A lateral injection VCSEL comprises upper and lower mirrors forming a cavity resonator, an active region disposed in the resonator, high conductivity upper and lower contact layers located on opposite sides of the active region, upper and lower electrodes disposed on the upper and lower contact layers, respectively, and on laterally opposite sides of the upper mirror, and a current guide structure including an apertured high resistivity layer for constraining current to flow in a relatively narrow channel through the active region, characterized in that a portion of the lower contact layer that extends under the top electrode has relatively high resistivity. This feature of our invention serves two purposes. First, it suppresses current flow in parallel paths and, therefore, tends to make the current density distribution in the aperture more favorable for the fundamental mode. Second, it reduces parasitic capacitance.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to lateral injection vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and, more particularly, to such lasers that provide for both improved current distribution and reduced parasitic capacitance.
2. Background of the Invention
A conventional lateral injection VCSEL as depicted in FIG. 1 comprises an active region 60 disposed in a cavity resonator formed by a pair of multi-layered mirrors 52 and 54. A current confinement structure 58 constrains current to flow in a relatively narrow channel through the active region. The structure 58 includes a high resistivity layer 57 having an aperture 59 through which current flows from an annular upper contact 54 to an annular lower contact 56. More specifically, as shown by the dashed lines 40 and 42, current flows from upper contact 54 into high conductivity layer 46, continues essentially horizontally along layer 46, then flows vertically through aperture 59 to high conductivity current return layer 62, and continues essentially horizontally along layer 62 to contact 56. In this symmetrical electrode configuration, the current flow paths 40 (i.e., those nearer to the edge of aperture 59) are shorter than paths 42 (i.e., those nearer to the center of aperture 59). Consequently, the current density is higher near the edges of the aperture than in the central portion of the aperture. This type of non-uniform current distribution favors higher order transverse optical modes, which have higher intensity near the edges of the aperture, over the fundamental transverse mode, which has its peak intensity in the center of the aperture. However, operating a VCSEL in the fundamental mode is generally preferred since this mode can be more efficiently coupled into other devices, optical fibers in particular.
This problem is recognized in the prior art as described by M. P. Creusen et al., Netherlands Patent No. 1005570 (hereinafter, Creusen) laid open to public inspection on Sep. 22, 1998. In order to make the current density distribution in the aperture more nearly uniform, Creusen proposes an asymmetric contact structure as shown in FIG. 1 of the patent. Upper contact (electrode) 13 is formed on upper contact layer 6 on one side of the mirror 1, and lower contact (electrode) 14 is formed on contact layer 7 on the laterally opposite side of the mirror 1. Creusen concludes that because the probability of all current paths through the active layer 5 is now the same, the homogeneity of the current injection will actually increase. As a result the higher order transverse modes is (sic) suppressed. This conclusion is flawed since it focuses on only the direct current paths through the aperture and neglects parallel paths through which the current flows. These parallel paths, where the current path may balloon in a longer, arc-like trajectory, do not all have the same length and, therefore, give rise to nonuniformity in the current density distribution in the aperture. These parallel paths exist because the top contact layer 6 and bottom contact layer 7 are not quite equipotentials, even if they are designed with a multiplicity of high and low doped layers in order to minimize the voltage drop across the device from upper contact 13 to lower contact 14. That Creusen uses this multiplicity of high and low doped layers to form the contact layers is clear from the cross-reference therein to the Jewell et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,622, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Thus, a need remains in the art for a lateral injection VCSEL design that provides an improved current distribution in the aperture that favors the fundamental transverse mode over higher order modes.
In addition, the speed of operation of prior art lateral injection VCSELs, including those of Creusen, is limited by parasitic capacitance. The upper metal contact and the high conductivity semiconductor upper contact layer form one plate of the parasitic capacitor, and the lower metal contact and the high conductivity semiconductor lower contact layer form the other plate. The remaining semiconductor material in between (e.g., the high resistivity aperture layer, the active region) forms the dielectric of the capacitor. In lateral injection VCSELs the plates are typically closer together than in conventional (i.e., through-the-mirror injection) VCSELs, making the parasitic capacitance per unit area larger. The higher capacitance increases the RC time constant of these lasers and, therefore, increases their rise and fall time when they are turned on and off, which in turn limits their modulation speed.
Thus, a need remains in the art for a lateral injection VCSEL design that reduces parasitic capacitance and thereby improves its speed of operation.
In accordance with one aspect of our invention, a lateral injection VCSEL comprises upper and lower mirrors forming a cavity resonator, an active region disposed in the resonator, high conductivity upper and lower contact layers located on opposite sides of the active region, upper and lower electrodes disposed on the upper and lower contact layers, respectively, and on opposite sides of the upper mirror, and a current guide structure including an apertured high resistivity layer for constraining current to flow in a relatively narrow channel through the active region, characterized in that a portion of the lower contact layer that extends under the top electrode has relatively high resistivity. This feature of our invention serves two purposes. First, it suppresses current flow in parallel paths and, therefore, tends to make the current density distribution in the aperture more favorable for the fundamental mode. Second, it reduces parasitic capacitance.
In a preferred embodiment, the upper electrode is U-shaped (top view) with the mouth of the U facing the lower electrode. Likewise the high resistivity portion of the lower contact layer is also U-shaped and similarly oriented. Both surround a significant portion of the aperture and provide an opening that faces the lower electrode. Together, the U-shaped upper electrode and the U-shaped high resistivity portion of the lower contact layer define a high conductivity direct current path from the upper electrode through the aperture to the lower electrode.
In another preferred embodiment the high resistivity portion does not extend to the interior edges of the U-shaped upper contact; that is, the resistivity is patterned in such a way that a band or corridor of high conductivity is retained along the interior edges of the U-shaped electrode. This VCSEL design reduces parasitic capacitance by approximately an order of magnitude and prevents any significant increase in series resistance.
In yet another embodiment of our invention, the structure in which the upper and lower contact layers are formed is asymmetric with respect to the resonator axis, being wider on the side of the upper mirror where the upper electrode is located and narrower on the opposite side of the upper mirror. This feature further reduces parasitic capacitance.

Lateral injection vertical cavity surface-emitting laser


In one embodiment, a network device, includes ports to serve as ingress ports and egress ports, a memory to store received network packets, a switch fabric, a controller to monitor queues of the egress ports and make a decision to drop at least a network packet of the received network packets, the network packet having a first destination address associated with a first network node, and mirroring circuitry to encapsulate the network packet with an encapsulation header including a second destination address different from the first destination address, and feedback the encapsulated network packet into a processing pipeline of the received network packets within the network device at a point in the processing pipeline that is prior to egress port assignment, wherein the switch fabric is configured to forward the encapsulated network packet to the packet analyzer responsively to the second destination address in the encapsulation header.

As part of network device design, packets may be dropped for various reasons, including cases where after the packets have gone through most of the processing and decision making, including sometimes scheduling, a decision to drop the packets may occur.
In one scenario, packets may be dropped if they are waiting too much time on a head of a queue. For example, in lossless networks, flow control may lead to a queue being held from sending packets, and in some cases, this may cause a lock in the network. In order to solve the aforementioned problems, the queue may be drained.
In another scenario, packets may be spending too much time in a network device. For example, usually because of congestion, packets may reside in the network device too long, which makes it potentially irrelevant. Hence, a network device is expected to drop such packets.
In some situations, Spanning Tree and/or VLAN filtering logic that applies per egress port in a network device might prevent a packet from being forwarded. In other situations, an error occurring in the network device may lead to a packet becoming illegal, evidenced by an invalid cyclic redundancy check (CRC), leading to the illegal packet being dropped.
A "bad" CRC emanating from outside the current network device may lead to a packet being dropped. For example, in cut-through scenarios, there might be cases where the packet starts to get transmitted by a network device even though the network device does not know the CRC yet, hence the packet may arrive in an invalid state after some of the packet is already transmitted.
A maximum transmission unit (MTU) violation may lead to a packet being dropped, for example, if the packet is larger than the size allowed on the link.
Dropped packets may be mirrored to a packet analyzer in order to learn why a packet has been dropped. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,095,683 to Balasubramaniam Chandra describes a system for mirroring dropped packets by extending port mirroring. Networking devices, such as firewalls and routers drop some packets during data transmission due to various security issues, congestion and errors in the packets. The dropped packets are mirrored at a user-specified destination port by extending port mirroring. The mirrored packets can then be further analyzed by external traffic analyzers. The analysis can be helpful in finding out any mismatch between firewall rules and security policies at firewalls. Moreover, the analysis can also be helpful in finding out the extent of loss of useful data in dropped packets at forwarding devices such as routers, bridges, switches, firewalls etc.
US Patent Publication 2001/0055274 of Hegge, et al., describes a network switch having a plurality of mirror ports to which data is copied for purposes such as networking monitoring. Data flows are identified and copied to an appropriate mirror port in response to the type of flow, a mirroring policy set up by a network administrator, and a distribution mechanism. A monitoring device attached to each mirror port is able to monitor specific types of traffic. The mirror ports are collected into groups of such ports. A given port may only be a member of a single group at one time. The mirroring policy must identify the group to which a particular type of flow is copied.


