A wheel slip controller controls the torque input to the left and right wheels of an axle so as to strike a balance between the logitudinal forces accelerating (in a traction control system) or decelerating (in an anti-lock braking system) the vehicle and the vehicle yaw rate when the vehicle is being operated on a split-coefficient of friction surface. A vehicle yaw condition is sensed when a predetermined function of the difference in the left and right wheel speeds exceeds a threshold at low vehicle speeds and when a predetermined function of the difference in the left and right wheel slips exceeds a threshold at high vehicle speeds.

This invention relates to a vehicle wheel slip control method and, more particularly, to a method of controlling vehicle wheel slip when operating on a split coefficient of friction surface.
When a torque is applied to a vehicle wheel for braking or driving the wheel, a force is generated between the wheel and the road surface. This force is dependent upon various parameters, including the road surface conditions and the amount of slip between the wheel and the road surface. As the torque input to the wheel is increased, the force between the tire and the road surface increases as wheel slip increases, until a critical slip value is surpassed. When the slip exceeds this critical slip value, the force between the wheel and the road surface decreases and the wheel slip rapidly increases. Vehicle anti-lock braking systems and traction control systems attempt to control the wheel slip at a value around the critical slip value to maximize vehicle braking or acceleration.
When a vehicle is being braked or accelerated on a split coefficient of friction surface and an anti-lock braking system or traction control system is operating to individually maximize the force between each wheel and the road surface, the braking or driving torque between the road surface and the wheel on the higher coefficient side of the vehicle may be substantially greater than the torque between the road surface and the other wheel. This torque imbalance results in a yaw moment acting on the vehicle giving rise to a yaw rate.

Vehicle wheel slip control on split coefficient surface


A toolless spike system for shoes wherein detents are used to retain and release, by snapping, clipping, etc., a spike member from a base member associated with the shoe.

Shoes having spikes, or cleats, thereon have long been known for athletic and field uses. It has also long been known that replacing spikes or cleats as they wear out is preferable to purchasing new shoes.
Additionally, replacement may be necessary if different types of spikes or cleats are used for different surfaces, etc. For example, "soft spikes" have been introduced as an alternative to metal spikes on golf shoes and are required at some golf courses. However, some golfers prefer metal spikes and use "soft spikes" only when required at a particular course. Similarly, track shoes have replaceable spikes where a longer spike is used on a cinder track and short spikes are required on permatrack.
Replacement of known spikes, however, requires a specialized tool to unscrew the spike from a base incorporated into the sole of the shoe. On golf shoes the tool is a spike wrench having two prongs which are inserted into corresponding holes on the spike and then turned to remove or tighten the spike. On track shoes the spike is similarly threaded into the base in the sole of the shoe, but the spike wrench has an opening comprising a truncated circle, having two flat portions on opposed sides to engage flat sides at the base of the spike. In either event, without a specialized tool removal and replacement of the spikes from the shoe cannot be achieved.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a spike system for shoes which does not require a specialized tool for removal and replacement of the spikes.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a spike system which allows for the quick, manual removal and replacement of spikes.


The monitoring by a monitoring node of a process performed by a monitored node is often devised as a tightly coupled interaction, but such coupling may reduce the re-use of monitoring resources and processes and increase the administrative complexity of the monitoring scenario. Instead, fault detection and recovery may be designed as a non-proprietary service, wherein a set of monitored nodes, together performing a set of processes, may register for monitoring by a set of monitoring nodes. In the event of a failure of a process, or of an entire monitored node, the monitoring nodes may collaborate to initiate a restart of the processes on the same or a substitute monitored node (possibly in the state last reported by the respective processes). Additionally, failure of a monitoring node may be detected, and all monitored nodes assigned to the failed monitoring node may be reassigned to a substitute monitoring node.

Within the field of computing, many scenarios involve a detection of a fault in a computer system, such as an interference with a process; an unavailability of a resource utilized by the process, such as an exhaustion of free memory or a resource that is exclusively locked by another process; an inability of a process to complete a task; a logical fault in a process that leads to a consumption of resources, an unending loop, or an application crash; or a failure of the hardware of a device that interrupts the execution of processes. Such faults may range in severity from curiosities to inconveniences to severe problems (e.g., failures in realtime processes or processes upon which users depend for uptime). In these and other scenarios, an administrator may endeavor to monitor the process, such as utilizing a monitoring process operating on the same device or another device to monitor the instrumentation of a monitored process, verify that the monitored process continues to operate as anticipated, provides acceptable performance, and is accessible to users. If the monitored process shows indications of failure or becomes unreachable, the monitoring process may register the indications in a log, or may notify an administrator.

Fault detection and recovery as a service


The invention relates to methods and biomarker for evaluating cancer metastasis, pharmaceutical composition for inhibiting cancer metastasis, and method for analyzing secretome. By combining a hollow fiber cartridge (HFC) culture system with quantitative proteomics technology, cancer metastasis-related secrectomes can be found. Furthermore, this is the first time to use PARK7 as a biomarker for judging the process of non-small cell lung cancer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates a method for evaluating lung cancer metastasis, a biomarker for evaluating lung cancer metastasis, a siRNA compound for inhibiting lung cancer metastasis, and a method for analyzing secretome.
2. Description of Related Art
Cancer, also known as malignant neoplasm, is a disease involving failed mechanism of cell growth proliferation. Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the world, and some remarkable problems that get in the way of treating lung cancer are that there is low abundance of effective prognosis tools, and low abundance of prevention-oriented treatment methods for keeping off metastasis. In terms of the most popular type of occurring cancer by number of patients, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for approximately 85% of the demographics, and among all the histological types of NSCLC, lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type. Many lung cancer patients are diagnosed with distant metastatic, and most of them die as a result of the metastases instead of due to the original tumors. The survival rate of lung cancer patients within a 5 year time frame during treatment period is 15.2% and only 2.8% for lung cancer patients complicated by distant metastases. Metastasis is clearly a fatal condition adversely affecting malignant tumor development. Unfortunately, current technologies in clinical practice cannot keep up to solve this problem as there is still low abundance of effective diagnostic and prognostic tools for metastasis and other progression predictions. To further increase patients' survival rates, studies related to the mechanisms of metastasis are of immediate importance.
Metastasis, the ultimate event in a cancer progression, can be described as the complex process in which cancer cells travel from a tumor site and migrate through the bloodstream or lymphatic system to other parts of the body. During this intricate process, numerous proteins are required to assist in the progression of the tumor cells. For example, secretory proteins, which are released from cells via various pathways, including the classical ER-golgi pathway, vesicle release, or a specific channel, are known as the secretome. In previous research, cell secretome was widely used via proteomics technologies in cancer research. There are three main aspects of this research, including discovering clinical biomarker, understanding mechanisms of cancer progression, and planning cancer treatment strategy. Previously, there are many studies reporting that some biomarkers are associated with cancer metastasis and aggression and angiogenesis, such as the proteinase MMP-9 and VEGF respectively.
However, modern technology and the discovered biomarkers still have their shortcomings for cancer metastasis and cancer development process prediction. Therefore, there is still room for people in the art to develop and improve prediction accuracy as well as technical aspects.

Methods and biomarker for evaluating cancer metastasis, pharmaceutical composition for inhibiting cancer metastasis, and method for analyzing secretome


The firing circuit of an inflatable restraint system is tested to verify operation of two FETs in series with a squib which are used to apply current to the squib. For the test the squib is biased to an intermediate voltage and each FET is turned on alone to apply battery or ground voltage to the squib. High and low voltage detectors sense the voltage excursion past respective thresholds to verify FET operation. A current detector for each FET senses a short when its FET is conducting, and a logic circuit immediately turns off the FET to result in a very brief FET on time. In addition, the voltage detectors may be used to detect shorts prior to FET testing and also to turn off or hold off the FETs when a high or low voltage is detected upon FET testing.

