A method of presenting instructions to a user sending an incoming communication to a service center includes presenting a menu to the user. The menu includes a plurality of procedure descriptors to the user. The user is presented, according to a selection of one of the procedure descriptors by the user, a sequence of instructions which enable completion of a procedure described by the selected procedure descriptor. The incoming communication is transferred at a position in the sequence of instructions to a representative. The incoming communication is also transferred back to the same position in the sequence of instructions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to an interactive voice response (IVR) system for managing customer calls.
2. Acronyms
The written description provided herein contains acronyms which refer to various telecommunications services, components and techniques, as well as features relating to the present invention. Although some of these acronyms are known, use of these acronyms is not strictly standardized in the art. For purposes of the written description herein, acronyms will be defined as follows:
Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF)
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
3. Description of Background Information
Many companies utilize IVR call management systems in order to handle and route incoming telephone calls. This is especially true for calls not requiring a live operator to assist the caller. UVR systems have been phenomenally successful and enjoy widespread use because they generate enormous cost savings at customer call centers, due to a reduction in required staff.
Conventional IVR systems are well-suited to providing small amounts of information to a user in real-time. However, conventional UVR systems have shortcomings, particularly with respect to larger amounts of information or instruction sets longer than one or two sentences. The primary reason for this shortcoming is the short-term memory and cognitive limitations inherent in the average caller. That is, most callers are not well adapted to remembering long strings of information (e.g., a long sequential recitation of tasks) presented in a short period of time, especially when sequence-specific procedures are presented. Further, conventional IVR systems require the caller to remember various navigational control keys, i.e., forward, backward, repeat, continue, etc. Moreover, conventional IVR systems lack the ability and flexibility to present long, detailed sequential instructions sets to a caller in a manner suitable to the average caller's cognitive capabilities. Further, conventional IVR systems also assume that the caller has performed a particular step correctly. Successive steps may be impossible to perform when a previous step has been performed incorrectly. This approach may lead to customer frustration and dissatisfaction.
As a result, it would be desirable to have a IWR system that would allow a caller to perform a series of sequential tasks, based on an instruction set, at the caller's own pace.
The present invention overcomes the problems associated with the prior art.

Sequential presentation of long instructions in an interactive voice response system


An apparatus for generating a pulsed magnetic field includes an insulating body, an electrical conductor positioned on the insulating body, and a ferromagnetic body having a hollow portion, wherein the insulating body and the electrical conductor are positioned in the hollow portion. In some embodiments of the present disclosure, the electrical conductor has at least one gap separating the electrical conductor into at least two parts, thereby allowing a current to flow through the at least two parts in parallel to generate a magnetic field in the insulating body.

Low-energy magnetic fields are increasingly used for therapeutic purposes, such as the healing of fractures and ulcers. For example, pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) have been widely used in treating therapeutically resistant problems of the musculoskeletal system. In addition, PEMF is also used for sterilization of foods such as milk, fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, the application of PEMF is to metallurgy has recently been developing.
In particular, PEMF therapy has been used to treat non-union bone fractures and delayed union bone fractures. Non-union bone fractures are typically defined as injuries which have not satisfactorily healed within nine months or more after the fracture occurs. Delayed union fractures are typically considered injuries which have not satisfactorily healed within nine months or less after the fracture occurs. PEMF therapy has also been used for the treatment of corresponding types of body soft tissue injuries.
This "Discussion of the Background" section is provided for background information only. The statements in this "Discussion of the Background" are not an admission that the subject matter disclosed in this "Discussion of the Background" section constitutes prior art to the present disclosure, and no part of this "Discussion of the Background" section may be used as an admission that any part of this application, including this "Discussion of the Background" section, constitutes prior art to the present disclosure.

Generating apparatus of a pulsed magnetic field

NATIONAL SYNCHROTRON RADIATION RESEARCH CENTER


An add-on device adapted to be releasably attachable to a drug delivery device, the drug delivery device comprising a first housing having a first mounting surface with a first positioning structure, and a dose setting mechanism with a dose indicator member. The add-on device comprises a second housing comprising a second mounting surface with a second positioning structure protruding from the second mounting surface and adapted to engage the first positioning structure form-fittingly when the add-on device is mounted on the drug delivery device, a mounting switch actuatable between a non-mounted and a mounted state, a cam-era opening formed in the mounting surface, the second positioning structure surrounding the camera opening, a camera adapted to capture an image of the indicator member when arranged in alignment with the camera window, wherein the mounting switch is arranged in the vicinity of the second positioning structure.

In the disclosure of the present invention reference is mostly made to drug delivery devices comprising a threaded piston rod driven by a rotating drive member, such devices being used e.g. in the treatment of diabetes by delivery of insulin, however, this is only an exemplary use of the present invention.
Drug Injection devices have greatly improved the lives of patients who must self-administer drugs and biological agents. Drug Injection devices may take many forms, including simple disposable devices that are little more than an ampoule with an injection means or they may be durable devices adapted to be used with prefilled cartridges. Regardless of their form and type, they have proven to be great aids in assisting patients to self-administer injectable drugs and biological agents. They also greatly assist care givers in administering injectable medicines to those incapable of performing self-injections.
Performing the necessary insulin injection at the right time and in the right size is essential for managing diabetes, i.e. compliance with the specified insulin regimen is important. In order to make it possible for medical personnel to determine the effectiveness of a prescribed dosage pattern, diabetes patients are encouraged to keep a log of the size and time of each injection. However, such logs are normally kept in handwritten notebooks, and the logged information may not be easily uploaded to a computer for data processing. Furthermore, as only events, which are noted by the patient, are logged, the note book system requires that the patient remembers to log each injection, if the logged information is to have any value in the treatment of the patient's disease. A missing or erroneous record in the log results in a misleading picture of the injection history and thus a misleading basis for the medical personnel's decision making with respect to future medication. Accordingly, it may be desirable to automate the logging of injection information from medication delivery systems.
Though some injection devices integrate this monitoring/acquisition mechanism into the device itself, e.g. as disclosed in US 2009/0318865 and WO 2010/052275, most devices of today are without it. The most widely used devices are purely mechanical devices being either durable or prefilled. The latter devices are to be discarded after being emptied and so inexpensive that it is not cost-effective to build-in electronic data acquisition functionality in the device it-self. Addressing this problem a number of solutions have been proposed which would help a user to generate, collect and distribute data indicative of the use of a given medical device.
For example, WO 2013/120776 describes an electronic supplementary device (or "add-on module") adapted to be releasably attached to a drug delivery device of the pen type. The device includes a camera and is configured to perform optical character recognition (OCR) on captured images from a rotating scale drum visible through a dosage window on the drug delivery device, thereby to determine a dose of medicament that has been dialled into the drug delivery device. Further external devices for a pen device are shown in WO 2010/037828, WO 2014/161952, WO 2015/136513 and WO 2016/030348. As the external device is designed to detect signals or events originating from the device to which it is attached it is important that the two devices are correctly positioned relatively to each other to ensure proper operation and prevent incorrect measurements.
Having regard to the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide devices, assemblies and methods allowing secure and easy operation of a drug delivery assembly comprising a user-mountable add-on module provided with a camera device.


The present disclosure features an image forming apparatus having a first developing unit having a first developing roller; and a first toner supply unit configured to supply toner to the first developing unit, the first toner supply unit having: a first container configured to accommodate the toner therein, the first container having a first inlet opening through which the toner is received in the first container and a first outlet opening through which the toner in the first container is discharged; a first lid configured to close the first inlet opening; and a first shutter configured to open the first outlet opening when the first lid closes the first inlet opening, and to close the first outlet opening when the first lid opens the first inlet opening.

Such a conventional inkjet type image forming apparatus is known that includes an inkjet head and an ink tank. The inkjet head is configured to eject ink. The ink tank can accommodate ink to be supplied to the inkjet head.
The ink tank is directly supplied with ink externally of the image forming apparatus. With such a tank-supply style image forming apparatus, a running cost can be reduced, compared with a cartridge type image forming apparatus in which ink is supplied by exchanging a cartridge accommodating ink.
The present disclosure has been developed further from the above described conventional technique.
An object of the present disclosure is to provide an electrophotographic type image forming apparatus with an ink tank.

Image forming apparatus having toner supply unit to supply toner to developing unit


A locomotive speed determination system and method receive image data of a field of view of a camera operably disposed onboard a locomotive. A speed and/or heading of the locomotive are determined as the vehicle is moving based at least in part on one or more differences in the image data. In one aspect, pixel intensities in different images or frames may be examined to identify one or more features of interest in the images or frames. Movement of the one or more features of interest in the images or frames is correlated to movement of the locomotive along the route, and the time difference between when the images or frames are obtained can be used to determine the locomotive speed.