A method is provided for conducting commerce over a network via vision-enabled content. First, content is encoded to convert it into vision-enabled content. Payment is received for vision-enabling the content. Also, a program to decode the vision-enabled content is provided. Finally, the vision-enabled content is sent to a user over a network. The program decodes the vision-enabled content and receives an image of the user. The vision-enabled content may include advertising content, entertainment content, and educational or instructional content. In one embodiment, the program combines the image of the user with the vision-enabled content. In another embodiment, the program utilizes the image of the user to control the vision-enabled content.

1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic commerce, and more particularly to conducting electronic commerce by enabling creation of vision-enabled content.
2. The Relevant Art
Activities such as advertising, entertainment and education are commonly conducted over a network such as the Internet. The creator of an activity conducts that activity by publishing content which then becomes available to users who are connected to the network and have the necessary program to receive and display that content, such as a web browser. For example, advertisements in the form of linked banners appear on a multitude of websites. Streaming audio and video as well as audio and video clips have become commonplace. Further, virtual classrooms and interactive learning materials are being used for long-distance learning.
Such activities, however, are constrained by the limitation of the technology being used to send, receive and navigate them. Users receiving content over a network currently interact with the content with input devices such as a mouse and keyboard. As a result, true interaction with the content must be left to the imagination. Users viewing an advertisement for shirts, for example, may be able to select different styles and colors of shirts, but would not be able to see himself or herself wearing the shirt. Since the user does not know how he or she looks in the shirt, the user is less likely to purchase the shirt from the advertiser and will more likely go to a store where the user may try the shirt on before purchase. Thus, the advertiser will probably lose the sale.
The problem is similar in entertainment. There are currently several products on the market which allow replay of downloaded audio and video. For example, Windows Media Player by Microsoft® Corporation and RealPlayer by RealNetworks, Inc. allow an entertainment producer to transmit audio and video clips as well as streaming audio and video. Both of these products allow the user to interact with the content in the limited sense that the user is able to select the clips and streams and start and stop playback at will.
Unfortunately, these products are directed towards playback of content alone. Most users prefer to watch motion video on a television rather than over the Internet, typically because of the location and smaller size of the computer display. If the content is the same, there is little reason to watch it on the computer. There needs to be something that makes a user want to watch the content on the computer, such as a vision-based interaction between the user and the content.
Network gaming is a popular pastime for many people. While gaming technology has come far, gaming is still very impersonal in that the animated characters that represent each player bear only the likeness given it by the programmer and no resemblance to the actual player. Game play would be much more enjoyable if the animated characters of a game bore the likenesses of the associated players.
Adding to the impersonality of gameplay are game controllers. The realism of the game can often depend on how the player's commands are input into the computer. Movement of a user to make the animated character perform a similar movement is much more desirable than pushing a button to make a movement. Take, for example, a boxing game. A player would be much more likely to enjoy the game if the player could physically move his or her arm in a punching motion and see the animated character make a similar move in the game.

Method for video enabled electronic commerce


A gas discharge laser system producing a laser output pulse and a method of operating such a system is disclosed which may comprise a pulse stretcher which may comprise a laser output pulse optical delay initiating optic directing a portion of the laser output pulse along a laser system output pulse optical axis and diverting a portion of the output pulse into an optical delay having an optical delay path and which may comprise a plurality of confocal resonators in series aligned to deliver an output of the optical delay to the laser output pulse optical delay initiating optic; an optical axis alignment mechanism comprising an radial mirror positioning mechanism operable to position the output of the optical delay to the align with the portion of the laser output pulse transmitted along the optical axis of the portion of the laser system output pulse transmitted by the laser output pulse optical delay initiating optic.

Pulse stretchers are well known as indicated by the above referenced patents and co-pending patent applications. While devices implemented according to aspects of the concept of the inventions disclosed in United States Published Patent Application No. 20050105579 noted above may be quite useful for the applications noted above and others, in particular the con-focal pulse stretcher has certain shortcomings for such uses that need improvement.
Applicants according to aspects of embodiments of the present invention propose such improvements.


A thrust reverser for a turbojet engine is disclosed having a movable component, such as a thrust reverser door, operatively associated with an engine housing, and vanes formed on the upstream edge portion of the movable component and extending inwardly from an interior surface. The vanes, which extend in a direction generally parallel to a longitudinal axis of the engine, are located in an array which extends across the upstream edge portion of the movable component from one side to the other. The vanes each may be generally triangular in configuration and have one side attached to the inner surface of the movable component and another side attached to a gas flow deflector extending laterally across the front edge of the movable component.

The present invention relates to a thrust reverser for a turbojet engine, more particularly such a thrust reverser having vanes to control the direction of the gases emanating from the thrust reverser.
Turbojet engines are well-known in the art and may comprise a turbojet engine drivingly connected to a turbofan, usually mounted on the front of the turbojet engine. A turbofan housing, radically displaced from, but generally concentric with the turbojet engine housing, defines a cold flow air duct for air driven by the turbofan. In turbofan engines having a relatively high bypass ratio, thrust reversers are typically provided on the turbofan housing so as to redirect the air passing through the cold flow air duct during landing of the aircraft in order to provide a reverse thrust.
The housing for the turbojet engine has a hot gas flow duct for the hot gases emanating from the turbines of the turbojet engine. Thrust reversers may be associated with the hot gas flow duct to redirect the hot gas flow to provide a thrust reversing effect.
Thrust reversers may assume many different configurations, but a typical thrust reverser is illustrated in FIG. 1. The thrust reverser comprises a stationary, upstream portion 1 which forms a part of the engine housing, a movable portion 2 which may redirect the air or the hot gas flow and a stationary, downstream collar 3 which also forms a portion of the engine housing. The stationary upstream portion 1 typically comprises an exterior panel 4 which defines a portion of the exterior surface of the housing, an internal panel 5 which defines a boundary of the gas flow duct and a frame 6 which interconnects panels 4 and 5. The frame 6 also provides support for the actuator 7a which controls the movement of the movable portion 2 which, in this instance, comprises one or more movable thrust reversing doors 7. The number of such doors may vary depending upon the application of the engine to a particular type aircraft and typically may comprise 2, 3 or 4 such doors. The doors may be located around the circumference of the engine housing and, when in their deployed or thrust reversing positions, redirect the gas passing through the gas flow duct to provide a thrust reversing force. When in the closed, or forward thrust position, as illustrated in FIG. 1, the exterior panel 9 of the thrust reversing door 7 is flush with the outer surface of exterior panel 4 and the exterior surface of downstream collar 3 so as to provide a smooth aerodynamic surface for the air passing over the exterior of the housing, illustrated by arrow 10.
FIG. 2 illustrates an engine housing with a plurality of known thrust reversing doors 7 in their closed or forward thrust positions. When deployed to their open or reverse thrust positions, the forward, or upstream, edges are displaced radially outwardly from the generally annular engine housing. As is well-known in the art, rear, or downstream, portions of the thrust reverser doors 7 extend inwardly into the gas flow duct so as to redirect at least a portion of the gas outwardly through the opening in the engine housing in a forward direction. Each thrust reverser door 7 is operatively associated with a hydraulic jack or actuator 7a, which typically comprises a cylinder having an extendable and retractable piston rod attached to the thrust reverser door 7.
The terms "upstream" and "downstream" are defined in relation to the direction of air or gas circulation in the forward thrust mode, e.g., from the front of the engine towards the rear of the engine (left to right in FIG. 1). The air or gas passing through the gas flow duct, illustrated at 15 in FIG. 1, passes over the surface of internal panel 5 and over a deflector 8. Each thrust reverser door 7 has an interior door panel 11 which is connected to the exterior door panel 9 via brace 12 and a door gas deflector 13. Door gas deflector 13 extends radially inwardly past the surface of interior door panel 11 such that, when the thrust reverser door 7 is in its thrust reversing position, door gas deflector 13 will impart a more forward direction to the gases passing through the opening in the engine housing. When in its closed, forward thrust position, the thrust reverser door 7 forms part of the boundaries of cavity 16, which is bounded by the interior door panel 11, the deflector 8, the door air deflector 13 and line 14, which represents the ideal, theoretical surface interconnecting the internal panel 5 with the interior portion of the downstream collar portion 3. Cavity 16, as is well-known in the art, creates air flow distortion and perturbations within the gas flow duct thereby increasing aerodynamic losses and degrading engine performance in the forward thrust operating mode.
Typical pivoting door thrust reversing systems for a turbojet engine are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,410,152 and 4,485,970, as well as French Patent 2,559,838. Solutions for improving the air flow through the cold flow air duct in the forward thrust operating mode are also known in the art, a typical example of which may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,916,895. This patent describes a thrust reverser door having a movable internal door panel segment which is movable such that it matches the ideal flow surface when the door is in the forward thrust position.
Another problem encountered by known turbojet engine thrust reversers is the controlling of the direction of the gases passing through the opening in the engine housing. This is of particular importance where the turbojet engine is mounted close to the aircraft structure where it would prove detrimental to have the thrust reversing gases contact the adjacent aircraft structure. Such control is also important to prevent the reingestion of the thrust reversing gases by the engine. The thrust reverser in French Patent 2,559,838 provides one attempt at a solution to controlling the shape and direction of the thrust reversing gases by providing a particular orientation to the upstream edge of the thrust reverser opening and/or the shaping of the distal edge of door gas deflector. The technique for controlling the lateral and forward deflections of the thrust reversing gases is defined as "fluid-sheet control".
Other problems have been encountered, especially in instances wherein the turbojet engine is attached to the aircraft such that it extends close to the ground surface. In this instance, as illustrated in FIG. 3 wherein the turbojet engine has four thrust reverser doors, the gases from the lower thrust reversers contact the ground surface at the large angle of incidence. As illustrated in FIG. 3, the turbojet engine 17 is attached beneath aircraft wing 18. When the thrust reverser doors are in their open, reverser thrust positions, they direct gases in flows 15a, 15b, 15c and 15d, respectively. As can be seen, the reverse thrust gas flows 15c and 15d impinge on the ground surface S at a substantially large angle of incidence i.