Supplemental inflatable restraint (SIR) systems for automotive vehicles generally employ a firing circuit having a squib for causing inflation of an air bag, a deployment circuit having an accelerometer sensitive to vehicle motion, especially deceleration, and a microprocessor monitoring the accelerometer output for evaluating the severity of a crash to determine whether to deploy the air bag. The vehicle battery or ignition system voltage empowers the deployment circuit and the firing circuit. The deployment circuit and the firing circuit are to a large extent carried out by a microprocessor on an integrated circuit chip, but an external harness leads to a squib at the site of each air bag.
It is conceivable that some portion of the harness might become damaged and short to ground or even to the vehicle battery voltage. To forestall the possibility that such inadvertent electrical connection to the firing circuit might cause deployment of the air bag or disable the system, it is desirable to monitor the system to detect any such event. It is already known to diagnose a short of the firing circuit by feeding a small test current through the squib and through a biasing resistor to ground. The resulting bias voltage will depend on the current and if there are no shorts to the firing circuit the resulting test voltage will be at a prescribed value. To assure this, the test current is carefully controlled. Where, for example, the current is provided by a current source on an integrated circuit, the circuit must be trimmed during manufacture to assure the correct current output. The test voltage is sampled by an A/D converter and fed to the microprocessor where it is monitored to detect a low value indicative of shorting to ground or a high value indicative of shorting to supply voltage.
The firing circuit includes a pair of FETs, one on each side of the squib. To deploy the air bag, the squib is fired by turning on both FETs. Thus to assure readiness to fire it is desirable to occasionally test the FETs (and their drive circuits) for operability. In prior systems the FETs were tested by commanding on a single FET at a time, and monitoring for the voltage on the deployment loop to go high (for a high side FET test) or low (for a low side FET test). This was accomplished by monitoring the low or high side of the deployment loop with an amplifier and then disabling the FET after a brief duration (several hundreds of microseconds). A microprocessor would be responsible for monitoring the low side of the squib, first checking to see that the squib was not shorted to battery or ground, and then commanding on the FET to be diagnosed. After a few hundred microseconds of delay, the amplifier would be checked, and the FET then disabled. With that arrangement it is conceivable that a short to ground (or battery) could occur immediately before or during testing the high side (or low side) FET. This has the possibility of causing an inadvertent deployment or degradation of the squib.
It has been proposed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/651,073, filed May 22, 1996, now Pat. No. 5,666,065, entitled "FAST ACTING FET TEST CIRCUIT FOR SIR DIAGNOSTICS" by Ravas et al and assigned to an assignee of this application, to apply a bias voltage to a firing circuit, monitoring the firing circuit voltage to sense either a short or a FET turn-on, and then rapidly terminating FET conduction. The monitoring step comprises comparing the circuit voltage to upper and lower thresholds. While that circuit is very fast and efficient, it has a potential problem of not detecting a short to another circuit which applies a voltage within the range prescribed by the thresholds.

Fast acting FET test circuit with current detection for SIR diagnostics


An electrical connector assembly which has a plurality of male connectors and a female connector that mates with the plurality of male connectors. Each of the male connectors has a male-type housing and a female-type contact secured to this male-type housing. Each of the male-type housings has a lock arm that is provided on the upper surface or undersurface of the male-type housing with the free end of this lock arm being positioned at the rear end of the housing. A lock arm protection member that protrudes upward or downward from the rear end of the upper surface or undersurface of the male-type housing and protects the lock arm. The female connector has a female-type housing and a male-type contact secured to this female-type housing. The female-type housing has a plurality of male connector receiving parts that receive the male-type housings and lock members on which the lock arms respectively latch. The walls between adjacent male connector receiving parts in the female-type housing are such that the front ends thereof are positioned further toward the interior than the mating surface of the female-type housing. A recessed part that receives the lock arm protection member of each of the male connectors is formed in the mating surface in the upper wall or lower wall of each of the male connector receiving parts.

In the electrical connection between an automotive ECU or the like and respective electrical wires (of a wire harness) on the side of the vehicle body, for example, the plurality of electrical wires have been connected at one time in the past using a comprehensive connection-type male connector on the side of the vehicle body and a female connector that mates with this male connector on the side of the ECU or the like.
However, in methods in which this comprehensive connection-type male connector is used, a large amount of mating force is required during the mating with the female connector, so that a connector comprising a lever-type force multiplying device is used to reduce the force required for the mating work.
Here, a connector for connecting numerous electrical wires to an ECU or the like has generally been required to satisfy several technical objectives such as: (a) reducing the operating force during insertion and removal; (b) reducing the size; and (c) ensuring the degree of freedom in the arrangement and distribution.
In the above-mentioned methods that use a connector comprising a lever-type force multiplying device described above, there are problems in that a size reduction is difficult, and in that the degree of freedom in the arrangement is small because space is required for the operation of the lever. Therefore, methods that use a connector comprising a lever-type force multiplying device have not been adopted much in recent years.
Accordingly, in recent years, in order to further reduce the mating force during mating with a female connector, instead of using a comprehensive connection-type male connector or lever-type connector, a connector is often divided into a plurality of male connectors. Specifically, the use of an electrical connector assembly comprising a plurality of male connectors and a female connector having a plurality of male connector receiving parts has become a common practice in the electrical connection between an automotive ECU or the like and respective electrical wires on the side of the vehicle body, so that a plurality of male connectors are caused to mate with a single female connector.
Here, a measure is taken to avoid buckling of and damage to male-type contacts provided on the female connector by preventing twisting of the male-type contacts when a male connector is caused to mate in an inclined state during the mating of each male connector with the female connector.
In order to prevent such twisting of the male-type contacts provided on the female connector, the mating depth has been generally increased in the past by lengthening the hood portions of the male connector receiving parts formed in the female connector while also lengthening the housings of the male connectors that mate with the female connector.
However, lengthening the housings of the male connectors that mate with the female connector has created the following problem: namely, when retainers are respectively inserted in the male connectors, the semi-mounted state of the female-type contacts provided on the male connectors cannot be detected. Furthermore, increasing the length of the hood portions of the male connector receiving parts formed in the female connector goes against the requirement of a reduction in size.
Moreover, on the side of the female connector having the plurality of male connector receiving parts, the following problem has been encountered: namely, lengthening the hood portions of the male connector receiving parts also lengthens the walls between adjacent male connector receiving parts that are made thinner as the number of poles increases, and these walls break as a result of twisted mating of the male connectors (when the male connectors are caused to mate with the female connector in an inclined state). In forming the plurality of male connector receiving parts on the female connector side, the mating opening must be divided into a plurality of parts. However, it is not acceptable to expand the entire width of the female connector because of the size reduction requirement, so that it is inevitable to reduce the width of the walls between adjacent male connector receiving parts.
Therefore, it is desirable that the mating depth be reduced by reducing the length of the hood portions of the male connector receiving parts formed in the female connector while also reducing the length of the housings of the male connectors that mate with the female connector.
Furthermore, in automotive connectors, it is necessary to provide a lock arm on the side of a male connector in order to interlock the male connector and female connector, and it is also necessary to provide a lock arm protection member on the side of the male connector in order to prevent the lock arm from being damaged by an abrupt external force caused by electrical wires catching the rear end of the lock arm during the assembly work of the male connector, storage or transport of a wire harness, or the like.
Meanwhile, the electrical connector shown in FIG. 7 (see JP-A-09-115607), for example, has been known in the past as an electrical connector in which a pair of male and female connectors mate while preventing the twisting of the male-type contacts. FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing an electrical connector prior to the mating of a pair of male and female connectors.
The electrical connector 101 shown in FIG. 7 comprising a male connector 110 and a female connector 120 that mates with the male connector 110.
The male connector 110 comprises a substantially rectangular male-type housing 111 and a plurality of female-type contacts (not shown in the figure) secured to the male-type housing 111. Furthermore, a cantilever-form lock arm 112 that extends rearward from the front end is provided on the upper wall of the male-type housing 111. Meanwhile, the female connector 120 comprises a female-type housing 121 having a male connector receiving part 122 that receives the male connector 110, and a plurality of male-type contacts 124 that are secured to the female-type housing 121 and that are received by and make contact with the plurality of female-type contacts. Moreover, a twisting-prevention member 123 protrudes inside the male connector receiving part 122 of the female connector 120, while an escape part 113 that permits the entry of the twisting-prevention member 123 is formed in the front end surface of the lock arm 112 of the male connector 110 facing the female connector 120.
In addition, when the male connector 110 is caused to mate with the female connector 120 in an inclined state, the front end surface or one of the side surfaces of the male-type housing 111 of the male connector 110 contacts the twisting-prevention member 123 provided on the female connector 120, and this prevents the twisting of the male-type contacts 124 inside the female connector 120, so that buckling of and damage to the male-type contacts 124 are avoided.
In the electrical connector 101 shown in FIG. 7, furthermore, a pair of lock arm protection members 114 that protect the lock arm 112 by protruding upward are provided at the rear end of the upper surface of the male-type housing 111 of the male connector 110. By providing these lock arm protection members 114, it is possible to prevent the lock arm 112 from being damaged by an abrupt external force caused by electrical wires (not shown in the figure) catching the rear end of the lock arm 112 during the assembly work of the male connector 110, storage or transport of a wire harness, or the like.
However, if the mating depth is reduced by reducing the length of the hood portions of the male connector receiving parts formed in the female connector while also reducing the length of the housings of the male connectors that mate with the female connector, then the twisting of the male-type contacts provided on the female connector cannot be prevented properly. Furthermore, even if the mating depth of both connectors is reduced, on the side of the female connector having the plurality of male connector receiving parts, the problem remains in that the breaking of the walls between adjacent male connector receiving parts caused by the twisted mating of the male connectors cannot be avoided in some cases.
Meanwhile, in the case of the electrical connector 101 shown in FIG. 7, although it is possible to properly protect the lock arm 112 and to prevent the twisting of the male-type contacts 124 inside the female connector 120, it is necessary to provide the twisting-prevention member 123 on the side of the female connector 120 and to form the escape part 113 on the side of the male connector 110. Therefore, the problem is that the construction of the electrical connector 101 becomes complicated.


