An open-type hose clamp which comprises a plastically deformable “Oetiker” ear as tightening device that requires a predetermined minimum plastic deformation for desired operation. Proper operation of the “Oetiker” ear is assured by a lost motion connection. The lost motion connection which also forms the mechanical connection between overlapping band portions includes at least one outwardly extending member extending outwardly from the inner band portion and adapted to engage in a corresponding aperture in the outer band portion, whereby the mechanical connection is such as to prevent use of an undersize clamp with a given hose and to assure a lock up of the mechanical connection upon engagement of the outwardly extending member in the aperture during tightening of the clamp.

Hose clamps with plastically deformed ear-like tightening devices known in the trade as so-called "Oetiker" ears have proved immensely successful and have been used in clamps commercially sold in the hundreds of millions. The success of the "Oetiker" ear is attributable to the holding ability of a clamp provided with such a tightening device as well as to the automatic compensation for aging and/or fluctuations in pressure and/or temperature of the fluid carried by the hose with which the clamp is used. However, these extraordinarily favorable operating characteristics are attainable only if the "Oetiker" ear is plastically deformed a sufficient amount by contraction of the ear so as to change the more or less rectangular hat-shaped configuration of the original "Oetiker" ear into an approximately omega-shaped configuration with a smoothly rounded external shape causing the corners of the hat-shaped configuration to disappear completely.
To achieve the desired plastic deformation of the "oetiker" ear, it is therefore necessary that the same be contracted a sufficient amount. U.S. Pat. No. 2,614,304 to Oetiker illustrates the desired plastic deformation in FIGS. 2 and 3 thereof. However, it is quite apparent that this necessary contraction of the "Oetiker" ear to achieve the desired plastic deformation is possibly only if the size of the clamp is such that there is sufficient play between the maximum diametric dimension of the clamp in the non-tightened condition and the external hose dimension, illustrated also in FIG. 2 of the '304 Patent. On the other hand, if maximum the size of the clamp in the non-tightened condition is such that it just barely fits over the hose, adequate contraction of the "Oetiker" ear seeking to reduce its diametric dimension is no longer possible. It may then happen that insufficient plastic deformation of the "Oetiker" ear will cause inadequate holding of the clamp.
My prior U.S. application Ser. No. 10/392,952, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference, already addressed this problem and suggested a lost-motion connection between overlapping band portions to permit plastic deformation of the "Oetiker" ear sufficient to achieve the desired plastic deformation without reduction of the diametric dimension of the clamp during contraction of the ear.
The maximum outer diametric dimension of a hose with which a clamp can be used has been normally determined by the mechanical connection between overlapping band portions. However, as the mechanical connection of a clamp according to my aforementioned prior U.S. patent application included a lost-motion arrangement, it no longer could function as the means for determining the maximum diametric dimension of the hose with which the clamp could be used and thus required a shift of this function to some guide members that had to be added and located in the clamp with sufficient accuracy to achieve the intended function. In contrast to the solution of my aforementioned prior U.S. patent application, the present invention solves the problem without such additional guide members, concentrating the solution to all problems in a mechanical connection according to this invention that can be readily incorporated into existing mass production techniques for such clamps by merely changing the design of the cutting dies.
In the case of so-called open-type hose clamps which utilized so-called guide hook members as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,321,811 to Thomas, there always existed the danger of reopening of the connection during the installation. The hook members as disclosed in the Thomas patent were thereby bent out of the band material through an angle α less than 90° which was intended to prevent normally reopening of the connection. However, as these hook members offered relatively little resistance to a further bending back by the circumferential forces that were exerted on the same during tightening of the clamp, connections with these hook members posed the inherent danger of reopening, for example, when these hook members were bent back through an angle of 90° or more. Any lost-motion connections utilizing such a hook member would thus be prone to the same problem.
As is well known in the art, clamps come in different sizes intended to cover predetermined ranges of diametric dimensions of the hose. The use of an improper clamp size on the assembly line which would preclude sufficient plastic deformation, is unlikely because the clamp sizes are normally carefully chosen for mass production. Additionally the installer would be made aware of the improper size by the likely destruction of the "Oetiker" ear with the use of pneumatically operated tightening tools that would destroy the "Oetiker" ear if it cannot be contracted because of the undersize of the clamp for a given hose.
The present invention also solves this problem by extremely simple means that prevent the installation of the clamp over a hose size that is too large in its diametric dimension for proper plastic deformation of the "Oetiker" ear.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a hose clamp which avoids the aforementioned problems by simple and reliable means.
Another object of the present invention resides in an open-type hose clamp which precludes the installation of an undersized clamp over an excessively large-sized hose.
Still a further object of the present invention resides in a hose clamp with a mechanical connection including a so-called guide hook member which assures proper lock-up of the mechanical connection during the entire tightening operation.


An adjustable stand includes a stable base, an upright portion upending from the base, and a platform adjustably locked in the base. The platform height preferably may be adjusted continuously rather than incrementally for precise and accurate positioning of a horse hoof or other animate or inanimate object. One platform includes a diverging U-shaped cradle, with a firm but cushioning/shock-absorbing material on its top side for elevating the supported object and absorbing the concussion of the work being performed on the object. Preferably, the firm but cushioning material is a flexible strap slung across the cradle and spaced above the surface of the cradle at its center region. The preferred plastic base and continuous adjustability of the platform provide a quiet, substantially non-metallic, and non-intimidating stand that tends not to frighten horses or other animals. The preferred plastic base has a generally hollow interior and has a concave or otherwise recessed bottom surface, which features help dissipate shock from impacts or other work upon the hoof or other object supported in the stand.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a stand for farriers, veterinarians, horse or pet owners, pet groomers, marksmen or "shooters", and/or other people who need a portable, stable support device. More particularly, the stand may be used for supporting, for example, a horse's hoof during shoeing or other maintenance, a dog's head during grooming, or a gun during shooting practice or hunting, so that the supported object may be held steady, manipulated easily, and/or controlled in a safe and careful manner.
2. Related Art
Most farriers physically support a horse's leg during shoeing operations by holding the horse's leg between their own legs, with the horse leg coming through the farrier's legs from the farrier's backside. This is a precarious, sometimes dangerous position, and always a physically-demanding position. First, the farrier must remove the old horseshoe. Then, the hoof must be trimmed and filed. Next, the new shoe must be fitted to the hoof profile and nailed in place. Finally, the nails are clinched and the anterior profile of the hoof is filed and shaped. All of these operations are best performed with the hoof supported at an elevation above ground level.
Blackburn (U.S. Pat. No. 89,379) discloses a rest for shoeing horses with a thick base and a hinged, v-shaped member upon which the horse hoof rests. The arms of the v-shaped member extend vertically upward, and one of the arms is hinged to pivot to the side when the weight of the hoof is placed on the v-shaped member. The Blackburn device includes an incremental ratchet adjustment to raise and lower the v-shaped member relative to the base.
Coffey (U.S. Pat. No. 286,389) discloses a horse shoeing stand having a flat base with three legs, a pastern-rest, and a toe-rest carried by a lever having a ratchet brace engaging the upright of the stand to raise and lower the toe-rest.
Ilieff (U.S. Pat. No. 1,330,807) discloses a horseshoeing jack that has a Substantially flat and rectangular base adapted to be bolted of otherwise fixed to the floor, a rectangular standard mounted to the base, and a rectangular lifting standard that is raised by a lever. Ilieff provides various leg or foot supporting attachments with straps, the straps being adapted to encircle the animal's limb to secure the limb in the supporting attachments.
Beaston (U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,216) discloses a Multiple Stand To Aid Shoeing Horses that teaches a two-position, tripod-type stand having a pair of alternating upright members disposed at a right angle with respect to one another. A pair of opposing legs are connected to the vertex joint of the uprights, each at a slightly obtuse angle with respect to both uprights. In one position, one upright extends vertically upward while the second upright acts as the third leg of the tripod. In the second position, the second upright extends vertically upward while the first upright acts as the third leg of the tripod. A hard hoof cradle is attached to the distal end of one of the uprights and a flat plate is attached to the distal end of the other upright. The cradle holds the hoof in an elevated generally horizontal position to provide access to the bottom of the hoof, while the flat plate provides an elevated platform to support the bottom of the hoof to provide convenient access to the anterior of the hoof. An optional upright with an anvil attachment can be removably substituted for either of the other two uprights.
The device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,216 has disadvantages. First, the length of the uprights are not adjustable to accommodate the necessary difference in working height between front and back hooves of a single horse, nor to accommodate different-sized horses. Second, the hoof cradle construction does not provide any concussion absorption and is prone to the hoof dislodging from the cradle. Thirdly, the legs and horizontally extending upright (effectively a leg) pose a hazard both to the farrier and to the horse.
Zito (U.S. Pat. No. 5,213,061) discloses a Farrier Squeeze Trailer that includes an adjustable foot stand, which features a padded leg clamp that may be opened by pivoting its two semi-circular parts in opposite directions on a pivot. A strap and buckle are located at the top of the clamp to connect the two semi-circular parts to secure the horses leg within the clamp. The clamp and its strap and buckle system entirely surround and capture the leg.
The inventor believes that prior art devices would tend to move or make noise in a manner that would upset or frighten the animal. Horses are usually nervous, easily-frightened animals that respond instinctively to noises and unfamiliar or uncomfortable movements according to the well-known "fear-flight" behavior. The inventor believes that prior art devices, which include incremental raising or lowering the upright using a ratchet system, would tend to cause uneven and jerky motion and metallic sounds. The inventor also believes that pivoting/flexing arms or other moving parts would upset/frightened the animal, especially if the pivoting/flexing occurs in response to the weight of the animal's foot and if it causes the stand to "clamp" the foot/hoof. Further, the inventor believes that the prior art devices would not adequately absorb and dissipate energy from nailing or other work on a horse hoof or on other objects supported in the stand.
What is needed is a safe stand that securely and quietly holds a hoof in a generally horizontal position. What is still needed is a stand that is less intimidating and stressful to both horses and users, and that is light-weight, convenient, comfortable, quiet, and that absorbs the shock and concussion of the work being done on the hoof. What is needed is stand that may be used for many purposes, including horse and other animal care, gun aiming and shooting, and/or other work or recreation.