Turbojet engine thrust reverser with directional control


Techniques for enabling offline, intelligent load balancing of Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) traffic are provided. According to one embodiment, a load balancer can receive one or more SCTP packets that have been replicated from a network being monitored. The load balancer can further recover an SCTP message from the one or more SCTP packets and can map the SCTP message to an egress port based on one or more parameters decoded from the SCTP message and one or more rules. The load balancer can then transmit the SCTP message out of the egress port towards an analytic probe or tool for analysis.

As known in the field of computer networking, a visibility network (sometimes referred to as a visibility fabric) is a type of network that facilitates the monitoring and analysis of traffic flowing through another network (referred to herein as a "core" network). The purposes of deploying a visibility network are varied and can include management/optimization of the core network, security monitoring of the core network, business intelligence/reporting, compliance validation, and so on.
FIG. 1 depicts an example visibility network 100 according to an embodiment. As shown, visibility network 100 includes a number of taps 102 that are deployed within a core network 104. Taps 102 are configured to replicate traffic that is exchanged between network elements in core network 104 and forward the replicated traffic to a packet broker 106 (note that, in addition to or in lieu of taps 102, one or more routers or switches in core network 104 can be tasked to replicate and forward traffic to packet broker 106 using their respective SPAN or mirror functions). Packet broker 106 can perform various packet processing functions on the traffic received from taps 102, such as removing protocol headers, filtering/classifying/correlating packets based on configured rules, and so on. Packet broker 106 can then transmit the processed traffic to one or more analytic probes/tools 108, which can carry out various types of calculations and analyses on the traffic in accordance with the business goals/purposes of visibility network 100 (e.g., calculation of key performance indicators (KPIs), detection of security threats/attacks in core network 104, generation of reports, etc.).
In cases where a single probe/tool 108 does not have sufficient capacity (e.g., compute capacity, memory capacity, storage capacity, etc.) to analyze the entirety of the traffic volume replicated from core network 104, packet broker 106 can implement functionality to distribute the replicated traffic across a number of probes/tools in a load balanced manner. In this way, each individual probe/tool 108 can be tasked to handle a subset (rather than the entirety) of the replicated traffic. Existing packet brokers typically implement this load balancing functionality by calculating a hash value for each replicated packet based on a 5-tuple of packet header fields comprising <source IP address, source port, destination IP address, destination port, protocol identifier> and then forwarding the packet to the probe/tool associated with the calculated hash value.
Unfortunately, while load balancing based on the foregoing 5-tuple works well for transport protocols such as TCP or UDP where traffic is always transmitted along a single path between endpoints (i.e., between a single source IP and single destination IP), it is less suitable for transport protocols such as SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) where traffic can be transmitted along one of multiple paths between endpoints (known as multi-homing). This is because multi-homing protocols support automatic failover of traffic from one path to another in response to a failure, which in the case of 5-tuple based load balancing will cause the packets for a given communication session to be hashed, and thus forwarded, to a different probe/tool after the failover than before the failover. This switch in the destination probe/tool is undesirable since all of the traffic for a single communication session (e.g., in the case of mobile network, a single mobile user session) should ideally go to the same probe/tool in order to facilitate state-based analyses.
Further, even in non-multi-homing deployments, hashing based on the 5-tuple of <source IP address, source port, destination IP address, destination port, protocol identifier> necessarily causes a given probe/tool to receive all of the traffic between the two endpoints identified in the tuple. If the volume of traffic between those two endpoints is particularly large, the probe/tool may become overloaded. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a mechanism for performing load balancing within a visibility network that is more intelligent than simple 5-tuple hashing.

Offline, intelligent load balancing of SCTP traffic


The disclosed computer-implemented method may include (i) receiving, by a camera system that includes at least one camera, input from a user instructing the camera system to adjust a framing of the camera, (ii) directing, by the camera system, the camera to adjust the framing, (iii) determining a predicted modified camera frame that approximates an actual modified camera frame predicted to result from directing the camera to adjust the framing, (iv) displaying, before completely receiving visual data that results from the actual modified camera frame from the camera, the predicted modified camera frame to the user, (v) receiving the visual data including the actual modified camera frame from the camera after the camera adjusts the camera frame, and (vi) displaying the actual modified camera frame to the user. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Videoconferencing is an important function of computing devices for many users. Home users may videoconference with distant friends or relatives, while users at work may videoconference with colleagues scattered in different offices around the globe. For some users, videoconferencing may entirely replace coming in to a physical office to work. For a videoconferencing system to provide a high-quality user experience, the videoconferencing system must be responsive to user input to adjust conference attributes such as volume, display, and camera frames.
In traditional videoconferencing systems, a user may be able to direct the videoconferencing system to adjust a remote camera so that the user can better view a person, group of people, or environment on the other end of the videoconference. However, in some traditional videoconferencing systems, connection latency and/or physical camera features may introduce a lag between when a user directs the videoconferencing system to adjust the camera position and when the user's display is updated to show the new camera framing/composition. This display lag may be frustrating to users who may over-correct or under-correct for the desired camera framing due to the lack of immediate visual feedback. The instant disclosure, therefore, identifies and addresses a need for systems and methods for updating camera displays.

Systems and methods for updating camera displays


Provided is a sign holder for mounting to and displaying from a shelf any of various planar signs. The sign holder includes a clamp having two pivotally-connected panels that can be placed into a clamping position to hold the planar sign. To hold the panels in the clamping position, the first panel includes a holding prong that can be received in a corresponding aperture of the second panel. To prevent the planar sign from slipping between the panels, the second panel includes a piercing prong that can pierce the planar sign and be received in a corresponding aperture of the first panel. So that the planar material does not interfere with the engagement between the holding prong and its corresponding aperture, the piercing prong can be spaced-apart from the pivotally-connected edges of the panels a greater distance than the holding prong is. Various mounting structures can be included.

Often, to promote certain products, retailers will display planar paper signs on the shelves where such products are located at a retail establishment or retail store. For instance, grocery stores often have numerous signs displayed from various shelves that include information about the associated products such as price or nutrition. To securely hold and display the signs in a conspicuous location, sign holders are often used. The sign holder can be mounted to the shelf and includes a retaining structure that securely holds the sign. Various styles of sign holder retaining structures are known in the art. Desirably, the retaining structure not only secures the sign but allows for easy replacement of the sign so that the sign holder can be readily reused. Furthermore, to facilitate mounting the sign holder to the shelf, the shelf may include mounting features such as perforations disposed through the shelf or a channel extending from a front edge of the shelf.


