In medical convulsive therapy (CV), comprising electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and magnetoconvulsive therapy (MCT), a computer system is used to analyze the effectiveness of the treatment. In one embodiment the effectiveness is determined by measuring the physiological effects on the heart (ECG) muscles (EMG) and brain (EEG).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to medical apparatus and methods for convulsive therapy (CT), namely, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and magnetoconvulsive therapy (MCT), and methods for automatic measurements of electroencephalographic, electrocardiographic, and/or electromyographic events that occur during treatment with CT.
2. Description of the Related Art
In ECT generally two electrodes are applied to the head of the patient, one over the right temple and the other in a second location that is commonly either by the vertex of the head or over the left temple. A small amount of electricity in a selected wave or pulse form is applied through these electrodes. The aim of the application of this electricity is to cause a generalized centrencephalic seizure, also called a grand mal seizure. Such a seizure has therapeutic value for several mental illnesses, including depression, mania and schizophrenia (Abrams, 1992). A report of a panel of the National Institute of Mental Health in Science (Jun. 28, 1985, pp. 1510-1511) concluded that "not a single controlled study has shown another form of treatment to be superior to ECT in the short-term management of severe depressions."
Alternatively, the generalized centrencephalic seizure (grand mal seizure) may be induced by a pulsed magnetic field from a magnetic coil positioned proximate the patient's head. This procedure, called magnetoconvulsive therapy (MCT), is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/231,307 (allowed) to Abrams and Swartz, incorporated by reference herein. The description which follows generally employs examples of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), since it is widely used and has been extensively researched. However, the methods and systems of the present invention are equally applicable to magnetoconvulsive therapy (MCV). The term "convulsive therapy" (CV), as used herein, includes both ECT and MCT as well as chemically induced convulsive therapy.
In ECT the physician-operator determines the dose of the electrical charge for the stimulus, which is the duration of the applied current. This is determined on the basis of the patient's age, sex, concurrent medications, and response to previous sessions of ECT. The physician may, with currently available apparatus, select an electrical dose likely to provide therapeutic value. These would be in the range of 0.25 to 1.5 millisecond pulse width of fixed current within the range of 0.8 to 1.0 amperes given at a rate of 40 to 140 pulses per second over a period of 0.1 to 11 seconds. For example, selection of the "Thymatron DG" instrument (TM of Somatics, Inc., Lake Bluff, Ill.) can provide a series of brief electrical pulses of 0.9 amperes and 0.5 millisecond pulse width given at a rate of 140 pulses per second for a period that is adjustable by the physician, from 0.4 to 8.0 seconds.
CT seizures differ in their intensity, nature and therapeutic value, and it is of importance to assure effectiveness in treatment by the measurement and description of bodily phenomena that are associated with the therapeutic value. The generalized centrencephalic seizure is accompanied by a variety of measurable physiological effects in the body. These physiological effects include generation of patterns of electrical activity by the brain (electrical brain waves) which are measurable on the head with an electroencephalograph (EEG), acceleration of the heart rate which is measurable on the chest with an electrocardiograph (ECG), and contractions of skeletal muscles which are measurable with an electromyograph (EMG). Measurable effects on the EEG, ECG and EMG can occur not only during the seizure, but usually on the EEG and ECG for several minutes afterwards, and sometimes on the EEG for several weeks afterwards. The form and intensity of the physiological effects presumably reflect the nature, intensity and therapeutic value of the CT seizure. Several studies have described relationships between physiological measurements and therapeutic value of the CT seizure. In addition, several logical considerations indicate several strong expectations of such relationships, most particularly that physiological signs of greater intensity, or extent, correspond to CT seizure of greater intensity or extent, which is of greater therapeutic benefit.
Several aspects of the EEG that are of interest to the operator cannot be judged by sight impression and must be measured, but are difficult to measure with a conventional EEG paper recorder, because of large time needs, tedium, imprecision and complexity. It is not part of the training of doctors to be trained to deal with data processing, and few doctors are knowledgeable about these subjects. Accordingly, present practices by doctors do not include such measurements; rather, doctors either do not attempt to judge the therapeutic value of the CT seizure or they do so only through the occurrence of a seizure of ordinary length, or by rough impressions about the shape of the EEG, as shown on a graph made by a paper recorder (Nobler et al 1993).
The inventors' prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,878,498; 4,873,891 and 4,870,969 are directed to monitoring the patient in ECT and these patents are incorporated by reference herein. U.S. Pat. No. 5,269,302 discloses various systems using EEG, EMG and ECG and provides indications of the termination of seizure.

Convulsive therapy apparatus to stimulate and monitor the extent of therapeutic value of the treatment


A finisher operable with an image forming apparatus for discharging paper sheets coming out of the apparatus and each carrying an image thereon to a plurality of bins while sorting the paper sheets and, if desired, packaging the paper sheets in an envelope. When a pack mode is selected, the size of paper sheets and the sizes of envelopes which are to be fed from a paper cassette or a tray each are sensed by size sensors. Envelopes sizes capable of accommodating the paper sheets of the sensed size are determined and compared with the sensed envelope sizes. Among the determined envelope sizes, the envelope size capable of accommodating the paper sheets of the size sensed by the size sensor in a desired number inputted. When the desired number is too great to be packaged in the envelope, such an occurrence is displayed and/or the pack mode is cancelled.

The present invention relates to a finisher operable with an image forming apparatus for discharging paper sheets coming out of the apparatus and each carrying an image thereon to a plurality of bins while sorting the paper sheets and, if desired, packaging the paper sheets stacked on each bin in an envelope.
An image forming apparatus capable of sorting and discharging paper sheets carrying images thereon to a plurality of bins is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 145069/1986. The apparatus taught in this Laid-Open Publication has means for nipping paper sheets stacked on a bin, and means for inclining the entire bin to cause the paper sheets to slide along the bin into a large size storing section. Assume that the desired number of copies is greater than the number of paper sheets that can be accommodated in a single bin. Then, this type of apparatus can continue the copying operation even when the number of copies produced reaches the capacity of a single bin. Specifically, the apparatus clips the paper sheets on a job basis before the number of copies produced reaches the capacity of each bin and then inclines the bin to transfer the clipped paper sheets to the large size storing section. This frees the operator from troublesome work otherwise required of removing paper sheets filling the bins and then starting the apparatus again. However, such a conventional apparatus cannot meet an increasing demand for a capability of automatically packaging the copies in envelopes.


Chucking mechanisms may include a plurality of chucking sections respectively connecting to a pressure control device to generate individual chucking forces. The individual chucking forces of the chucking sections may be varied by the pressure control device such that a magnitude of separation force is reduced for an imprint lithography system.

The field of the invention relates generally to nano-fabrication of structures. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a chucking system to facilitate separating a template from a solidified layer disposed on a substrate in an imprint lithography process.
Nano-fabrication involves the fabrication of very small structures, e.g., having features on the order of nano-meters or smaller. One area in which nano-fabrication has had a sizeable impact is in the processing of integrated circuits. As the semiconductor processing industry continues to strive for larger production yields while increasing the circuits per unit area formed on a substrate, nano-fabrication becomes increasingly important. Nano-fabrication provides greater process control while allowing increased reduction of the minimum feature dimension of the structures formed. Other areas of development in which nano-fabrication has been employed include biotechnology, optical technology, mechanical systems and the like.
An exemplary nano-fabrication technique is commonly referred to as imprint lithography. Exemplary imprint lithographic processes are described in detail in numerous publications, such as U.S. patent application publication no. 2004/0065976, U.S. patent application publication no. 2004/0065252, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,936,194, all of which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention and are incorporated herein by reference.
The fundamental imprint lithography technique disclosed in each of the aforementioned U.S. patent application publications and U.S. patent includes formation of a relief pattern in a polymerizable layer and transferring a pattern corresponding to the relief pattern into an underlying substrate. To that end, a template is employed spaced-apart from the substrate with a formable liquid present between the template and the substrate. The liquid is solidified to form a solidified layer that has a pattern recorded therein that is conforming to a shape of the surface of the template in contact with the liquid. The template is separated from the solidified layer such that the template and the substrate are spaced-apart. The substrate and the solidified layer are then subjected to processes to transfer, into the substrate, a relief image that corresponds to the pattern in the solidified layer.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