An updatable optical data storage disc for use with a laser includes a substrate and a recording layer. The substrate contains pre-recorded information in the form of concentric or spiral tracks of pits. Recordable tracks are positioned between adjacent pre-recorded tracks, whereby the tracks on the disc alternate in the radial direction. Laser light reflected from the recorded portions of the recording layer has a different phase than does light reflected from the unrecorded portions. This phase difference must be significant enough to be sensed by the detector. The difference in the reflectivity of the unrecorded and recorded portions of the recording layer should be minimized. The invention also includes a method and drive compatible with the disc.

Optical discs, such as CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) or DVD-ROM (Digital Versatile Disc) media, have data stored as a series of lower "pits" formed within a plane of higher "lands". The pits are arranged in a spiral track originating at the disc's center hub and ending at the disc's outer rim. The CD-ROM and DVD-ROM formats allow for discs that are inexpensive to produce yet have high storage densities. DVD-5, which was launched in 1997, has a diameter of 120 mm and a capacity of 4.7 gigabytes (GB). However, such discs are pre-recorded and cannot be recorded on by the end user.
Rewritable optical discs typically come in the form of magneto-optical or phase-change discs. DVD-RAM (random-access-memory) are rewritable phase-change discs. These discs have a spiral tracking groove comprised of pits having a depth of about .lambda./4 n, or about 103 nm for a laser wavelength, .lambda., of 650 nm, and a refractive index, n, of 1.58. Data may be recorded by the end user in the grooves.
In phase-change discs, the recording layer is a material that can exist in two different solid phases. The material can be switched from one stable phase to another by appropriate heating by a read/write laser. Typical phase-change materials are multicomponent alloys that have a stable, compatible, crystalline phase and a metastable amorphous phase with different optical properties, namely, a different coefficient of reflectivity, R. Recording is accomplished by locally melting the recording material and then cooling it quickly enough to quench it in the amorphous phase. The material in the amorphous state (i.e., the recorded bit) can be erased by annealing by heating the bit to a temperature for a long enough period of time to recrystallize the bit. Typical phase-change materials include GeTeSb and AgInTeSb.
The specification for DVD-RAM as of August 1997 calls for a capacity of 2.7 GB. DVD-RAM discs contain no pre-recorded data (other than servo and/or format information). If any such data were recorded prior to sale to the end user, such data would detract from the 2.7 GB of recordable storage available to the end user.

Updatable optical data storage disc having reduced crosstalk between tracks, and drive for same


Disclosed herein is an electroconductive composition for a glass substrate and an anti-fog window glass for automobiles making use of the composition. The electroconductive composition of the present invention can be fired at low temperature, and forms a thick film electrode of excellent moisture resistance and acid resistance. The electroconductive composition is formed of an electroconductive powder, glass frit and an organic vehicle, wherein the glass frit comprises a homogeneous glass component and a silica component; the homogeneous glass component has a composition, with respect to the entirety of the glass frit (100 mol %), of 0-about 30 mol % B.sub.2 O.sub.3, about 10-30 mol % SiO.sub.2 and about 5-35 mol % Bi.sub.2 O.sub.3, and the silica component is about 35-85 mol % of the entirety of the glass frit (100 mol %).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electroconductive composition for a glass substrate and to an anti-fog window glass for automobiles.
2. Related Art
Hitherto, an electroconductive composition (hereinafter referred to as an electroconductive paste) has been baked on the rear window glass as a measure for preventing fogging of the rear window of an automobile. Hereinafter the thus-baked composition is referred to as a thick film electrode. The thick film electrode has made use of glass frit as an inorganic binder. For glass substrates on which baking is difficult to carry out, such as those of the above-mentioned rear windows, there are used an electroconductive paste which contains a glass frit having a low melting point, so as to permit firing at a low temperature.
However, a low-melting-point glass frit is vulnerable to humidity (moisture) and acid, and therefore has drawbacks in that it causes reduction in adhesion strength when plating is performed after firing. Glass frits that are free from these problems, on the other hand, are silica-rich, high-melting-point glass in nature, which requires a higher firing temperature. Thus, such glass frits are not suitable for substrates which must be fired at a lower temperature, i.e., substrates such as a glass substrate.

Electroconductive composition for glass substrate and anti-fog window glass for automobiles


An event gathering method includes: storing cost information between nodes which manages by associating a transmission node identifier and a reception node identifier with a first communication cos, the communication occurring between nodes including a sensor node which transmits an event and an intermediate node which relays the event; modifying or storing the event; gathering cost information between modules which manages by associating a transmission module identifier and a reception module identifier with a second communication cost of a occurred event; extracting a pattern candidate which assigns modules to first nodes as deployment pattern candidates which manages by associating a module identifier with a node identifier; computing a total communication cost based on the cost information between modules and the cost information between nodes; selecting a deployment pattern candidate having the smallest total communication cost; and deploying the modules in the first nodes based on a selected deployment pattern candidate.

In a cloud system or a sensor network system, a machine-to-machine (M2M) technology is adopted in which information automatically gathered in a virtual world (cloud) from a device or sensor of a real world are used in various services. For example, information on a device operation situation detected by a sensor incorporated in a device is gathered in the cloud and a remote maintenance is automatically performed based on the device operation information. For example, power consumption information of a device detected by an electric power sensor is gathered in the cloud and an automatic power saving control is performed based on the power consumption information.
A related technique is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2013-47922.

Event gathering method, information processing apparatus and event gathering system


A device having a pass through formed therein that is offset from point where energy is received in order to perform a function (e.g., drive, tighten, thread, cut) on a material (e.g., pipe, rod) passing therethrough. The device may include a coupler to connect to an energy source (e.g., drill, impact gun, hand crank), an insert within the pass through to perform the functions, and gears (number and type may vary) to transfer the energy from the coupler to the pass through. The insert may perform the functions or may receive tools to perform the functions. The device may include two substantially similar pass throughs capable of receiving the insert or the coupler so as to provide a configurable device (e.g., torque vs. speed, push vs. pull) The coupler may be rotatable around the perimeter of the device to allow one to work in hard to reach places.

Those who work with tools, whether on a daily basis such as the professional laborer or those who make intermittent use such as the novice, have a desire that the tool they choose to use will be ideally suited for the task with a minimal amount of inconvenience. In some cases it seems that the optimal tool does not exist. One must instead make use of several different tools in the hopes of completing the task.
Anyone who has tried to repair plumbing or work on other types of pipes or rods knows that at times there are not enough hands to complete the task. Plumbing pipe due to the environment in which it is generally located is surrounded by many obstacles (e.g., walls, floors, other pipes, electrical conduit, or structural supports). These obstacles may prevent ease of access or even completely block all access and pose a challenge to the professional or the novice who attempts to work in this environment. Because of these impediments, it may be difficult to orient the chosen tools to accomplish the desired task.
Equally challenging is the situation where one seeks to join threaded rods between the floor and ceiling of a room. One must pull one threaded rod up from the floor while at the same time attaching it to another threaded rod coming through the ceiling. Such a task may require one to use two or more tools simultaneously with outstretched arms or have a friend or coworker assist in holding the one bar in place while the other is raised or lowered into the correct position and fastened.
Moreover, the scenario may be somewhat different, as one may instead need to replace or repair a damaged rod or pipe. For example, one might have over tightened the nut on an overhead rod and damaged it. In this instance to fix the damaged rod one may be required to rethread the damaged rod and install a new nut. In another scenario, one might be required to replace a portion of the overhead rod as it is too badly damaged to reconnect it to the rod coming through the floor. To replace the damaged portion of the rod one may need to make a cut at some point along its length. To make such a cut would likely require two people or multiple tools. In either case whether rethreading or cutting the damaged rod the task may be expensive, as one will need to own several different tools, time consuming, as one is changing from tool to tool to perform the task, or labor intensive as more than one person is likely needed to complete the task.
These are just a few of the examples that one may draw upon to illustrate that there are difficulties that the user of tools encounter whether they are a professional or a novice. What is needed is a tool that will diminish the cumbersomeness of these tasks and more while providing the professional and novice alike with several options in a single tool. Accordingly, the offset pass through device is needed, as it will aid those who engage in such work to better accomplish their desired task with the minimal amount of inconvenience and expenditure on labor or additional tools.