A vehicle may include a sensor for measuring vehicle speed. For example, automobile speed may be determined based on a rotating magnetic field that is generated by a magnet coupled to an axle or other part of the vehicle that moves proportionally to the vehicle speed. The vehicle speed may be communicated to an operator of the vehicle for assessing compliance with traffic control regulations (e.g., speed limits), or to a vehicle control system for automatically or otherwise controlling the vehicle based on the measured speed. If the sensor is damaged, however, such functionality may not be available.
In some transportation systems, government regulations require a vehicle, or certain designated classes or types of vehicles, to have redundant means for determining vehicle speed. For example, under some positive train control (PTC)-related regulations, locomotives or other powered rail vehicles may be required to have redundant speed sensors. Such redundant sensors, however, may add significantly to the cost of the locomotive or other rail vehicle.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and system to determine vehicle speed


A wireless communication system may include a first transceiver that may concurrently keep at least two data units, such as payloads of data pending for transfer to a second transceiver (e.g., a targeted wireless communication device) over a communication link (e.g., a short-range radio link) on a communication channel. To wirelessly communicate with one or more networked wireless communication devices or systems, in one embodiment, the first transceiver is located in a device that may use a local link control and adaptation protocol capable of non-blocking data transfer operations. In one embodiment, pending multiple, data units are buffered to participate in a data streaming session. The transfer of the data units may be monitored to determine whether or not a data transfer operation was successful during the data streaming session. When the protocol learns that during the data streaming session a problem occurred with a data unit that was pending, the problem may be reported via an event instead of waiting for feedback to arrive from the targeted wireless communication device.

This invention relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to data transfer over a wireless communication link.
A wireless transfer of voice, video, and/or data over a short-range communication link may be difficult because short-range wireless communications not only have to be low-power but also have to be able to overcome interference and fading while providing wireless communications comparable to wireline data transmission rates. To obviate some of these constraints while providing a robust short-range communication link between a source and a target transceiver, a constant feedback is generally needed from the receiving end to the transmitting end. More specifically, this feedback may be transmitted as an acknowledgement and voice, video and/or data may be transferred on a data unit-to-data unit basis after receiving feedback for each transmitted data unit. Under these circumstances, a constant supply of data units to be transferred may need to be made available at the source transceiver to continuously transfer voice, video, and/or data to the target transceiver.
Typically, such voice, video, and/or data may be communicated in a plurality of payloads. Each payload may be broken further into one or more packets that are exchanged between at least two wirelessly networked devices or systems. With conventional short-range wireless communication systems, however, keeping more than one payload pending for a wireless transfer at a given time may be difficult. In one of such conventional wireless communication systems, a successful data transfer operation involves transmitting a data packet over an air interface and acknowledging receipt of that data packet (including any retries). After the transmission of the data packet, however, a transmitter must wait for a response indicative of a successful transmission or a timeout from a receiver before preparing a next payload for a transmission. As a result, the latency constraints on data transmission are increased due to the need to wait for the communication of the data packet to complete before preparing the next payload for transmission.
Thus, there is a continuing need for better ways to wirelessly communicate over a communication link.

Transferring multiple data units over a wireless communication link


A radio control toy vehicle having a two-wheel vehicle body includes a turnably mounted front fork to which a steering section is operatively connected, a front wheel mounted on the front fork through a front wheel shock absorber, a drive case on which a rear wheel mounted on a rear side of the vehicle body is mounted, a wheelie mechanism for shifting the vehicle body to a running state in which the vehicle body runs using the rear wheel while elevating the front wheel above the ground by temporarily pulling up the front wheel against springs provided on the front fork and then, by releasing the pulling up motion and applying a pushing down force to the front wheel by a restoring force of the springs, and a receiver for receiving a control signal from a transmitter and producing a running control signal.

1) Field of the Invention
In a remote control two-wheel vehicle running toy, the present invention relates to a radio control two-wheel vehicle toy capable of performing a stunt running such as wheelie in which the two-wheel vehicle runs using a rear wheel only while keeping floating a front wheel from the ground.
2) Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a field of a two-wheel vehicle running toy such as radio control bicycle or motorcycle, various proposals have been made for realizing stable straight running and lateral turning. The present applicant proposes a radio control two-wheel vehicle toy capable of reducing the number of parts with a simple structure, and capable of stabilizing the running state (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-167116 (pages 2 to 4, FIGS. 1 to 4) for example).


Multilayer thin film dichroic filters composed of alternating layers of high (H) and low (L) refractive index have three groups, a lower group next to the substrate having a ratio Ra of high and low index layers Ra1; a second mid group having a ratio Ra of high and low index layers Ra2; and a third upper group having a ratio Ra of high and low index layers Ra3; and the ratios have the relationship Ra1<Ra2<Ra3. Such filters exhibit improved angle sensitivity and wavelength transition values, and are useful for example in color projection displays.

This invention relates to dichroic color filters having low sensitivity to the incident angle of the wavelengths to be filtered, and also relates to projection systems incorporating such filters.
Dichroic color filters are conventionally formed by depositing a multilayer thin film structure on a transparent substrate. The multilayer structure is designed to transmit a selected band of wavelengths from the visible spectrum, and reflect the non-selected wavelengths.
Such dichroic color filters are useful, for example, in color projection display systems, in which they have been employed to separate a white light source into red, blue and green sub-beams for separate modulation by corresponding color components of an incoming display signal, and then to recombine the modulated subbeams into a full color display for projection onto a viewing screen.
Modulation of the subbeams is commonly carried out using three separate liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, one for each of the three subbeams. However, in one type of color projection system, described, eg., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,763, incorporated herein by reference, the three subbeams are all modulated by a single LCD panel. This is accomplished by restricting the subbeams into band-shaped cross-sections, with the bands having a height smaller than the height of the LCD panel, and scrolling the color bands sequentially down the LCD panel, while synchronously addressing those portions of the panel which are illuminated by the bands with the corresponding display signal information. Such projection systems are referred to as single panel scrolling raster (SPSR) projectors.
Both three-panel and single-panel type projectors have exhibited lack of color uniformity attributed to the angle sensitivity of the transition wavelength of the dichroic filters.
Unfortunately, the commercially available dichroic filters do not provide the requisite low angle sensitivity. Such filters having the steep transition wavelengths and good transmissions needed for projection display systems exhibit angle sensitivities greater than 1 nm per degree of change of incident ray angle, up to 2 nm per degree or more.

Dichroic filters with low nm per degree sensitivity

Philips Electronics North America Corporation


Disclosed are an anti-influenza nucleic acid, peptide nucleic acid and preparations thereof. The nucleic acid of the invention consists of any one or several of SEQ ID NOs: 1-12, and any one or several of SEQ ID NOs: 13-24. The peptide nucleic acid of the invention consists of any one or several of SEQ ID NOs: 25-36, and any one or several of SEQ ID NOs: 37-48. The peptide nucleic acid preparation of the invention has effective ingredients of said peptide nucleic acids. The anti-influenza peptide nucleic acid of the invention is of high bioavailability and stable physical and chemical properties with no toxic or side effect and no drug tolerance. With low cost, the drugs can inhibit influenza virus replication and have good anti-virus effect.