A semiconductor memory includes: a first switching transistor, wherein the first switching transistor has a first terminal, a second terminal, and a third terminal, and the second terminal is coupled to a first word-line; a first differential bit-line pair possessing a non-inverted bit-line and an inverted bit-line, wherein the non-inverted bit-line and the inverted bit-line thereof are mutually-exclusively coupled to the first terminal of the first switching transistor for storing first information; and a second differential bit-line pair possessing a non-inverted bit-line and an inverted bit-line, wherein the non-inverted bit-line and the inverted bit-line thereof are mutually-exclusively coupled to the third terminal of the first switching transistor for storing second information.

The present invention relates generally to semiconductor memories, and more particularly, to a switchable bit-line pair Via ROM (Via-programmable Read-Only Memory) that has no dummy poly gate and has a high sensing speed.
Conventional Via ROMs require dummy poly gates for diffusion isolation as shown in FIG. 1, which is a circuit diagram illustrating a 4×4 Via ROM of the prior art. Each transistor has a first terminal connected to a reference voltage (e.g. a ground voltage) and a second terminal connected to one of four word-lines. Most importantly, each transistor has a third terminal for storing data according to whether the terminal is connected to one of four bit-lines through a Via contact. Bit-lines 0-3 are represented as "BL0-BL3", and word-lines 0-3 are represented as "WL0-WL3". FIG. 2 illustrates a layout of the 4×4 Via ROM shown in FIG. 1. The effective bit-cell size needs to be 1.5 poly-pitch on average as a result of the extra dummy poly gates. In addition, sensing speed and device local variations of the conventional Via ROMs need to be strengthened to comply with the trend of high speed ROMs.

Switchable bit-line pair semiconductor memory


A solid composition which comprises. a. about 27 to 38 wt. % of a mild synthetic anionic surfactant, PA1 b. about 18 to about 30 wt. % soap, PA1 c. about 27 to about 33 wt. % free fatty acid, PA1 d. about 1 to about 5 wt. % of paraffin wax, and PA1 e. the balance water.

Basic skin cleaning activities have been long addressed by the personal care industry. Removing soil from the skin is a worldwide requirement of the consumer population that has been met by the available skin cleansing products. The consumer population is now looking for additional benefits beyond basic cleansing. Cleansing should be accompanied by a pleasant skin feel. It should be desirable to have a pleasant looking formulation which maintains its physical integrity substantially throughout use, particularly when in a solid form such as a bar. It should be as cost effective as possible.
It has now been discovered that a specific combination of a mild synthetic surfactant, preferably acylisethionate, soap, free fatty acid and a paraffin wax bring about a solid composition which has good lathering, conditioning, mildness, good hardness, slough and use-up values and is cost effective as well.


A rescue device includes a control module to sense an avalanche, sense the direction of the surface and establish a target path to the surface. A nozzle is selected or oriented by the control module along the target path. A fluid reservoir is connected to the nozzle to force a fluid through the nozzle along the target path to the surface. This allows rescuers to identify the location of a victim and also provides an air path to the victim.

There are approximately 100,000 avalanches each year in the U.S. alone, resulting in at least 200 people being trapped, of which approximately half are killed or injured. Death is most commonly from asphyxiation, with survival time typically being less than 30 minutes. Survival diminishes with increasing burial depth, but average depth is only a foot or two under the snow. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find victims, even with currently available techniques, including probing from the surface and/or using transmitters.
In view of the forgoing, it would be desirable to develop an effective avalanche rescue device.