Method and system to extract domain concepts to create domain dictionaries and ontologies comprises collecting a plurality of reference papers and further classifying the collected plurality of reference papers as relevant and irrelevant. Each of the ‘relevant’ reference papers is further processed by the system, during which the system identifies relevant sections from each document and further processes data in the relevant sections to extract required information and also to identify a relationship between different extracted information, which is further used to create domain dictionaries and ontologies.

Data analysis is performed for various applications. For example, behavioral science, which refers to scientific study of human and animal behavior, involves considerable amount of data analysis to study/examine behavioral data and to arrive at conclusions. The data analyzed in the behavioral science domain involve various theories as well as behavioral data collected from subjects. Many such theories, historic data pertaining to past researches, and so on may be available in public domain in various forms such as but not limited to scientific papers, articles, and documents. As the internet is extremely popular now, such data may be available in abundance.
The inventors here have recognized several technical problems with such conventional systems, as explained below. A single database may contain many theories which may be same/similar, and if a researcher goes through both, that results in wastage of time. Further, such publicly available databases contain a set of ontologies pertaining to specific research areas. However, relationships between different ontologies may not be clearly defined. As a result, a person who is researching may find it difficult to identify the appropriate data/contents as well as connection/relationships between different theories and ontologies, at the time of research. For example, consider the variables role conflict and job satisfaction. These variables may or may not have interdependency (relationship), according to specific circumstances. However, as long as a user is not aware of the relationship, he/she may not be able to interpret the scenario and associated contents properly. Similarly, in domains such as but not limited to behavioral science, quite a lot of such variables/parameters exist, and knowing the relationship between such variables/parameters would be critical from a user perspective.


A process for the production of a 3,3-dimethyl-2-formylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid derivative of formula (2):

The 3,3-dimethyl-2-(2-methyl-1-propenyl)cyclopropanecarboxylic acid compounds of formula (1):
wherein R is hydrogen, substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, substituted or unsubstituted aryl, or substituted or unsubstituted aralkyl, are very important compounds as the intermediate for the synthesis of pyrethroid-type household agents for epidemic prevention, pesticides, or the like. There have also been developed a number of analogs in which the 2-methyl-1-propenyl groups attached to the cyclopropane rings are replaced with various alkenyl groups, using the 3,3-dimethyl-2-(2-methyl-1-propenyl)cyclopropanecarboxylic acid compound of the above formula (1) as the key compound, as well as a number of household agents for epidemic prevention, pesticides, and the like using these analogs.
As the process for producing the analogs in which the 2-methyl-1-propenyl groups attached to the cyclopropane rings are replaced with various alkenyl groups, there has been known, for example, a process in which the 3,3-dimethyl-2-formylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid derivative of formula (2):
wherein R is as defined above, are reacted with Wittig reagents (see, e.g., J. Labelled Compounds and Radiopharmaceuticals, 13, 561(1977)). The 3,3-dimethyl-2-formylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid derivatives of the above formula (2) become important compounds in the synthesis of the above analogs.
As the processes for the production of the 3,3-dimethyl-2-formylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid derivative of formula (2), there have been known, for example, a process in which the 3,3-dimethyl-2-(2-methyl-1-propenyl)-cyclopropanecarboxylic acid compound of the above formula (1) are oxidized in the presence of an osmium tetroxide catalyst (see, e.g., J. Labelled Compounds and Radiopharmaceuticals, 13, 561(1977)) and a process in which the 3,3-dimethyl-2-(2-methyl-1-propenyl)cyclopropanecarboxylic acid compounds of the above formula (1) are oxidized with ozone (see, e.g., JP-B 46-24695). However, since the former process uses highly toxic osmium tetroxide and the latter process has a tendency to need large-scale equipment, both cannot be said to be production processes suitable on an industrial scale.
Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions I, 1980 pages 1711-1717 discloses a process for preparing cis-2,2-formyl-3,3-diemethylcyclopropanecarboxylate by oxidizing a chrysanthemate with sodium metaperiodate in the presence of the catalyst, osmium tetraoxide. However, this process also uses highly toxic osmium tetroxide and cannot be said to be a process suitable on an industrial scale. EP-A 0 444 708 discloses a process for preparing a ketone or aldehyde compound by oxidizing an olefin compound having a β-lactam structure. JP-A 5-229981 discloses a process for preparing an aromatic acetaldehyde by oxidizing an allyl substituted aromatic compound with sodium periodate in the presence of a ruthenium catalyst and a phase transfer catalyst. JP-A 55-087739 discloses a process for preparing an aromatic aldehyde by oxidizing an α, β unsaturated aromatic compound in the presence of an oxidizing agent and a ruthenium catalyst. However, the oxidization disclosed in these processes are not compared to the above oxidization of the compound of the above formula (1).

Process for production of 3,3-dimethyl-2-formylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid derivatives

Abstract: wherein R is hydrogen, substituted or unsubstituted alkyl, substituted or unsubstituted aryl, or substituted or unsubstituted aralkyl, which process comprises reacting a 3,3-dimethyl-2-(2-methyl-1-propenyl)cyclopropanecarboxylic acid compound of formula (1):

Abstract: wherein R is as defined above, with a periodic acid compound in the presence of a ruthenium compound.


An electrical connection box for use in a vehicle, e.g. a car, has a junction box and a circuit addition box removably mounted on the junction box and having a connector engaging portion for engagement in use by a connector of an external circuit. The circuit addition box has bus bars connecting circuit components of the junction box to the connector engaging portion to provide electrical connection to the external circuit. To achieve a compact arrangement, avoiding the need to adapt the junction box, the circuit addition box is removably mounted on a relay housing of the junction box adapted to receive a relay, the relay housing having electrical terminals engaged by the bus bars of the circuit addition box.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electrical connection box for use in a vehicle, e.g., a car. More particularly, this invention relates to an electrical connection box for use in a car that permits easy alteration of the construction of an existing internal circuit of a junction box and addition of a circuit to the existing internal circuit without changing the construction of the existing internal circuit of the junction box.
2. Description of Related Art
The same junction box as is used currently in one type of car is often applied to new cars which are to be manufactured by slightly changing the features of the original type of box. In adding a new system to an existing electrical system, it becomes necessary to take off a further power circuit from a circuit installed inside the junction box. In this case, the following two methods have hitherto been adopted.
In the first method, the construction of an internal circuit comprising a bus bar and installed inside the junction box is altered. In the second method, electrical wires of a circuit connected with the junction box are branched outside the junction box.
In the first method, in most cases, it is impossible to alter the internal circuit of the junction box because the junction box is designed with high density of its components. Even if space permits the alteration of the internal circuit, it may be necessary to add a bus bar to the existing internal circuit and alter the configuration of the junction box, which leads to a high manufacturing cost.
In the second method, it is necessary to increase the number of electrical wires of a wire harness in accordance with the added circuit and hence the diameter of the wire harness becomes larger, which makes it more difficult to wire the wire harness in a car body. That is, the wire harness cannot be inserted into a through-hole formed on the car body and interferes with other component parts. In addition, some electrical wires of the wire harness are required to be long, which leads to a higher manufacturing cost.
In order to solve the above-described problem, the assignees of the present inventor proposed a junction box that is disclosed in JP-A-5-22829 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,193 and shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B of the present application. This compact junction box 4 comprises a power source receiving/supplying socket 1, a power source supply connector 2 and an optional connection socket 3. The compact junction box 4 is removably connected to a power source receiving/supplying socket 6 of a junction box body 5 using the power source supply connector 2.
In this junction box, the addition of a system can be accomplished because it can be installed on the junction box body 5 without increasing the number of electrical wires of the wire harness. However, it is necessary to provide the junction box body 5 with the power source receiving/supplying socket 6 dedicated to an optional circuit, which makes the junction box body 5 large. Further, because the junction box 4 is provided with the power receiving/supplying socket 1 and the power source supply connector 2, the proposed junction box is comparatively large. Therefore, a considerable amount of space is required and hence, the compact junction box 4 cannot be installed on the junction box body 5 in many cases.

Electrical connection box for use in a car


An apparatus for feeding, stacking, and/or upending products includes a pair of indexing star wheels. A conveyor advances a row of products toward an upstream star wheel. One or more products are metered into one of the notches in the upstream star wheel, and the upstream star wheel indexes to transfer the products to the downstream star wheel. The upstream star wheel can stack products by indexing twice before the downstream star wheel indexes. The downstream star wheel indexes to upend the products, and the upended products are moved away from the downstream star wheel.