Influenza virus is also known as IFV for short. Influenza virus is one of the earliest studied viruses and is received much concern due to its severe damage, which exhibits rapid outbreak and spread, and thus leads to local or global epidemics and disastrous consequences in a short period of time. There were 5 influenza outbreaks in the last century. In 1918, the Spanish Flu Pandemic (H1N1) had taken the lives of 20 million people. Later happened in 1957 was the Asian Flu, an influenza virus A H2N2 subtype derived from gene reassortment of human influenza viruses with avian influenza viruses, wherein three gene fragments, namely HA, NA, and PB1, came from avian influenza viruses, and other gene fragments came from human influenza viruses at the moment. The Hong Kong Flu, which was first found in Hong Kong and later spread to Japan and the United States, etc., killed many lives in 1968. Hong Kong Flu was influenza virus H3N3 subtype, which was also derived from gene reassortment of human influenza viruses with avian influenza viruses. The Russian Flu in 1977, derived from H1N1 subtype reassortment based on influenza virus A H5N1 subtype, spread relatively slow and mainly infected the youth and poultries. In 1998-1999, Hong Kong suffered again from influenza virus A H5N1 subtype epidemic. Furthermore, many lives of children and the old are taken by smaller epidemics every year, which results in serious social problems. Besides of epidemics in human being, influenza virus may also cause infection in animals, such as bird flu or swine flu etc., leading to tremendous economic loss in breeding industry. Starting from Southeast Asia in the winter of 2004, the H5N1 high pathogenic avian influenza resulted in grievous loss in many Asian and European countries and regions, and led to more than 100 cases of infections with more than 80 deaths all over the world. In 2007, the Mexican swine influenza gave rise to global attention. The frequent influenza epidemics are mainly because of the frequent variation of influenza virus, which makes the prevention and the control of influenza a great challenge to human beings.
Influenza viruses belong to Orthomyxoviridae, and are segmented minus-strand RNA viruses. According to different antigenicity of nucleocapsid protein (NP) and matrix protein (M), influenza viruses are divided into A, B and C types. The influenza viruses have a spherical shape with a diameter of 80-120 nm, whereas newly isolated strains are mostly filament-shaped with 400 nm in length. Influenza viruses comprise, from outside to inside, three parts of the envelope, the matrix protein and the core. The envelope is a phospholipid bilayer membrane coated outside of the matrix protein. The membrane is derived from cell membrane of the host, mature influenza virus buds from the host cell and separates from the cell after being coated outside with host cell membrane, to infect the next target. Except for phospholipid molecule, the envelope contains two important glycoproteins, namely hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, which extrude outside of the virus with 10-40 nm in length and are known as spikes. Usually there are 500 hemagglutinin spikes and 100 neuraminidase spikes on the surface of one influenza virus. In influenza virus A, the antigenicity of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase varies, which is a standard for distinction of viral strain subtypes.
Among three influenza viruses infecting human beings, influenza virus A has a very strong variability, and influenza virus B takes the second place; whereas the antigenicity of influenza virus C is very stable. As the most frequently varying type, influenza virus A intends to have a great antigenicity variation in every dozen years, which will result in a new virus strain. This variation is called antigenic shift, i.e., qualitative change of the antigen. Small changes also take place in influenza virus A by the form of point mutation in antigen amino acid sequence, which is called antigenic drift, i.e., quantitative change of the antigen. Antigenic shift may be a simultaneous change of both hemagglutinin antigen and neuraminidase antigen, which is called family variation; or, it may be a variation of hemagglutinin antigen only and neuraminidase antigen does not change or changes only a little, which is called subtype variation.
The influenza virus genome consists of 8 negative single stranded RNA fragments encoding 10 virus proteins, among which 8 are components for virus particles (HA, NA, NP, M1, M2, PB1, PB2 and PA), and the other two are RNA fragments with the smallest molecular weight encoding two non-structural proteins, namely, NS1 and NS2. NS1 relates to cytoplasm inclusion body. However, it is at present not very clear about functions of NS1 and NS2.
There are two glycoprotein spikes with different shapes and the same length of 10-20 nm on the surface of influenza virus A particles, respectively, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), both possessing antigenicity. The ratio of HA to NA is 4:1 to 5:1. There is also a transmembrane protein (M2 channel protein) of smaller amount on the surface of virus particles, the ratio of M2 to HA being 1:10-100. Located under the bilayer lipid envelope of virus particle is the matrix protein M1, whose content is the largest in the virus particle and which constitutes the main structure of the virus envelope. A complex of nucleic export protein (NEP, non-structural protein2, NS2) and viral ribonucleoprotein (RNP) is located inside of M1 and links thereto. The studies of the invention mainly focus on three genes of M, NP and PB2.
According to antigenicity of HA and NA, influenza virus A may be classified into different subtypes, among which there are 16 HAs (H1-16) and 9 NAs (N1-9). Avian influenza virus includes all subtypes, whereas human influenza virus includes only H1-H3 and N1-N2, and swine influenza virus includes only H1, H3, and N1-N2 subtypes.
As for genome of influenza virus, the genome of influenza virus A contains 8 RNA fragments (see FIG. 1), and at the 5′ and 3′ terminal of every fragment there is one non-encoding region, which is relatively conserved among all fragments and encodes one or more virus proteins. The biggest three RNA fragments encode polymerase, the 4th RNA fragment encodes HA protein, the 5th encodes NP protein, the 6th encodes NA and NB proteins (NB protein helps to infect), and the 7th encodes M1 protein (whose stop codon overlaps with the start codon of M2, to form a "stop-start" UAAUG sequence). The 8th fragment encodes NS1 as well as the NEP/NS2 protein through splice.
Due to the high variability of influenza, it is especially important to choose a silent target gene.
The matrix protein (MA) is a non-glycosylated structural protein, including two types, namely M1 and M2, and its structure is stable during the evolution of the virus. M1 regulates the export of ribonucleoprotein, and inhibits virus gene transcription as well as has the key effect thereof in virus budding and so on. M2 is a transmembrane protein with a conserved structure. M2 regulates pH gradients of transmembrane transportion tunnel of Golgi apparatus and stabilizes the HA protein. M1 consists of 252 amino acid residues with a molecular weight of about 26 kDa, and has no glycosylation site at the polypeptide chain. Except for being a structural protein, M1 participates in the regulation of virus transcription and the material delivery between the nucleus and cytoplasm of infected cells. M2 gene comprises two parts of 14-39 and 728-995, whose initial transcription product is cleaved of the 40-727 introns and spliced into mature mRNA, then translated into M2 protein. M2 protein is an intact membrane protein with 97 amino acids that is expressed massively at the surface of infected cells, including extracellular N-terminus (23 amino acid residues), transmembrane region (25-43 amino acid residues) and intracellular C-terminus (54 amino acid residues). M2 protein is a relatively smaller viral component, whose bioactive form is an oligo-tetramer. M2 protein includes 3 cysteine residues, Cys217, Cys219 and Cys250. Most M2 form an M2-dimer via a disulfide bond between Cys217 and Cys219, then a homotetramer via non-covalent bond linkage wherein Cys250 is acylated. Site specific mutation proves that although it is not a necessity for tetramer assembly, the disulfide bond can stabilize the M2 tetramer structure. If Cys217 and Cys219 are lacked, mutated tetramer can only play a role of cross-linking, and the virus may not survive or have weakened toxicity. M2 protein plays an important role in virus replication, and is also a target for anti-virus drugs.
Nucleoprotein (NP), a main protein component of virus nucleocapsid, is a monomer phosphorylated polypetide with a molecular weight of about 60 kDa and is type-specific, thus becoming a factor for the specified host selection. Encoded by vRNA fragment 5, nucleoprotein molecule consists of 498 amino acid residues and is rich in arginines. The amino acid sequence is conserved among subtypes and among various strains of one subtype, and provides basis for the evolution and classification of influenza virus molecules. Nucleoprotein, a main component of virus nucleocapsid, is type-specific and a chief antigen recognized by cytotoxic lymphocyte. It also plays a part in viral gene transcription and replication.
Structure and function of PB2 subunit: the PB2 subunit is another component of polymerase trimer and has many functions. On virus infection, the PB2 subunit determines host specificity of the virus by passing between cell nucleus and cytoplasm, the crucial site thereof being amino acid residue at position 702 [5]. The PB2 subunit also relates to viral pathogenicity wherein amino acid residue at position 627 plays a vital role. The D701N mutation can break the salt bridge between NSL and Arg753 of PB2, and potentially change the aggregation of 3 polymerase subunits, thus influences interspecies transmission of influenza viruses. When viral genome transcribes, the PB2 subunit can bind to cap structure. However, there is a controversy about the cap bonding site. Honda et al. (1999) believe that it relates to amino acid residues at position 242 and 252, Li et al. (2001) consider that it relates to amino acids in the region of 533-564, and Fechter et al. (2003) think that amino acid residues at position 363 and 404 are crucial ones for binding with cap structure, and 2 aromatic amino acids are extremely conserved in influenza virus A and B, which is of profound significance on the study of the function of influenza virus PB2 subunits of different subtypes. PB2 N-terminus links to PB1 C-terminus, wherein the amino acid residue at position 249 of PB2 plays a vital role. PB2 subunit recognizes the 5′ terminus of vRNA promoter, specifically binds thereto, and cleaves the host cell mRNA as an endonuclease to create transcription primers, and thus starts viral genome transcription process which depends on the primer. However, the conclusion is still in dispute and needs more studies. PB2 is found to exist in the mitochondria of both transfected cells and virus infected cells. The positioning signal of PB2 in cell nucleus lies between 449-495 amino acid residues of PB2, and the target positioning signal is at the N-terminus thereof in the mitochondria. 2 conserved leucine residues play a vital role during this positioning process.
Among the several proteins of influenza virus, HA, NA, NP, M1 and M2 proteins work as virus structural proteins and participate in the assembly of virus particle, and play an important role in the maintenance of virus morphology, the assembly of capsomers, as well as the process of adsorption, invasion and release etc. of virus. NS1, NS2, PB1, PB2 and PA are non-structural proteins that do not directly participate in the assembly of virus capsomers, instead they exhibit important regulation effect in the virus replication cycle. Therefore, with thorough consideration of elements all around, the present invention is focused on conserved and important functional genes, such as M, NP and PB2.
Antisense nucleic acid includes antisense RNA and antisense DNA, and is characterized in its convenient synthesis, sequences being easily designed, modified, and high selectivity and affinity and so on. As a new anti-virus and anti-tumor drug, antisense nucleic acid raises a revolution in pharmacology field, namely, carries out the reaction after the binding of new drug receptor mRNA via new receptor binding mode (Watson-Crick hybridization), comprising (1) RNase H mediated degradation of target RNA; (2) inhibition of DNA replication and transcription as well as post-transcriptional processing and translation, etc. The antisense oligonucleotides (ODNs) treatment may exhibit higher specificity than traditional drug therapeutic tools. In the 30 years since late 1970s, antisense nucleic acid drugs have walked out of labs into practical clinical application. Antisense therapeutics has been paid more attention to especially after the first antisense nucleic acid drug, Fomivirsen, is approved to be listed in the market by FDA.
On the basis of base-pairing principles, antisense nucleic acid may participate in the regulation of related gene expression via base pairing with target RNA. The possible mode of regulation may be as follows: I. antisense RNA binds to virus mRNA, to form complementary double strand and block the binding of ribosome to virus mRNA, and thus inhibits process of virus mRNA being translated into protein; II. A triple helix nucleic acid can be formed by antisense DNA and the target gene, which regulates gene transcription by acting on transcriptons, enhancers and promoter regions controlling gene transcription; III. The binding of antisense nucleic acid to virus mRNA stops the delivery of mRNA to cytoplasm; IV. The binding of antisense nucleic acid to virus mRNA makes mRNA more easily to be recognized and degraded by nuclease, and thus greatly shortens mRNA half-lives. The above four pathways may exhibit as the inhibition or regulation on the virus gene expression, and this regulation is highly specific.
The antisense nucleic acid recognizes target gene on the basis of base-pairing principle. Theoretically, taking animal cells for an example, whose chromosomes have about several billions of base pairs, if the 4 bases (A, G, C and T) are roughly of the same amount and randomly distributed all over the gene, then it is not likely for antisense nucleic acids with more than 17 bases to hybridize with non-target gene, according to statistics principle. Therefore, it could be said that the binding of antisense nucleic acid molecules with more than 17 bases to target genes is unique, which results in high specificity of antisense nucleic acids.
Studies show that one gene copy will generate 200-300 mRNAs, which will then be translated into 100 thousand protein molecules with bioactivity. Traditional drugs mainly react with several sites of a certain domain in a bioactive protein molecule. However, because of the extremely complex protein structures and the various space structures of active proteins in an organism, it is actually not easy to get an ideal effect by controlling the dynamic and integral function of target molecules via several limited kinds of acting sites of the traditional drugs and the limitation of the traditional drugs is obvious. The mRNA can be translated into tens to hundreds of proteins, and antisense nucleic acids regulate the target gene directly at mRNA level, which equals to amply the effect of the traditional drugs by tens to hundreds of times, from which it can be seen that the regulation of the antisense nucleic acids is extremely economic and reasonable.
Toxicology researches show that, antisense nucleic acids exhibit low toxicity in vivo. In spite of longer or shorter retention time in vivo, antisense nucleic acids are all eliminated by degradation, avoiding risks of foreign gene integration into host chromosomes, such as what happened in trans-genetic therapy. Compared to traditional drugs, antisense nucleic acid drugs show advantages of high specificity and efficiency as well as low toxic and side effect and so on, and exhibit good application value at various aspects, such as tumor inhibition and virus replication resistance, etc. Nowadays there are multiple antisense nucleic acid drugs in American and European markets, and 30 more at preclinical develop phase or experimental phase I, II or III after develop.
Because of a plenty of exonucleases existed in animals, antisense nucleic acids without chemical modification are easily to be degraded and lose activities. At present, there are many approaches for chemical modification of antisense nucleic acids, such as sulfo-modification and 2′-methoxy modification, etc. Being most thoroughly studied at present, sulfo-modified drugs can effectively resist degradation of nuclease and promote the activity of nuclease Rase H, said modification method having been successfully used in clinical antisense nucleic acid drugs. However, these are only the first generation of antisense nucleic acid modification method, and new modification approaches and methods are developed with technology development, leading to second and third generations of antisense nucleic acid modification, in which peptide framework modification is most eye-catching.
Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs), a brand new DNA analog with neutral amido bond as framework, may target DNA big grooves in specific sequence. The structural unit of PNA framework is N (2-aminoethyl)-glycine, and base groups link to the amino N atom of main framework by a methylene carbonyl group. PNA is the second generation product of the antisense nucleic acid.
As a natural cationic polymer, chitosan (cs) is not only easy to bind with genetic materials such as genes (nucleic acids) to form nano-particles, but also has advantages such as non-toxicity, easily availability, biodegradability, stability, biocompatibility, gastrointestinal environment (pH, nuclease) destruction resistibility, strong bioadhesiveness, and being able to promote the permeating and adsorbing of the drugs, etc., therefore becoming a good carrier for oral-taken gene drugs.