A volume homeostatic fluid--fluid exchanger for facilitating clearance of postvintrectomy vitreous hemorrhage includes an infusion cylinder device, an aspiration cylinder device, and a connecting tube which interconnects one cylinder of each of the two cylinder devices to form a close hydraulic system and establish a synchronized action between the two cylinder devices. When a first plunger device of one of the two cylinder devices acts, a second plunger device of the other cylinder device simultaneously moves to an opposite direction of equal displacement due to a synchronized hydraulic action. When one pushes the plunger device of the infusion cylinder device, a liquid medicine is infused into the vitreous cavity via a first needle, and equal amount of bloody fluid is aspirated from the vitreous cavity by the aspiration cylinder device via a second needle. After changing flow directions inside the cylinder devices, one can refill the infusion cylinder device with the liquid medicine and in the same time drain the bloody fluid out of the aspiration cylinder device. Repeat the steps mentioned above, the content of the vitreous cavity can be replaced by the liquid medicine under constant intra-ocular pressure (IOP).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a volume homeostatic fluid--fluid exchanger which can facilitate the clearance of post-vitrectomy vitreous hemorrhage. The present invention also relates to a new method for managing the recurrent vitreous hemorrhage in proliferative diabetic retinopathy after posterior vitrectomy.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of methods for performing a vitrectomy have heretofore been disclosed, an example of which is disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 5,304,118 to Trese et al, incorporated herein for reference. The management of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) is very difficult. Despite the successful posterior vitrectomy with complete membrane peeling, the incidence of post-operation recurrent hemorrhage is relatively high, up to 29% to 75% (Mieler W F, Wolf M D. In: Lewis H, Ryan S J, editors. Medical and Surgical Retina. St. Louis; Mosby, 1994; 330-340). In previous experience, in addition to observation for two or three months to see whether the recurrent hemorrhage can be absorbed per se, there are two surgical methods to manage the recurrent hemorrhage, including: fluid-gas exchange method and vitreous cavity lavage method. In the fluid-gas exchange method, air is used to replace the bloody fluid in the eyeball, yet the intra-ocular pressure (IOP) cannot be maintained constant during the procedure such that the oozing rate is rather high. In addition, when air bubble presents in the vitreous cavity, the patient sees nothing; when the air bubble disappears, the recurrent hemorrhage often results again from the oozing due to fluctuation of the intra-ocular pressure. Thus, the fluid-gas exchange cannot offer useful vision immediately after the procedure.
The conventional vitreous cavity lavage method, although having the potential to improve vision immediately after the procedure, still has two drawbacks: unstable IOP and the necessity of the larger caliber needle. The drainage needle, although of larger caliber, cannot aspirate the bloody fluid actively. In addition, although the caliber of the drainage needle could be rather large, the drainage needle still tends to be blocked by a blood clot or residual vitreous fiber. The procedure of vitreous lavage will thus be interrupted. Meanwhile, larger drainage needles induce larger wounds, more trauma, and higher incidence of recurrent hemorrhage.
The present invention is intended to provide an apparatus which mitigates and/or obviates the above problems.

Volume homeostatic fluid-fluid exchanger

15F-3 No.417, Tashun 2 Rd. Sanmin District


A method transmits packet data in a communications system between a transmitter and a receiver. One potential goal is to ensure correct processing of such packet data. To this end, the packet data are repeatedly transmitted by the transmitter and are received by the receiver as data received earlier or data received later. A diversity combination of the data received earlier and the data received later is performed to reconstruct the transmitted data packet.

The invention relates to a method for performing a diversity combination in a communications system.
In radio communications systems, messages and information, for example voice, image information or other data, are transmitted using electromagnetic waves between the transmitting and receiving station (base station and subscriber station respectively) via a radio interface. In existing mobile radio communication networks conforming to the GSM standard (GSM: Global System for Mobile Communication), new data services such as a packet data service GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) are also currently being introduced. In addition to the transmission of voice data, third-generation communications systems, e.g. the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) in accordance with the UTRA standard (UTRA: Universal Terrestrial Radio Access), also provide for the transmission of packet data units (PDUs). The packet data units are derived by segmenting and by adding additional control information from large data packets of higher layers or system levels (e.g. Layer 3). In particular, packet data is transmitted asynchronously, or not synchronously, with the result that the transmission durations and/or the transmission paths of individual packet data units transmitted in succession may differ from one other. To identify the packet data units arriving at the receiver, the units are provided with packet data identification information or sequence number. In the systems currently used or proposed, the identification information is transmitted in the header section (header) of the data packet or as transport format combination identifiers (TFCI).
The correct transmission of the identification information is very important here since the data packets are later frequently combined into large blocks, and incorrect identification information would lead to an incorrect combination of individual data packets. In the worst case, such an incorrect combination is not detected until very late, or even not at all, so that a renewed request to transmit the packet data is issued very late, or even incorrect data are further processed. In particular, a non-detected processing of incorrect identification information leads to serious disruption of the traffic at air interfaces between the transmitter and receiver, for the most part with long-lasting consequences.
Since data losses can occur in a multiplicity of situations during the transmission of the packet data units, data protection methods for transmitted data are known. In particular data protection includes encoding methods and repetition methods, e.g. an automatic data repetition method with combinable encoding for forward error correction (FEC) known for short as Hybrid ARQ Type I or II (ARQ: Automatic Repeat Request), which are sketched in FIG. 1. Following a first unsuccessful data transmission of a packet data unit PDU, a renewed transmission is requested (ACK/NACK) by the receiving station MS from the transmitting station BS. While the first transmission can be performed with optional encoding (P1), encoded data P2 are transmitted at least for the repetition. In this case the redundancy can increase from repetition to repetition, with a corresponding increase in the probability that the data packets PDU can be correctly reconstructed at the receiving end.
FIG. 1 shows three ways of obtaining corrected data. The error corrections that are based directly on only the received polynomials P1 and P2 correspond to the ARQ-I method, in which different polynomials P1 and P2 need not necessarily be selected. With the ARQ-I method, the receiver does not need to store the data from earlier transmissions in order to decode the current transmission. The error correction shown in the middle of FIG. 1 combines or chains in accordance with the ARQ-II method the data of the two received polynomials P1 and P2. If the two polynomials P1 and P2 are identical, the encoded data can be combined, which is referred to as diversity combining. If the two polynomials P1 and P2 are different on the other hand, the receiver cannot combine the associated transmissions, but should chain them to form a combined "larger" encoding block, which is subsequently decoded. With diversity combining, in the case of the incorrect reception of a plurality of differently encoded data polynomials, the transmission of the data polynomial Pi that was received with the lowest signal-to-noise ratio is preferably requested again.
In connection with the hybrid ARQ error correction, a diversity combination can be used, e.g. a maximum ratio combining (MRC), if copies of earlier transmitted encoded data of the same polynomial are repeated. With increasing redundancy transmission, that is to say with the increasing number of repeated transmissions with stronger encoding in each case, however, the following errors can occur in the receiving station:
1. If the signaling information is transmitted in-band in the header section of the transmitted data block, that is to say together with the payload data, and is not protected here with an individual checksum (CRC: Cyclic Redundancy Check) to save system capacities and hence costs, then undetected errors can occur when decoding the header section. If the identification information of the data packet or of the header section was corrupted or lost, then the corresponding data block (with diversity combining or chaining) is processed with data from other data packets or data blocks not belonging to it. In particular, this can lead to the destruction of valuable buffered baseband information in the receiving station. In the worst case, such errors can even propagate unnoticed, or only noticed at a late stage.
2. If the receiving station attempts to decode a data block transmitted by an alien transmitting station and received as a result of an overreach, comparable problems may arise.
In general it can be observed that as a rule the above methods offer good results if the noise signals superimposed on a data block can be described as Gaussian distributed noise. In mobile radio communications, however, signaling of alien transmitting stations or data transmitted over other paths can lead to interference that does not correspond to any Gaussian distribution. Such interference cannot be readily handled using methods such as the maximum ratio combination MRC. In particular outliers that are superimposed on the wanted receive signal with high amplitudes also make a negative impact as noise signals. One specific problem of the maximum ratio combination MRC is the necessity of estimating the signal-to-noise ratios from the transmitted data prior to the actual combining. It is no trivial matter to obtain a stable estimate of signal-to-noise ratios when there are outliers present in the transmitted data.
A code combining in which a code rate is adapted to prevailing channel conditions is known from the publication "Cide Combining—A Maximum Likelihood Decoding Approach for Combining an Arbitrary of Noisy Packets", David Chase, IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE INC. New York, US, VOL.COM-33, No. 5, May 1985, pages 385–393.
A data transmission in which a data packet with errors is transmitted again is known from WO 99/26371.