This invention relates to an apparatus for feeding products from a row of products which is being advanced along a path. More particularly, the apparatus meters, stacks, and/or upends groups of incoming products and delivers the groups to downstream equipment.
The invention finds particular utility in connection with packaging machinery. For example, Paper Converting Machine Company of Green Bay, Wis. offers a family of FC machines for packing bundles of products such as rolls of toilet paper and rolls of paper towels. Rolls to be bundled and packaged are advanced toward the machine along one or more lanes. The rolls may be upended, i.e., moved from a cores-down position to a cores-up position, stacked into multiple levels, collated into bundles containing the desired number of rolls, and loaded into a packager which seals each bundle within a plastic wrap.
In certain prior art upending methods, elevated slats on an infeed conveyor are used in conjunction with spring-loaded upper flights to upend the incoming rolls. The rolls are deposited onto the infeed conveyor just ahead of, or behind, the elevated slat. The upper flight bar, traveling at a differential velocity, then contacts the front, or back, surface of the product and "rolls" it into an upright position atop the elevated slat. The slat is then lowered to the level of the infeed conveyor surface as the upper flight travels up and away from the product. The disadvantage to this technique when upending very soft rolls of tissue is that the bottom edge of the roll may become deformed as the product is "rolled" up. The deformed end presents an unstable platform for the upended product, and it therefore tends to fall over.
Certain prior art stacking methods loaded rolls of tissue into an elevating cassette of shelves in either cores-up or cores-down orientation. When one shelf was loaded completely, the elevator would index to the height of the next shelf and the process would repeat. To insure a smooth loading operation, the vertical distance between the shelves of the cassette had to be somewhat greater than the size of the incoming product, and a vertical gap would therefore exist between the layers of product in the cassette. Upon completion of the loading process, with the cassette in the uppermost position, the collator paddle would travel forward, thus clearing the collated bundle from the stacker cassette. During this process the aforementioned vertical gap would allow the upper products to fall down upon the product from the lower shelve(s). As a result, the product would occasionally bounce, thus un-collating the bundle.


An electric motor has a rotor (52) rotatable around a rotation axis (56) and has a stator (60) arranged around said rotor (52), which stator is equipped with poles (11′ to 16′). Each pole has an individual winding (11 to 16), and the latter together form a winding arrangement (30) that serves to generate a rotating field. Arranged approximately concentrically with the rotation axis (56) is an arrangement having electrical connection elements (U, V, W, U′, V′, W′). The latter are equipped with mounting elements (34, V1, W1, U′1, V′1, 32, 36) to each of which an associated end of an individual winding is mechanically and electrically connected. A connection arrangement (40) has a plurality of conductors (42, 44, 46) each of which is connected, by means of a welded connection (155), to the connection elements of the stator in order to electrically interconnect them in a predetermined fashion.

A three-phase motor can be operated in a star-configured circuit (Y circuit) and in a delta circuit. In a star-configured circuit, when the individual windings of each phase are connected in series this is referred to as a "star series circuit," and when two individual windings per phase are connected in parallel, this is referred to as a "star double-parallel circuit" (cf. FIG. 15). When four individual windings are connected in parallel, this is referred to as a "star quad-parallel circuit." Analogous terms that are used are "delta series circuit" and "delta double-parallel circuit" (cf. FIG. 3) or "delta quad-parallel circuit."
In order to produce these different circuits, the winding ends of the individual coils must be interconnected in various ways; this requires a great deal of manual work. For example, in the case of the motor according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,741 B1, the stator of which is equipped with a star-configured circuit, the ends of the lacquered copper wires must be connected via soldered or crimped connections to the ends of flat conductors that are mounted on an insulating board. One of these conductors serves as a star point connector, and three other conductors serve as terminals for the U, V, and W phases. In motors for low power levels, it is also known to interconnect the ends of the individual windings using multi-layer circuit boards having printed circuits, although such designs are not suitable in cases where large currents must flow during operation.


The present disclosure relates to electrical transformer assemblies including a first lamination assembly defining a passage therethrough; and a second lamination assembly configured and dimensioned for press-fit or slide-fit engagement in the passage formed in the first lamination assembly. The first lamination assembly includes a stack of laminations each defining a central opening and defining the passage of the first lamination assembly when in a stacked condition. Each lamination of the first lamination assembly defines at least one shaped recess formed in a side edge of the central opening. The second lamination assembly includes a stack of laminations each including at least one shaped tab extending from a side edge thereof, wherein each tab is configured and dimensioned for press-fit or slide-fit engagement in a respective shaped recess formed in the side edges of the passage formed in the first lamination assembly.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to electrical transformers, and more particularly, to compact electrical transformers exhibiting a greater degree of efficiency as compared with current electrical transformers and assemblies including the same.
2. Background of Related Art
Transformers are extensively used in electrical and electronic appliances. Transformers function to step voltages up or down, to couple signal energy from one stage to another, or for impedance matching. Transformers may also be used in magnetic circuits with solenoids and motor stators.
Transformers typically include a plurality of laminations creating an electrical path around an electric current developed in a winding or other electrical conductor. Conventionally, transformers include two stacks of laminations, one stack which is an E shape and the other stack is an I-shape which closes off the free ends of the E-shaped stack. These E or I-shaped stacks are formed from stacking a given number of properly shaped thin sheets atop one another and secured to one another. Each sheet is typically made from a ferrous material. For example, the sheets forming the stacks of laminations may be riveted together or adhesively assembled using varnish, epoxy resin, or tape, or even held together with spring clips.
Two predominant methods are employed for assembly of the E-shaped stack or laminations to the I-shaped stack of laminations, i.e., either by alternating the core laminations or by welding them together. Welding of the E-I stacks is typically accomplished with expensive machinery operated by highly skilled personnel and consumption of welding products (gas and electrodes). Welding of the stacks of laminations is a relatively expensive undertaking as compared to other methods. Additionally, the welded material interferes with the magnetic performance of the transformer and the welding process causes disruptions in the grain structure of the steel resulting in lower electromagnetic performance.
In order to increase the performance and efficiency of the transformer it is desirable to reduce the gaps of air between adjacent stacks of laminations and/or to increase the contact surface area between the stacks of laminations. Typically, in order to compensate for the gaps of air between the stacks of laminations and to increase the contact surface area between the stacks of laminations, additional sheets of material are added to the stacks of laminations, which, in turn, increase the cost and the size of the transformer.
The need exists for electric transformers, assemblies and the like which are more efficient and less expensive to manufacture as compared to conventional electric transformers.


A four-cycle engine typically including a crankshaft provided with a first gear, a camshaft provided with a second gear, an endless rotation transmission that is installed around the first and second gears and is configured to transmit rotation of the crankshaft to the camshaft, a crank phase detecting device configured to detect a rotational phase of the crankshaft that is obtained by dividing a phase corresponding to one rotation of the crankshaft by a number that is equal to or more than a half of teeth of the second gear of the camshaft, and a cam phase detecting device configured to detect at least one rotational phase of the camshaft.

In general, four-cycle engines are classified into various types according to structures of valve systems. Personal watercraft or small vehicles are typically equipped with engines constructed in such a manner that camshafts are mounted above cylinders. Such engines are referred to as single overhead camshaft (SOHC) engines, which include a single camshaft, and double overhead camshaft (DOHC) engines, which include two camshafts.
In the SOHC type engine and the DOHC type engine, a crankshaft is coupled to camshaft(s) through a timing chain or a timing belt so that rotation of the crankshaft is transmitted to the camshaft(s). More specifically, the timing chain (or timing belt) is installed around a crank sprocket (or crank pulley) mounted on an end portion of the crankshaft, and a cam sprocket (or cam pulley) mounted on an end portion of the camshaft. Since the cam sprocket has twice as many teeth as those of the crank sprocket, the rotation of the crankshaft is transmitted to the camshaft such that the number of rotations of the camshaft becomes half as many as that of the crankshaft.
During assembly of the engine, first, the crankshaft provided with the crank sprocket is accommodated into a crankcase, and the camshaft provided with the cam sprocket is accommodated into a cylinder head. Then, the timing chain is installed around the crank sprocket and the cam sprocket, and a tensioner is caused to come into contact with the timing chain to apply a suitable tension to the timing chain. The cam pulley and the timing belt are incorporated into the engine according to a similar procedure.
The crankshaft rotates in cooperation with reciprocation of a piston coupled to the crankshaft through a connecting rod, while an intake valve and an exhaust valve operate in association with the rotation of the camshaft(s), causing an intake port and an exhaust port to open and close. In the four-cycle engine, the reciprocation of the piston is transmitted to the intake and exhaust valves through the crankshaft and the camshaft so that the piston and the intake and exhaust valves operate in association with each other.
It is necessary that the piston and the intake and exhaust valves operate in association with each other at suitable timings. More specifically, it is necessary that the intake and exhaust valves operate to open or close at timings at which the reciprocating piston is in a predetermined position. By allowing the piston and the intake and exhaust valves to suitably operate in association with each other, strokes (intake, compression, expansion, and exhaust strokes) in the interior of a combustion chamber are carried out correctly. As a result, high engine performance is obtained. Therefore, during assembly of the engine, it is necessary to incorporate a crankshaft and camshaft(s) with a correct phase difference (phase angle) between them.
However, since the timing chain is installed around the crank sprocket and the cam sprocket and then the tensioner is incorporated during assembly of the engine as described above, relative positions of the crankshaft and the camshaft may deviate from desired positions, that is, a phase difference between them may vary from a correct value, by application of the tension from the tensioner to the timing chain. As a result, engine performance may be degraded.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. Hei. 11-129963 and No. Hei. 11-201011 disclose an engine equipped with a sensor configured to detect protrusions of a pulser rotor mounted on a crankshaft or a camshaft in order to detect which of the strokes the engine is traveling, and to thereby set suitable ignition timings.
In such an engine, it is possible to detect the phase difference between the crankshaft and the camshaft by using the pulser rotor and the sensor. But, the detecting precision is low because they are intended to detect which of the strokes the engine is traveling as described above. If the phase difference between the crankshaft and the camshaft is one tooth of the cam sprocket, it may be undetectable.