Anti-influenza nucleic acid, peptide nucleic acid and preparations thereof

NANJING SEN NAN BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH CO., LTD.


Various optical isolators are disclosed. One embodiment provides an optical isolator comprising a waveguide that includes polymer magneto-optical media. In a particular embodiment, the waveguide is dimensioned for single mode operation in the selected isolation range. A cross-section of the waveguide is inhomogeneous in terms of magneto-optical materials. Polymer magneto-optical material is a part of the optical waveguide structure. The inhomogeneity induces the propagation constant shift, which is propagation-direction-dependent. An embodiment is characterized by a cutoff frequency for forward propagating waves that is different than the cutoff frequency for reverse waves; the dimensions and direction of magnetization of the waveguide can be tailored so that, in a particular embodiment, the cutoff frequency for forward propagating waves is lower than the cutoff frequency for reverse waves.

Optical isolators are optical components that transmit light in one direction but block it in the backward-propagating direction. They are used when the reversely-propagating light needs to be avoided. For example, lasers become instable when reflected light comes back to them.
Conventional optical isolators consist of a Faraday rotator and two polarizers. The linear-polarization angle needs to be rotated by 45 degrees in a Faraday rotator, which is typically a few millimeters long. Thus, this type of optical isolator becomes relatively large. It is also a challenge to build Faraday rotators and polarizers in a guided-optics format, i.e. it is hard to integrate them on chip. In order to construct guided-wave optical isolators, an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder waveguide interferometer is commonly used. This optical isolator does not require polarizers, but requires high-precision interference for blocking backward propagating light waves; one branch of the interferometer is a nonreciprocal phase shifter, and the other is a reciprocal phase shifter. However, this optical isolator still requires two long waveguides.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,009,942 ("Yoshie et al.") describes an optical isolator implemented as a waveguide section utilizing materials that induce a propagation constant shift that is propagation-direction dependent. Yoshie et al. describes an isolator characterized by a cutoff frequency for forward propagating waves that is different than the cutoff frequency for reverse waves. Yoshie et al. describes use of magneto-optical materials in a wave guide to construct a wave guide with a cross section that is inhomogeneous in terms of magnetic properties.


A diversity reception apparatus which has a plurality of antennas and in which one of the antennas having the best receiving condition is automatically selected and connected to a broadcasting signal receiver. The diversity reception apparatus has a feature in that after demodulated signals, obtained by the receiver respectively corresponding to the plurality of antennas, are converted into digital signals by an A/D converter, the best demodulated signal and the antenna corresponding thereto are selected by comparing the digital signals with each other, and that the width of a switch driving pulse from a switch driving pulse generator is made not more than 3 .mu.s.

The present invention relates to a diversity reception apparatus having a plurality of antennas, in which one of the antennas, which is in the best receiving condition is automatically selected and is subsequently connected to a broadcasting signal receiver. The invention particularly relates to a diversity reception apparatus suitable for application to a television receiver mounted on a mobile body such as a car.
As a conventional mobile television diversity reception apparatus, for example, there is known an example disclosed in JP-A-57-14224. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating this diversity reception apparatus.
In FIG. 3, television RF signals 1, 2 and 3 received by respective antennas are led to an RF switch 4. In the RF switch 4, the RF signals 1, 2 and 3 from the antennas are sequentially switched in time division by RF switch driving signals 5, 6 and 7 after a television vertical synchronizing signal in a vertical blanking interval An RF signal 8 switched in the RF switch 4 is supplied to an input terminal of a television receiver 9.
A television video signal 10 is extracted from the television receiver 9 and supplied to a peak hold circuit 31 so that each of the respective levels of the RF signals 1, 2 and 3 subjected to switching is detected from the flat-portion level of the video signal by the first peak hold circuit 31. A detected level signal 32 obtained thus, is sampled in a switch circuit 33 by using level sampling pulses 34, 35 and 36 corresponding to the input RF signals 1, 2 and 3.
Sampled level signals 37, 38 and 39 of the respective antennas are converted into DC-voltage signals 44, 45 and 46 in a second peak hold circuit 40. The reference numerals 41, 42 and 43 represent reset signals for the second peak hold circuit 40, by which a hold voltage is reset before sampling.
In a level comparator 47, the level of each of the DC voltage signals 44, 45 and 46 is compared at a timing of a timing pulse 48 after completion of level sampling, and level comparison signals 51, 52 and 53 (of these three signals, only a signal having the highest level is made to be in a high level, and the other signals are made to be in a low level) are output and combined with a level-sampling RF switch driving signal in a controller 50 so as to produce the RF switch driving signals 5, 6 and 7. As a result, antennas other than the antenna corresponding to the high level signal of the comparison signals 51, 52 and 53 are connected with the television receiver 9 only for a driving period by the RF switch driving signal, while the antenna corresponding to the above-mentioned high level signal is connected with the television receiver 9 for the whole period other than the above driving period.
Reference may be further made to JP-A-57-127339 for a related prior art technology.