A voice control system is directed to a car navigation device that includes: a display unit; a microphone; a speech recognition unit for recognizing, as a command, a speech uttered by a user; and a navigation ECU to which the voice recognition unit outputs the command. When the user inputs the speech, auxiliary switches are shown on the display unit. When the user selects one of the auxiliary switches, respective functions that correspond to the auxiliary switches are executed. The functions include displaying a voice command list or guidance for voice input on the displaying unit or outputting, to the navigation ECU, a result of determination whether a certain function, such as setting of a destination, should be allowed to be executed, the user first being required to affirm or negate the recognized destination setting by voice or auxiliary switch.

A speech uttered by a speaker is conventionally used for controlling various functions of a camera or a car navigation device. For instance, in JP-A-S64-56428, a camera control system using voice input is described as follows: a speech corresponding to required manipulation is inputted; the speech is recognized by a voice recognition unit; and the camera is controlled based on a control processing corresponding to a recognition result.
In this voice-controlled camera, a certain function can be executed by a certain voice command having one-to-one correspondence with the certain function. For instance, only "no strobe" can be functional as the certain voice command for prohibiting a strobe light at shooting, even though "strobe off," "stop strobe," or "flash off" may be used depending on a user.
A user therefore needs to correctly memorize a certain voice command that enables a certain function to be executed. However, user's workload increases with increasing executable functions. This results in worsening usability in voice input.
In voice recognition, a shorter word is apt to be mis-recognized. For instance, there is a case where a user inputs an address of a destination through voice input in a car navigation device and is then required for determining whether a point designated on a map is correct as a destination. In this case, the user sets or cancels the destination by uttering "YES" or "NO," respectively. However, the short word of "YES" or "NO" is apt to be mis-recognized, so that a function of setting the destination is sometimes executed against user's intention.

Voice-controlled navigation device requiring voice or manual user affirmation of recognized destination setting before execution


A pressure responsive estrus detector includes a housing having a first and second oppositely disposed side walls. A first interior wall is disposed within the housing and connected to the first side wall to create a first fluid chamber. The first interior wall has a top and bottom and an aperture disposed adjacent to the top. A second interior wall is disposed within the housing and connected to the second side wall to create a second fluid chamber. The second interior side wall is disposed adjacent to the first interior side wall. The second interior side wall has a top and bottom, aligned with the top and bottom of the first interior side wall. The second interior side wall includes an aperture disposed adjacent to the bottom. Fluid is disposed within the housing and flowable between the first and second fluid chambers via the first and second interior wall apertures by pressure applied to either one of said side walls by a mounting animal.

It is typically desirable in the field of animal husbandry to selectively breed livestock. This breeding may be done by mating selected animals, artificially inseminating an animal, or any other suitable method. However, any breeding method used entails determining when the animal is in heat in order for insemination to fertilize the animal. The heat cycle is of a short duration and insemination must occur during the cycle. The accurate detection of estrus is a long recognized problem. If a pregnant cow is inseminated she is very apt to abort her calf. This problem makes false positives very expensive. With a false negative, the hot cow's breeding is delayed 21 days. This problem costs the dairyman $3.00 per day or $60.00 on each false negative.
Typically, when an animal, for example, a cow, is not in heat, she will not allow herself to be mounted. Conversely, when a cow is in heat, the cow will show an increased tendency to stand and permit itself to be mounted by other animals for an appreciable time. When the mounted animal allows the mounting animal to remain for about five seconds, a "standing mount" has occurred and the cow is classified as in standing heat. This condition occurs in the early stages of estrus. The most frequent mountings occur by bulls, but mountings are also made by other cows. Accordingly, the repeated mounting of a cow by any other such animal is a good indication that the cow is in heat. Cows must be mounted at least three times before safe to breed.
The identification of cows in heat has traditionally been accomplished by observation, the cows seen to allow mounting by other cows being separated from the herd. While visual inspection and observation of a herd may be employed to identify and segregate females in heat, because the heat cycle is of short duration, such visual observation must be conducted multiple times during a day and accompanied by immediate segregation or marking of the animals to be inseminated. Visual observation of the herd, which is often widely dispersed, is typically inefficient. Further, if no indicating device is used, unless the herd is maintained under constant visual observation, the heat cycle may go undetected in many animals.
A variety of devices have been developed for indicating when an animal is in heat by detecting when the animal has been mounted. Automatic indicators have been used that are attached to the top rear section of the animal between the hip-bone and spine and are set off by other animals mounting the animal in heat. Typically, the indicators rely on the pressure exerted by the chest or brisket of the mounting animal. A common indicator of this type includes a passive apparatus including a reservoir of marker fluid which is compressed by the mounting pressure to discharge some or all fluid and thereby mark the mounted animal. Frequently, these devices suffer from incidental seepage of the marker fluid. This seepage can result in an undesirably short shelf-life of the product. Further, the prior devices involve complicated dye packet devices that are undesirably complex and expensive.
A need has thus arisen for a detector for determining when a cow is in heat, wherein the detector is automatic and accurate for indicating when a cow has been mounted for a time equal to or greater than a predetermined time. A need has further arisen for a pressure responsive estrus detector which can be reset whereby the detector can be reused multiple times.


A gas powered internal combustion engine in which the gas is provided from pressurized liquid gas in an LPG container and in which the LPG container is rigidly mounted adjacent to the internal combustion engine at a preselected angle to be in conductive heat transfer relationship to the internal combustion engine and in vibration receiving relationship to the internal combustion engine whereby the liquified gas in the LPG container is heated and the effective surface area thereof is increased.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a gas powered internal combustion engine which may be utilized to drive a variety of devices and may be utilized in one application as an emergency power source for generating electrical power. As utilized herein the term "gas" refers to a fluid in the gas state as a product which is emitted from a fluid in the liquid state which is stored under pressure and as contained, for example, in an LPG: Liquefied Petroleum Gas, commonly known as propane, container, or butane or the like. As utilized herein, the terms gas state, liquid state and fluid are used in the technical sense. That is, fluid is defined to mean a substance that can fill the volume of the container in which it is placed and includes both gas state and liquid state of the substance. "Gasoline" is used herein to define the liquid hydrocarbon based fuels generally used to power the engines of automobiles, trucks and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many applications where a portable source of power is desired. These applications include the operation of many rotary devices such as portable gardening tools including hedge trimmers, weed cutters, small chain, reciprocating or rotating saws, and the like. Such devices are used while the user thereof is mobile. These devices are often driven by a small internal combustion engine using gasoline as the energy source and having a small tank for the gasoline as part of the equipment and providing a rotary output through a rotating drive shaft driven by the internal combustion engine to drive the particular device. As such, they require the storage of gasoline for the continued operation thereof in order to periodically refill the small gasoline tank. However, the storage of gasoline is highly restricted as to the type of container in which it may be stored, the places where it may be stored, the amount that may be stored and the environmental conditions under which it may be stored.
Another application of portable sources of power is in the field of devices that, while portable, are generally stationary during use. This field of devices includes portable electric generators utilized for emergency power or to provide electrical energy in locations where other electrical energy is not available. Many of these portable electrical power generators are driven by an internal combustion engine. The larger types of these portable electric power generators as carried in emergency vehicles of various types utilize gasoline or diesel powered engines with comparatively large storage supplies of the gasoline or diesel oil. Such devices are, of course, large and cumbersome and not adapted to be a readily portable device that may be easily carried by one person and transported from location to location.
However, there is a demand for an electric power generator that is small and light enough to be moved by one person from location to location and still provide a moderate amount of electrical power. These small electrical power generators are often driven by a small, light weight internal combustion engine. In this class of small, light weight internal combustion engine driven electrical generators it is often desired to store such device, either permanently or temporarily in the home, garage, vehicle or other location and also to store a comparatively large amount of fuel for use therein. In the situation of an electrical power outage in a residence, a small electrical power generator may be utilized to power a radio, recharge a cell phone or other such device, power a hot plate for cooking, provide illumination or for other desired activities. Other uses of a small internal combustion engine drive electrical generator are in campsites, on boats which do not have any other type of electrical power, and may other purposes.
The internal combustion engine that have heretofore been proposed for these small internal combustion engine driven electrical generators have been single cylinder, two cycle, engines in which the compression has been in the cylinder located in the crankcase thereof.
To meet these desiderata it is necessary that the fuel to power the internal combustion engine be of the type and in the condition that it may be stored in virtually any desired amount at the storage location of the engine powered electrical generator. The use of LPG is one type of fuel that may be utilized in an internal combustion engine in place of the gasoline or diesel to power the internal combustion engine that is utilized to drive the electrical generator, or other engine driven device. The LPG containers are pressurized so that the gas therein is converted to the liquid state and, as such, has an amount of fluid in the gas state above the vertically top level of the fluid in the liquid state.
One type of LPG storage bottle that has been proposed to provide power for these small internal combustion engine driven devices is a small container holding approximately 1 to 2 pounds of LPG contained in the bottle. These bottles have heretofore been utilized in various camping applications and are widely available.
In some of the prior art configurations, an LPG container was utilized and the LPG container required a particular rotational orientation about the long axis thereof in order to feed the gas therefrom because of a generally right angle bended feed tube in the container through which the gas flows to regions external the LPG container. Such a configuration limits the utility of such a device.
One very well known brand of such LPG bottles is the small LPG containers which are generally known to the public as Coleman Bottles. The Coleman Bottles are on the order of three and one half inches in diameter and on the order of seven and one half inches in axial length and contain about one to two pounds of the LPG. The Coleman Bottles come equipped with a standard threaded adapter for ready threading into a utilizing device and do not have any preferred orientation of rotation about the long axis thereof with respect to the device into which it is threaded. The adapter has an internal disconnect coupling for appropriate connection into a matching disconnect coupling which allows the flow of gas from the bottle when connected and prevents the flow of gas therefrom when disconnected. The Coleman Bottles are also provided with a built in pressure relief valve for safety in the event of over pressurization. The Coleman Bottles contain such a limited amount of LPG that a plurality of such bottles generally may, within the present laws and regulations, be stored in the home, in the garage or carried in a vehicle thus making them attractive as a substitute for use in many gasoline or diesel oil powered applications. However, the gas flow rate of the gas from the LPG in a Coleman Bottle is limited because of the comparatively small surface area of the LPG from which the gas is generated. In the event that too high a gas flow rate is demanded from the LPG in a Coleman Bottle, the LPG will freeze and thus effectively end the generation of the gas at usable flow rates from the LPG. Consequently, despite the attractiveness of the Coleman Bottles for use in many devices, the use of the Coleman Bottles has generally been limited to very low power requirement applications and have not been adapted for use in providing the energy for powering an internal combustion engine utilized to drive an electrical generator or other portable engine driven devices.
Thus, there has long been a need for a suitable arrangement in which a standard, readily available Coleman Bottle is utilized in an application in which power sufficient to drive a small electrical generator or other small portable engine driven devices is demanded.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved portable internal combustion engine driven device in which the engine is powered by LPG.
It is another object of the present device to provide an improved portable internal combustion engine driven device in which the engine is powered by LPG and the LPG is in a container having a comparatively small amount of LPG.
It is another object of the present device to provide an improved portable internal combustion engine driven device in which the engine is powered by LPG and the LPG is in a container having a comparatively small amount of LPG and the LPG container may be rotated about its axis to any desired position for operation and does not require a particular rotational position about its axis for operation.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved portable internal combustion engine driven device in which the engine is powered by LPG and the LPG is in a container having a comparatively small amount of LPG and in which a comparatively large and continuous flow of gas from the LPG in the container is obtainable.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an improved portable internal combustion engine driven device in which the engine is powered by LPG and the LPG is in a container having a comparatively small amount of LPG and the mounting of the LPG container with respect to the internal combustion engine allows a comparatively large and continues flow of gas from the LPG in the container.