Four-cycle engine and system for detecting phase difference of four-cycle engine


A test structure including a differential gain cell and a differential signal probe include compensation for the Miller effect reducing the frequency dependent variability of the input impedance of the test structure.

The present invention relates to wafer probing and, more particularly, to probes and test structures for wafer probing with differential signals.
Integrated circuits (ICs) are economically attractive because large numbers of often complex circuits, for example microprocessors, can be inexpensively fabricated on the surface of a wafer or substrate. Following fabrication, individual dies, including one or more circuits, are separated or singulated and encased in a package that provides for electrical connections between the exterior of the package and the circuit on the enclosed die. The separation and packaging of a die comprises a significant portion of the cost of manufacturing the integrated circuit device and to monitor and control the IC fabrication process and avoid the cost of packaging defective dies, manufacturers commonly add electrical circuits or test structures to the wafer to enable on-wafer testing or "probing" to verify the characteristics of the integrated circuits before the dies are singulated.
A test structure typically includes a device-under-test (DUT), a plurality of metallic probe or bond pads that are deposited at the wafer's surface and a plurality of conductive vias that connect the bond pads to the DUT which is typically fabricated beneath the surface of the wafer. The DUT typically comprises a simple circuit that includes a copy of one or more of the basic elements of the integrated circuit, such as a single line of conducting material, a chain of vias or a single transistor. The circuit elements of the DUT are typically produced with the same process and in the same layers of the die as the corresponding elements of the integrated circuit. The ICs are typically characterized "on-wafer" by applying a test instrument generated signal to the test structure and measuring the response of the test structure to the signal. Since the circuit elements of the DUT are fabricated with the same process as the corresponding elements of the integrated circuit, the electrical properties of the DUT are expected to be representative of the electrical properties of the corresponding components of the integrated circuit.
At higher frequencies, on-wafer characterization is commonly performed with a network analyzer. The network analyzer comprises a source of an AC signal, commonly, a radio frequency (RF) signal, that is used to stimulate the DUT of a test structure. A forward-reverse switch directs the stimulating signals to one or more of the bond pads of the test structure. Directional couplers or bridges pick off the forward or reverse waves traveling to or from the test structure. These signals are down-converted by intermediate frequency (IF) sections of the network analyzer where the signals are filtered, amplified and digitized for further processing and display. The result is a plurality of s-parameters (scattering parameters), the ratio of a normalized power wave comprising the response of the DUT to a normalized power wave comprising the stimulus supplied by the signal source.
The preferred interconnection for communicating the signals between the signal source and the receiver of the network analyzer and the test structure is coaxial cable. The transition between the coaxial cable and the bond pads of the test structure is preferably provided by a movable probe having one or more conductive probe tips that are arranged to be co-locatable with the bond pads of the test structure. The network analyzer and the test structure can be temporarily interconnected by bringing the probe tips into contact with the bond pads of the test structure.
Integrated circuits typically comprise a ground plane at the lower surface of the substrate on which the active and passive devices of the circuit are fabricated. The terminals of transistors fabricated on a semi-conductive substrate are typically capacitively interconnected, through the substrate, to the ground plane. The impedance of this parasitic capacitive interconnection is frequency dependent and at higher frequencies the ground potential and the true nature of ground referenced (single ended) signals becomes uncertain.
Balanced devices are more tolerant to poor radio frequency (RF) grounding than single ended devices making them attractive for high performance ICs. Referring to FIG. 1, a differential gain cell 20 is a balanced device comprising two nominally identical circuit halves 20A, 20B. When biased, with a DC current source 22, and stimulated with a differential mode signal, comprising even and odd mode components of equal amplitude and opposite phase (Si+1 and Si−1) 24, 26, a virtual ground is established at the symmetrical axis 28 of the two circuit halves. At the virtual ground, the potential at the operating frequency does not change with time regardless of the amplitude of the stimulating signal. The quality of the virtual ground of a balanced device is independent of the physical ground path and, therefore, balanced or differential circuits can tolerate poor RF grounding better than circuits operated with single ended signals. The two waveforms of the differential output signal (So+1 and So−1) 30, 32 are mutual references providing greater certainty in determining the transition from one binary value to the other and permitting a reduction the voltage swing of the signal and faster transition between binary values. Typically, differential devices can operate at lower signal power and higher data rates than single ended devices. In addition, noise from external sources, such as adjacent conductors, tends to couple, electrically and electromagnetically, in the common mode and cancel in the differential mode. As a result, balanced or differential circuits have good immunity to noise including noise at even-harmonic frequencies since signals that are of opposite phase at the fundamental frequency are in phase at the even harmonics. Improved tolerance to poor RF grounding, increased resistance to noise and reduced signal power make differential devices attractive for operation at higher frequencies.
A DUT comprising a differential gain cell provides a basis for a test structure enabling high frequency, on-wafer evaluation of devices included in the marketable integrated circuits fabricated on the wafer. However, the impedance of the internal connections of the DUT's components are often frequency dependant complicating de-embedding of the DUT and affecting the accuracy of the testing. For example, the input and output of a differential gain cell, such as the differential gain cell 20, are commonly capacitively interconnected as a result of parasitic capacitance connecting the terminals of the cell's transistors. Parasitic capacitance 42 between the gate 38, 40 and the drain 34, 36, a result of diffusion of the drain dopant under the oxide of the gate, is intrinsic and typical of MOS transistors. As a result to the transistor's gain, a change in the gate voltage produces an even larger change in the voltage at the transistor's drain. The application of differing voltages at the terminals of the parasitic gate-to-drain capacitor (Cgd) causes the capacitor to behave as a much larger capacitance, a phenomenon known as the Miller effect. As a result, input impedance of the differential device varies substantially with frequency, producing instability in the operation of the differential device.
What is desired is a method and apparatus for testing a differential device that minimizes or eliminates the Miller effect.

Test structure and probe for differential signals


The method for manufacturing a silver particle-containing composition according to the invention is directed to a method for manufacturing a silver particle-containing composition coated with a fatty acid and includes a step (A) of preparing silver particles coated with a first fatty acid (a) with 3 to 7 carbon atoms, a second fatty acid (b) with 2 to 20 carbon atoms, and a solvent in which the first and second fatty acids can disperse, respectively, a step (B) of adding the silver particles coated with the first fatty acid (a) and the second fatty acid (b) into the solvent, and a step (C) of substituting the second fatty acid (b) for the first fatty acid (a) coating the silver particles after the addition step.

Recently, metal microparticles with a diameter on the order of micrometers and metal nanoparticles with a diameter on the order of nanometers are occasionally used to form fine traces on printed circuit boards. The fine metal particles, such as copper particles and silver particles, used in this application are generally coated with an organic compound to prevent agglomeration of the particles and to increase the handleability and for some other reasons. The coated silver particles are mixed with a solvent, in combination with resin in some cases, to form into a paste that is then used to form traces by printing methods or other methods.
In this regard, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-289745 (PTL 1) discloses a technology concerning a conductive paste made by dispersing silver powder in a thermosetting resin composition.

Silver particle-containing composition, dispersion solution, and paste and method for manufacturing the same


When generating a pseudo three-dimensional image by performing volume rendering on a three-dimensional image using an opacity curve that defines the relationship between pixel value and opacity, identifying a whole region representing a predetermined target object from the three-dimensional image, setting a base opacity curve to the identified whole region, obtaining, with respect to each of at least some pixels in the identified whole region, a representative value in an adjacent region of a pixel concerned, and setting an opacity curve obtained by modifying the base opacity curve using the obtained representative value as the opacity curve to be applied to the pixel concerned in the volume rendering.

Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image generation apparatus, method, and program that generates a pseudo three-dimensional image by performing volume rendering on a three-dimensional image.
Background Art
Heretofore, processing for generating and displaying a pseudo three-dimensional image has been performed in which three-dimensional image data of a subject obtained by CT equipment, MRI equipment, ultrasonic diagnostic equipment, or the like are stereoscopically visualized on a two-dimensional plane using computer graphics technologies in order to facilitate understanding of a three-dimensional structure of the subject and the like. As a method for generating such a pseudo three-dimensional image, a volume rendering method is known in which opacity and color information of R, G, B are set to each pixel value (voxel value) constituting a three-dimensional image and the visualization is achieved by performing ray-casting on each pixel on a projection plane from the observation side.
For the opacity or color information set (referred to as opacity curve and color map respectively) which is set to each pixel value, it is common to give one set to one three-dimensional image. But this causes a problem that different tissues having the same signal value cannot be displayed distinguishably. In response to this, when generating one image representing a plurality of objects (e.g., bone, blood vessel, heart, liver, and the like) by volume render, a literature, H. Imai, "I see! ! The Bible of the Way of Thinking and Processing—Three-Dimensional Medical Image", Shujunsha, P. 105, 2003, proposes that different tissues having the same signal value are represented by different color or opacity by applying a different color map and/or opacity curve to each object region.