An apparatus for medical inspection comprising a hand-held medical diagnostic instrument having a battery pack for providing energy to a light source for illuminating the target area, a housing, a charger for charger the battery pack that is integral with the housing and adapted to provide electric energy to the battery pack to charge the battery pack, a video adapter detachably coupled to the medical diagnostic instrument, video processing circuitry contained within the housing and an umbilicus for connecting the video adapter to the video processing circuitry.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to medical diagnostic instruments, and more specifically to an apparatus that integrates video diagnostic tools into a single unit.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
There are a number of hand-held diagnostic instruments that are used in the physician's office, such as otoscopes, ophthalmoscopes and scopes to examine the skin surface. Hand-held diagnostic instruments typically are equipped with a rechargeable battery pack which can be integrated into the handle of the instrument. The battery pack is recharged using transformers which may either be within a base unit in which the battery pack rests or the battery pack may be configured to plug directly into a standard electrical outlet.
The use of video technology with medical diagnostic instruments is known in the art and has applications with a number of medical instruments, including otoscopes, ophthalmoscopes and the like. Hitachi and Circon offered such products since the early 1980's. These products included a video adapter unit with a CCD imager which could be connected to a hand-held instrument. The video adapter provides the physician with a video display of the target area. The patient and the physician's assistants or students can also view the monitor while the examination is taking place. The technology also provides a means to obtain a video record of the examination. The eletronic data that comprises the video image may also be transmitted to remote locations to facilitate telemedical procedures via modem, satellite transmission or other suitable electronic data transmission methods.
The examination room of a modern day physician contains many various pieces of equipment and assorted medical supplies. The number and complexity of the equipment is increasing. New technologies are providing the medical team with better tools. However, a need exists to maintain an organized and efficient working area in order to allow the physician to make a correct diagnosis and to provide competent medical treatment. In a medical emergency, diagnostic and treatment tools need to be easily and quickly accessible to the medical team.
The complexity of the medical office is compounded by the fact that the various instruments are housed in separate units. In the past, the battery packs of the instruments were charged either in their own holder having a charger therein or were plugged into an electrical outlet. The video processing circuitry was housed in a separate unit. In addition, the video monitor was housed in yet another unit. The medical examination room had a plethora of electrical cords, charging units, and video monitors scattered about which could cause confusion while the physician was attempting to conduct an examination, interfering with the physician's ability to make a quick and accurate diagnosis.


A method for electrically connecting an offshore first electrical plant to a second electrical plant, the offshore first electrical plant being an offshore wind turbine generator, the method comprising providing a transition cable terminated at one end with a first connector part, the transition cable being connected or connectable at the other end to the offshore wind turbine generator above the water surface, and providing a cable terminated at one end with a second connector part and connected or connectable at the other end to the second electrical plant, the second connector part being adapted to mate with the first connector part to form a connector.

The present embodiments relate to methods and systems for connecting an offshore first electrical plant, which is a wind turbine generator, to a second electrical plant. The present embodiments also relate to electrical connectors for connecting a cable to an offshore electrical plant such as a wind turbine generator.
It is known to provide offshore wind farms including multiple wind turbine generators. A typical farm will include multiple renewable wind turbine generators connected in a daisy chain manner, by inter-array cables, to an electrical sub-station, where the generated power is collected, processed, and fed back to a station onshore. The power is generated at low voltage and stepped up for transmission back to the sub-station, which may either be onshore or offshore.
Typically, each wind turbine generator has two cables, one into the generator and one out, which allows the wind farm to be connected up in the daisy chain arrangement and allows the wind turbine generator at the end of the chain to be connected to the sub-station. The cables between the energy generators and also the cable between one of the energy generators and the sub-station are known as inter-array cables or infield cables.
A known method for installing a wind farm involves installing the wind turbine generator support structures, typically about 1 km apart and laying inter-array cables between the support structures. The inter-array cables are laid, and a plough is used to create a furrow in which the inter-array cable sits and is covered over (e.g., buried in the seabed).
The generator support structures are provided with a feature to allow the end of an inter-array cable to be pulled from the seabed to a part of the structure that is above the water line. This feature may be in the form of a tube, either internal or external to the support structure that the cable may be pulled through. Alternatively, this feature may be an aperture in the support structure that allows the cable to be pulled up through the support structure itself. Typically these features have a mouth at the bottom end, near the sea bed, for receiving the end of an inter-array cable and a bend to direct the cable round to the vertical and allow the cable to extend upwardly to above the surface. Due to the typical shape of this feature, it is commonly known as a 'J-tube'. However, other shapes and types of feature are also used, which are also generically referred to as the "J-tube" (e.g., a feature that allows the cable to be pulled from the seabed up through the structure is generically termed a "J-tube"), whatever its specific design.
When it is desired to connect the inter-array cable to the wind turbine generator, a lifting wire is passed downwardly from the structure above the surface through the J-tube to a bottom end. Alternatively, the lifting wire may have been pre-installed in the J-tube onshore. The lifting wire is attached to the end of the inter-array cable and is then winched up the J-tube, thereby pulling the inter-array cable through the J-tube for connection to the wind turbine generator. The attachment of the lifting wire to the inter-array cable on the seabed is carried out by underwater operatives or remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
Once the inter-array cable has been winched up through the J-tube, steel armor wires in the cable are clamped or terminated to the structure, thus mechanically anchoring the cable to the structure. Rocks are placed around the bottom of the support structure to provide scour protection to protect the inter-array cable and to prevent the support structure being eroded by eddy currents.
Another team of operatives on the tower connects the internal parts (e.g., copper wire and fiber optics) of the inter-array cable to the renewable energy generator.

Offshore electrical plant installation method and system


The present invention relates to a manufacturing method for an optical glass element, in which molten glass 9 is pressed between a lower mold 1 and an upper mold 8, and the pressing process is carried out while maintaining a space 10 between a border area (5, 6) of a molding face 2 belonging to the lower mold 1 and a circumferential face 3 located on the periphery thereof and glass 9, and an optical glass element manufactured by such a method.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical glass element, more specifically a micro-optical glass element such as an optical-communication-use coupling lens, an optical pickup lens and an endoscope-use lens, and a manufacturing method for such a lens.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in the field of compact cameras, VTR cameras, optical pickup lenses used for DVDs and the like, micro-optical glass elements, molded into predetermined shapes, have been utilized in order to achieve a small size, high precision and environment resistance. In order to manufacture such a micro-optical glass element, as shown in FIG. 7, a method in which, after molten glass 53 has been directly dropped onto a heated lower mold 51, this is pressed between the lower mold 51 and an upper mold 52 has been often used. In particular, during the press-molding process, a border area 56 between a molding face 54 belonging to the lower mold 51 and its circumferential face 55 is generally made in contact with glass 53. In general, the optical glass element has an edge portion 57 around a lens portion 58, which is formed from the constraint in the manufacturing process.
There arises a problem that in the case when a lens is manufactured through this method, however, chips and cracks tend to occur on the border between the lens portion and the edge portion. Presumably, this problem is caused by the fact that, since the thickness of the edge portion is generally thinner than the lens portion, there is a difference in shrinkage of glass between the lens portion and the edge portion in a glass cooling process upon press-forming the lens. More specifically, since the amount of shrinkage of the edge portion is smaller than the amount of shrinkage of the lens portion, the pressure to be received by the edge portion increases when a pressure is continuously applied to the glass in a manner so as to allow the mold to follow the shrinkage of glass in the lens portion. As a result, a stress is concentrated on the border between the lens portion and the edge portion to cause chips and cracks. This problem becomes more conspicuous in the case when a lens in which the thickness of the edge portion is extremely smaller than the center thickness of the lens, that is, a so-called convex lens, is manufactured. In contrast, in the case when a pressure is applied to the glass in a manner so as to allow the mold to follow the shrinkage of glass in the edge portion, the molding surface is not preferably transferred onto the lens portion.
In order to solve these problems, a technique in which a chamfered portion is formed on the border portion between the processing curved portion and plane portion of the mold (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 3-52417 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-151632)) has been proposed. In this technique, however, since time-consuming tasks including the chamfering process added to the mold-forming process are required and since the grindstone is more susceptible to abrasion depending on the amount of chamfered portion, there is an increase in the manufacturing costs of the mold.
Another technique has been proposed in which the border portion between the processing curved portion and the plane portion is formed into an R-curved shape so as to prevent cracks in the lens (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-263462). However, this technique also causes problems in that time-consuming tasks are required in the mold-forming process, in that the manufacturing costs of the mold increase and in that it is impossible to simultaneously process the mold-processing face and the edge portion.

Optical glass element and manufacturing method thereof


A computer-implemented method for a multiple imager imaging system is disclosed. The method comprises detecting misalignment between a left portion of an object in a left image and a right portion of said object in a right image; wherein said misalignment is detected using factory alignment parameters to align said left and right portions; and selectively performing a recalibration operation to determine optimal alignment parameters to align said left and right portions during an image stitching operation; dynamically overriding the factory alignment parameters with the optimal alignment parameters; and performing the stitching operation based on the optimal alignment parameters.