Portable gas powered internal-combustion engine arrangement


One method for aborting cardiac treatments includes detecting an arrhythmia in a heart of a patient with at least one electrode, which is located outside the heart of the patient. An alarm signal is generated after the detection of the arrhythmia to alert a user of an impending cardiac treatment. The cardiac treatment is cancelled if an abort signal is provided by the user within a predetermined amount of time.

In recent years, the use of implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers and defibrillators, has become increasingly common. Such devices are now used not only to detect, treat, and terminate cardiac arrhythmias, such as atrial tachycardia (AT), ventricle tachycardia (VT), atrial fibrillation (AF), and ventricle fibrillation (VF), but to prevent them altogether using specific pacing methods.
One type of device is commonly known as a subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Unlike a conventional (i.e., transvenous) ICD, the electrodes of a subcutaneous ICD are not deployed within the heart of the patient. Rather, the electrodes are simply implanted under the skin, near the heart. The subcutaneous ICD senses a patient's heart rhythm and classifies it according to a number or rate zones to detect episodes of tachycardia and/or fibrillation. The ICD then treats the arrhythmia with electric shocks delivered from the electrodes.
One difficulty associated with subcutaneous ICDs is that because the electrodes are not located within the heart, the accuracy with which arrhythmias are detected can be compromised. As a result, the subcutaneous ICD may falsely detect arrhythmias and provide unnecessary treatments. Additionally, even if the arrhythmia is properly detected, the patient may not want to have the treatment delivered for various reasons.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide a method and system for aborting cardiac treatments which may be delivered in response to a detected arrhythmia. Furthermore, other features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.

Method and system for aborting cardiac treatments


The present invention provides, at low cost, a valve spring steel having a tensile strength as high as 210 to 240 kgf/mm.sup.2 after oil tempering. The high strength spring steel comprises, based on weight, 0.65 to 0.85% of C, 1.90 to 2.40% of Si, 0.50 to 1.00% of Mn, 0.70 to 1.30% of Cr, 0.10 to 0.30% of Mo, 0.20 to 0.50% of V, 0.01 to 0.04% of Nb and the balance Fe and unavoidable impurities and is subjected to heating at temperature of 1,050 to 1,250.degree. C. and then to rolling so that carbides in the steel have a size of up to 0.15 .mu.m in terms of equivalent circle. A valve spring having a tensile strength as high as 210 to 240 kgf/mm.sup.2 after oil tempering and stabilized quality can be produced while the material cost is greatly reduced by decreasing costly alloying components as much as possible.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a valve spring steel having a strength as high as 210 to 240 kgf/mm.sup.2 after oil tempering.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although JIS generally specifies the basic chemical composition system of valve spring steels, a steel having a tensile strength as high as 210 to 240 kgf/mm.sup.2 cannot be ensured only by imitating the chemical composition system, and the steel thus obtained naturally has a limitation on the setting resistance. In contrast to the composition system, Kokai (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication) No. 7-292435 discloses that composite addition of Si and Cr to a steel having a relatively low C content prevents the formation of a decarburized layer and ensures a strength of at least 190 kgf/mm.sup.2. The patent publication also discloses that the effects are further increased by adding elements such as V, Ni, Mo, Nb and B.
For the basic chemical composition system having a high C content, attempts having been made to prevent the decarburization and improve the properties of a spring steel by allowing the steel to contain from 0.05 to 0.1% of Se as disclosed in Kokai (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication) No. 7-278747. As explained above, decarburization is commonly prevented to improve the properties of a spring.
For a spring prepared by cold working without considering decarburization, Kokai (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication) No. 4-285142 discloses a process wherein many costly alloying elements such as Cr and Mo are added to the steel in combination in large amounts, the surface hardness of the steel is adjusted to up to Hv 400 by heat treatment, and the steel is subsequently nitrided and shot-peened to have a surface hardness of at least Hv 900 while the breakage of the steel is prevented during spring formation. As described above, technologies for the preparation of springs have generally been developed to cope with highly strengthening spring steels using such costly alloying elements.

High strength spring steel and process for producing same


The method of making thin glass panes includes conveying a glass melt through a vertical inlet to a drawing tank with a slit nozzle; drawing a glass ribbon downward from the slit nozzle; setting a total throughput by setting length and cross section of the inlet and by heating and cooling the inlet to control glass melt viscosity so that pressure in the inlet decreases; and setting a throughput per unit of length in a lateral direction along the glass ribbon via nozzle system geometry and by heating and cooling of the drawing tank and slit nozzle to control melt viscosity, so that glass does not wet an underside of the slit nozzle near a breaking edge. The setting of the total throughput and the throughput per unit length are largely decoupled to simplify process control. An inventive apparatus for performing the method is also disclosed.