Image generation apparatus, method, and medium with image generation program recorded thereon


A storage caddy for storing a terminal end connector of a trailer light wiring harness including an electrically nonconductive base having a female receptacle therein and a laterally adjacent, elongate, male dummy plug for receiving complementally formed, electrically conductive, male and female electrical terminals, respectively, provided in the terminal end connector. Mechanism is provided for mounting the electrically nonconductive base on a vehicle adjacent the terminal end connector.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for stowing, and preventing the contamination of, an electrical terminal end connector on a trailer wiring harness and more particularly, to a storage and protector caddy which has electrically nonconductive female sockets and male plugs for mating with complementally formed electrically conductive male terminals and female sockets on the terminal end connector.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Objects
It is conventional to provide electrical power to the lights of a trailer via wiring harnesses on the draft vehicle and the trailer which have mating terminal end connectors that are detachably coupled together. These connectors each have one or more electrically conductive male pin terminals and one or more electrically conductive socket terminals which receive the complementally formed, female and male electrically conductive terminals on the other connector. When the draft vehicle is not coupled to the trailer, and the wiring harnesses are not coupled together, the harnesses are typically left hanging from either the draft vehicle or the trailer and exposed to the elements. Sometimes, dirt, snow and ice fill the electrically conductive socket members and thus, cannot be used until cleaned. This is particularly frustrating to the user. Additionally, the uncoupled connector ends on the draft vehicle and/or trailer will sometimes drag on the ground and become damaged. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and novel device for preventing dirt, ice and other foreign matter from contaminating the trailer light harness coupling members when not in use.
It is another object of the present invention to provide new and novel dummy receptacles for stowing the disconnected, complementally formed terminal end connectors for a trailer light wiring harness when not in use.
Devices have been provided heretofore for preventing such contamination, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,380,209 issued to Carroll H. Converse, Jr. et al on Jan. 10, 1995, which includes a hollow storage enclosure in which the terminal end connector can be disposed. A somewhat analogous device is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,641 issued to William F. Eversole, Jr. on Apr. 19, 1988 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,427 issued to Linnea H. Pearson on Jul. 10, 1990. The prior art devices have several moving parts which are subject to failure. The prior art devices require substantial manipulation of various moving parts which is cumbersome and time consuming. Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide a one-piece storage caddy for storing and protecting a terminal connector for a trailer harness.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a storage caddy of the type described which has no moving parts.
Devices, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,182,280 issued to F. X. Daut et al on May 4, 1965 has been provided for protecting contact pins in electrical connectors. A waterproof cap protector has been provided for protecting an electrical cable connector having a male pin projections such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,428,323 issued to E. Winer on Sep. 30, 1947. The latter two mentioned devices do not have mechanism for concurrently protecting female electrical sockets in such a connector. Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide a trailer light wiring harness storage and protection device which will concurrently, adequately protect and detachably seal both male and female electrical terminals in electrical connectors.
Various other patents which are of interest in demonstrating the state of art, but not disclosing the new and novel construction disclosed and claimed herein, are illustrated in the following cited United States patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Patentee Issue Date ______________________________________ 2,729,797 V. Kobler et al Jan. 3, 1956 5,514,009 Hughes May 7, 1996 4,396,245 Lane Aug. 2, 1983 ______________________________________
A large number of trailer wiring harnesses include a motor vehicle mounted, four-way, flat harness connector having one male pin and three female socket pins and a complementally formed, trailer mounted female connector including a female socket receptacle and three male pins. There is no known one piece, insulated storage caddy which can be quickly and easily mounted and attached to, and detached from, the trailer wiring harness connectors. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and novel storage one-piece caddy for protecting and stowing the terminal end connector of an electrical wiring harness.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a storage caddy of the type described including an electrically nonconductive base having an imperforate end face and an axially opposite perforate end face including at least one female socket.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electrically nonconductive storage caddy of the type described including an electrically nonconductive base having a first socket for receiving an electrically conductive male pin terminal, a second socket adjacent thereto and a plurality of electrically non-conductive male plug members which are integral with the electrically nonconductive storage base and disposed in the second socket for receiving an electrically conductive female terminal.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a storage caddy of the type described including three laterally adjacent electrically nonconductive sockets in an end face of an electrically nonconductive base member and an electrically nonconductive male plug integral with the base and disposed adjacent the nonconductive sockets.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art as the description thereof proceeds.

Trailer light harness storage and protector caddy


Process for producing a corrosion-resistant liquid level control plate for the printhead of an aqueous ink jet printing machine. A corrosion-resistant metal alloy base is used, having an undersurface and an upper surface and having closely-spaced ink jet nozzles therethrough. Each of the nozzles has a micro-orifice at the undersurface surrounded by a lip area at the bottom of upwardly and outwardly tapered walls opening at the upper surface. The present process comprises forming the lip areas of metallic gold, encapsulating the upper surface of the metal alloy base including the gold lip areas and the tapered walls with metallic gold to form a corrosion-resistant, hydrophobic surface layer thereover. Thereafter the undersurface is coated with metallic chromium to render it hydrophilic. The gold coating preferably is reacted with a self assembled monolayer (SAM) of an organic sulfur compound such as hexadecylthiol or, more preferably, a cross-linkable SAM which is then cross-linked in situ to form a rub-resistant layer having strong hydrophobic properties. The chrome coating on the undersurface may be coated with a hydrophilic silane to increase its hydrophilic properties.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to ink jet printing machines and, more particularly, to improvements in the liquid level control (LLC) plate within the ink reservoir of the printhead of such machines, which plate has an undersurface or ink side which engages the aqueous liquid jet ink and controls the level of the ink within the reservoir. The LLC plate also has an upper surface, or paper side, and a jet passage having a rim, or lips, through which the aqueous ink is passed, in controlled spurts, against a copy paper to form images thereon.
2. Prior Art
Conventional LLC plates are formed of a base metal of iron-nickel alloy and the lips are formed of high phosphorous nickel metal in a thickness of 3 microns. A protective layer of low phosphorous nickel is then applied thereover to provide a corrosion barrier to the aqueous jet ink. A top layer of Parylene C, a soft polymer material, is applied over both sides of the LLC plate, including the lips, as a hydrophobic coating. Finally chromium metal is sputtered over the ink side of the LLC plate to render the undersurface or ink side less hydrophobic and more wetable by the aqueous ink to avoid the formation of bubbles. Thus, as required for ink maintainability, the external surface or paper side of the LLC plate is ink-repellant, and the undersurface or ink side is ink-attractive.
A corrosion problem exists with the high phosphorous nickel lip material due to the high incompatibility of such material with aqueous jet inks which, when in direct contact therewith, dissolve the lip material. The protective coating of low phosphorous nickel does not provide adequate protection against such dissolving action but the Parylene C does provide an adequate barrier. However, the Parylene C coating is relatively soft and subject to removal by contact during handling or mechanical abrasion, thereby exposing the phosphorous nickel lip coatings to contact with the aqueous jet ink during operation of the printer, resulting in lip corrosion and reduced print quality.
The present invention resides in the discovery of an entirely metallic LLC plate for aqueous ink jet printing machines, such as of the acoustic and thermal types, which is non-corrosive by aqueous jet inks and is resistant to damage by contact during handling or mechanical abrasion. The present LLC plates are formed of a corrosion-resistant base metal such as iron-nickel alloy but the lips are formed of gold and the upper surface or paper side, including the gold lips, is overcoated with a hydrophobic gold encapsulation which is corrosion resistant. The undersurface of the LLC plate is coated with sputtered chromium. The upper surface of the gold preferably is reacted with an organic thiol self-assembled monolayer (SAM) or mercaptan compound, most preferably a cross-linked SAM, to further increase its hydrophobic properties.

Corrision resistant hydrophobic liquid level control plate for printhead of ink jet printer and process


In an antenna having a conductor of a length L and a dielectric material with a dielectric constant .epsilon..sub.r1 contacting the conductor, a matching dielectric layer .epsilon..sub.r2 less than .epsilon..sub.r1 matches the dielectric constant to free space. Preferably .epsilon..sub.r2 =.sqroot..epsilon..sub.r1 , L=.lambda..sub.o /(2.sqroot..epsilon..sub.r1 ). The depth d of the second dielectric is a quarter wavelength in the matching layer. Multiple matching layers with successively decreasing dielectric constants forms embodiments. In one embodiment the resonant conductive arrangement is a microstrip patch antenna with the dielectric material supporting a patch and matching layer covering the dielectric material.