Method or communications system using a robust diversity combination


From a markup language document (e.g. an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document expressed as a Document Object Model (DOM) tree) having a markup language element hierarchy containing a set of markup language elements and a plurality of references to the hierarchy, another markup language document (e.g. a textual XML document) is generated which contains one instance of the set of markup language elements for each of the plurality of references. The generated markup language document may otherwise have the same content as the original markup language document. Generation of a markup language document containing identical sets of markup language elements may thereby be simplified.

The use of markup languages such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) is prevalent in modern computing. This is likely due in part to fact that markup language documents may be expressed in a simple textual form which can be processed by many different types of computing devices and operating system platforms. Markup language documents may thus facilitate cross-platform computing.
When a developer creates a markup language document, either using a text editor or through the use of an integrated development environment (IDE), it may be necessary to repeatedly generate the same set of markup language elements within the document. The repeated generation of the same set of markup language elements can be tedious and can result in a markup language document that is difficult to maintain.
An apparatus, method and machine-readable medium for facilitating generation of a markup language document containing identical sets of markup language elements would be desirable.

Apparatus, method and machine-readable medium for facilitating generation of a markup language document containing identical sets of markup language elements


An illuminating unit includes: a light source section including a laser light source; a first uniformizing optical member on which light from the light source section is incident; and a second uniformizing optical member including a plurality of first unit cells and a plurality of second unit cells and on which light from the first uniformizing optical member is incident. The first unit cells are arranged on a light incidence surface of the second uniformizing optical member and each have an anisotropic shape with a major-axis direction as a first direction and a minor-axis direction as a second direction, and the second unit cells are arranged on a light emission surface of the second uniformizing optical member and each have a shape protruding along both the first direction and the second direction.

The present disclosure relates to an illuminating unit applying light including laser light, and a display performing image display using such an illuminating unit.
An optical module as one of major component parts of a projector (projection display) is generally configured of an illumination optical system (illuminating unit) including a light source, and a projection optical system including a light modulation device. In the field of such projectors, a small (palm-sized) and lightweight, portable projector called microprojector is beginning to be widespread. In the microprojector, a light emitting diode (LED) has been mainly used as the light source for the illuminating unit.
On the other hand, laser is now the subject of interest as a new light source for the illuminating unit. For example, a green semiconductor laser is being developed following the commercialization of high-output blue and red semiconductor lasers, and is reaching a practical application level. Due to such a background, there has been proposed a projector including monochrome lasers (semiconductor lasers) of three primary colors of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) as light sources for the illuminating unit. A projector having a wide color reproduction range and exhibiting small power consumption is achieved through use of the monochrome lasers as the light sources.
In addition, such a projector generally has a predetermined uniformizing optical system (uniformizing optical member) in an illuminating unit to uniformize the light quantity distribution (intensity distribution) of illumination light emitted from the illuminating unit. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 2002-311382 and 2012-8549 each disclose two (a pair of) fly-eye lenses as the uniformizing optical member.


Disclosed is an apparatus and method for calibrating the deposition windage of deposited thin film resistive elements, such as magnetoresistive read elements for magnetic heads which are to be lapped, comprising one set of at least three resistive elements having different nominal height dimensions, a resistance detector for measuring the resistance of each of the resistive elements, and a windage calculator responsive to the nominal height dimensions and to the measured resistances of each of the resistive elements for calculating the windage of the one set of resistive elements.

Many direct access storage device manufacturers employ thin film magnetic recording heads. In manufacturing such heads, rows of magnetic recording transducers are deposited simultaneously on wafer substrates using semiconductor type process methods. Thin film magnetic heads are generally mutli-layered heads that require sequential depositions and pattern constructions of alternating layers of magnetic films, insulators, and conductors on top of a substrate (or ceramic wafer). Photolithography is the process commonly used to transfer a pattern from a mask to the surface of the substrate wafer. The patterns are first transferred from the mask to a light-sensitive material called photoresist. Next, chemical or plasma etching is used to transfer the pattern from the photoresist to a barrier material on the surface of the wafer. The photolithographic process is repeated to form the various layers of the thin film heads.
After the rows of magnetic recording transducers have been deposited onto the wafer, the wafers are partitioned or sliced into rows of sliders called slider rows, or alternatively, partitioned or sliced into modules having multiple rows of sliders. When separated from the slider rows, each slider contains a magnetic read/write component, referred to as the head, and an air-bearing surface configured to aerodynamically "fly" over the surface of a spinning magnetic disk medium. Conventional thin film read/write heads in data storage systems generally include an inductive write head in combination with either an inductive or magnetoresistive (MR) read head. One type of MR/inductive head includes an inductive write head formed adjacent to a MR read head.
While fabricating sliders, the slider rows or modules may be bonded to tool blocks called transfer tools, which are used to hold the slider row or module while performing lapping or grinding operations to form the air bearing surface. Typically, the slider rows distort from a co-linear line as a result of the internal stress of the wafer material and the surface stresses developed when reducing the wafers to slider rows or modules. Furthermore, the bonding operation may cause additional distortion. The combined stress distortion and bonding distortion of slider rows or modules may result in a total distortion or curvature condition called "row bow".
Row bow may cause a row of sliders to be non-uniformly lapped during the lapping process. As such, this row bow condition can detrimentally affect critical head performance parameters, such as stripe height in MR heads, and throat height in inductive heads. To achieve optimum performance of MR/inductive heads, both the stripe height and throat height must be tightly controlled. Unfortunately, the performance of the MR/inductive heads may be degraded by row bow.
The lapping control system described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,868 may be used to measure the electrical resistance of the MR elements in an MR head while lapping a slider row. The measured resistances are used for controlling the degree of lapping for each of the MR elements in a slider row to compensate for row bow. The electrical resistance is related to the desired MR element height (also referred to as stripe height); and, when the desired MR element height is reached, the lapping process is terminated. More specifically, the stripe height of the MR element s is calculated from the equation: EQU s=K/(R-RL) (1)
where:
K=(resistivity p*track width 1)/(film thickness f) PA1 R=resistance of the MR element PA1 RL=lead resistance PA1 K=(resistivity p*track width 1)/(film thickness f) PA1 R=resistance of the MR element PA1 RL=lead resistance PA1 W=windage PA1 Hn=nominal height of an MR element PA1 H.sub.3 =Nominal height of resistive element 3 PA1 R.sub.1 =Resistance of resistive element 1 PA1 R.sub.2 =Resistance of resistive element 2 PA1 R.sub.3 =Resistance of resistive element 3.
In order to control the amount of lapping performed on a slider row and to accurately determine the final MR element height (at the conclusion of lapping), both K and RL must be known.
The lapping process may begin with two well-defined initial MR element heights, s1 and s2, interleaved throughout the row. In other words, the MR elements in a slider row are deposited on the wafer with alternating MR stripe heights s1 and s2. The MR element heights, s1 and s2, deposited on the wafer may be optically measured. Once the MR element heights s1 and s2 are known, the following equations may be used to calculate K and RL: EQU s1=K/(R1-RL) (2) EQU s2=K/(R2-RL) (3)
By providing MR elements with two known heights, the final resistance of the MR elements can be used to determine the final MR element height. Thus, the lapping process may be controlled by the resistance of the MR elements in a slider row.
It is important to note that if the MR element heights s1 and s2 are not known, then equations (2) and (3) alone, may not be used to calculate K and RL. Unfortunately, measuring the MR element heights s1 and s2 typically requires an additional processing step prior to the lapping operation.
An alternative lapping method that uses the resistance of the MR elements to control the lapping provides one or more test sites on a wafer for measuring the windage of the wafer. Windage atypically refers to the deviation in the dimensions of elements e.g., MR elements) deposited on a wafer from the dimensions of the mask (also referred to as the nominal value), which may result from the misalignment of masks or process variations.
The windage may be calibrated by actual measurements by a probe that provides substantially zero lead resistance RL. A calibration step is described in IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 11, April 1976, p. 3782. The calibration information must then be stored in a database for subsequent access and use in the lapping process. An alternative method for estimating the windage is mentioned in coassigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,361 541, at col. 9, line 65 to col. 11, line 3, again requiring a separate measurement step before lapping and requiring storage of data while awaiting multiple wafer and row processing steps before being employed in the lapping process. Once the windage is known, the following equation may be used to calculate K, assuming that RL is substantially zero. EQU R=K+RL/(Hn+W) (4)
where:
Once K is known, the MR element height (i.e., stripe height) may be determined from equation (1) . Thus, the measured resistance of the MR element may be used to control the amount of lapping of a slider row.
The separate windage calibration step prior to lapping is costly both from the standpoint of the extra time required to conduct the step, and from the standpoint of the computer data storage space and transmission required to save the data for a later calibration step. Additionally, the test sites are positioned on a wafer and occupy space that would otherwise be used for additional sliders and heads. Furthermore, the number of test sites are typically limited and cannot be positioned next to each MR location. The chance for error due to the few test sites and lack of close positioning may degrade the ability to accurately predict the MR stripe height at during lapping. Thus, it is much more desirable to determine windage directly at each element location during the lapping operation without a separate calibration step and without the use of test sites.