Alignment is the process in which the imagers/sensors of a multiple imager video system are aligned so that when the images from the sensors are stitched, artifacts due to stitching are kept to a minimum.
FIG. 1 illustrates the process of aligning imagers 102 and 104 of a multiple (N) imager system 100 (only two of the imagers are shown). The system 100 may function independently of image resolution. However, consider the case where each imager 102,104 captures a target image indicated by reference numerals 102.1 and 104.1 at a target resolution of 440×540 pixels. Each sensor 102,104 has an actual or sensor capture area that may be larger (for example, 504×640) as indicated by reference numerals 102.2 and 104.1. During initial calibration, all N imagers are turned to their full sensor resolution (504×640) to capture a full sensor image. Thus, for each imager, there are extra pixels (+/−32, based on the resolutions given) for left/right alignment and top/bottom alignment (+/−50 pixels top/bottom, based on the resolutions given). If all images were centered and perfectly aligned, each image would use the coordinates (32,50) as the image origin with a width of 440 and height of 540. However, if the imagers did not align properly, then adjustments would have to be made for each imager to adjust its target image position/location (as specified by image origin) relative to the full sensor image.
For example, to align the sensors 102, 104, an image of a scene is captured at a fixed distance at full sensor resolution. The resulting captures are analyzed to find the best match between imagers N and N+1, N+1 and N+2, and so on. Based on the results from alignment, alignment parameters in the form of coordinates are stored for image position and image size for each image.
The point of overlap between each image is known as the merge point/line and is located in a region of overlap between adjacent images. In FIG. 1, imager 102 has a merge line 102.3 located in a region of overlap 102.4. Likewise, imager 104 has a merge line 104.3 located in a region of overlap 104.4. During alignment, if one imager (e.g. 102) is horizontally misaligned relative to another imager (say 104), the image origin for that imager is shifted to bring it into horizontal alignment. Thus, the origin of imager 102 may change from (32,50) to (20,50) to restore horizontal alignment. For proper alignment, some images may be made wider or thinner than others with different sized regions of overlap. This, the width of regions of overlap for imagers is set as an alignment parameter during alignment.
For the system 100, the origin for each image was located at (32,50) in an ideal scenario. But in reality, the origins for each image could vary from (0,0) to (M, N) where M/N combination is the maximum width/height without being considered a failure. Each image position specified by an origin (M,N) must be considered during alignment. Thus, the process of alignment processes data for thousands of possible alignment positions to find the best match between images.
After initial alignment (hereinafter "factory alignment") set prior to shipping, the imaging system 100 will use each merge point calculated for two adjacent imagers as a default value for stitching.

Automated alignment adjustment for multiple imager based video systems


Disclosed herein is a method for isolating active regions in a germanium-based MOS device. A surface of a germanium-based substrate is covered by a thin polysilicon layer or a poly-SiGe layer, and an isolation structure of germanium dioxide covered by a silicon dioxide layer or a SiGe oxide layer on top is formed by means of two steps of oxidation in a case of the active regions are protected. Such two steps of oxidation using the polysilicon layer or the poly-SiGe layer as a sacrificial layer is advantageous to improve the isolation quality of a fabricated germanium dioxide and to reduce a beak effect occurred during a local field oxygen oxidation so as to dramatically elevate the performance of the germanium device.

Under the context that a conventional silicon-based MOS device has been faced with numerous challenges and limitations, in order to further improve an operation speed of an integrated circuit, it is in urgent need of seeking a new material and/or a new device structure to change the current situation. As for a problem of mobility degradation, some channel materials having high mobility have been employed. A germanium material has obtained wide attentions on the grounds that its electron and hole mobility are greater than that of a silicon material and a fabrication process of the germanium-based device is compatible with a conventional CMOS process. Currently, however, not only that the fabrication technology of the germanium-based device has not matured yet and performance of the device is not adequately stable, but also for a large-scaled integration for the germanium-based MOS device in future, isolation for the device is a critical issue of acquiring excellent performance. However, up to now there has been no suitable material to be used in the isolation for the germanium-based device yet. In addition, an etching technology for the germanium material is also not quite stable.

Method for isolating active regions in germanium-based MOS device


A method and protocol tester for decoding data for the performance of a measurement task, which data is encoded in accordance with a protocol description, includes modifying the protocol description with respect to the measurement task by compressing protocol elements that are of no relevance to the measurement task and decoding the encoded data according to the modified protocol description to provide only decoded data relevant to the measurement task. The decoded data may be filtered before further processing according to a filter condition determined by the measurement task. Alternatively the filter condition may be installed as part of the modified protocol description. Then additional filtering may be applied when there are further filter conditions determined by the measurement task. The result is a protocol tester that permanently stores the protocol description while allowing modification of the protocol description for each measurement task, reducing storage and calculation requirements.

The present invention relates to protocol testing, and more particularly to a method and a protocol tester for decoding data encoded in accordance with a protocol description for the performance of a measurement task.
Particularly in protocol measurement technology, the encoding, decoding and analysis of digital data occupies a central role, with so-called protocol data units being examined by computer software and the information contained therein being extracted. In this context, FIG. 1 shows a procedure known from prior art, in which an interpretative decoder 10 reads a general protocol description 12 and, based on the protocol description, decodes encoded data 14 also read in, and makes the data available as decoded information 16 to a processing device 20. The general protocol description is firm, suited for a plurality of measurement tasks and describes the encoded data, as a maximum, exactly down to each bit. The general protocol description preferably includes information on the meaning of the bits, the names of bit groups, the format of the presentation, for example a string, hexadecimal or binary, and on the formation of summaries in the form of parameters or messages. In contrast to firm decoding routines, which exist unchangeably for certain protocols, interpretative decoding routines, i.e. decoders with an interpreter, have the advantage that the very same hardware can be adapted easily to different protocols by loading the corresponding general protocol description of the associated protocol. Tree-structured protocol descriptions, however, lead to a high storage demand for a reduced calculation expense, while linear protocol descriptions lead to an increased calculation expense for a reduced storage demand.
There is also the possibility to manually program protocol descriptions for certain repetitive measurement tasks, the disadvantage being that the manually programmed protocol descriptions are designed for a certain measurement task and are therefore already no longer suitable for performing a slightly modified measurement task. In particular, it proves awkward and time-consuming, depending on the measurement task to be resolved, to select and load into the decoder device a suitable protocol description programmed manually in a reduced manner. In order to be able to perform any measurement tasks, it is therefore necessary, in the prior art, to work with the general protocol description which, regardless of whether it shows a linear structure or a tree structure, leads to a high calculation expense for the decoding process.
FIG. 2 shows elements of another protocol tester known from the prior art, the same reference signs being used in the figures for the same or for comparable elements—this applies to all figures. For the protocol tester shown in FIG. 2, the decoder 10 has a downstream filter 18, the decoder 10 transmitting on the one hand decoded data to the filter, and on the other hand information for filter adjustment. In filter 18 data not required, i.e., data which fail to meet at least one filter condition, are discarded. The data which meet the at least one filter condition are made available as decoded information 16 to the processing device 20.
Note that the decoder executes the protocol description, regardless of whether a protocol element, which does not fulfil the at least one filter condition, has already been decoded and has to be taken as a indication that a whole series of subsequent decoding depending thereon are no longer necessary. This means that certain data may be excluded from further decoding because they are of no importance for the present measurement task, which in turn means that, in the prior art, the decoding process is continued and hence the calculation expense increased unnecessarily, even though it is not really required.
What is desired is a generic method and a generic protocol tester that performs a plurality of measurement tasks at a low expense of time and calculation.

Method and protocol tester for decoding data encoded in accordance with a protocol description


Systems and methods for distributed rule-based correlation of events are provided. A notification of a partial match of a distributed rule by an event of a first subset of events is received. The notification includes a set of properties of the event of the first subset of events. The distributed rule is evaluated using the set of properties of the event of the first subset of events and a set of properties of an event of a second subset of events. A complete match of the rule is determined based on the evaluation, and a correlation event is generated.

The field of security information/event management (SIM or SIEM) is generally concerned with 1) collecting data from networks and networked devices that reflects network activity and/or operation of the devices and 2) analyzing the data to enhance security. For example, the data can be analyzed to identify an attack on the network or a networked device and determine which user or machine is responsible. If the attack is ongoing, a countermeasure can be performed to thwart the attack or mitigate the damage caused by the attack. The data that is collected usually originates in a message (such as an event, alert, or alarm) or an entry in a log file.
Log data can be generated by various sources, including both networked devices and applications. These sources can be, for example, intrusion detection systems (IDSs), intrusion prevention systems (IPSs), vulnerability assessment tools, firewalls, anti-virus tools, anti-spam tools, encryption tools, application audit logs, and physical security logs. Log data is comprised of data instances called "events." An event can be, for example, an entry in a log file, an entry in a syslog server, an alert, an alarm, a network packet, an email, or a notification page.
In general, an event represents a data structure that includes multiple fields, where each field can contain a value. Security systems, such as SIEM systems, receive events from potentially thousands of sources, many of which are diverse devices. By analyzing the fields, events may be cross-correlated to provide security-related intelligence, such as security breaches. Correlation may include applying rules to events.

