the re-established thereby increasing processing time. Magnetorheological polishing with ferro-fluids in a magnetic field is precise, but requires additional loading on the part thereby limiting the minimum stiffness of delicate lightweight optical components. Further, these two deterministic methods require capital investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars, special operator training, and special facilities considerations. In addition, the size and/or geometry of the components that can be processed is limited to the size/geometry of the equipment.
Another polishing process known as chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is used to assist in the planarization of flat wafers. In this process, corrosive chemicals are mixed with polishing slurries to aid in substrate material removal by increasing the rate and in some cases improving the surface finish. The oxidation portion of the corrosion reaction is provided by an oxidizing substance such as hydrogen peroxide, nitric acid, perchloric acid, or ammonium persulfate, etc. Unfortunately, most of these oxidants are very hazardous. These processes are used with flat wafers, particularly silicon, for improved planarization. More recent processes have included electrochemical etching superimposed upon a chemical mechanical planarization process. However, no deterministic shaping is provided by these processes.

Electrochemical and mechanical polishing and shaping method and system

The United States of America as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration


A concrete breaking apparatus includes a wheeled support assembly having an open end to accommodate the variable positioning of an impact roller therebetween and a closed end opposite the open end. A frame having opposing longitudinal arms connected near one end so as to define open and closed end portions is pivotably supported by the wheeled support assembly on pivot arms which connect the frame to the wheeled support assembly. An impact roller is fixedly interposed for rotation between the opposing longitudinal arms of the frame near the open end portion thereof. The impact roller has opposing ends, an axis of rotation through the opposing ends, and a surface equipped with spaced apart primary and secondary impact members traversing the opposing ends of the roller. An energy transfer assembly joins the closed end portion of the frame to the wheeled support assembly so as to resiliently link the two structures and transfer energy to and from the impact roller during propulsion of the apparatus in a manner to thereby boost the breaking capabilities thereof and mitigate the transfer of shock and vibration to the wheeled support assembly.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for breaking concrete, and more particularly to a concrete breaking apparatus having an impact roller carried and configured to enhance the dynamic impact force delivered thereby so as to boost the concrete breaking capabilities thereof while mitigating shock and vibration concerns.
Road construction projects, whether they be repair or reconstruction of streets or highways, typically require the removal of concrete road sections. Available processes for breaking up these concrete road sections are known to be time consuming and costly.
Common concrete breakers include pile driving machines which repeatedly drop or drive a variety of high density objects from an overhead mast, including but not limited to balls, drive shoes or xe2x80x9cguillotines,xe2x80x9d which most often comprise a heavy weight having a sharpened lower end. With machines of this general style, several repeated blows to the concrete is customary to effectively and adequately split and break apart the concrete. Such apparatus and methods make for unacceptably slow going. Furthermore, the shock and vibration generated by the numerous impacting blows is transmitted throughout the entire machine thereby necessitating frequent maintenance checks, more often than not yielding worn, broken or otherwise failed parts or components which require replacement or repair. This further slows down work to the detriment of the project.
Concrete breakers which drag impact rollers, similar in design to conventional compaction roller assemblies, have made modest improvements over the xe2x80x9chammerxe2x80x9d styles aforementioned, to the extent that set-up and break-down time has been eliminated. In short, the impact rollers are more user friendly, however, the issues of shock, vibration and component fatigue similarly plague the impact roller machines. Furthermore, it is common practice to make several passes over and through a work area with known impact rollers. Although the impact rollers are easier to xe2x80x9coperatexe2x80x9d and are capable of swifter coverage of a work area, they are not necessarily any more efficient at concrete breaking (i.e., the notion of improved or increased concrete breakage per impact) when compared to other methods or apparatus.
As such, it is most desirable to provide a concrete breaking apparatus capable of more quickly and efficiently breaking concrete when compared to those presently known. It is also desirable to provide a concrete breaking apparatus with enhanced concrete breaking capabilities. It is further desirable to provide a concrete breaking apparatus having enhanced concrete breaking capabilities that also reduces and greatly limits jerking and the transfer of shock and vibration. It is likewise advantageous to provide a concrete breaking apparatus capable of transferring energy to a rotating impact roller so as to accelerate the impact cutters of the roller toward the concrete surface.
The concrete breaking apparatus of the present invention includes a wheeled support assembly having an open end to accommodate the variable positioning of an impact roller therebetween and a closed end opposite the open end. A frame having opposing longitudinal arms connected near one end so as to define open and closed end portions is pivotably supported by the wheeled support assembly on pivot arms which connect the frame to the wheeled support assembly. An impact roller is fixedly interposed for rotation between the opposing longitudinal arms of the frame near the open end portion thereof. The impact roller has opposing ends, an axis of rotation through the opposing ends, and a surface equipped with spaced apart primary and secondary impact members traversing the opposing ends of the roller. An energy transfer assembly joins the closed end portion of the frame to the wheeled support assembly so as to resiliently link the two structures and transfer energy to and from the impact roller during propulsion of the apparatus in a manner to thereby boost the breaking capabilities thereof and mitigate the transfer of shock and vibration to the wheeled support assembly.
More specific features and advantages will become apparent with reference to the DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION, appended claims, and the accompanying drawing figures.


An apparatus and method for monitoring and controlling the internal state of a computer system, in particular, a computer server. The computer system includes one or more subsystems. These subsystems provide one or more management signals at a system management slot. The computer system also includes an I/O bus slot coupled to an I/O bus of the computer system. A system management agent is coupled to both the system management slot and the I/O bus slot. The system management agent includes a processor and a memory system coupled to the processor. The system management agent also includes a communications interface coupled to the processor and the memory system.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the monitoring and controlling of a computer server. More particularly, the present invention relates to the monitoring and controlling of a computer server via system management features which may include performance monitoring, fault monitoring, security monitoring, configuration monitoring, and accounting monitoring. Although the described embodiment is described in terms of an IBM PC/AT-compatible computer server, the system management apparatus and method described herein are not limited to an IBM PC/AT-compatible computer nor is it limited to a computer server. For example, a stand-alone computer may use the apparatus and method described herein for improved reliability, accessibility, and serviceability.
2. Description of Related Art
As personal computers (PCs), such as the IBM PC/AT-compatible personal computers, have become more popular in recent years, a need for improved ways of accessing and sharing data has arisen. Nowadays, many computer systems are linked via networks--for example, a hardwired local area network (LAN) such as Ethernet, a telephone modem link, or other conventional data communications network.
Due to its ever-decreasing price and ever-increasing capabilities, the PC becomes more and more attractive as a replacement for the older and more expensive mainframe computers. Today, a networked PC server can provide much of the capability that a mainframe once provided. A PC server allows other networked PCs to run applications residing only on the PC server. These networked PCs, or PC clients, can access shared data which reside only on the PC server. Furthermore, these networked PC clients may be remote, that is, they need not be located in physical proximity to the PC server.
However, since multiple remote PC clients may rely on a single computer server, a method of improving the reliability of the computer server is desired. One way of monitoring and controlling the state of the PC server is by coupling a system management agent to the computer server via the I/O bus of the computer server. The system management agent is able to monitor and control the computer server through its access to the I/O bus. However, this method only gives a limited ability for monitoring and controlling the computer server since the system management agent may use only those data/address access and transfer mechanisms that are defined by the I/O bus and no others.

Computer server with improved reliability, availability and serviceability