Diversity reception having a plurality of antennas for use with moving vehicles

Hitachi Video & Information Systems, Inc.

Hitachi Automotive Engineering Co., Ltd.


A clip includes an abutting portion abutting against an outer surface of a case; an insertion hole to which a sensor main body can be inserted; a holding tube through which the sensor main body can pass, and can internally hold an overhanging portion; a leg tube which can be inserted into an attachment hole; and elastic claws sandwiching the case between the abutting portion and the elastic claws. In the abutting portion, at least a pair of ribs is provided, which is positioned respectively in both end portions in a diametrical direction of the abutting portion; protrudes toward the outer surface of the case; and applies a force to the holding tube in a direction bending the abutting portion and narrowing an open end surface when the case is sandwiched between the pair of elastic claws and the ribs.

Conventionally, there is known a battery structure of an electric car provided with a temperature sensor unit (for example, see paragraph [0034], FIG. 1, and FIGS. 6 to 8 of Patent Document 1).
The conventional temperature sensor unit is composed of a cylindrical unit main body including a screw portion screwed and fixed in a sensor attachment hole on an upper wall of a battery case; a synthetic resinous temperature detection portion slidably disposed on an inner side thereof; a temperature sensor disposed inside an end portion of the temperature detection portion; and a spring elastically installed inside the unit main body and urging the temperature detection portion in a direction protruding the temperature detection portion from the unit main body (for example, see the paragraph [0034] of the Patent Document 1).
Incidentally, although it is not the temperature sensor directly attached to the battery case of an automobile, there is conventionally known an attachment structure for a temperature sensor (see paragraph [0001] and FIGS. 1 to 3 of Patent Document 2) used for an outside temperature sensor and the like; an attachment structure for a temperature sensor (see paragraph [0001] and FIGS. 1 to 3 of Patent Document 3) attached to a blower air duct; or an attachment holder for a temperature sensor (see paragraph [0015] and FIGS. 1 to 5 of Patent Document 4) attached to a holding plate of a battery.

Clip for attaching battery temperature sensor


The opto-electronic module (1) comprises —a first substrate member (P); —a third substrate member (B); —a second substrate member (O) arranged between said first and third substrate members and comprising one or more transparent portions (ta, tb) through which light can pass, said at least one transparent portion comprising at least a first optical structure (5a;5a′;5b;5b′); —a first spacer member (S1) comprised in said first substrate member (P) or comprised in said second substrate member (O) or distinct from and located between these, which comprises at least one opening (4a;4b); —a second spacer member (S2) comprised in said second substrate member (O) or comprised in said third substrate member (B) or distinct from and located between these, which comprises at least one opening (3); —a light detecting element (D) arranged on and electrically connected to said first substrate member (P); —a light emission element (E) arranged on and electrically connected to said first substrate member (P); —and a sensing element (8) comprised in or arranged at said third substrate member (B). Such modules (1) are particularly suitable as sensor modules for sensing a magnitude such as a pressure.

Sensors are widely used in physics, chemistry and in various fields of engineering. Various magnitudes can be sensed using sensors, e.g., pressure and temperature.
For various applications, it can be desirable to provide particularly small sensors. Furthermore, there is generally a demand for particularly precise and for particularly sensitive sensors.

Sensor module and method of manufacturing the same


In a process of automatically stopping a diesel engine upon fulfillment of automatic engine stop conditions, an ECU cuts off fuel injection when the engine speed equals a preset first engine speed N1. The ECU limits the amount of intake air at the first engine speed N1 and, then, increases the amount of intake air at a point in time when the engine speed equals a second engine speed N2, at which point a piston in a cylinder which will be on a compression stroke at engine stop is expected to transfer to a last intake stroke, so that the piston in the compression stroke cylinder at engine stop stops at a point within a specified range closer to the bottom dead center than a piston in a cylinder which will be on an expansion stroke at engine stop.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a diesel engine system and a method of controlling a diesel engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a general tendency today to employ an automatic stop/restart control system in a diesel engine. As described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-46251, for example, an automatic stop/restart control system of a diesel engine stops the engine when prescribed automatic engine stop conditions are satisfied and restarts the automatically stopped engine when prescribed engine restart conditions are satisfied.
For restarting the automatically stopped diesel engine, it is necessary to inject fuel into a cylinder which was in a compression stroke at automatic engine stop to induce self-ignition in the cylinder. A problem often encountered with a diesel engine having an automatic stop/restart feature is deterioration of starting performance which is caused by a reduction in engine temperature occurring after the automatic engine stop. The aforementioned Publication describes a conventional arrangement for supplying a large electric current to glow plugs of the diesel engine at the beginning of cranking as well as an approach to solving the problem by increasing the amount of electric current supplied to the glow plug of a cylinder which was in the compression stroke at engine stop compared to the amount of electric current supplied to the other glow plugs.
Although intended to improve ignitability (restartability) of the diesel engine, the aforementioned approach of the Publication will cause deterioration of fuel economy and more frequent replacement of the glow plugs. This is because the approach of the Publication aims at improving the ignitability by just increasing the amount of electric current supplied to the glow plug at engine restart, which necessitates an undue increase in the amount of electricity and energizing period of the glow plugs.

Diesel engine system and method of controlling diesel engine


An apparatus for sequentially transmitting a plurality of multipage documents via a facsimile includes an optical scanner, an optical character recognition apparatus, and a feature recognizer apparatus. The present apparatus allows hands-free transmittal of several multipage documents by automatically determining from the document's cover sheet the values of operating parameters, such as the telephone numbers of destination facsimile machines and the number of pages in the document to transmit. Human intervention is not required to dial phone numbers or separate documents that are to be transmitted to different destinations. Moreover, the present apparatus allows for direct transmittal of copies to those persons indicated in the document to receive the same without the need to know the other recipients of the document.

Facsimile machines for transmitting the images of documents are well known in the art, with examples being disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,604,846, 4,321,626, 4,400,737, 4,623,936 and 5,337,158, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Generally, a facsimile machine transmits a document one page at a time The facsimile machine optically scans the document and converts the image(s) thereon into signals in digital form, usually referred to as a "bit map". These signals are prepared in a facsimile format and transmitted via a standard telephone line to a receiving facsimile machine. The receiving facsimile machine uses the received facsimile signals to reconstruct the original image and prints out a copy of this image.
Present facsimile machines operate much like a simple telephone. The user that wishes to send a document uses the facsimile machine to first dial the number of the receiving facsimile machine and wait for the receiving facsimile machine to answer. The pages to be transmitted are then fed through the facsimile machine one at a time by a facsimile feeder and all pages are scanned and transmitted. Then, the telephone connection is terminated and the facsimile can be used again.
With present facsimile machines, difficulties are encountered in sending multiple documents to multiple facsimile machines. Since the phone number of the receiving facsimile machine must be entered manually at some time after the preceding document has been scanned, a person must be physically present when one document has finished being scanned and another document is to be sent. This person must then present the new document to a facsimile feeder and enter the telephone number of the document's destination. If, for example, two documents must be sent to different locations, the sending party must wait for the first document to be scanned before entering the destination phone number and presenting the second document to the facsimile machine. Valuable time is lost when many large documents are to be transmitted by the facsimile machine, e.g. in a department with many employees and few facsimile machines. Moreover, often a copy of the same document needs to be transmitted to several different locations. It is highly inefficient to send document copies to multiple locations by repeatedly scanning the same document for each copy.
It would be advantageous to have a facsimile machine which does not require human intervention for dialing phone numbers nor for associating different documents with destination phone numbers. It would also be advantageous to have a facsimile machine which simultaneously accepts multiple documents for transmittal, then transmits each separately to the appropriate destinations, without the need for human intervention in dialing phone numbers or associating different documents with different destination phone numbers. The present invention is drawn toward such a system.

Facsimile queuing and transmission system


A cable includes a conductive core, an insulating layer, a shielding layer, and a sheath. The sheath coats the shielding layer. The shielding layer coats the insulating layer. The insulating layer coats the conductive wire. The conductive core includes a conductive wire and a carbon nanotube film comprising a plurality of carbon nanotubes. The carbon nanotubes coat the conductive core.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a cable including a conductive core with a carbon nanotube layer.
2. Description of Related Art
An electrical cable including a conductive core, an insulating layer, and a shielding layer, is usually surrounded by a sheath. The conductive core can be a solid or braided wire, and the shielding layer can be a wound foil, a woven tape, or a braid. The internal insulating layer (i.e., a dielectric) acts as a physical support, and electrically isolates and maintains a constant space between the conductive core and the shielding layer.
The cable may be rigid or flexible. Typically, the rigid type has a solid conductive core, while the flexible type has a braided conductive core. The conductive cores for both types are usually made of metal wires, such as thin copper wires. The insulating layer, also called the dielectric, has a significant effect on the cable's properties such as characteristic impedance and attenuation. The dielectric may be solid or perforated with air spaces. The shielding layer ensures that the signal to be transmitted stays inside the cable and that all other signals stay out (in other words it acts as a two-way signal shield). The shielding layer also serves as a conductor or ground wire.
However, for a conductive core made of a metal wire, a skin effect will occur in the conductive core. The effective resistance of the cable becomes larger and causes signal decay during transmission. Furthermore, the conductive core and the shielding layer have less strength, so the weight and diameter must be greater to compensate.
Thus, there remains a need for providing a new cable to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings.