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT LP


A transition-density based data timing measurement method uses an estimated transition density (TD) value for an acquired data signal together with edge crossing times to estimate a data period for the acquired data signal. The estimated data period is used for symbol classification to determine a number of bits between adjacent edge crossings, which results are used to adjust the TD value. The adjusted TD value is then used to re-compute the data period.

The present invention relates to data signal time measurements, and more particularly to a transition-density based time measurement method.
In a high-speed data transfer system it is not uncommon for a data signal to have a large amount of inter-symbol interference (ISI) and other forms of jitter at a receiver. When the jitter on the data signal occupies a significant percentage of the data period, accurate time measurements are a challenging task. This happens infrequently in low-speed systems, but is not unusual in high-speed systems.
When the data signal has a large amount of jitter, which could be ISI, periodic jitter (PJ), duty-cycle-distortion (DCD), random jitter (RJ) or a combination of these jitter components, the data time measurement method based on pattern match, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,356,850 entitled "Method and Apparatus for Jitter Analysis" by WaveCrest Corporation, has difficulty making a correct pattern match because of the high noise level. Getting a good estimation of the data period for the pattern match algorithm to start with is also difficult in this case. Another data time measurement method is based on a pulse width histogram. This method estimates the data period from samples around the first significant pulse in a histogram of pulse widths under the assumption that these samples represent a width of one unit interval. The histogram-based method has difficulty avoiding bias when the data signal has large jitter, particularly large ISI.
Both methods are based on variables that may be significantly affected by jitter. Pattern match methods need to know the specific bit sequence of the pattern. For a 23-bit pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) with a pattern length of roughly eight million, pattern match is quite expensive computationally.
Transition-Density (TD) is the probability of a transition occurring. Normally TD may be seen as the average transition density. Data streams used in real data communications systems typically have a transition density of 50%—see "Fibre Channel —Methodologies for Jitter and Signal Quality Specification—MJSQ", Technical Committee T11 of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards, Project 1316-DT.
What is desired is a data time measurement method that provides accurate time measurement on non-return-to-zero (NRZ) data signals that have large jitter.

Transition-density based time measurement method


A variable-length encoding apparatus capable of encoding two data groups in parallel, and a method and computer program for the same. A first encoding unit and a second encoding unit execute variable-length encoding in parallel. In order to concatenate first variable-length encoding data output from the first encoding unit and second variable-length encoding data output from the second encoding unit, the second variable-length encoding data is shifted by the number of bits of the first variable-length encoding data.

A method using an entropy encoding technique based upon variable-length encoding is well known as a technique for compressing and encoding still images and moving images. Such a technique is adopted in JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) encoding and MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) encoding, which are international standards. The entropy encoding employed in these schemes generates symbol data by applying run-length encoding to values of data obtained by subjecting orthogonal transform coefficients to quantization processing, and then generates variable-length encoded data with regard to each item of symbol data. Many hardware implementations using Huffman coding tables as the variable-length codes employed in this entropy encoding technique have been proposed in recent years.
In MPEG encoding, variable-length code is adopted for, e.g., motion vectors as syntax for constructing header information, and proposals for implementing this by hardware have also been proposed just as in cases where Huffman code tables are used.
There has been an explosive increase in the size of image data handled by various image systems owing to improvements in the data transfer capacity of recent communication networks and the higher density of storage devices. In view of these circumstances, processors for compressive encoding also required to have both high image quality and the ability to perform compressive encoding at a high bit rate.
In compressive encoding at a high bit rate, however, the number of items of symbol data is much higher in comparison with compressive encoding at a low bit rate and it is difficult to perform compressive encoding at high speed in a variable-length encoder that relies upon the prior art. Even if a variable-length encoder is applied using the prior art, processing time lengthens as the bit rate rises and, hence, such an encoder is of little practical use.
If it is attempted to realize a variable-length encoder that supports a high bit rate through use of the prior art, the frequency of the operating clock must be increased, resulting in a major increase in power consumption.
In MPEG-4 encoding the standardization of which has recently been completed, a maximum of four items of motion-vector information are required for every macro block, and variable-length encoding is necessary in each of the horizontal and vertical directions. In consideration of this fact, it is necessary to perform variable-length encoding eight times for every macro block. A problem which arises is lengthening of processing time.
The present invention has been devised in view of these circumstances and its object is to perform variable-length encoding at higher speed.

Variable-length encoding apparatus and method


A method and apparatus for verifying that data written on magnetic disk media can be successfully recovered in subsequent read operations and ensuring that the data to be written is held by a buffer until a read-verify operation indicates that the buffer space storing the data may be relinquished for new operations.

The desirable goal of increasing the areal recording density of magnetic disk drives frequently can be obtained only with an undesirable side effect, i.e., increased raw error rate. For example, increased areal recording density can frequently be obtained by reducing the distance between the recording head and the media surface during periods of data transfer. This distance is known in the art as the "flying height." Reducing the flying height increases the susceptibility to errors due to media surface defects or debris that can cause the head to momentarily alter its flight profile. If this occurs during a write operation--known as a "high-fly write"--the resulting data written on the media can, during a subsequent read operation, exhibit errors exceeding the correction capability of the drive electronics or can be written with such marginality that the reliability of subsequent reads of the data is unpredictable. These transient errors can significantly impact the performance of the disk drive.
Historically, the design of magnetic disk drives has focused on improvements in read signal processing to optimize the capture and correction of data recovered from the media, without evaluation of the data originally written. There are limits to the ability of read electronics to recover marginal data, including the length of error correction codewords on the media which subtracts from the area available for user data; the dynamic range of channel electronics; and the tolerance of decoding schemes such as PRML to erroneous data. These limits are challenged by the inexorable march towards higher areal density and increasing demands for reliability in the face of severe price competition.
Although disk drives provide for post processing or "heroic recovery" of data stored in the disk drive buffer by the drive microprocessor, performance is degraded in these instances due to computing cycles which must be executed by the microprocessor and the need to occupy the limited buffer space available in the drive.
In other types of storage peripherals the verification of data written to the media, at the storage device level, has been limited to magnetic tape systems and optical disk drives. Magnetic tape practitioners have dealt with the problem of imperfect writes with a head/media structure having separate read and write heads with the read head positioned downstream of the write head. This allows the data written on the media to be verified simultaneously with the write operation.
Optical disk drives, being used primarily for archival or read-only applications, have provided data integrity checks that compare buffered host data with data read from the media. This was done because the writing process was known to be error prone and not a factor in performance, since only the time required for read operations is perceived by the user in most instances. For example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,471,351, Ishiguro discloses a method for verifying data being written by writing the data, then comparing data read from the media to the buffered data to be written, counting errors, then comparing those errors to the number of errors recorded from an ECC error correction on the same data. This method imposes a heavy processing load on the disk microprocessor as well as requiring additional storage space for the data read from the media.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,418, Satoh et al disclose a dual head system for verification of data read from the media, a costly structure not compatible with the cost constraints of a competitive magnetic disk drive. A comparable approach, suitable only to optical drives, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,540 by Longman et al, who use a photodiode as a read element.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,341, Hamasaka et al disclose a method for successively writing and verifying data in an optical disk drive that performs verification by reading and processing previously written data including the detection of uncorrectable errors. However Hamaska et al teach that the recorded data to be verified is stored in a buffer memory and do not suggest the use of on-the-fly error correction techniques.
The existing art in the field of storage peripherals therefore does not suggest how to satisfy the requirements of verifying written data within a magnetic disk drive without significant use of the limited buffer space provided for data storage and while minimizing the processing load on the disk drive microprocessor.

Verifying write operations in a magnetic disk drive


An information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage medium are disclosed which determines whether or not to install program modules by acquiring environment information relevant to the types of the modules so that only those modules judged compatible with the environment of interest may be installed. This makes it possible for users to install only necessary program modules without becoming aware of specific conditions restricting the installation of the modules.