A small antenna is defined as a conducting radiator with overall dimensions of less than .lambda..sub.o /2, where .lambda..sub.o is the wavelength of the propagating signal in free space. The properties of a class dipole antenna with a length of .lambda./2 are described in detail in the book by John D. Kraus, "Antennas", McGraw Hill 1988.
Efforts to shrink the length of the resonating dipole antennas have resulted in small antennas known as microstrip antennas constructed of dipoles or patches deposited on dielectric substrates. Microstrip antennas are described in the Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 80, No. 1, January 1992 in the article entitled "Microstrip Antennas" by David M. Pozar.
An object of the invention is to improve small antennas.

Small antennas such as microstrip patch antennas


Techniques for composition of model transformations from a predetermined set of model transformations. A state machine is provided in memory. The states are defined in the state machine in terms of predetermined model attributes. In response to specification of a target state for an input model to be transformed, an execution sequence in the state machine, between a start state corresponding to the input model and an end state corresponding to the specified target state, is selected. Each transformation in the selected sequence is then successively executed on the input model. After executing each transformation in the selected sequence, the transformed input model state is compared to the model state defined in the state machine to determine if the selected sequence is inoperable for the input model. If so, an alternative execution sequence in the state machine, between the input model state and the specified target state, is selected.

This invention relates generally to the composition of model transformations, and more particularly to the automatic composition of model transformations to produce complex transformations for transforming input models into desired states.
Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a technique employed in various engineering fields such as software, system and data engineering. MDE involves the systematic use of models as primary engineering artifacts. As part of the engineering process, model transformation algorithms may be employed for converting models from an initial state to a desired, target state. For example, in model-driven software development or model-driven business transformation, the transformation of models such as models defined in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) plays an important role. Model transformations are integral components which facilitate techniques such as aspect-oriented modeling, system automation, platform independence via Model Driven Architecture (MDA), and so forth. Transformations can be arbitrarily complex, and thus a decomposition of transformations is desirable. Each transformation should ideally be as simple and general as possible to reduce complexity and increase reusability. Complex transformations can then be expressed as a composition of atomic or complex transformations.
There are, as yet, no established methodology or standard techniques for the composition of transformations. A composite transformation is usually defined by a program or a workflow in which atomic transformations are the main actions. This workflow description has to be created by a developer who needs in-depth knowledge about the semantics of the transformation in order to respect dependencies between the transformations. A problem here is that execution of a transformation may not run correctly, leading to failure of the overall process. Another problem is that transformations can be non-deterministic. That is, the transformation may have more than one possible outcome depending on some aspect of a model being transformed. Where execution of a constituent transformation does not run deterministically, the overall complex transformation process can fail just as with a transformation error. Problems of this kind are not addressed by current model transformation tools and make model transformations a challenge for both tools and users.

Automatic composition of model transformations

International Business Machines Corporation


A bible game (10) comprising an old testament game board (12), a new testament game board (22), a plurality of player pieces (32) and a chance determining means (34). A plurality of angel cards (36), a plurality of archangel cards (38), a plurality of blessing cards (40), a plurality of penalty cards (42) and a plurality of vision cards (44) are used in the play of the game.

1. Field of the Invention
The instant invention relates generally to board games and more specifically it relates to a bible game. The bible game will generate a greater interest in the bible through the use of a board game, which is both fun and educational. The bible game will give parents, teachers and adults the opportunity to discuss events and teachings in the bible with children and young people. It will allow families an opportunity to spend quality time together. It will also, hopefully, enhance the moral and spiritual aspects of family life and society as a whole.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous board games have been provided in prior art that are adapted to utilize chance determining means for playing a winning the game. Entertainment is provided to the players by challenging them, so that they utilize their skill and acumen in playing the game, while at the same time providing an element of chance to add a bit of adventure and luck to the game. Thus, combination of challenge and adventure gives the proper entertainment to the players of the game. While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as heretofore described.


This invention is a inexpensive light weight portable compound bow press that is safer and easier to use. A bow press with a greater mechanical advantage, to be used in the complete maintenance of high powered compound bows having either two piece limbs or one piece limbs. This invention consists of two extending members. Each extending member connects to the outer end of one of the bows limbs, and extend over and away from the outer ends of the bow's first and second limbs. The first end of a liner adjusting apparatus is connected to the first extending member at a central position near the outer edge of the first extending member. The second end of the adjusting apparatus is connected to the second extending member at a central position near the outer edge of the second extending member. This arrangement positions the adjusting apparatus outside and away from the compound bow, allowing for safer and easier use. The adjusting apparatus allows the archer to exert an inward force on the extending members. The extending members apply force to the outer ends of the bow's limbs, thus flexing the entire length of the limb and applying a reduced stress on the bow's riser and limbs. The mechanical advantage provided by the extending members reduces the stress on the adjusting apparatus allowing for the maintenance of high powered bows with lighter weight components. The bow's limbs are flexed inward and locked against their felix action. This way, the bow's string and cables relax and can be removed. The adjusting apparatus can then be reversed until all flex in the bow's limbs is eliminated. The bow press can be removed and the bow can then be disassembled. Assembly of the bow requires reversing this procedure.

This invention relates generally to the sport of archery, and more specifically to compound bows. The invention is a portable bow press which allows an archer to relieve the tension on the limbs, string and cables of high powered compound bow having either two-piece limbs or one-piece limbs with greater easy and safety for the archer and less risk of damage to the bow's limbs and riser.


A solid oxide redox flow battery is disclosed. The battery includes a solid oxide electrochemical cell integrated with a redox couple bed having a porous nanostructure with metal. The redox couple bed is configured to receive steam resulting in oxidation of the metal to produce hydrogen and the discharge of electricity from the battery. The redox couple bed in the discharged battery is further configured to receive hydrogen produced from the solid oxide electrochemical cell resulting in reduction of the metal oxide and recharge of the battery.

Establishing an efficient and reliable transmission and distribution system for electrical energy produced from renewable resources as well as conventional power plants requires successful development and deployment of efficient electricity storage technology. Conventional rechargeable batteries are by far the most common form of electricity storage devices. Represented by lithium ion battery technology, this class of rechargeable batteries has been broadly used in small to medium scale electrical storage applications. Attempts to use this low-temperature battery technology for large scale grid energy storage, however, have so far proven difficult, primarily due to the concerns of safety and slow rate of rechargeability. On the other hand, high-temperature rechargeable battery technology, represented by sodium sulfur battery technology, is particularly capable of fast rechargeability, but faces challenges of inability of thermal cycling, high manufacturing cost and corrosion-shortened cycle life.
Therefore, there exists a need for a high-performance, low-cost and safe rechargeable battery system to satisfy the applications in grid energy storage.


A method and a system for coreference resolution are provided. The method includes receiving a set of document clusters, each cluster in the set of document clusters including a set of text documents. Instances of each of a set of candidate named entities are identified in the document clusters. For a pairs of the candidate named entities, at least one socio-temporal feature is computed that is based on the similarity of the distributions of identified instances of the respective candidate name entities among the document clusters. A decision for merging for the candidate named entities into a common real named entity is based on the socio-temporal features.

The exemplary embodiment relates to processing of text and finds particular application in connection with named entity coreference resolution.
A named entity is the name of a unique entity, such as a person, place, or thing. Identifying references to named entities in text is useful in many information access and question-answering systems. Named entity coreference resolution refers to the process of identifying different references to the same named entity. The problem is not only to find the correct entity for pronouns or implicit mentions, but also to recognize that the same named entity can appear with different superficial forms, due to spelling variants, use of parts of the complete name, acronyms, and so forth. The issue arises not only within a particular document (intra-document coreference resolution), but also when considering a set of documents and/or queries (inter-document coreference resolution).
Natural language processing systems often include a named entity recognition component which applies a set of rules for identifying named entities in text. These systems tend to over-generate named entities. This means that several different entities are generated for the same real named entity, favoring precision over recall.
News-media aggregators often wish to create clusters of news articles talking about one event. It would useful for them to be able to relate news articles to events through the actors (e.g., people and organizations) that took part in them. However, the over-generation of named entities combined with high frequency with which new named entities appear make this difficult.
Statistical methods for named entity co-reference resolution traditionally compute a similarity between two references to an entity in the text, and then collect some of these references into an equivalence cluster. Clustering can be achieved, for example, with coreference chains, tree traversal, or graph-cut algorithms (see, Vincent Ng et al., "Improving machine learning approaches to coreference resolution," Proc. Annual Meeting of Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), pp. 104-111 (July 2002); Xiaoqiang Luo, et al., "A mention-synchronous coreference resolution algorithm based on the bell tree," Proc. ACL Annual Meeting, article 135 (2004); and Cristina Nicolae, et al., "BestCut: A Graph Algorithm for Coreference Resolution," Proc. Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, pp. 275-283 (July 2006)).
The similarity between two references can be computed using a variety of features, which can be grouped into lexical (string-based comparison), proximity (number of words or paragraphs between two references), grammatical (based on parts of speech, parse trees, and the like) and semantic (gender, animacy, and the like). See, Veselin Stoyanov, et al., "Conundrums in Noun Phrase Coreference Resolution: Making Sense of the State-of-the-Art," in Proc. Joint Conf. of the 47th Annual Meeting of the ACL and the 4th International Joint Conf. on Natural Language Processing of the AFNLP, Vol. 2, pp. 656-664 (hereinafter, Stoyanov, et al.). Some of these features are based on the content of the named entity; that is, on the superficial form it takes, some additional information provided by a syntactic parser, and on the local context given by surroundings words. Content-independent features relate only to the close context and thus are only intra-document.
Recently, it has been suggested that temporal information could be used for solving the coreference resolution problem. This method assumes that if two entities have the same temporal profile (in other words, when their bursts of appearances closely coincide) and if their approximate string matching similarity is below a defined threshold, these entities refer to the same real one. See, for example, Alexander Kotov, et al., "Mining named entities with temporally correlated bursts from multilingual web news streams," in WSDM, pp. 237-246, ACM, 2011. However, such methods are prone to noise.
Another study focused on multi-lingual named entity disambiguation. The main issue faced is the correct translation of person names and the subsequent comparison between these translations. The similarity between two named entities is computed through the following process: transliteration into roman script, lower-casing, name normalization, vowel removal and finally edit distance See, Ralf Steinberger, et al., "JRC-NAMES: A Freely Available, Highly Multilingual Named Entity Resource," Proc. Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing, pp. 14-16, 2011. An additional constraint is that, in order to merge two named entities, they have to appear in the same news cluster. This work resulted in the generation of a database of different name variants for the same named entity. The database, while a good resource for some applications, has a high-precision, low-recall rate and addresses only the most frequent named entities in the news sphere.
The present system and method provide more reliable named entity coreference resolution by add contextual "socio-temporal" features given by the clustering of the documents into topic-coherent events.