A liquid jet head has spaced-apart side walls that form alternating ejection channels and non-ejection channels. The side walls comprise two piezoelectric materials polarized in opposite directions and laminated together with a polarization boundary interposed between them. Upper and lower members are fixed to respective upper and lower ends of the side walls and overlie upper and lower ends of the channels. Electrodes on opposed wall surfaces of the side walls extend from the upper ends of the side walls to either the vicinity of the polarization boundary or to below the polarization boundary and above the lower ends of the side walls. The polarization boundary is positioned above one-half the depth of the channels to improving the driving efficiency of the piezoelectric body.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid jet head and a liquid jet apparatus that jet and record liquid droplets on a recording medium.
2. Related Art
In recent years, liquid jet heads in an ink jet system have been used, which eject ink droplets on a recording paper or the like to record characters and figures, or eject a liquid material on a surface of an element substrate to form a functional thin film. This system introduces a liquid such as an ink or a liquid material from a liquid tank to a channel through a supply tube, applies a pressure to the liquid filled in the channel, and ejects the liquid through a nozzle that communicates with the channel, as liquid droplets. In ejecting the liquid droplets, this system moves the liquid jet head and/or the recording medium to record the characters and figures or to form a functional thin film or a three-dimensional structure having a predetermined shape.
FIG. 6 is a schematic cross-sectional view of jet channels 113 of a liquid jet apparatus described in JP 2001-88295 A. The liquid jet apparatus is a side shoot-type liquid jet apparatus in which an actuator substrate 100 made of a piezoelectric material, a nozzle plate 140, and a manifold member 132 are laminated. The actuator substrate 100 is made of a piezoelectric material, and the manifold member 132 is made of a synthetic resin. A plurality of the jet channels 113 is formed in the actuator substrate 100. The jet channels 113 have a long and narrow groove shape and penetrate in a thickness direction of the actuator substrate 100. Adjacent jet channels 113 are partitioned by a side wall 117. A drive electrode 119 is formed on an entire wall surface of the side wall 117. A pattern of an electric supply line (not illustrated) is provided on an upper end surface of the actuator substrate 100, and one end of the electric supply line is electrically connected to the drive electrode 119 on the wall surface and the other end is connected to a control circuit. The manifold member 132 includes a manifold flow path (not illustrated) that supplies a liquid to the jet channels 113, and a plurality of ink flow paths 134 that branches from the manifold flow path. The ink flow paths 134 of the manifold member 132 are bonded on the upper end surface of the actuator substrate 100 through an adhesive 138, respectively corresponding to the jet channels 113. The nozzle plate 140 includes nozzles that communicate with the jet channels 113, and is bonded on a lower end surface of the actuator substrate 100.
The side wall 117 of the actuator substrate 100 is uniformly polarized (P) in the thickness direction of the actuator substrate 100. A voltage is applied to drive electrodes 119c and 119d of a jet channel 113a to be driven. When drive electrodes 119b and 119e of two jet channels 113 adjacent to the jet channel 113a are grounded, both side walls 117a and 117d of the jet channel 113a to be driven are subjected to thickness slip deformation, and are deformed in a direction into which the volume of the jet channel 113a is increased. A side wall 137 of the manifold member 132 is deformed following the deformation of the side wall 117 of the jet channel 113, and is deformed in a direction into which the volume of the ink flow paths 134 is increased. Therefore, the liquid is drawn from the manifold flow path (not illustrated) to the jet channels 113. Next, the voltage applied to the drive electrodes 119c and 119d of the jet channel 113a is returned to (0) V, and the both side walls 117a and 117d of the jet channel 113a are returned to the shape before the deformation. At this time, a relatively large pressure is applied to the liquid, and the liquid droplets are jetted through a nozzle 118a.
JP 2003-110159 A describes an adhesive structure in which a thick piezoelectric ceramic plate and a thin piezoelectric ceramic plate adhere together through an adhesion layer. Polarization processing is applied to the thick piezoelectric ceramic plate and the thin piezoelectric ceramic plate in a vertical direction to a substrate surface, the polarization directions are caused to be opposite directions, and the two piezoelectric ceramic plates adhere together through the adhesive, so that the adhesive structure (laminated piezoelectric body substrate) is obtained. At that time, the roughness of a surface at a side opposite to an adhesion surface of the thin piezoelectric ceramic plate is made to 1 μm or less in arithmetic mean roughness (Ra), so that a bend or a waviness of the adhesive structure is decreased. Then, cutting is performed from a side of the thin piezoelectric ceramic plate into a depth in the middle of the thick piezoelectric ceramic plate, and a plurality of grooves, which is partitioned by side walls, is formed in parallel in an upper surface of the adhesive structure. An electrode for driving the side walls is formed on the entire wall surfaces of the side walls and bottom surfaces of the grooves using a vapor deposition method or a sputtering method. A top plate including a liquid supply path adheres to a top face of the adhesive structure. A nozzle plate including nozzles adheres to an end surface of the adhesive structure. The liquid jet head is configured, accordingly. When a drive signal is applied to the electrode installed on both wall surfaces of the side walls, the side walls are deformed, a pressure is applied to the liquid filled in the grooves, and liquid droplets are jet through the nozzles that communicate with the grooves.
In JP 2009-119788 A, JP 2009-178959 A, JP 2009-202455 A, JP 2012-111130 A, JP 2012-187863 A, and JP 2002-505972 W, liquid jet heads having a similar structure to the grooves and the side walls described in JP 2003-110159 A are described. That is, a laminated piezoelectric body substrate is formed, in which two piezoelectric body substrates polarized in mutually opposite directions adhere together, and a plurality of grooves partitioned by side walls is formed in parallel in the laminated piezoelectric body substrate. A drive electrode is formed on the entire wall surfaces of the side walls that configure the grooves. When a drive signal is applied to the drive electrode, the side walls are deformed, a pressure is applied to a liquid filled in the grooves, and liquid droplets are jet through nozzles that communicate with the grooves.
JP 2003-507213 W describes a jet channel, in which a plurality of grooves partitioned by side walls is formed in parallel in a surface of a piezoelectric body substrate, which is polarized in one direction, and a drive electrode is installed on upper half portions of wall surfaces of the side walls. When a drive signal is applied to the drive electrode, the upper half portions of the side walls is subjected to thickness slip deformation, and a pressure is applied to a liquid filled in the grooves, and liquid droplets are jet through nozzles that communicate with the grooves.
In the liquid jet apparatus described in JP 2001-88295 A, the adjacent jet channels 113 are partitioned by the side wall 117 to which the polarization processing is uniformly applied. The drive electrode 119 is formed on the entire wall surface of the side wall 117. In the liquid jet heads described in JP 2003-110159 A, JP 2009-119788 A, JP 2009-178959 A, JP 2009-202455 A, JP 2012-111130 A, JP 2012-187863 A, and JP 2002-505972 W, the piezoelectric materials having different polarization directions are laminated on the side walls that configure the jet channels, and the drive electrode is formed on the entire wall surfaces of the side walls. As a method of forming the electrode on the entire wall surfaces of the side walls, a plating method can be employed. However, the electrode formed by the plating method is deposited on the bottom surfaces of the grooves, in addition to the wall surfaces of the side walls. To alternately arrange ejection channels and non-ejection channels, and perform one-cycle driving of ejecting the liquid droplets through all of the ejection channels at one time, it is necessary to electrically divide the electrodes on the two wall surfaces. Therefore, manufacturing process steps become complicated and the number of man-hour is increased.
Meanwhile, in the jet channel described in JP 2003-507213 W, the electrode is formed on the upper half portions of the wall surfaces of the side walls. If a conductive material such as a metal material is deposited by an oblique vapor deposition method, electrically separated electrodes can be easily formed on two wall surfaces that face each other across the groove, without depositing the conductive material on the bottom surface of the groove. Therefore, an electrode separation step of electrically separating the electrodes deposited on the two wall surfaces is not necessary. However, with a demand of high densification of recording with the jet channel, the groove width of the grooves that configure the jet channel is narrowed. The oblique vapor deposition method requires a longer time to deposit the conductive material in the depth direction of the wall surface as the groove width becomes narrower, and productivity is reduced.

Liquid jet head and liquid jet apparatus


A method for rendering an image, called a final image, from at least one image acquired by a camera array, is provided. According to such a method, the determination of a color value for at least one pixel of the final image, called a current pixel, comprises:                for at least one initial image acquired by the camera array, obtaining a color value of a pixel associated with said current pixel within said at least one initial image, acquiring at least one color value called a real color value;        computing at least one interpolated color value, from said at least one real color value;        determining the color value for said current pixel, as a function of said at least one real color value and said at least one interpolated color value.