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage medium. More particularly, the invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage medium each utilizing an installer for the purpose of installing software.
Today's intensifying competition in software development has given rise to the frequent distribution of updated programs with newly added capabilities. Some of these programs are disclosed by their vendors on wide area networks such as the Internet so that users can readily acquire the latest version of the programs in their possession. In such cases, users download the latest software files free of charge or for a fee from a server on the Internet and install the downloaded files into their computers. This allows the users to make use of the updated software as soon as its latest feature are made available.
To install software into a computer requires storing the programs and data constituting the software in question onto a storage medium (e.g., magnetic recording medium) under control of an operating system (OS) while concurrently setting the environment of the OS. Many programs include a dedicated installer program that deals with the complicated steps of setting the environment of the OS upon software installation.
The installer program is a program which, when run by the computer, causes it to establish various settings preparatory to executing the application software in question. When thus run, the installer program specifically causes the computer to copy program and data files to suitable locations on the storage medium as well as to create folders where appropriate on the medium. The installer program also causes the computer to set the environment of the OS. By having the computer run the installer, the user can let the computer take over diverse tasks such as storing the program and setting the operation environment at the same time.
Most software products do not function on a standalone basis; they almost always cooperate with other programs and hardware elements in carrying out their functions. It follows that updating any given software product must be consistent with the functionality of other related programs. Illustratively, an updated OS may leave some application programs inoperable in its new environment. Furthermore, the licensing agreement of some applications does not allow them to be installed under the renewed OS.
Conventionally, checks on the consistency between the cooperative programs often amounted to a burdensome chore that must be done primarily by users. One way to bypass the trouble was by resorting to an installer prompting the computer to install the software in question and to check inter-program consistency. If the consistency was not attained, a warning was issued.
Conventional installers were distributed on the precondition that they be attached to the software they were supposed to install. That meant getting such an installer to verify program consistency required downloading all files constituting the software to be checked. It took time and trouble to do so. If the user was charged for network and telephone connections on an as-used basis, downloading ultimately unusable software added to the loss on the user's part.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and provides an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a storage medium for determining whether or not to permit software installation prior to acquisition of the software in question.

Installation software using a setting file to automatically determine if a module is installable and the location of the installation


An electromagnetic sensing apparatus built in a touch screen having at least one soft key is provided, in which a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) has at least one sub-area corresponding to the at least one soft key, a controller has at least one input/output channel and controls electromagnetic sensing of the electromagnetic sensing apparatus, and a loop unit extends from one of the at least one input/output channel, has at least one sub-loop arranged in the at least one sub-area on the PCB, and outputs current induced by an electromagnetic field. Each sub-loop outputs a different output value with respect to the electromagnetic field.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electromagnetic sensing apparatus built in a touch screen having at least one soft key, and more particularly, to an electromagnetic sensing apparatus for sensing an external input from a user by sensing ElectroMagnetic Resonance (EMR).
2. Description of the Related Art
Extensive research has recently been conducted on smart phones and touch screens. A user can input a specific command to a smart phone or a touch screen by selecting a specific position or icon on the display of the smart phone or touch screen with a user's body part or an EMR pen.
The former scheme can be implemented in a capacitive type. In general, a capacitive touch screen includes transparent electrodes and condensers. As the user touches the touch screen, a mechanical displacement may be caused to the space or area of a built-in condenser. The touch may be sensed based on the resulting changed capacity of the condenser.
However, the capacitive type requires a specific pressure or displacement caused by a user's touch, thereby resulting in user inconvenience. In this context, EMR is a recent active study area.
An EMR type controls generation of electromagnetic waves by flowing current through a loop coil disposed on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and controls absorption of the electromagnetic waves into an EMR pen. The EMR pen may include a condenser and a loop and emit the absorbed electromagnetic waves in a specific frequency.
The electromagnetic waves emitted from the EMR pen may be absorbed again into the loop coil of the PCB so that a position near to the EMR pen can be determined based on the absorbed electromagnetic waves.
FIGS. 1A, 1B and 1C illustrate a conventional EMR scheme.
FIG. 1A illustrates a communication device 100 with an electromagnetic sensing apparatus operating in the conventional EMR scheme. Referring to FIG. 1A, the communication device 100 may include a display 110 and soft keys 120.
The display 110 may display information visually to a user. The display 110 may operate in either of an EMR scheme and a capacitive scheme.
The soft keys 120 are a type of user interface provided separately from the display 110, which enables the user to intuitively perform basic functions such as back, cancel, menu display control, etc. Conventionally, the soft keys 120 operate only in the capacitive scheme due to limitations on accommodation of capacitive sensors and EMR sensors arranged under transparent electrodes. Soft keys having EMR sensors built in them have not been specified yet.
FIG. 1B illustrates a plurality of loops 131 to 134 arranged in the display 110. Referring to FIG. 1B, the plurality of loops 131 to 134 may be arranged overlapping with each other. When the user places an EMR pen close to a specific position, the loops 131 to 134 may sense an electromagnetic field from the EMR pen.
Referring to FIG. 1C, each of the loops 131 to 134 may output current induced by the sensed electromagnetic field. A loop nearer to the EMR pen may sense a large-amplitude electromagnetic wave and emit induced current corresponding to the sensed electromagnetic wave. Therefore, induced current with different magnitudes may be output as illustrated in FIG. 1C.
A microprocessor of the communication device 100 may determine a peak by interpolating the magnitudes of the output induced current and thus may determine a user-input position on the display.
Since only the capacitive scheme is adopted for the soft keys 120, the user should input commands by touching the soft keys 120 with his or her body part.
If channels are added to sense EMR on the soft keys 120, the numbers of channels and coils are increased. As a result, a control circuit increases in size, causing an increase in production cost.

Electromagnetic resonance sensing apparatus using small number of channels


A method for readers of standard-length articles in magazines, newspapers, or similar printed media to purchase supplemental information on portions of information in the articles from publishers that print the articles, operators of electronic databases containing the supplemental information, or third party intermediaries handling requests for supplemental information. Embedded in the midst of the printed articles is a code that is physically positioned to identify a limited portion of information in the printed article. A reader may use the code to indicate further interest in supplemental information located in an electronic database, and to select a method of delivery whereby the supplemental information in the database can be delivered the reader.