International Business Machines Corporation


In a method of routing a wire to a shape in an integrated circuit for minimizing undesirable jog creation during a masking process, a plurality of possible placements of the wire relative to a selected edge of the shape resulting in the wire being connected to the shape are determined. A cost is assigned to each placement, the cost indicating an amount of jog that would be created in the masking process corresponding to the placement, wherein a greater cost indicates that a greater jog would be created in the masking process than would be created by a placement assigned a lesser cost. A placement having a lowest cost of the plurality of possible placements is selected.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wiring layout systems for integrated circuits and, more specifically, to a system that minimizes creation of jogs during the masking process.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The process of designing an integrated circuit involves many different levels of abstraction, beginning with the functional specification of the circuit and ending with the layout of regions of dopants, polysilicon and metals on the actual crystal that makes up the circuit. At one level, a auto router wiring tool specifies the routes that wires will take to connect to shapes (such as vias, etc.). After the wiring tool lays out all of the wiring for a chip, a masking tool will create the masks that are used in depositing the materials that form the circuit onto crystal face of the chip.
The masking tool employs a series of rules to maintain the integrity of the chip. Some of these rules are based on the technology being employed and the physical demands placed on the chip. One typical rule is a minimum feature distance requirement. This rule ensures that every wire and shape is wide enough to function properly. In some systems, the minimum feature distance can include the minimum width allowed for a wire or a portion of a shape.
Unfortunately, when an edge of a wire is placed near an edge of a shape at a non-zero distance from the edge of the shape that is less than the minimum feature distance, the masking tool will assume that the part of the width of the portion of the shape between the edge of the wire and the edge of the shape violates the minimum feature distance rule. The masking tool will then add a "jog" to either the shape or the wire (or both) to achieve the minimum feature distance. The creation of jogs is sometimes referred to as the "blooming effect."
This is shown in FIG. 1A, where a couple of wires 30 are connected to a shape 20 (in this case, the shape 20 is used to couple the wires 30 to a pair of vias 22). The resulting shape 40 on the mask created by the masking tool includes several jogs 42a and 42b that the masking tool adds to compensate for rounding of edges in the fabrication process. Some of the jogs (such as 42a) are undesirable because they not necessary to compensate for rounding and introduce extra small edges and corners, which may be detrimental to the yield of the design and require added mask compensation shapes. As shown in FIG. 1B, if the wire 30 is aligned with the shape 20, then some of the jogs 42a are eliminated. Currently, users must manually run a wire straightening program after running the wiring tool to try to reduce the number of jogs. This adds cost to the development process.
Therefore, there is a need for a wire routing tool that connects wires to shapes so as to minimize jogs.

International Business Machines Corporation


Mapping of data source schema data types relating a server side database description into a set of OLE DB data types is rendered subject to user modification by provision of a dual Schema File at a client side terminal which contains an original copy and a modifiable copy of the data source schema. Selected contents of the modifiable Schema File are then displayed in a split window format, including one window which provides a tree view of the schema structure and an adjacent window which displays a set of values related to a selected element of the tree view. Selected values are then subject to modification via user point and click and data entry operations.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates generally to data processing systems and more particularly to a schema utility for modifying schema presented to a user on a client side of a system employing OLE DB data providers.
2. Description of Related Art
In the present state of the art, data is located everywhere: on mainframe servers, on PC desktops, on the web. Data resides in these environments in many different formats: relational and non-relational database management systems, ISAM files, e-mail, spreadsheets, audio, video, real time data feeds for news and stock, CAD/CAM systems, and so on.
With today's tools and software technology, there is increasing pressure to provide access to this diverse data from multiple clients using standard interfaces, without moving the data from its origin. Businesses need to build solutions that span desktops, servers, and the Internet. In addition, the end user wants to access this data in the same way, regardless of the language used.
In order to facilitate access to structured and unstructured data in such diverse locations, Microsoft Corporation has developed a software interface specification known as OLE DB. OLE DB particularly provides a set of Component Object Model (COM) interfaces. According to OLE DB, data "Providers" are employed to expose data stored as OLE DB compliant data sources so as to allow access to them by OLE DB data "consumers".
In one environment where the preferred embodiment finds application, a Data Provider provides communication between OLE DB data consumers on Windows workstations or servers and prior art data sources consisting, for example, of a Unisys DMS II database. A Data Provider per se is a component in Microsoft's Universal Data Access model.
In such an environment, Client data is stored in PC format, which means that alpha data is encoded in ASCII characters and integers are stored with their bytes in reverse order (a characteristic of the Intel processors that are typically used on PC's). The format of data as stored in prior art data sources is typically quite different. For example, alpha data on the host data source may be encoded in EBCDIC and integers may be stored with their bytes in normal order. Such encoding and storage is employed for example in Clearpath and A-Series environments present on prior art computer systems manufactured by Unysis Corp., Blue Bell, Pa.
The Data Provider of the preferred embodiment defines a format (the common data source schema) for describing the structures and data items for all the supported data sources. Within the common data source schema, each of the prior art data sources has some unique data types. The OLE DB specification defines a set of data types. The mapping of prior art data source data types to the OLE DB data types is not always obvious or clear-cut. For example, the DMSII data source does not have a "date" data type, although dates are stored in DMSII databases. OLE DB does have a "date" data type. Moreover, the elements of the common data source schema may appear in formats which are not as recognizable or meaningful to the user as they might be.

OLE DB data access system with schema modification features


A riser transport system includes telescoping vertical riser racks to facilitate vertical riser transport.

In the oil and gas industries, coiled tubing refers to metal piping, normally one inch to almost four inches in diameter, used for interventions in oil and gas wells and sometimes as production tubing in depleted gas wells, which comes spooled on a large reel. The main engine of a coiled tubing intervention is the injector head. This component contains the mechanism to push and pull the coiled tubing into and out of the hole. Below the injector is a stripper, which contains rubber pack-off elements providing a seal around the tubing to isolate the well's pressure. Below the stripper is the blowout preventer, which provides the ability to cut the coiled tubing pipe and seal the wellbore and hold and seal around the pipe. The BOP also sits below the riser, which provides the pressurized tunnel down to the top of the wellhead. Risers may be transported by roadway in different lengths. What is needed then is an apparatus to transport risers of varied or longer lengths.