System and method for resolving entity coreference


A semiconductor fabrication process in which nitrogen is incorporated into the transistor gate without significantly increasing the resistivity of the source/drain region. The incorporation of nitrogen into the gate structure substantially reduces the migration of impurity dopants from the silicon gate into the transistor channel region resulting in a more stable and reliable transistor. In one embodiment, a tail of the nitrogen impurity distribution incorporated into the gate structure extends into the channel region of the semiconductor substrate. In this embodiment, the nitrogen within the channel region prevents excessive lateral diffusion of source/drain impurities thereby permitting the fabrication of deep sub-micron transistors.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor processing and more particularly to a transistor fabrication technique in which nitrogen is incorporated into the silicon gate to provide an advantageous impurity barrier without significantly degrading the transistor performance.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
The conventional fabrication of MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) transistors within a semiconductor substrate is well known. Typically, the substrate is divided into a plurality of active regions and isolation regions through an isolation process such as field oxidation or shallow trench isolation. After the isolation and active regions have been formed, the active regions may be further divided into n-well active regions and p-well active regions by implanting n-type dopants and p-type dopants into their respective wells. A thin oxide is then grown on an upper surface of the semiconductor substrate in the active regions. This thin oxide serves as the gate oxide for subsequently formed transistors. Thereafter, a plurality of polysilicon gate structures are formed wherein each polysilicon gate traverses an active region effectively dividing the active region into a pair of source/drain regions disposed on either side of each gate structure and a channel region disposed below each gate structure. After formation of the polysilicon gates, a p-type source/drain implant is performed to introduce p-type impurities into the source/drain regions of the n-wells and an n-type source/drain implant is performed to introduce n-type impurities into the source/drain regions of the p-wells. The dopant species used in conventional transistor processing typically include phosphorus and arsenic for n-type impurities and boron for p-type impurities.
As transistor geometries shrink below 0.5 micron, the limitations of conventional transistor processing become more and more apparent. As the thickness of the gate oxide decreases below 100 angstroms, devices become more susceptible to diffusion of impurities contained within the gate structure across the gate oxide and into the active area of the transistor. This problem is especially acute for gate structures into which boron is implanted (e.g., p+ polysilicon gates) because of the relatively high rate at which boron diffuses through silicon and silicon dioxide. In addition, it is believed that many loosely formed bonds exist at the interface between the gate oxide structure and the polysilicon gate structure in conventionally formed transistors. The presence of these loosely formed bonds is believed to contribute to undesirable transistor characteristics such as susceptibility to voltage breakdown. Still further, as devices become smaller and more densely packed upon a semiconductor substrate surface, it becomes increasingly important to minimize the leakage current of each individual transistor. It is believed that leakage current can be created by a scattering effect that occurs as electrons traverse the channel between a device's source region and drain region. As the number of transistor devices within a single integrated circuit increases, leakage current can become significant enough to raise the temperature of the semiconductor substrate slowing the device and, eventually, raising the temperature above the operational limit of the device.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to fabricate MOS transistors in a manner that reduced or eliminated diffusion from a gate structure to an underlying active region of the transistor, improved the bond structure of the polysilicon gate oxide interface thereby improving the characteristics of the interface, and increased the source/drain drive current without a corresponding increase in leakage current. It would be further desirable if the fabrication technique selected also facilitated the producing of deep sub-micron transistor channel lengths. In the sub-micron region, the short transistor channels can be rendered effectively non-functional if the source/drain impurities diffuse laterally through the channel. Accordingly, it would be beneficial if the fabrication technique selected limited or prevented lateral substantial diffusion of source/drain impurity distributions thereby reducing concerns over post source/drain high temperature processing. It would be further desirable if the selected fabrication technique did not result in an undue increase in the sheet resistivity of the source/drain regions.

High performance mosfet transistor fabrication technique


A system-on chip (SOC) (100) and method of isolating noise in a SOC, including a plurality of noise sensitive circuit blocks (120, 220) and ESD protected pads (302, 304, 306, 308, 310, 312, and 314). A VDD isolation pad (302) is connected to an N well ring (124) of the first noise sensitive circuit (120) to collect noise from the substrate (110) and isolate the circuit from the P well region (112). A ground protected pad (304) is connected to an isolated P well (126) of a first noise sensitive circuit (120). The ground pad (304) collects noise from the isolated P well (126) and sends it to ground. A dedicated ground isolation pad (306) is connected to a P well ring (224) of a second noise sensitive circuit (220). The dedicated ground isolation pad (306) collects noise from the P well ring (224) and sends it to ground. The dedicated ground isolation pad (306) and the ground pad (304) collect noise that would normally propagate between the first and second noise sensitive circuits (120, 220) and additional circuits that share the same substrate (110).

Microelectronic chip integration technology has lead to recent improvements. In the past, electronic systems have required the use of multi-chip systems including many microchips and discrete components. However, as integrated circuit technology has advanced, systems-on-chip (SOCs) have become more popular. A single SOC may contain, for example, numerous digital and analog integrated circuit components, e.g. CPUs, memories, random logic, RF circuitry, etc. Circuits of the type described above (i.e. mixed signal circuits that integrate various digital and analog circuit blocks on an SOC) present certain challenges. For example, a signal in one circuit may disrupt a signal in an adjacent circuit. This undesirable electrical interaction may be referred to as noise and/or crosstalk that may occur due to inductive or capacitive coupling.
It is well known to provide SOCs with contact pads that are ESD (electrostatic discharge) protected. Unfortunately, in some cases, noise can propagate via the ESD protected pads through the substrate and hamper the performance of sensitive circuitry on the SOC.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a method for improving substrate noise isolation between ESD protected pads, circuit biasing lines and the SOC circuitry. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.

Integrated circuit with improved signal noise isolation and method for improving signal noise isolation


A system and a method for providing application flow integration in a portal framework. In accordance with one embodiment, the invention comprises a portal servlet, which handles all incoming servlet requests and determines whether the incoming request represents a request either for a portal page or for a non-portal page; and, a portal processor which handles all portal page requests passed by the portal servlet, and executes an appropriate webflow to update the current state of the portal page, depending on a current set of events. Each of a plurality of portlets may have an individual webflow associated with it.

In the world of e-commerce, portal systems and applications (more commonly referred to as "portals") are being increasingly used to provide software applications and services to end-users and third-parties. This is particularly important in the business enterprise environment, or on the Internet (where portals are often referred to as "Web portals"), since the portal can be used to group together and manage a large number and a wide variety of applications in a manner that allows those applications to be effectively delivered to a large number of users, each of which may have very different needs and access rights. The portal provides a central access point and a common look-and-feel to the end user. Portals can also be used to support collaboration between different parties, so that for example, a third-party vendor application can be integrated seamlessly within the enterprise platform.
Typically, the portal resides atop an application server, such as the WebLogic server product from BEA Systems, Inc. A product such as BEA WebLogic Portal, for example, delivers a single, unified portal framework for all enterprise requirements by providing foundation services that allow for sophisticated portal development; personalization and interaction management, intelligent portal administration to simplify and speed portal deployment; and portal integration services that allow application integration within and beyond the enterprise. Portlets, smaller pre-built modular applications that are primarily based upon Java Server Page (JSP) technology, execute within the portal, and can be provided either as part of the portal or can be created by third-parties. Portlets enable fast, out-of-the-box assembly and deployment of an enterprise portal solution by providing common application capabilities.
One of the problems with current portal offerings is they lack a convenient mechanism to integrate the flow of a complex software application ("application") within the framework of the portal, so that the portal developer can easily include logic for portal-related events. What is needed is a mechanism for allowing the portal and the portlets, and other components therein, to communicate with each other in a manner that supports application flow within the portal as a whole.

System and method for application flow integration in a portal framework