A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic commerce and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for the online sale and distribution of information corresponding to portions of printed articles.
B. Description of the Related Art
Publishers of newspapers, magazines, and the like that gather and distribute information waste tremendous amounts of information daily by not distributing some of the information due to limitations on the space available for a particular article or story. They invest vast amounts of money and time in gathering the information. As the space limitations increase, however, those investments in information gathering fail to provide an adequate return because much of the information cannot be used. In other words, if the publishers cannot include information in the media for which they receive compensation from readers, they are unable to capitalize on the expenditures associated with gathering that information. There is thus a need for techniques to permit the publishers to obtain a return on the enormous investment associated with the gathering of information that they cannot currently include in the media for which they receive compensation.
Computer online services provide the basis of a growing market for electronic commerce and, in particular, the sale of information. Perhaps the best known example of this is the Lexis/Nexis.RTM. service that controls terabytes of data contained in hundreds of databases, and makes the data available for sale.
Until recently, access to online services was relatively expensive, both due to high access charges and high equipment costs. As a result, online information purchases were primarily practiced by corporate, government and professional users. The dramatic success of consumer online services such as America Online and CompuServe, as well as the explosive growth of the Internet, now makes information sales to millions of consumers a potentially viable and profitable market. Though problems remain with the ability of websites to levy charges for small packets of information, millions of consumers already use online services to tap into databases and find useful information stored within them.
Many companies possess large amounts of information as an integral part of their business. Naturally, these companies are always searching for new ways to derive revenue from that information. In much the same way that telephone companies have learned to derive substantial directory assistance revenues simply by providing "pay-per-lookup" access to their databases of customers and associated telephone numbers, companies who have large storehouses of data want to design practical systems for selling access to such data.
The desire to capitalize on the value locked within their information base is especially important to companies who collect, edit, package and distribute data as their primary business purpose, such as the news media. Due to advances in computer technology, news organizations store almost all written information gathered as part of the news process in digital form on computer systems with substantial storage capacities. Frequently, news organizations also store audio and visual information, such as tape recordings, pictures, and video, related to a given story in digital databases.
Moreover, searching online databases is now an integral part of the research done in the preparation of news story. Reporters worldwide, whether they work for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, wire services or radio or TV stations, typically use computers to gather and evaluate relevant information for eventual editing and dissemination.
Computers make it fast, easy, and inexpensive to gather and store large amounts of material relevant to a single story. As a result, most companies who collect and distribute editorial information, such as news stories, generate at great expense far more finished material than they disseminate in the "news-hole" for that particular story. It is axiomatic that the total information gathered for a given story always far exceeds the standard-length or space allocated for the distribution of the story. Writers, and more frequently editors, must cut and condense each story in a never ending battle to make it fit within the finite amount of available space. The space can take the form of air time, as is the case for TV and radio, or column inches on a printed page, as is the case with magazines, newspapers, newsletters, etc.
Information gathered and not published for a given story can best be characterized as surplus information. For typical news media, such surplus information has little value beyond simply storing it in an archive for possible future use.
For online services, however, the situation of surplus information is very different. Because online services have a "news-hole" limited solely by electronic storage space, and because the cost to store information in digital format is extremely low, online services can provide access to the total information they gather on a given story and derive revenue from the total story. Online services have no surplus information that they have paid to gather but cannot at least attempt to sell. Their only economic limitation is the number of subscribers who can find the information and deem it valuable.
Users of online services often enjoy a second significant advantage. Typically, hyperlink connections exist within articles stored in databases. These links allow users interested in more information about a specific text passage to jump directly from that passage to another location for relevant information. Thus, online users can create and follow unanticipated paths of information retrieval that allow them to better accomplish their information-gathering objectives.
The subscribers of offline information services are thus at a significant disadvantage compared to users of online services. They lack access to the surplus information and they lack an ability to locate information related to the story they are reading or viewing quickly and easily.
Publishers, specifically those using printed forms of information, have begun to develop limited ways to allow their readers access to supplemental information remotely stored in electronic form. They sometimes provide access via footnote-like codes, such as Internet website addresses. In some cases, publishers derive added revenue by providing access to supplemental information. In other cases, publishers provide access to supplemental information to enhance the total reader value of a media package.
For example, readers of magazines such as Internet World often find website addresses at the end of articles with a notation that readers can visit the websites to learn additional information. In some cases, publishers incorporate the website addresses within the body of the articles, especially when the articles refer to a service which is itself website-based.
Newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal.RTM. produce an electronic version of the newspaper that users can access via the Internet. The primary advantage of this service is that users can retrieve previously published articles.
Wired.RTM. magazine has gone a step further in offering supplemental editorial information to its readers. For example, in a recent article discussing a writer's interview with a specific person, the magazine offered the full text of the interview to subscribers. Computer users with Internet access could visit the Wired.RTM. website for the full text of the interview available at no charge to users. Those without Internet access, however, had no way to access the supplemental information.
Systems currently exist which use indicia, specifically code numbers, that appear on the printed page and provide readers with instructions on how to access supplemental information electronically without the need for a computer, Internet access, or an online connection. For example, an advertisement for medical information produced by Medical Information Line lists various medical topics with associated code numbers. According to this system, the reader calls a special 900 number, enters the code number for the topic of interest, and listens to a three-minute prerecorded article covering the topic. The reader's telephone bill is billed for the cost of the article.
Other forms of advertising, specifically trade magazine advertising, incorporate another form of information request code within their advertisements. These code numbers, assigned by the magazine in which the advertisement appears, are so-called reader service numbers. A reader selects from a list of such numbers on a special postcard in the magazine and mails the postcard to the publisher who notifies each of the selected advertisers that the reader desires more information.
Fax-on-demand services provide a faster version of a reader service system. With fax-on-demand, a reader can call a telephone number in an advertisement and indicate a desire to have additional information immediately sent to him at a telephone number designated for a facsimile machine. In some cases, the reader can navigate lists of possible choices using an interactive voice response unit (IVRU) to specify products or services about which he is interested in receiving more information.
Individual Inc. offers another type of service where a one- or two-page document containing a few dozen news article abstracts is faxed to subscribers each day. The abstracts are based on search parameters set by the subscriber. A service scans tens of thousands of articles each day to select those articles that, based on their keyword content, might be of interest to the subscriber. A code number appended to the end of each abstract provides the subscriber access to the complete article. To obtain the article, the subscriber merely calls a telephone number, and enters an ID code and the code number for the abstract of interest. The service then sends the article by facsimile machine and, in some cases, charges the user an additional cost for complete article.
Fortune magazine provides a similar advertising-driven, fax-on-demand service that enables subscribers to obtain company information. Subscribers can call a telephone number and request company information, SEC filings, or certain articles on any of thousands of public companies. The service then immediately sends the requested information to the reader by facsimile machine. The reader must know only the company's stock ticker symbol in order to be able to use this type of IVRU-based system to identify and request the information he seeks.
Classified advertisement audio codes are another way to receive supplemental information. Some newspapers allow consumers who place classified personal advertisements to record a brief message for anyone who wants to listen. Each classified advertisement includes a printed code number that the reader keys into his telephone after calling an IVRU system at the newspaper. The newspapers typically charge the advertiser an additional fee for using this enhanced service.
These systems can be classified into four categories: (1) advertisers who incorporate code numbers in advertisements that readers use to request certain information at no charge; (2) advertisers who incorporate code numbers to allow readers to purchase information; (3) editorial information that allows the reader to purchase the full text of an abstract which was originally provided; (4) editorial information for which supplemental information is provided free. All of these system share the same disadvantage. Specifically, they fail to provide a simple and economical facility for publishers to distribute and to derive added revenue for supplemental information related to printed information.
It is therefore desirable to seek techniques that can provide those that gather information for newspapers, magazines, and the like to distribute and to benefit financially from the distribution of surplus information related to information appearing in print and other media. Such gatherers typically have limited space to disseminate information via traditional avenues such as print media This limitation may be due primarily to the cost of the particular media, although production costs may also play a role. As a result, information gatherers currently waste the surplus information by not disseminating it and reaping financial benefits associated with distributing information in available media.

Method and apparatus for distributing supplemental information related to printed articles

Walker Asset Management Limited Partnership


The present invention provides an indium-doped Co4Sb12 skutterudite composition in which some Co on the cubic lattice structure may be replaced with one or more members of the group consisting of Fe, Ni, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ir and Pt; some Sb on the planar rings may be replaced by one or more members of the group consisting of Si, Ga, Ge and Sn; and a second dopant atom is selected from a member of the group consisting of Ca, Sc, Zn, Sr, Y, Pd, Ag, Cd, Ba, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu. The composition is useful as a thermoelectric material. In preferred embodiments, the composition has a figure of merit greater than 1.0. The present invention also provides a process for the production of the composition, and thermoelectric devices using the composition.

Thermoelectrics is involved with thermoelectric converters, which cause the generation of electric power by the Seebeck effect and refrigeration by the Peltier effect. The performance of thermoelectric conversion materials is evaluated by ZT (the figure of merit), which is expressed by the equation ZT=σS2T/κ where σ, S, κ and T are the electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity and absolute temperature, respectively, of the material. Materials with a large Seebeck coefficient and high electrical conductivity, but low thermal conductivity are desired.
As of today, the thermoelectric materials most commonly in use, such as alloys of Bi2Te3, have ZT values that seldom, if ever, exceed 1. They operate with poor Carnot efficiency of about 10% when compared to compressor-based refrigerators.
Akai et al in Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Thermoelectrics (1998, pages 105-108) characterizes indium-doped cobalt antimonide produced by a solid phase reaction followed by hot-pressing. Although these materials have been used as thermoelectric materials with some effect, a need remains for thermoelectric materials having better properties.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,369,314 discloses semiconductor materials, such as skutterudite structures, useful in fabricating thermoelectric devices that are composed in part of doped cobalt antimonide compositions.
As a result of the search for improved thermoelectric materials, a composition is proposed in this invention in which cobalt antimonide is doped with indium and a second dopant. It is found that the compositions of this invention have properties making them desirable for use as thermoelectric materials.

High performance thermoelectric materials and their method of preparation


A method for making a pontoon for a pontoon boat and the pontoon made from the method. The method having an initial step of providing a sheet metal strip that has a width and a length. The strip is then formed longitudinally through successive rollers to provide a central portion having a closed cross section in which the lateral edges of the strip meet. After this stage of the process, end caps are formed at each end of the central portion. Typically, one of the end caps is a nose cone that is pointed and cuts the water as the boat moves forward. The end caps may be formed independently and separately of the strip or may be formed from material at the end of the formed strip.

Pontoon boats are a popular watercraft, and making the pontoons for them has been accomplished by several methods. Whichever method of making a pontoon is used, a pontoon will generally have a straight central portion that comprises most of the length of the pontoon, an end cap that will be a blunt cap attached to the back end of the central portion, and a tapered portion forming a nose cone attached to the front end of the central portion that cuts the water as the boat moves forward. A former method for making pontoons consisted of roll forming short pieces of sheet metal laterally to make short cylinders, and welding a number of short cylinders to make a central portion. In so doing, a number of circumferential welds were produced where each cylinder was welded to an adjacent cylinder. In addition to the welds in the central portion, the end cap and nose cone also require circumferential welds. All of the circumferential welds are potential leak points. If a weld is incomplete or has porosity, water can enter the interior of the pontoon. The circumferential welds also add drag since they are raised relative to the smooth portions of the pontoon.
A more advanced method of making pontoons having fewer circumferential welds is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,644,229. In this patent, a single piece of sheet metal is inserted into rollers and rolled laterally to form a cylindrical central portion. The central portion made by this method has no circumferential welds between its ends. The length of the cylindrical central portion formed in this process is limited to the width of the rollers. The shape of the central portion produced is also limited to a circular or oval shape due to the configuration of the rollers. Another drawback to this process is that the rollers will bow outward during the rolling process, and the bowing is greater in proportion to longer lengths of the rollers. When the rollers bow, this will produce a central portion that is slightly bowed, which is detrimental to the performance of the pontoon in the water. Ideally a pontoon would be straight along its length and have no circumferential welds below the waterline.