The present section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art, which may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure that are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Image acquisition devices project a three-dimensional scene onto a two-dimensional sensor. During operation, a conventional capture device captures a two-dimensional (2D) image of the scene representing an amount of light that reaches a photosensor within the device. However, this 2D image contains no information about the directional distribution of the light rays that reach the photosensor, which may be referred to as the light-field. Depth, for example, is lost during the acquisition. Thus, a conventional capture device does not store most of the information about the light distribution from the scene.
Light-field capture devices also referred to as "light-field data acquisition devices" have been designed to measure a four-dimensional (4D) light-field of the scene by capturing the light from different viewpoints of that scene. Thus, by measuring the amount of light traveling along each beam of light that intersects the photosensor, these devices can capture additional optical information, e.g. about the directional distribution of the bundle of light rays, for providing new imaging applications by post-processing. The information acquired by a light-field capture device is referred to as the light-field data. Light-field capture devices are defined herein as any devices that are capable of capturing light-field data. There are several types of light-field capture devices, among which:                plenoptic devices, which use a microlens array placed between the image sensor and the main lens, as described in document US 2013/0222633;        camera arrays, as described by Wilburn et al. in "High performance imaging using large camera arrays." ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 24, no. 3 (2005): 765-776 and in patent document U.S. Pat. No. 8,514,491 B2.
The present disclosure focuses more precisely on light-field data captured by a camera array. Whereas a plenoptic device relies on a microlens array to capture the light from different viewpoints of a scene, a camera array can be seen (in a much-simplified model) as an arrangement of calibrated conventional cameras (such an arrangement is sometimes referred to as a camera rig). For example, FIG. 1a is a simplified diagram illustrating a camera array comprising nine cameras (C1, C2, . . . C9) arranged in a same plane, as a three-by-three grid. Each camera acquires its own image, thus allowing capturing at a same time nine images (I1 acquired by camera C1, I2 acquired by camera C2, . . . I9 acquired by camera C9) of a same scene Sc seen from nine slightly different points of view, as further presented in relation with FIG. 1b. If well calibrated, a camera array allows performing what is known as "synthetic aperture refocusing" (or "synthetic aperture focusing") in the literature. Synthetic aperture refocusing is a technique for simulating the defocus blur of a large aperture lens by using multiple images of a scene. It consists in acquiring initial images of a scene from different viewpoints (for example with a camera array), projecting them onto a desired focal surface, and computing their average. In the resulting image, points that lie on the focal surface are aligned and appear sharp, whereas points off this surface are blurred out due to parallax. From a light-field capture device such as a camera array, it is thus possible to render a collection of images of a scene, each of them being focused at a different focalization distance. Such a collection is sometimes referred to as a "focal stack". Thus, one application of light-field data processing comprises notably, but is not limited to, generating refocused images of a scene.
However, while refocusing results with plenoptic cameras are pretty convincing, synthetic aperture refocusing with camera arrays still creates unpleasant results mainly due to the poor quality of the blur within out-of-focus region of the rendered image. Indeed, sharp regions of the rendered image are well aligned as soon as the camera array is well calibrated, but blurred regions are rendered as an addition of all initial images. Due to this shift and add process, and because of the poor angular sampling of the light-field in a camera array (especially when the number of cameras in the camera array is not very high), angular aliasing may appear in the out-of-focus regions of the rendered image. Such an angular aliasing, which takes the form of a kind of pattern repetition within the blurred regions of the rendered image, is for example usually clearly visible when the synthetic aperture refocusing is performed from initial images acquired by a three-by three or a four-by-four camera array. Angular aliasing becomes even more apparent in blurred region having high defocus degree with respect to in-focus regions of the rendered image. Camera arrays comprising much more cameras may be built to increase the angular sampling of the light-field and improve the quality of the blur in out-of-focus regions of the rendered images, but this solution is suboptimal, since the amount of data quickly becomes unmanageable and complicates the calibration process. The number of cameras within a camera array is therefore usually de facto limited, due to several constraints such as technical, design or cost constraints. This is especially true when the camera array is to be embedded into a relatively small device, such as a smartphone for example, with compact design and limited computational power.
It would hence be desirable to provide a technique for rendering a final image from initial images acquired by a camera array that would avoid at least one of these drawbacks of the prior art.

Method for rendering a final image from initial images acquired by a camera array, corresponding device, computer program product and computer-readable carrier medium


A fluid delivery system including a first substrate having a micro-channel and a well both formed through the first substrate. The fluid delivery system also includes a second substrate and a delivery channel. The second substrate is on the first substrate and the delivery channel is formed between the first and second substrates. The delivery channel provides fluid communication between the micro-channel and the well.

This invention relates generally to array chemical transfer devices, and in particular, to a fluid delivery system having an array of micro-channels in fluid connection with an array of wells.
In nanolithography, such as dip pen lithography (DPN) or other types of arrayed chemical transfer methods, it is desirable to provide inks, chemical or biological fluids, to a plurality of probes simultaneously. An arrayed fluid dispensing system with matching spatial configuration to the probe array would allow efficient inking of such an array of probes. Neighboring probes with very small distances between them can receive distinct inks. The probes can then be used to create high density arrays of biochemical substances, such as DNA or protein arrays.

The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois


A disc-shaped information recording medium includes a first recording layer (L0 layer) having (I) a first trial write area (101P-1) for trial write of first trial write information for calibration of the laser beam along the first track path (TP1) from the inner circumference toward the outer circumference and (II) a first recording area for recording the first recording information along a first track path (TP1), in this order from the inner circumference side. Furthermore, the disc-shaped information recording medium includes a second recording layer (L1 layer) having (I) a second trial write area (101P-2) for trial write of second trial write information for calibration of the laser beam along the second track path (TP2) from the outer circumference toward the inner circumference and (II) a second recording area for recording the second recording information along a second track path (TP2), in this order from the inner circumference side.

For example, in the information recording medium, such as a CD and a DVD, as described in patent documents 1 and 2 or the like, there are developed a multiple layer or multilayer type, or dual layer type optical disc and so on, in which a plurality of recording layers are laminated or stacked on the same substrate. Then, in the information recording apparatus, such as a CD recorder, for recording information onto such a dual layer type (i.e. two-layer type) optical disc, the information is recorded into a recording layer (referred to as a "L0 layer" in this application, as occasion demands), located on the front or the closest side as viewed from the emission or irradiation side of laser light, in a rewritable method or irreversible change recording method by irreversible change recording heat by using heat or the like, by focusing the L0 layer with the laser light for recording. Moreover, the information is recorded into a recording layer (referred to as a "L1 layer" in this application), located on the rear of the L0 layer as viewed from the irradiation side of the laser light, in a rewritable method or irreversible change-recording method by irreversible change recording heat by using heat or the like, by focusing the L1 layer with the laser light through the L0 layer.
Moreover, in this type of optical disc or the like, the optimum power of a recording power is set by an OPC (Optimum Power Calibration) process, depending on the type of the optical disc and the type and recording rate of the information recording/reproducing apparatus, and so on. That is, the calibration is performed for the recording power. By this, it is possible to realize an appropriate recording operation which responds to variation in characteristics of the information recording surface of the optical disc. For example, if the optical disc is loaded and a writing command is inputted, data for test writing is recorded into an OPC area, with sequentially changing the optical intensity, so that a so-called "test writing process" is performed. In particular, according to the patent document 1, the OPC area is provided for each of the two recording layers, and a technology of performing the OPC process for each of the two layers is disclosed.
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laying Open NO. 2000-311346
Patent document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laying Open NO. 2001-23237

Information recording medium, and information recording apparatus and method


An organic light emitting display having red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow color modulation layers. The organic light emitting display includes a substrate, a first electrode arranged on the substrate, a second electrode arranged on the first electrode, an organic functional layer arranged between the first electrode and the second electrode, the organic functional layer comprises at least an emission layer, and red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow color modulation layers separated from each other, wherein one of the first electrode and the second electrode is transparent and is arranged between each color modulation layer and the emission layer. Accordingly, it is possible to maintain white balance even for an aged display while having enhanced color reproducibility.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an organic light emitting display (OLED), and more particularly to an organic light emitting display having color modulation layers.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an organic light emitting display includes a substrate, an anode located on the substrate, an emission layer (EML) located on the anode, and a cathode located on the emission layer. In such an organic light emitting display, when a voltage is applied between the anode and the cathode, holes and electrons are injected into the emission layer, the holes and the electrons injected into the emission layer are recombined to emit light.
A method of forming emission layers corresponding to red, green, and blue is used to realize a full color of the organic light emitting display. However, since the emission layers corresponding to red, green, and blue have different lifetime characteristics, it is difficult to maintain white balance when the display ages.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, there has been known a method of forming an emission layer emitting white light and forming color filter layers extracting light components corresponding to red, green, and blue from the white light emitted from the emission layer. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,515,428 to Yeh et al discloses an active matrix organic light emitting display having an emission layer for emitting white light and red, green, and blue color filters which are formed using a photolithography method. However, the color reproducibility of such an organic light emitting display depends upon intensity by wavelength of the white light emitted from the emission layer and characteristics of the color filter layers. It is known that the strength or intensity of a green component of the white light emitted from the emission layer is generally small. Thus reproducibility of the organic light emitting display employing the red, green, and blue color filters is poor.
In order to form the color filter layers using the photolithography method, a process of forming color filter layers of respective colors on the whole substrate and exposing, developing, and patterning the color filter layers needs to be repeated. A heating process needs to be performed to remove a volatile solvent contained in the layers formed using the photolithography method. In this method, there are disadvantages in that many process steps are required for forming the color filter layers using the photolithography method and that the time for fabricating an organic light emitting display is increased. Therefore, what is needed is an improved OLED that can maintain white balance even when aged and can offer improved color reproducibility, reduced fabrication time, and high resolution.