The invention relates to a method for producing glass panes, in particular glass panes with a thickness of less than 3 mm, by drawing a thin glass ribbon vertically downward, in which a glass melt is conveyed from a tank furnace, through an inlet, and to a drawing tank with a nozzle system that has at least one debiteuse. The invention also relates to a device comprising a tank furnace, a homogenization system, an inlet and a drawing tank, wherein the drawing tank has a nozzle system having at least one slit nozzle.
Thin glass panes of this kind are used as substrate glass in electronic devices, for example displays (portable telephones, flat screens, etc.) and digital mass storage devices of computers. Therefore extremely high demands are placed on the internal quality of the glass that is essentially determined by bubbles and inclusions, on the cleanness, on the quality of the surface geometry that is essentially determined by the fine corrugations (waviness) and by deviations from flatness (warp), on the breaking strength, and possibly also on the low weight.
When the glasses are used as substrate glass for displays, clients subject them to thermal manufacturing processes at temperatures that approach the transition temperature of glass. The dimensional stability of the glass substrates must be maintained in the course of this. Therefore special glasses or even glass ceramics with increased glass transition temperatures are used as substrate glasses, most of which have an increased tendency to crystallize and an atypical viscosity curve as a function of the temperature. These glasses consequently require higher processing temperatures than standard glasses.
Since these applications are mass produced products, it is necessary to manufacture the glass panes as inexpensively as possible. It is thus desirable to achieve a high degree of process stability with short set-up times and down times, with high throughputs and low waste, which are caused by glass defects and in the border region. In addition, it is necessary to largely fulfill the client requirements with regard to the cleanness of the surface and the quality of the surface geometry, thus allowing the high-cost processing steps of finishing work, e.g. grinding and polishing, to be reduced or eliminated.
In the drawing methods that have been known up to this point, the above-mentioned requirements with regard to the product quality and economy are only partially fulfilled.
Among the manufacturing methods, a distinction is drawn between drawing methods with and without a debiteuse.
In the drawing method without a debiteuse, which is described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,338,696, a trough is used into which the glass melt is conveyed. The glass melt runs over the upper edge of the trough walls and travels downward along the outsides of the wedge-shaped trough. At the vertex point, the glass films thus produced flow together and are drawn downward. The ceramic trough is clad with platinum to reduce corrosion.
In this method, the total throughput is essentially determined by the inlet between the tank furnace and the trough. The so-called linear throughput, which is understood to be the throughput per unit of length lateral to the drawing direction of the glass ribbon, is adjusted by means of the glass flow in the trough, the glass level in the vicinity of the overflow lip of the trough, the geometry of the overflow lip, and the viscosity of the glass. A very exact temperature regulation is required, which must be to within 0.1° C.
Format or throughput changes require the geometry of the drawing trough to be adapted, in particular for the glass flow in the trough. Since it takes up to a week or more to start up a new drawing trough, the desired flexibility of production is only achieved to a limited degree.
The corrosion of the trough edges cannot be compensated for by tilting or stretching the trough. The trough must be replaced and the process must then be started up again.
In order to produce a wide glass ribbon with narrow borders, the glass ribbon must be stretched lateral to the ribbon direction, by means of so-called border rollers in the edge region. The border rollers increase the complexity of the manufacturing process.
Among the drawing methods with a slit nozzle, a distinction is drawn between those with and without draw bars or spreaders.
In the method with a slit nozzle, but without a draw bar described for example in SU 617,390, the glass from the refiner or conditioner runs over the opposing walls on both sides of an overflow weir made of a fireproof material. The two glass films thus produced flow together above a nozzle and are then drawn downward. The throughput is regulated by means of the glass level at the overflow lips. This can occur either by changing the glass level in the refiner or by more deeply immersing the overflow block.
The method with a slit nozzle but without a draw bar cannot fulfill the increased demands for surface quality, in particular with regard to fine corrugations (waviness). Because of the short dwell time of the glass in the onion region and because of the high viscosity of the glass, the irregularities do not heal.
It is also impermissible to exceed certain processing temperatures due to the increased instabilities in the onion region when the glass melt falls below critical viscosities. Consequently, the known drawing methods without a draw bar cannot be used to produce special glasses with an increased tendency to crystallize.
The disadvantages described above are partially avoided through the use of a slit nozzle with an internal draw bar.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,759,229 describes a drawing method for producing flat glass, in which glass flows through a slit nozzle that is provided in the bottom of a refiner or conditioner, onto a spreader with a rhomboid cross section, and is drawn downward over this spreader. Underneath the slit nozzle, the spreader is fitted into a recess that widens out toward the bottom. The glass bath depth of the refiner or conditioner increases toward the ends of the slit nozzle. Both the nozzle and the spreader can be contoured. It is essential here that the nozzle slit widens out toward the edges and that the alignable spreader that is used can be bowed upward in the middle.
The lower, wedge-shaped part of the spreader is provided with an enclosed region that can contain heating or cooling elements extending lateral to the drawing direction. The temperatures of the spreader can be adjusted by means of flows of temperature control mediums.
The glass flow is influenced by the geometry of the nozzle and spreader, by the temperature level and profile in the refiner or conditioner, and by the position of the spreader in relation to the nozzle. Among other tasks, the spreader must homogenize the temperatures of the glass lateral to the drawing direction so that flat glass is produced with the predetermined dimensions and a uniform appearance.
DE-AS 15 96 484 has disclosed a device, which includes a homogenizing receptacle that is connected to a drawing furnace by means of a closed, heatable channel. The drawing furnace is equipped with a nozzle, which is provided with a slit made of platinum at the bottom. Underneath the nozzle, a draw bar is provided in the form of a vertically situated plate. The glass melt emerging from the nozzle travels downward on both sides of the draw bar and comes together at the bottom end to form a glass ribbon.
For heat dissipation from the inside, bores are provided in the draw bar, through which coolant can be conveyed. In addition, cooling bodies are attached to the outside of the draw bar at the bottom. The height of the draw bar can be adjusted by means of adjusting screws.
JP 2-217,327 has disclosed a device for producing flat glass in which the glass is drawn downward through a slit that is provided in the bottom of a feeder or a refiner. The slit nozzle can be heated indirectly. The glass flow is shut off with the aid of a plunger disposed over the slit. In order to stabilize the glass ribbon, the debiteuse has a plate-shaped internal draw bar disposed in it, which is secured at the sides and can be adjusted in position, whose upper section protrudes into the debiteuse and whose lower part is encapsulated.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,829,639 describes a method and a device with which the total throughput and the linear throughput are adjusted only by means of the geometry of the nozzle system, the viscosity of the glass melt in the vicinity of the nozzle, and the pressure of the glass melt through the nozzle. Upon emerging from the nozzle, the glass melt has only a slight excess pressure due to the open storage system with a low glass fill level. The essential disadvantage of this device and this method lies in the coupling of the total throughput and the linear throughput.
The known methods with a slit nozzle and draw bar cannot achieve the excellent surface qualities that can be achieved with the known drawing methods without the slit nozzle. Particularly at high linear throughputs and high processing temperatures, the dwell times of the glass film on the draw bar are not sufficient to heal the waviness of the surface, which is caused by the wetting of the nozzle in the vicinity of the breaking edge.
In the known methods with the slit nozzle and without a draw bar, the adjustments to the total throughput and the adjustment of the linear throughput (thickness distribution lateral to the drawing direction) are coupled to each other.
In format or throughput changes, the nozzle geometry and the temperature control in the vicinity of the nozzle must be constantly renewed in order to be able to make adjustments in a generally empirical fashion. The starting processes last a long time and the desired flexibility of production is only achieved to a limited degree.
In order to adjust the specified thickness distribution, defined temperature profiles must be set lateral to the drawing direction in the vicinity of the nozzle. The temperature profiles imparted to the glass ribbon can only be partially balanced up to the fine annealing zone. This can lead to an impermissible deformation of the glass ribbon (warp) during the cooling to room temperature.

Method and device for producing thin glass panes


A vehicle adaptive cruise control system and method are provided. The adaptive cruise control system, comprising an adaptive cruise mode selection unit configured to select adaptive cruise modes to control speeds and relative distances for a host vehicle in different modes; a data acquisition unit configured to acquire a vehicle state variable x(t); a control unit configured to generate a vehicle control signal u(t) based on the vehicle state variable x(t); a critic unit configured to evaluate a control performance according to the vehicle state variable x(t) and the vehicle control signal u(t), if a result of evaluation indicates that the control performance does not comply with a requirement, then the control unit and the critic unit perform an online leaning; a gas pedal unit and a brake unit configured to be controlled respectively by using the vehicle control signal u(t) output from the is control unit and data provided from a the vehicle inverse dynamics. According to the system, the safety and personality is improved.