Roll formed pontoon and method of manufacture


The objective of this invention is to provide an apparatus for forming a stable arrangement of bottles so they can be moved on an inline conveyor system. This is accomplished by an apparatus for nesting bottles comprising a first conveyor having lanes of bottles, and a second conveyor, wherein a fixed number of bottles from each lane is released from each lane in a staggered arrangement to facilitate nesting of the released bottles and then pushing and guiding the released bottles from the first conveyor onto a second conveyor so that the bottles form a nested bundle.

In the prior art, bottles are conventionally place on a tray to provide stability so the bottles can be transported to a film wrapping station. The use of tray requires additional machinery to place the bottles on the tray as well as the tray itself The prior art has recognized the need to provide a more stable structure for moving a collection of bottles on a conveyor. The prior art has formed nested bottles using small bottles. These bottles are positioned into a nested arrangement by pushing them onto a conveyor from the side of the conveyor. This technique to form the nested structure produces slow operational speeds. The maximum effective speed that could be achieved was less then about 5 bundles per minutes. Usually the operational speed was about 2 bundles per minute. The term bottle includes any cylindrical structure, such as a can, that can be utilized with this invention.


A valve operating system for an engine is provided. The system includes first and second detent mechanisms for holding a cam element at a first position when the cam element is shifted to one side in camshaft directions, and at a second position when the cam element is shifted to the other side. The detent mechanisms include first and second detent cams and first and second pushing members, respectively. The first detent cam includes first and second grooves and a first top portion. The second detent cam includes third and fourth grooves and a second top portion. The first and second grooves have inclining portions extending from the first top portion toward bottoms thereof, inclining with respect to the camshaft directions, respectively. The third and fourth grooves have inclining portions extending from the second top portion toward bottoms thereof, inclining with respect to the camshaft directions, respectively.

The present invention relates to a valve operating system for an engine, which includes a cylindrical cam element and switches, by shifting the cam element in one of two camshaft directions, a cam for opening and closing a valve between two valve-opening-and-closing cams which are provided to the cam element coupled to a camshaft in its rotational direction and fitted to be able to shift (move) in the camshaft directions.
Conventionally, a type of valve operating systems for engines is known, which is provided with a plurality of cams having nose portions in different shapes for each valve, and switches an opening degree and open and close timings of at least one of intake and exhaust valves by selecting the cam for opening and closing the valve among the plurality of cams, according to an operating state of the engine.
For example, US2011/0226205A1 discloses a valve operating system. The valve operating system includes a cam element. An end face cam for shifting the cam element is formed in each end face of the cam element in the camshaft directions. A switching member for engaging with one of the end face cams is provided on each of both sides of the cam element in the camshaft directions. The valve operating system switches the cam for opening and closing the valve by actuating the switching member(s) to engage with the end face cams and shifting the cam element in one of the camshaft directions. Moreover, US2011/0226205A1 discloses that the cam element is held at a predetermined position by a detent mechanism.
Each of the end face cams provided to both end faces of the cam element has a protruding portion, and the protruding portion protrudes in one of the camshaft directions from the corresponding end face of the cam element so as to shift (move) the cam element in the corresponding camshaft direction. The valve operating system provided with such a cam element has a disadvantage in that the length of the cam element in the camshaft directions is long, which causes the length of the entire camshaft to be long, particularly in a multi-cylinder inline engine, because a plurality of cam elements are aligned on either one of a camshaft for intake valves and a camshaft for exhaust valves.
It can be considered to shorten a protruding length of each protruding portion of the end face cam in the corresponding camshaft direction as much as possible as a solution for this disadvantage; however, if the protruding length of the protruding portion is shortened, the cam element cannot be shifted enough, and the cam for opening and closing the valve may not be able to surely be switched.
The present invention is made in view of the above situations and reduces the length of a valve operating system in the camshaft directions as much as possible by shortening protruding lengths of protruding portions of end face cams provided to both end faces of a cam element within an extent that a valve-opening-and-closing cam can be surely switched.


An exercise device (10) has foot supports (30, 32) on which a user stands for performing a stair stepping exercise alone, or a cross country skiing exercise alone, or simultaneously a stair stepping exercise and a cross country skiing exercise. Linkage support frames (26, 28) each have a first linkage (44) and a second linkage (36) pivotally connected to each other for maintaining foot supports (30, 32) in a horizontal plane. A fluid cylinder (52) provides a mechanism for resisting the vertical movement of the foot supports (30, 32). Manually gripped poles (60) are mounted to move in coordination with generally horizontal movement of foot supports (30, 32). Separate embodiments of the invention are shown in FIGS. 5-13 for performing simultaneously a stair stepping exercise and a cross country skiing or walking exercise. An alternative preferred embodiment of the invention which may be folded downwardly for low vertical profile storage is illustrated in FIG. 14.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an exercise device. More particularly, the invention concerns an exercise device permitting a user to perform alternatively a stair stepping exercise or a cross country skiing exercise, or simultaneously to perform a stair stepping exercise and a cross country skiing exercise.
2. Description of Prior Art
Heretofore, various exercise devices have been provided to permit a user to perform a stair stepping exercise which simulates the climbing of stairs. Also, various exercise devices have been provided to permit a user to perform a cross country skiing exercise which simulates cross country skiing. However, none of the exercise devices heretofore have permitted in a single exercise machine, the simultaneous performance of a stair stepping exercise and a cross country skiing exercise. No prior exercise device has allowed a user to change the exercise he is doing while on the machine from stair climbing to cross country skiing to a bicycle-like motion to a backward walk motion, all without mechanical adjustment of the machine.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,970,302 dated Jul. 20, 1976, shows an exercise device in which a pair of foot supports are mounted for movement along an inclined track to simulate stair climbing. A pair of shock absorbers connected to the foot supports resist downward movement resulting from a downward force exerted by the feet of a user and provide upward return movement of the foot supports to a predetermined position. There is no showing of an exercise movement simulating cross country skiing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,666 dated Aug. 11, 1987, likewise shows an exercise device to simulate a climbing or stair stepping motion, but such exercise device does not provide a cross country skiing exercise.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,858 dated Mar. 29, 1988, shows a multi-purpose exercise device which may be utilized to perform various exercises. The device is used in a first position to practice climbing such as climbing steps. The device is adjusted to a second position to simulate a skating motion. There is no provision for performing a climbing exercise and a skating exercise simultaneously with the device remaining in one position.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,442 dated Mar. 19, 1990, shows a cross country ski simulator in which foot supports are mounted for generally horizontal back and forth movement with manually gripped handles controlling the movement of the foot supports and providing a resistance to the movement of the foot supports. Such ski simulator does not provide a simulated climbing or stair stepping exercise performed simultaneously with the cross country skiing exercise.


A tub drain overflow test system employs a kit with a connecting pipe with a front cylindrical portion having an inner threading and an intermediate annular flange coaxial with the front cylindrical portion. The front cylindrical portion extends through an overflow hole of a tub so that the annular flange, optionally with a seal ring, abuts the rear surface of the tub wall. A test cap has outer threading that mates with inner threading of the front cylindrical portion. The test cap has an annular flange and a breakaway test seal with a projecting grip tab. The test cap has an inner lip that provides a catch for inwardly extending tabs on a fixture to attach. The test cap allows the overflow drain to be tested. A seal portion is removed to provide access to the opening and the finishing fixture is mounted in place.

In tubs, such as bathtubs, finished closure valves in the bottom of tubs and finished fixtures over the overflow outlets at the end of the tub are typically installed at the end of a project. This is to preserve these elements from damage during construction. It is important to check piping for both of the outlets for leaks before completion of the inspection process. This test involves running water down a vent attached to the drain until the water reaches a level above the tub and determining whether any of the piping leaks. In order for the test operation to be performed, a plug is usually inserted into the bottom drain of the tub and a sealing member (i.e., a fixture or similar) is placed on the overflow outlet opening.
Existing overflow fixtures define a center opening therein and may be fit with screw openings in the fixture to hold the fixture to the plumbing fixture. As mentioned, seal fixtures are known options for sealing the opening for testing. Some seal fixtures must be mechanically removed after testing and prior to attachment of an aesthetic decorative fixture on the outside. Other overflow systems exist that provide for attachment of the decorative fixture via engagement over the outer surface of a member securing the piping to the tub, which can present drawbacks in terms of robustness of attachment.
It would be useful to have a tub drain kit for an overflow opening that upon installation cures the above noted deficiencies.


A circuit and method to reduce jitter and/or noise in a phase-locked loop (PLL). A voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) control signal is tapped and filtered to create a low-noise, filtered VCO control signal. The filtered and unfiltered control signals are individually weighted and then combined to create a modified VCO control signal which reduces the jitter and/or the noise by reducing an effect of VCO gain on the jitter and/or the noise.