An infrared irradiation source of an infrared irradiation apparatus is provided. The infrared irradiation source is comprised of a heat generator and an infrared ray irradiation member for being heated by the heat generator and emitting far infrared rays not containing near infrared rays of wavelength less than 4 .mu.m, wherein the heat generation rate by the heat generator is designed to be greater at the circumferential portion than at the central portion of the far infrared irradiation member. Preferably, the infrared irradiation source should be provided in a plurality of numbers so as to emit far infrared rays of wavelength ranging from 5 to 20 .mu.m to the periphery of the human body accommodated in a space formed by the human body mounting portion and the operable cover portion of the apparatus.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an infrared ray irradiation apparatus and infrared ray irradiation source used therein, and more specifically to an infrared ray irradiation apparatus and infrared ray irradiation source used therein for treating diseases, particularly malignant tumors, viral diseases by irradiating with far-infrared rays and raising the intracorporeal temperature.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hitherto, for malignant tumors such as cancers, sarcoma, etc., treatments including abscission by operations, irradiation of radioactive ray, administration of drugs, etc. have been given, but tumors which have metastasized are difficult to treat. Even those at the initial stages, operations and other methods may cause excessively large burdens to the human body, lower the immunological competence, and have problems of recurrence of tumors, occurrence of other diseases, etc. Viral diseases are unable to be treated unless suitable vaccine is present, and such is the state of things that there is no effective treatment when people are infected with AIDS virus, etc.
Because in recent years, it has been found that malignant tumors and viruses die out or are inactivated when heated to temperatures exceeding 41.degree. C., hyperthermia has attracted keen attention, and treatments for immersing patients in warm water or methods for irradiating with infrared rays have been developed, and infrared ray irradiation apparatus have begun to be fabricated.
However, since the treatment by immersing patients in warm water is achieved by thermal conduction from the human body surface, long time is required for heating the inside of human body, weighing too much on the human body. In addition, the infrared ray irradiation source used for infrared ray irradiation apparatus which have been fabricated and commercially available to date are said to be far infrared ray irradiation source, but in actuality contain a large volume of near infrared rays and has a construction in which the infrared ray irradiation source is formed in a single unit. Near infrared rays have large energy and provide low permeability to human body, and require long time to heat the depth of the human body, and patients must be anesthetized for treatment in order to prevent patients from moving. In addition, because the human body is exposed to infrared ray irradiation source containing near infrared rays for a long time, the energy applied to the body surface increases, and a problem of low-temperature burns occurs, and in order to reduce this problem, an expensive control means must be provided.
In view of the foregoing, it is the main object of this invention to provide an infrared ray irradiation apparatus and infrared ray irradiation source used therein which allow far infrared rays to reach the depth of the human body in a short time, enables optional setting of irradiation intensity for each portion of human body without generating low-temperature burns in patients, and can irradiate far infrared rays only.

Infrared ray irradiation apparatus and infrared ray irradiation source used therein


A device for containing, concealing and protecting footwear fasteners to keep the fasteners secure, clean, concealed and protected from snagging on foreign objects. The device is made of a pliable material so as to prevent injury in the event that the wearer or some other person comes into contact with the device. The device has a cover that may display fashionable designs and emblems, or reflective material for use in the dark.

Shoelace covers are known in the art, and their decorative and function value is well recognized. Typical of such shoelace covers include, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,969,242 to Carlton, Sr., 5,022,127 to Ang, and 5,649,342 to D'Andrade et al., all of which teach a rigid, non-yielding shoelace cover.
Unfortunately, none of these prior art patents relate to a shoelace cover which is sufficiently pliable as to be safely useable during sporting activities or by young children at play. Moreover, none of these covers can be used with all styles and sizes of footwear, including those fastened with Velcro and speed laces. While all of the above-listed shoelace covers keep shoelaces from becoming untied, none provide the versatility, convenience, and safety which are characteristic of the shoelace covers of the present invention.

Device for containing, concealing, and protecting footwear fasteners


A technique for efficiently rendering path images tessellates path contours into triangle tans comprising a set of representative triangles. Topology of the set of representative triangles is then optimized for greater rasterization efficiency by applying a flip operator to selected triangle pairs within the set of representative triangles. The optimized triangle pairs are then rendered using a path rendering technique, such as stencil and cover.

Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to path rendering and, more specifically, to optimizing triangle topology for path rendering.
Description of the Related Art
Path rendering represents one style of resolution-independent two-dimensional (2D) rendering that forms a basis for a number of important graphics rendering standards known in the art as PostScript, Java 2D, Apple's Quartz 2D, PDF, TrueType fonts, OpenType fonts, PostScript fonts, scalable vector graphics (SVG), OpenVG, Microsoft's Silverlight, Adobe Flash, Microsoft's XML Paper Specification (XPS), and more.
One class of techniques for performing path rendering includes at least a tessellation step and a path coverage step. Path elements are tessellated into representative triangles in the tessellation step. The path coverage step draws many tessellated triangles, and samples covered by these triangles are counted in a stencil or color buffer, which is used to determine whether each sample is inside or outside an associated path. Front-facing triangles increment covered sample counts and back-facing triangles decrement covered sample counts. Samples counted as inside a path are rendered according to an associated path fill color, while samples counted as outside a path are not rendered to the path fill color.
Many common tessellation techniques generate triangle fans and meshes having very narrow, sliver-like triangles, which typically render with relatively poor efficiency. As a consequence, overall path rendering efficiency and performance may be relatively poor, which can diminish the quality of a user experience.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a technique for improved path rendering efficiency.

Optimizing triangle topology for path rendering


A threaded fastener has opposite hand threads provided thereon for securing two components together, such as a companion flange and a flange yoke assembly that is used in a vehicular drive train system. The companion flange includes a hollow cylindrical sleeve portion and a disc-shaped flange portion having an aperture formed therethrough. The flange yoke includes a disc-shaped flange portion and a yoke portion having an aperture formed therethrough. The flange yoke aperture is aligned with the companion flange aperture. A threaded fastener extends through the companion flange aperture and the flange yoke aperture. The threaded fastener includes a first threaded portion having a first hand that is disposed within the companion flange aperture. The threaded fastener further includes a second threaded portion having a second hand that is disposed within the flange yoke aperture. The first hand is opposite to said second hand such that when a nut is screwed onto the threaded fastener to secure the companion flange and flange yoke together, the threaded fastener is effectively prevented from rotating.