Vehicle adaptive cruise control (ACC) is an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). The ACC system is a development version of a cruise control (CC) system. In the ACC system, controlling parameters for a throttle or a breaking are calculated by measuring a distance from a host vehicle to a target vehicle and a relative speed to the target vehicle and a vehicle control or a distance control is implemented by adaptive adjustment. With the ACC system, a driver may drive the vehicle easier and a collision control may be achieved so as to improve safety, comfort and low cost for the vehicle driving.
Regarding to the safety, according to statistics of World Health Organization, (Broggi A., Zelinsky A., Parent M., Thorpe C. E. Intelligent vehicles, In Spring Handbooks of Robotics, Siciliano B., Khatib O. (Eds.), Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008, pp. 1175-1198.), there are about 1.2 million died and 5000 wound in the traffic accident in the whole world. Among which 90% are caused by drivers' fault, including fatigue, drunk, speeding, and so on. An average response time of normal drivers to emergency is about 1 second, while the response time of vehicle ACC is rather less. Therefore, the ACC is effective to avoid most traffic accidents with ACC.
Regarding to the comfort, traffic jams often occur in urban city, so that drivers should frequently stop and go, which needs lots of pedal switching activities, about 20-30 feet and hands coordination per minute. (Zhimei Gan. Stop&Go Cruise Control Based on Laser Radar. Shanghai Jiaotong University Master Thesis, 2009.) This is a main reason of driving fatigue. ACC can liberate the driver from frequent speeding up and slowing down and reduce the drivers' mental stress. Drivers can really enjoy the driving process.
Regarding to the low cost, recently low energy cost and low carbon emission are advocated. As well known, most waste emission is released during low speed driving, and ACC provides an optimized economic driving mode. On the other hand, a proper distance may be kept between the vehicles provided with the ACC system so as to improve a passage capacity and alleviate traffic jam. It is demonstrated that if a quarter vehicles were equipped with the ACC system in highways, the congestion would be effectively avoided. (Kesting A., Treiber M., Schonhof M., Helbing D. Adaptive cruise control design for active congestion avoidance. Transportation Research Part C, 2008, 16: 668-683.).
However, different drivers have different driving habits. This puts forward a high requirement for the ACC controller design. Otherwise, the driver may prefer to cancel the ACC function. Details are discussed in (Rajaonah B., Anceaux F., Vienne F. Trust and the use of adaptive cruise control: a study of a cut-in situation. Cognitive Technology Work, 2006, 8: 146-155.).
In general, there are some advantages in a conventional ACC system. However, when controlling the speed and the relative distance, the conventional ACC system can't perform adaptive adjustment based on different driving habits under various driving scenarios to improve the driver experience.
Therefore it is needed to provide an improved ACC system to address the advantages mentioned above.

Adaptive cruise control system and method for vehicle

Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences


A method to transmit commands across a gaming network is implemented with digitally signed messages. The command messages are generated upon a triggering event, such as the winning of a bonus. The messages are digitally signed by the transmitting node and transmitted to the subservient device. When the subservient device receives the message, it verifies the signature and executes the command. If the signature does not verify, the subservient device may raise an alarm.

Many casino operating companies own multiple casinos in several locations. It has proved to be advantageous for such companies to devise player loyalty promotions that span these properties. Historically, multi-property player management systems accumulate player activity across all properties. For example, many casinos track a player's total wagers, theoretical win, actual win, complementary balance, player point balance, and other key player behavior statistics across all casinos managed by that operator.
This information may be used to determine a global worth of the player to the operator, as opposed to a single playing location. Many casino operators accomplish this by dividing their player database into tiers, with the highest tier being the most valuable players and the lowest tier being the least valuable players from the casino's perspective. The casino typically uses a statistic such as theoretical win to establish player worth. Once this global player worth is established, casinos target promotional offers commensurate a player's worth. The promotions are designed to entice further play at one or more of the operator's casinos.
The promotions usually take advantage of the multi-property nature of the business, such as allowing redemption of promotions at all casinos; targeting redemptions to a single property that might have more capacity than other properties; and using a complementary trip to a more desirable property as a promotional offer
All of these generally rely on manual processes for communication of promotional information to the customers and for redeeming promotions. For example, promotional offers are generally communicated via direct mail to qualifying players, or via brochures, signage and literature at a casino. Further, redemption of promotional offers—whether they are cash, complementaries, etc. —is generally done manually at a players-club booth at each casino.
As used herein, the term bonus is an award, e.g., like the promotional offer, given to a player of an electronic gaming machine (EGM). The term bonus herein refers to any such award that is not paid by the device in accordance with its pay table. Such bonuses and systems for implementing them are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,961 (the '961 patent) and in U.S. Pat. No. 6,319,125, both of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. Also hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes is U.S. Pat. No. 6,375,569, which describes a bonus promotion like the one described herein, except implemented at a single casino. A bonus can include an award of cash or machine credits, player points, or complementary amenities.

Method and apparatus for authenticating and verifying communication on a network of gaming devices


A splicing connector and an associated splice mechanism are provided to splice first and second pluralities of optical fibers without buckling the optical fibers. The connector includes a housing and a retainer disposed of at least partially within the housing which defines a channel through which a plurality of optical fibers extend. The connector also includes a clip for securing the optical fibers within the retainer such that the end portions of the optical fibers are exposed through the forward end of the housing in preparation for splicing the optical fibers. Further, the connector includes a spring for urging the retainer and the optical fibers secured within the retainer toward the forward end of the housing, thereby permitting the optical fibers to be spliced without buckling the optical fibers.

A number of multi-fiber connectors, such as MTP connectors, are available to mate with other multi-fiber connectors in order to optically interconnect a plurality of optical fibers. Conventional multi-fiber connectors require a ferrule that is mounted upon the end portions of the optical fibers in order to secure the optical fibers in a fixed position relative to the connector. For example, an MTP connector includes an MT ferrule. Since ferrules require relatively high precision, conventional multi-fiber connectors that include ferrules are generally relatively expensive.
Multiple optical fibers can also be optically interconnected by means of a splice, such as a mechanical splice. As described below, several mechanical splices are currently available to splice multiple optical fibers. While these conventional multi-fiber mechanical splices are much less expensive than the conventional multi-fiber connectors, conventional multi-fiber mechanical splices suffer from several deficiencies which can impair the quality of the spliced connections, both immediately and over time.
One of the multi-fiber mechanical splices that is currently available is the VOLITION.TM. splice provided by 3M. The VOLITION.TM. splice includes an angled sleeve for aligning two pairs of optical fibers that are inserted through the opposed ends of the sleeve. In this regard, a pair of grooves are defined within the sleeve to receive and align respective end portions of the optical fibers. Due to the angled configuration of the VOLITION.TM. splice, at least one pair of the optical fibers is buckled or bent in order to make the necessary optical interconnection. By buckling the optical fibers, the optical fibers themselves provide the spring force which urges the end portions of the respective pairs of optical fibers together in order to make the desired optical interconnection.
It has been found, however, that optical fibers that remain buckled for a long time, such as for more than a year, are more prone to degradation and increased loss as a result of flaws induced in the optical fibers, typically during the process of stripping the buffer jacket from the optical fibers. In addition, the end faces of the optical fibers must generally be beveled such that the end facets are not scratched during insertion of the fibers into the respective grooves defined within the angled sleeve. Moreover, the VOLITION.TM. splice spaces the optical fibers apart by 750 microns. While a 750 micron spacing is acceptable for splicing a pair of optical fibers, a splice incorporating the splicing and spacing techniques of the VOLITION.TM. splice would quickly become unacceptably large if the splice was designed to interconnect more than two optical fibers, such as twelve or more optical fibers.
While there are currently several multi-fiber mechanical splices available, conventional multi-fiber mechanical splices suffer from a variety of deficiencies. As such, it is therefore desirable to provide a mechanical splice that provides for the in-line splicing of a plurality of optical fibers in a relatively compact housing without requiring or permitting the optical fibers to buckle. It is also desirable to provide a mechanical splice that permits the optical fibers to be readily spliced and separated, much in the same fashion that connectors can be mated and demated.

Multi-fiber splice mechanism and associated splicing connector


An apparatus for allowing pivotal movement between a reflector of a lighting fixture and a refractor which extends across an opening in the reflector is disclosed. The apparatus comprises a body portion, a leg portion attached to the body portion, and a retention portion attached to the body portion. The leg portion includes a pair of legs spaced apart from each other, which are closable against an inner surface of the reflector to secure the apparatus to the reflector. The retention portion includes a pair of retainers, each of which is closable around a bolt of the refractor to retain the bolt and allow pivotal movement of the refractor with respect to the reflector.

High intensity discharge (HID) lighting fixtures have widespread application in commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings. Conventional HID lighting fixtures generally include reflectors which enclose high intensity discharge lamps. Light emitted from such lamps is redirected by the reflectors in cooperation with refractors which are typically situated over openings at the bottom of the reflectors.
Conventional refractors of the type discussed above are typically joined to the corresponding reflector through the use of a hinge. The hinge allows the refractor to be moved away from the reflector, thereby providing access to the interior of the reflector to change the lamp and perform other routine maintenance. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,768 to Dryman et al. which discloses a luminaire including a device for hingedly mounting the refractor on a rim of the reflector. The device disclosed by Dryman et al. includes a bracket connected to the reflector and a hinge clip connected to a clampband around the refractor. The bracket has two hooked extensions which engage slotted sections of the hinge clip.
While Dryman et al. does not disclose how the bracket is connected to the reflector, those skilled in the art will appreciate that fasteners such as screws or rivets are normally employed to form this connection. The use of screws or rivets, however, significantly adds to the cost of materials and time required to assemble the corresponding lighting fixtures.