Full-color organic light emitting display having red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow color modulation layers


In one embodiment, a method for satisfiability (SAT)-based bounded model checking (BMC) includes isolating information learned from a first iteration of an SAT-based BMC process and applying the isolated information from the first iteration of the SAT-based BMC process to a second iteration of the SAT-based BMC process subsequent to the first iteration.

Functional verification of digital hardware designs has become an important and resource-intensive aspect of the product design cycle. With the increasing size and complexity of designs, simulation-based validation is no longer sufficient to provide the requisite design coverage needed to expose subtle bugs. Formal verification techniques such as symbolic model checking based on binary decision diagrams offer the potential of exhaustive coverage. However, in practice, their application has been limited by the state explosion problem.

Verifying one or more properties of a design using SAT-based BMC


Systems and computer program products for performing color separation operations. In one aspect, a system creates a high-level representation of a graphical container as a separated element the first time a graphical container is used. The high-level representation being a non-bitmapped representation. The system stores the high-level representation of the graphical container in memory and refers to the separated element in memory when the graphical container is invoked a second time. In another aspect, a system creates a high-level representation of a form XObject as a separated element in a cache. The system uses the separated element in the cache when the form XObject is invoked a second time. In another aspect, a system creates a high-level representation of a pattern container as a separated element in the cache and uses the separated element in the cache when the pattern container is invoked a second time.

The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for performing color separation.
Color printing has traditionally required the integration of many unique and varied talents to see a project through from conception to a printed page. Prior to the advent of "desktop publishing," ideas or concepts were typically first drawn by hand and photographed, any text or illustrations added, and the aggregate of pictures and text used to produce a printed page. The traditional process generally required, in addition to design personnel, a paste-up person, typesetting bureau and a lithography department that would produce separations from the photographs. Desktop publishing has relieved some of the burden of publishers by allowing color production, i.e., drawing and layout, to be integrated electronically using personal computers. Color documents can now be designed, enhanced, color-corrected, and separated on a desktop computer.
The computer can output data to a wide variety of output devices. Output devices such as laser printers, plotters, image-setters, and other printing devices produce an image or "visual representation" on a sheet of paper, a printing plate or the like. A printing device can print dots on a piece of paper corresponding to the information of a bitmap or pixelmap (where a pixelmap is characterized as having a depth of two or more bits). A "raster" printing device creates a visual representation by printing an array of pixels arranged in rows and columns from the bitmap.
A desktop printer uses toner to produce the colors comprising a color publication. Because composite printing is generally efficient only for small quantity jobs, larger quantities of the same publication are generally reproduced on a commercial printing press using ink. The printing press advantageously prints multiple pages of printed matter at the same time onto a single sheet. Other devices used for printing multiple pages at the same time include image setters and plate setters.
Methods of printing color publications using a commercial printer press include process-color printing, spot-color printing, or a combination of the two. Process-color printing separates the original image into its cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) components to recreate the original shadings of color in the publication. This is accomplished by printing dots of the process-color inks in different combinations in close proximity to simulate a variety of colors on a printed page. Spot-color printing involves printing one or more specific colors (or inks) that have been specified according to a color matching system. One popular color matching system is the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM by Pantone, Inc. Spot-color printing is often used to produce colors that are not easily produced using CMYK inks, such as silver, gold, and fluorescent colors. Spot-color printing is also used in lieu of printing the four process colors, such as when only a few types of inks are required for a particular publication.
Before a color publication can be reproduced on a commercial printing press, each page containing composite art must be separated into its component colors by printing a separation for each ink (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, if process colors are to be printed) and any spot colors. Spot-color printing requires a separation for each color being printed. A commercial printer uses film separations to create the printing plates used on the press. For instance, if one specifies the four process colors and a single spot color in a publication, there will be five separations, and hence printing plates, for each page. A separate component ink is added by each plate as the pages in the publication pass through the press. A more detailed explanation of the commercial printing process is discussed in the Commercial Printing Guide from PageMaker, Version 5.0. For additional information on desktop publishing generally, see Desktop Publishing in Color by Michael Kieran, published by Bantam Books (1991).
The printing devices typically produce output in response to a page description language (PDL) input. The PDL is a high level language for describing objects to be displayed by an output device. A printing device may receive page description data in the form of a PDL file. In order to produce a finished sheet, a printing device typically interprets all of the objects contained in the PDL file. Thereafter, the printing device renders objects within the data into bitmaps and prints the sheet. Depending on the printing device, printing of a band may begin as soon as the objects within that band are rendered. Alternatively, printing may not begin until all of the objects for the sheet have been rendered.
One popular PDL is called PDF (Portable Document Format) which was originally created by Adobe Systems Incorporated (San Jose, Calif.) as a way of electronically exchanging and reviewing documents. The PDF format retains the original color and style of any printable document and allows it to be viewed on any computer platform, including mainframes, servers, workstations, and personal computers. This format has become widely accepted as a standard for viewing on-line documents in their original format, without the restrictions of standard web pages.
A PDF file contains a PDF document and other supporting data. The PDF document contains one or more pages. Each page in the document may contain any combination of text, graphics, and images in a device- and resolution-independent format. This is the page description. A PDF document may also contain information possible only in an electronic representation, such as hypertext links, sound, and movies. In addition to a document, a PDF file contains the version of the PDF specification used in the file and information about the location of important structures in the file.
A PDF page content stream contains objects with color information. For example, each PDF object has a fill and a stroke color associated with the object and any of these colors may be defined as a colored pattern associated with the object. The pattern contains color information as part of the pattern description. Color information about objects is represented in a composite manner, i.e., the objects (as filled in by the patterns) contain a composite color information for the object. The pattern itself does not fully describe the object it is associated with. For example, the geometry of the object is not described by the pattern.
PDF defines a type of color known as a pattern, discussed on page 287 of the Adobe Portable Document Format Reference Manual version 1.3 (Mar. 11, 1999). There are two major types of patterns in PDF. The first type is called a tiling pattern; the second is called a smooth shading pattern. Tiling patterns are procedural; they include a sequence of explicit marking instructions, which are repeated once per tile. Smooth shading patterns are declarative; they include a description of the desired effect in terms of transitions between colors across a certain area. Like forms, patterns can contain sequences of marking operations; they are the same as patterns in the PostScript language. The space in which a pattern is defined is pattern space. The transformation from pattern space to user space is specified by a matrix contained in the pattern.
In addition to patterns, PDF supports named resources such as XObjects. PDF supports three types of XObjects: images, forms, and pass-through PostScript language fragments, among others. A form is a self-contained description of any text, graphics, or sampled images that may be drawn on several pages or more than once on a single page. A Form XObject is specified by a PDF stream, which is a contents stream.
Due to the popularity of the PDF format, it is desirable for printing devices to support the ability to directly print documents from a PDF file in various processes. These processes may vary from printing per plate, printing per spot color, among others. Moreover, certain printing processes require the separation of colors for each object as the object is drawn on zero or more of the plates. For example, given a four component color space (e.g. CMYK) and the existence of a color component for an object in each of the four color space, the object needs to be drawn up to four times, one time for each color component associated with a printing plate.
High-quality printing, such as that required by the publishing industry, poses many difficult problems in controlling the separations. For example, color printing is compromised if paper is not properly aligned as it makes multiple passes through the plates of a printer. Given the composite construct of a PDF document, the process of separating various components of a page to be printed in a given ink can be resource intensive and time consuming.

Color separation of pattern color spaces and form XObjects


Methods and apparatus implementing techniques for providing network environment information. In one implementation, a environment information server includes: a server controller; a network connection connected to said server controller; an environment information database connected to said server controller for storing data for one or more network environments; and a request handler connected to said server controller for processing requests received through said network connection; wherein said request handler exchanges data with said environment information database in the course of processing a received request.

In some information services, a provider deploys multiple servers accessible to clients through a network, such as the Internet. Each of the servers may be in different physical locations and operating under different network conditions. As a result, the conditions for network access by a particular client may vary from server to server. For example, the latency or delay in communication between a client and a server that is physically close to the client may be less than the latency in communication between the client and a different server that is physically farther away from the client. In another example, the number of clients accessing a server can affect the speed and performance of the server and so a server with fewer current clients may provide better performance. Accordingly, it can be desirable for a client to select one of the deployed servers with favorable network conditions relative to the client.