This invention relates in general to fasteners for securing two components together. More specifically, this invention relates to an improved structure for a threaded fastener having opposite hand threads provided thereon for securing two components together, such as a companion flange and a flange yoke that is used in a vehicular drive train system.
Drive train systems are widely used for generating power from a source and for transferring such power from the source to a driven mechanism. For example, in most land vehicles in use today, an engine/transmission assembly generates rotational power, and such rotational power is transferred from an output shaft of the engine/transmission assembly through a driveshaft assembly to an input shaft of an axle assembly so as to rotatably drive the wheels of the vehicle. To accomplish this, a typical driveshaft assembly includes a hollow cylindrical driveshaft tube having a pair of end fittings, such as a pair of tube yokes, secured to the front and rear ends thereof. The front end fitting forms a portion of a front universal joint that connects the output shaft of the engine/transmission assembly to the front end of the driveshaft tube. Similarly, the rear end fitting forms a portion of a rear universal joint that connects the rear end of the driveshaft tube to the input shaft of the axle assembly. The front and rear universal joints provide a rotational driving connection from the output shaft of the engine/transmission assembly through the driveshaft tube to the input shaft of the axle assembly, while accommodating a limited amount of angular misalignment between the rotational axes of these three shafts.
A companion flange and flange yoke assembly is often used to connect the output shaft of the engine/transmission assembly to the front universal joint or to connect the rear universal joint to the input shaft of the axle assembly. A typical companion flange and flange yoke assembly includes a companion flange and a flange yoke that are secured together for concurrent rotational movement. The companion flange includes a hollow cylindrical, internally splined sleeve portion that engages the shaft for rotation therewith, while the flange yoke includes a yoke portion that forms a portion of the associated universal joint. The companion flange and the flange yoke are typically secured together using fasteners that extend through aligned apertures formed through mating flange portions of the companion flange and the flange yoke. Respective nuts are threaded onto the ends of the threaded fasteners to retain the companion flange and the flange yoke together during use.
In order to insure that the companion flange and the flange yoke are reliably secured together, it is important that the nuts are tightly rotated onto the ends of the threaded fasteners. Because of the relatively large amount of torque that is usually needed to be applied to such nuts during installation, it is often necessary to positively prevent the threaded fasteners from rotating while the nuts are being tightened thereon. The simplest method of accomplishing this would be to use a wrench or other tool to engage conventional heads on the threaded fasteners to prevent them from rotating when the nuts are tightened thereon. However, such a method has been found to be somewhat awkward and difficult because of space constraints, and further is relatively time consuming in the context of the high volume production of vehicular drive train systems. A more recent method has been to provide a knurled portion on each of the threaded fasteners that frictionally engages either the companion flange or the flange yoke in an attempt to prevent the threaded fasteners from rotating when the nuts are tightened thereon. Although much simpler and quicker than using a wrench or similar tool, these knurled structures have, at least in some instances, been found to provide an insufficient amount of resistance to prevent the threaded fasteners from rotating when the nuts are tightened thereon. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an improved structure for a threaded fastener for use in a companion flange and flange yoke yoke assembly that more effectively prevents the threaded fasteners from rotating when the nuts are tightened thereon.

Fastener with opposite hand threads for securing two components together


In the tire (1), a region of the tread portion (10) overlapping with a range of 80% of a length of the circumferential belt layer (40) in a tread widthwise direction around a tire equator line CL is a central region CR in the tire radial direction trd, and a remaining region of the tread portion (10) is a terminal region TR, a maximum curvature radius of the arc portion of the central circumferential groove 50a is R1, a minimum curvature radius of the arc portion of the terminal circumferential groove 50b is R2, a maximum depth in the tire radial direction trd from the tread surface (11) to a groove bottom 55a of the central circumferential groove 50a is D1, a maximum depth in the tire radial direction trd from the tread surface (11) to a groove bottom 55b of the terminal circumferential groove 50b is D2, and a relationship of R1/D1≦0.130 and a relationship of R2/D2>0.195 are satisfied.

In recent years, a low-profile tire has become widely used in response to a request for increasing a speed and lowering a floor level of a vehicle. A tread portion of the low-profile tire is grown in the tire radial direction by applying an internal pressure. Due to the growth in the tire radial direction, there has been concentration of a stress on a groove bottom of a tire circumferential groove and then a crack (a so called groove crack) occurs in the groove bottom.
As a tire to restrain the occurrence of the groove crack, conventionally, there is widely known a tire in which a groove bottom of a circumferential groove is formed in an arc shape and then a curvature radius increases in a cross section taken along a direction orthogonal to an extension direction of a circumferential groove and along a tire radial direction (refer to PTL 1, for example). By increasing the curvature radius of the groove bottom, concentration of a stress on the groove bottom has been restrained. In this manner, the occurrence of the groove crack has been suppressed.


An electrical plug-in connector with a first housing part, a second housing part and at least one metal interlocking clip which is pivotally mounted on the first housing part, two bearing journals being mounted on the first housing part and two interlocking projections being provided on the second housing part, the interlocking clip having two interlocking legs and a handle piece which connects the interlocking legs to one another, the interlocking legs each having a bearing arm with a recess for the bearing journal and an interlocking arm for overlapping an interlocking projection. Damage to the interlocking projections by the metal interlocking arms is prevented by two plastic parts which are located on the two interlocking legs of an interlocking clip such that a respective section of a plastic part covers the free end surface of an interlocking arm when the interlocking clip is pivoted into the closed position.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an electrical plug-in connector with a first housing part, a second housing part and at least one metal interlocking clip which is pivotally mounted on one of the two housing parts, two bearing journals being provided on the first housing part and two interlocking projections being made on the second housing part, the interlocking clip having two interlocking legs and a handle piece which connects the interlocking legs to one another and the interlocking legs each having a bearing arm with a recess for the bearing journal and an interlocking arm for overlapping an interlocking projection. In addition, the invention also relates to an interlocking clip for interlocking of two housing parts, especially two housing parts of an electrical plug-in connector, with two interlocking legs and a handle piece which connects the interlocking legs to one another.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrical plug-in connectors of the above mentioned type have been used for many years, especially in industry, and therefore, are often also called industrial plug-in connectors. The plug-in connectors generally have a housing base and a built-on housing as the first housing part and a housing cover or sleeve housing as the second housing part. Within the two housing parts there are generally several terminals which are electrically connected to one another to form a terminal strip, the terminal strips having plug-in contacts or jacks so that when the top part of the housing is slipped onto the bottom part of the housing, the terminals of the top part of the housing are electrically conductively connected to the corresponding terminals of the bottom part of the housing.
Since these industrial plug-in connectors are often used under extremely harsh conditions, the plug-in connectors must meet high tightness requirements, for which the two housing parts must be reliably interlocked with one another even when exposed to strong vibrations and high mechanical load. For this purpose, there must be at least one interlocking clip (often two interlocking clips) pivotally mounted on one of the two housing parts, and in the interlocked position, overlaps two interlocking projections or interlocking pins which are located on the other housing part, by which the two housing parts are held together with one another.
For example, European Patent Application EP 1 691 454 A2 discloses the initially described electrical plug-in connector. In this plug-in connector, the interlocking clip is punched out of a metal sheet in one piece and is bent such that it is made roughly U-shaped. The U-back or base leg of the interlocking clip here forms a handle piece, while the two U-legs are made as interlocking legs or interlocking clamps. The interlocking legs each have a bearing arm with a bearing recess for the articulated pins located on the first housing part and an interlocking arm for overlapping the interlocking pins which are located on the second housing part.
A similar plug-in connector is also disclosed by German Patent Application DE 10 2004 061 046 B4. In this plug-in connector, the interlocking clip is punched out of a metal sheet in one piece and bent. In this interlocking clip, the interlocking arm which overlaps the catch projection in the closed position is made rigid while the bearing arm is made as a spring leg. Because the known interlocking clips are punched out of a metal sheet and bent, production of the interlocking clip is relatively simple, and thus, is also associated only with low costs. However, here, the disadvantage is that punch edges are formed by punching out the interlocking clip and the interlocking projections on the second housing part can be damaged during interlocking as a result.
If the interlocking projections are made of plastic or of a relatively soft material, for example aluminum, when the interlocking clip is pivoted into the closed position, surface wear occurs on the interlocking projection; this can ultimately lead to the interlocking projections being parted. Even if the interlocking projections are made of a harder metal, when the interlocking clip is pivoted into the closed position friction occurs between the two metal parts, specifically between the interlocking projection and the interlocking arm, by which the surface of the two metals parts is involved so that corrosion can form more quickly.

Electrical plug-in connector and interlocking clip for interlocking of two housing parts