Apparatus and method for pivotably attaching a refractor to a reflector in a lighting fixture


An ejector member (2) for removing waste from sheets on the fly in a machine (1) for processing sheet-form elements includes a comb (4) having a plurality of teeth (10). The comb (4) is configured to be able to adopt a low-throughput first position and at least one high-throughput second position. The center of the comb (4) is set back with respect to the lateral ends of the comb (4) in the high-throughput second position. The center of the comb (4) is set back further in the high-throughput second position than in the low-throughput first position. Also relates a machine for processing sheet-form elements including such an ejector member.

After shaping and ejecting the waste, separating copies involves severing the points attaching the copies on a sheet and receiving the copies in the receiving zone. The remaining part of the sheet, also referred to as the waste, remains gripped in the grippers of the gripper bar of the sheet transfer device so that the waste can be taken to the waste removal station.
A gripper bar and grippers on it is known in the art, as shown in the following United States patents, all incorporated by reference herein: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,125,640; 5,562,279; 5,697,607; 7,237,479; 7,331,915; and 8,960,410.
The gripper bar is usually driven by two looped chains, and positioned respectively on one of the two sides of the punching press and to which the two ends of the gripper bars are fixed. A static ejector is arranged in the waste removal station in the form of a comb extending transversely with respect to the direction of travel of the waste transported by the gripper bar.
The path of the gripper bar is synchronized with its opening at the waste removal station so that on ascending the bend of the chainset loop, the grippers of the bar open as they intercept the ejector. The sheet carried by the gripper bar is released before it strikes the comb with the teeth which pass between the grippers of the gripper bar so that the sheet pivots onto the discharge belt.
Ejection is said to be "on the fly" because the about-turn path of the gripper bar in the waste removal station is employed directly in order to cause the cut sheet waste to pivot onto the discharge belt. Ejection on the fly makes it possible to save on a gripper bar. Specifically, without on-the-fly ejection, to remove the cut sheet waste from the gripper bar, the machine would need to comprise an additional waste-removal station in which the gripper bar would stop in order to set down the sheet of waste. The chainsets would then need to be lengthened by one additional gripper bar, which is expensive and takes up space.
This method of removing waste on the fly is effective provided that, once the gripper bar is open, the interception between the comb and the grippers allows the comb to come into contact with the sheet of waste and allows the grippers to pass between the teeth of the comb without the grippers contacting the teeth.
However, as the gripper bar performs its about-turn, it is subjected to a centrifugal force which increases intensity with the increase in machine throughput. At high throughput, such as at 10,000 sheets/hour and beyond, the gripper bar may deform under the effect of the centrifugal force. The conditions of interception between the gripper bar and the static ejector can then no longer be guaranteed and the waste removal functionality may therefore no longer be assured.

Ejector member and machine for processing sheet-form elements


A method, a data structure, a computer program product and a computer-readable medium for handling license agreements for multiple software packages in a computer system, each software package being identified by a unique package ID and comprising one or more components. One embodiment provides a method comprising: providing a plurality of document files, each document file comprising one or more text elements; providing a plurality of manifest files, each manifest file indicating at least one corresponding document file of the plurality of document files and comprising a unique package ID designating a corresponding software package; extracting a specific unique package ID from a specific software package; determining a corresponding manifest file from the plurality of manifest files on the basis of the extracted unique package ID; determining the at least one corresponding document file of the plurality of document files on the basis of the determined corresponding manifest file; and combining the one or more text elements comprised in the at least one determined corresponding document file to build a license agreement for the specific software package.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to handling license agreements for software packages in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Companies are in the business of developing software packages comprising, for example, operating system and application software products, which are then marketed to computer owners. Typically, such software packages are marketed on a fixed fee basis in which a user purchases a copy of the software package, usually under terms of a license agreement. The license agreement normally explains to the user that the software package is owned by a corresponding company and only copyrighted and licensed to the user, but not transferred.
It has been a characteristic of this industry that in order for the developers of the software to recover the often quite large investment in research and development of the software product, and also the costs of manufacture and marketing, that the purchase price of such software items has been relatively high. This high purchase price has been a barrier, in some circumstances, to the widespread licensing of some software and has limited the penetration in some markets. In addition, some users are reluctant to incur such a purchase without first operating the software, since the suitability of software is very difficult to judge without actually using it.
In order to afford users an opportunity to evaluate a particular operating system or application software product, a developer may offer the user a "trial period" during which the user is granted the right to use the operating system or application software product. Upon expiration of the trial period, the user may either license the product or stop using the product.
Growth in the computer industry has also led many personal computer systems manufacturers to "preload" software packages on the systems. The preloaded systems may be marketed as "turn-key" solutions, whereby the user is not required to install the software package(s) and may begin useful operation shortly after turning the system on. In addition, preloaded software packages may be used by a software vendor as a method of introducing the user to a particular software product(s), which the user may purchase upon the expiration of a trial period.
As is well known, a major problem with regard to the preloading of software packages in general is that the end-user is not required to explicitly accept corresponding license agreements, so that legal problems may arise in using these software packages. It is thus possible that a specific software package is preloaded which the end-user is not authorized to use.
Most of today's available software packages only display a license agreement that must be accepted before the installation process is allowed to continue. However, even the mechanisms used on workstations for rendering the license agreements are deficient for installing and managing software packages on multi-user systems. For example, the installation of software may occur off-shift by individuals not qualified to understand or accept the corresponding license agreement. Furthermore, the system language (locale) used to present the license agreement may not be the one understood by the license reviewer, i.e. the end-user. Additionally, the license agreement's acceptance dialogs may disrupt an automated or batch installation processes.
Conventional practice also presents inconveniences when a user installs multiple software packages. In particular, installation of several software packages based on the same software product from one software provider may result in multiple, redundant acceptance dialogs and software that has been preloaded by the system manufacturer, a previous system owner or any other third-party cannot re-request acceptance.
Moreover, license agreements for software packages, which have been accepted by the end-user, cannot easily be found on the computer system in case the end-user wants to read these license agreements again. Additionally, a system administrator of a company cannot control the displaying and requesting for acceptance of license agreements to end-users when, for instance, internally redistributing software.
Consequently, the handling of license agreements for software packages in a computer system is generally cumbersome and inefficient and computer users are not able to manage license agreements of software packages installed, or to be installed, on their computer systems efficiently and effectively.

Mechanisms for handling software license agreements on multi-user system

International Business Machines Corporation


A device for non-volatile storage of a status value indicating that there has been a condition, including a non-volatile storage, an energy storage for storing energy when applying a supply voltage, and a switching circuit to couple the energy storage to the non-volatile storage to write the status value thereto if the condition is present.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for non-volatile storage of a status value, in particular in the field of security-relevant systems, such as, for example, chip cards or smart cards.
2. Description of Related Art
Integrated security circuits, as are, for example, used in chip cards or smart cards, in particular in the field of security-relevant applications, like for example in the field of access protection for non-public areas, computer systems or secret information, aim at defeating attacks performed for fraudulent purposes. The goal of such attacks frequently is obtaining information stored in the integrated security circuits of the chip cards in order to obtain special privileges in an unauthorized manner.

Device and method for non-volatile storage of a status value


A wheel hub is configured to rotate about an axis of rotation during operation, and includes a brake disk abutment surface against which a brake disk bears in an installed state, and a wheel-hub-side contact surface which is offset in an axial direction with respect to the brake disk abutment surface and which runs obliquely with respect to the axis of rotation and against which at least a part of a fastening assembly, by which the brake disk is fastenable or fastened to the wheel hub, bears in the installed state.

The present invention relates to a wheel hub, a brake disk, a fastening assembly, and a system formed of a wheel hub, of a brake disk and of a fastening assembly.
Wheel hubs are well known from the prior art. They serve for the attachment of a wheel to an axle element, for example to an axle of a utility vehicle. Here, brake disks are commonly connected rotationally conjointly to the wheel hub. The brake disks are typically fixed axially by means of screws engaging into the wheel hub. This axial fixing by means of the screw leads here to a non-positively locking connection at an interface between the wheel hub and the brake disk bearing against the wheel hub. In order to withstand the loads that arise during operation, in the prior art, relatively high demands are placed on a fastening assembly by which the brake disk is fixed axially to the wheel hub.
In view of the described prior art, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved wheel hub, with which high operational reliability can be ensured and greater braking torques can be accommodated.

Wheel hub, a brake disc, a fastening means, and a system formed of wheel hub, brake disc and fastening means