Jitter is an important performance parameter in a phase-locked loop (PLL). Jitter is a variation in signal timing and is caused in part by random noise. One source of random noise is resistance in the PLL's loop filter. This random noise is converted to timing jitter by the PLL's voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Too much PLL jitter and/or noise can dominate the signal being processed and even cause eye closure in some cases. The result is that the PLL will not accurately track an input signal.
One method to reduce jitter is to reduce the loop filter resistance. However, reducing the loop filter resistance causes an undesirable effect of increasing PLL bandwidth. Greatly increasing a loop filter capacitance counters the loop bandwidth increases. Unfortunately, increasing loop filter capacitance in an integrated loop filter requires inefficient use of a large area on a die.
Reducing VCO gain also lowers PLL jitter. The VCO gain is a change in a VCO output frequency for a change in a VCO control voltage (Vc). The following equation determines the VCO gain:
      K    vco    =            Δ                                      VCO                                      Output                                      Frequency              Δ                                      VCO                                      Control                                      Voltage      Thus, lowering the VCO output frequency range and/or increasing the VCO control voltage range reduces VCO gain. However, constraints imposed by modern circuit frequency and power supply voltage requirements limit reducing the VCO gain. High frequency requirements of modern circuits limit reducing the VCO output frequency range. A low-frequency range VCO simply does not meet needs of modern circuits. Furthermore, increasing the VCO control voltage range is limited by power supply voltage requirements imposed by ever-shrinking integrated circuit process feature size. As the process feature size decreases, maximum power supply voltage also decreases, therefore reducing the VCO control voltage range. Thus, reducing the loop filter resistance is typically preferred to reducing the VCO gain to lower the PLL jitter.
What is needed is an apparatus and method to reduce the PLL jitter with minimal area increase, minimal impact on the PLL bandwidth, and/or low power consumption, as well as overcoming other shortcomings noted above.

Apparatus and method to reduce jitter in a phase locked loop


The instant invention relates to the manufacture and/or repair of trailer and truck decks or similar. In particular, the invention relates to the installation of self tapping screws into pre-drilled holes or the installation of self drilling, self tapping screws where no hole yet exists. The machine has a cross beam with rails for a wheeled carriage which supports a linear actuator for an automatic screwdriver or, in another variation, a screw driving machine with an integral linear actuator. This wheeled carriage facilitates the movement of the screwdriver in a straight line in the X direction, laterally, across the deck, while wheeled trucks on the cross beam allow it, along with the carriage, to be moved in the Y direction, longitudinally, down the length of the deck. The actuator moves the screwdriver axially (Z direction) with each installation of a screw. Said movement is facilitated by a linear actuating device, such as a pneumatic cylinder. Because the cross beam is positioned parallel to a row of holes which have been drilled by a drilling device on the same or a similar cross beam, the operator, or other facility for X or lateral positioning, is relieved of the need to position the screw driver in the Y or longitudinal direction. The instant invention positions the screw driver in a plumb orientation, advances the automatic screwdriver to the work surface and resolves the torque and thrust which results from the application of the screws. It also supports the screw driver the correct height above the deck and facilitates proper countersinking, where desired.

Previously is was necessary to utilize either large and cost prohibitive fixtures or laborious and fatiguing manual techniques for installation of deck screws in truck and trailer decks and the like. Hand held impact wrenches and electric drills required the operator to work on his knees or in a stooped posture. Stand up "T" handle screwdrivers place the operator in a more ergonomic posture, but require a relatively high skill level for the operator to place the screwdriver bit, which is on the end of the long tool, into the head of the screw, which is at his feet. In the case of screwdrivers with an automatic screw feed, similar skill was required to place the end of the screw in the pre-drilled hole. Furthermore, the operator was responsible for (1) keeping the tool plumb, (2) providing adequate down force to keep the screw driver bit engaged with the screw, (3) determining the proper depth or countersinking of the applied screw, and, (4) using muscle power to resolve the considerable torque the tool produces. This demanding process was relatively slow and labor intensive and sometimes results in injuries when the torque of the tool overpowers the operator. Since both hands are required to operate the hand held power screw driver, an expensive screw feeding system must be employed to achieve acceptable levels of production.
Prior art does not provide either the stability, or adaptability, or both, to accommodate a wide variety of situations, particularly considering the relatively large size of the floor screws used in trailer and truck bed decking and the large surface area to which those screws are applied.
The instant invention addresses all of the aforementioned problems through the use of mechanical means, including linear motion slides and pneumatic power.


Embodiments of compositions and methods for the treatment of blood disorders and malignancies in a subject are described herein. In one embodiment, a composition for the treatment of a blood disorder or a malignancy in a subject comprises decitabine, tetrahydrouridine, and an excipient. In another embodiment, a method for the treatment of a blood disorder or a malignancy in a subject comprises the oral administration of a composition comprising decitabine and tetrahydrouridine. In some examples, the composition may be administered 1-3 times weekly.

SCD is a serious congenital disease which affects 1 in 500 African-Americans, as well as individuals of other racial backgrounds, exacting a substantial toll in morbidity and mortality upon the approximately 100,000 Americans afflicted. SCD patients can have frequent episodes of severe, debilitating pain, often requiring emergency room visits or hospitalization, and time off from work or school. Although some patients respond to hydroxyurea (HU, the standard treatment for symptomatic patients), and a few may be candidates for allogeneic stem cell transplantation, most patients continue to suffer. Furthermore, HU is used at doses that cause acute DNA damage and cytotoxicity, and has potential genotoxic, teratogenic and anti-fertility effects. Similarly, allogeneic stem cell transplantation is performed with cytotoxic conditioning and attendant risks of treatment-related mortality.
A clinical research effort to develop pharmacologic inducers of HbF expression culminated in FDA approval of the anti-metabolite HU to treat symptomatic SCD in 1998. A recent follow-up of patients enrolled in the pivotal HU trial confirmed that a decreased risk of mortality in these patients correlates with HbF levels (Steinberg, M. H., et al. 2003 JAMA 289: 1645-1651; Rosse, W. F., et al. 2000 Am Soc Hematol Educ Program 217). However, HbF levels are not increased in approximately 40% of HU compliant patients (Steiberg, M. H., et al. 1997 Blood 89: 1078-1088; Steinberg, M. H., et al. 1999 Expert Opin Investig Drugs 8:1823-1836; Atweh, G. F., et al. 2001 Curr Opin Hematol 8:123-130). Finally, HU is used at DNA-damaging, cytotoxic doses, potentially compounding the bone marrow damage that accumulates in SCD.
Most cells in the body, including cancer cells or blood disorder cells, such as sickle cells, contain the same complement of genes. The function and specialization of a cell is, therefore, determined by which of these genes are turned-on (activated), and which are turned-off (repressed). Activation refers to the expression of the protein encoded by the gene, while repression of the gene implies that the protein encoded by that gene is expressed at lower levels or not at all. DNA methyl-transferase 1 (DNMTI) is an enzyme which plays a critical and central role in the machinery that represses genes. Therefore, altering the levels of DNMTI within a cell can have powerful effects on the pattern of gene-expression, function and specialization of a cell.
Decitabine (5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine) is a nucleoside analogue drug—a drug that mimics a natural component of DNA. Decitabine is relatively unique amongst the large family of nucleoside analogue drugs in that it can irreversibly bind to and deplete DNMTI.
Cytidine deaminase (CAD) is an enzyme that is highly expressed in the liver and intestine and rapidly destroys decitabine within the body. Tetrahydrouridine (THU) is a safe and well-tolerated pyrimidine nucleoside analogue that inhibits cytidine deaminase. In humans, the cytidine deaminase gene is subject to non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms which produce variants of cytidine deaminase that have differences in enzymatic activity of 3-fold or more (Gilbert, J. A., et al. 2006 Clin Cancer Res 12, 1794-1803; Kirch, H. C., et al. 1998 Exp Hematol 26, 421-425; Yue, L., et al. 2003 Pharmacogenetics 13, 29-38).

Compositions comprising decitabine and tetrahydrouridine and uses thereof

The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois


A system for programming aircraft galley inserts via tags disposed around the galley includes a tag reader. Such tags may include RFID tags, QR codes, etc., or some combination thereof, and the tag reader comprises an optical sensor, near field communication device, or other RFID reader. The system utilizes the tags to identify the insert's location in the galley, available communications infrastructure and other properties of the galley, and other configurable aspects of the galley insert, and sets internal configurations accordingly. The system may be in data communication with an external processor. The system utilizes the tag, and communicates with the processor to determine a system configuration based on the tag.

Aircraft galley inserts, such as ovens, need to be configured according to their location in the galley and other aspects of the galley configuration. Existing galley inserts are configured via "pin programming" (physically changing electrical connections on the galley insert), firmware/setting updates, etc. Those systems are expensive and not widespread on aircraft. Aircraft have variable galley architectures, and most aircraft are unsuitable to existing programming techniques.