An adder that can detect the generation of overflow at a high speed. Carry signal c14 from the 15th digit to the 16th digit in the result of addition from the 1st digit to the 16th digit of the input data is generated on the basis of bit signals (a0-a15, b0-b15) for the portion from the 1st digit to the 15th digit of the input data, and of carry signal CIN input to the 1st digit, and it is output from CLA 204. Then, carry signal c15 from the 16th digit to the 17th digit is generated based on said generated carry signal c14 and bit signals (a15, b15) of the 16th digit of the input data, and this is output from CIA 205. Exclusive-NOR circuit 206 then operates on said carry signals c14 and c15, and overflow detection signal OVF16 is generated.

Usually, DSP (digital signal processors) and other processors have an arithmetic logic operation device (arithmetic logic unit: ALU) for performing arithmetic operations (addition, multiplication, etc.) and logic operations (bit inversion, bit shift, etc.). The various types of arithmetic operations performed by an ALU are based on the addition operation, and they make use of the addition operation results. Usually, the ALU adder has a function for detecting whether overflow occurs in the addition result. When overflow is detected, the ALU performs processing to forcibly correct the output to a prescribed value (such as positive maximum value or a negative minimum value).
Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. Hei 7-182141 describes a technology pertaining to an operation device that performs said overflow correction. The prior art of adders having an overflow detecting function will be explained in the following.
For the adder to be explained below, 40-bit signals [a0, . . . a39] and [b0, . . . b39] as well as carry signal CIN to the least significant digit (first digit) are input, and a 40-bit signal [s0, . . . s39] is output as the addition result. Also, said adder has two operating modes, that is, a 40-bit mode and a 32-bit mode. In addition, it has a conventional mode and a dual mode in each of said operating modes. In the 40-bit mode, the adder performs addition operations with the 40th digit as the most significant digit. Also, it outputs overflow detection signal OVF as the signal indicating the presence/absence of overflow in the addition operation, with the 40th digit taken as the sign digit. On the other hand, in the 32-bit mode, the addition operation is performed with the 32nd digit as the most significant digit. In this case, said overflow detection signal OVF is output as the signal indicating the presence/absence of overflow in the addition operation with the 32nd digit taken as the sign digit.
In the conventional mode, the adder performs only the addition operation from the first digit to the most significant digit (that is, the 40th digit in the 40-bit mode, or the 32nd digit in the 32-bit mode). In the dual mode, the addition operation from the first digit to the 16th digit and the addition operation from the 17th digit to the most significant digit are performed in parallel. In the dual mode of the adder, carry signal CIN for the addition operation of the less significant side (1st-16th digits) is input as the carry to the least significant digit, and carry signal Cdual is input for the addition operation of the more significant side (17th to most significant digits). Also, overflow detection signal OVF16 is output as the signal indicating the presence/absence of overflow in the addition operation of the less significant side, with the 16th digit taken as the sign digit.
FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an example of the constitution of the circuit for generating overflow detection signal OVF16 of the less significant 16 digits in the dual mode in said adder. The circuit shown in FIG. 12 has the following circuits: carry generating signal output circuits 1, . . . 4, 11, 12, carry propagation signal output circuits 5, . . . 10, selectors 13 and 14, carry select adder (hereinafter to be referred to as CSA) 15 and exclusive-NOR circuit 16.
Overflow detection signal OVF16 is a signal that is "0" when overflow occurs and is "1" when overflow does not occur in the addition result for input data in the two's complement form, with the 16th digit taken as the sign digit in the dual mode, and it is represented by the following operation:
[Mathematical Equation 1]OVF16= c14⊕c15  (1)
Here, carry signal ci (where i represents an integer in the range of 0-39) indicates the carry from the (i+1)th digit to the (i+2)th digit. In the circuit shown in FIG. 12, when said overflow detection signal OVF16 is computed, carry signals c11 and c15 are first computed using the carry look-ahead system. In the circuit shown in FIG. 12, the portion composed of carry generating signal output circuits (1-4, 11, 12), carry propagation signal output circuits (5-10) and selectors (13, 14) is the carry look-ahead circuit that generates carry signals C11 and C15. This carry look-ahead circuit generates the intermediate carry generating signal and the carry propagation signal in two separate steps, and finally obtains carry signals (C11, C15).
Carry signals C11 and C15 are represented by the following equations, respectively:
                    [                  Mathematical                                                              equation                                                              2                ]                                                                      c                                                              11                =                  p                                                              11          ×          p                                                              10                                                              …          ×          p                                                              0          ×          CIN                                    (        2        )                                                                                p                                                                          11            ×            p                                                                          10            ×            …            ×            p                                                                          1            ×            g                                                                          0                    +                                                                                p                                                              11          ×          p                                                              10          ×          …          ×          p                                                              2          ×          g                                                              1                                                                                ⋮          +                                                                                p                                                                          11            ×            g                                                                          10                    +                                                                                g                                                              11                                                                              c                                                              15                =                              p                                                                          15            ×            p                                                                          14                                                                          …            ×            p                                                                          0            ×            CIN                    +                                    (        3        )                                                                                p                                                                          15            ×            p                                                                          14            ×            …            ×            p                                                                          1            ×            g                                                                          0                    +                                                                                p                                                              15          ×          p                                                              14          ×          …          ×          p                                                              2          ×          g                                                              1                                                                                ⋮          +                                                                                p                                                                          15            ×            g                                                                          14                    +                                                                                g                                                              15
Here, symbols pi and gi represent the carry propagation signal and carry generating signal of the (i+1)th digit, respectively, and they are represented by the following equations:
[Mathematical Equation 3]pi=ai⊕bi  (4)gi=ai×bi  (5)
Carry generating signal output circuits 1, 2, 3, 4 generate carry generating signals G3_0, G7_4, G11_8, G15_12, respectively.
With regard to carry generating signal G(j+3)_j (where j represents one of the integers 0, 4, 8 or 12), when 4-bit input data [aj, . . . a(j+3)] and [bj, . . . b(j+3)] are added, it is a signal indicating whether carry signal c(j+3) to the more significant digit becomes "1," independent of carry signal C(j−1) (or CIN when j=0) from the less significant digit with respect to said 4 bits. When said signal is "1," carry signal c(j+3) becomes "1" independent of the carry from the less significant digit. Carry generating signal G(j+3)_j is represented by the following equation:
[Mathematical Equation 4]
                                          G                                      (                              j                +                3                            )                                          _j                =                                            p                                            (                                  j                  +                  3                                )                                      ×                          p                                            (                                  j                  +                  2                                )                                      ×                          p                                            (                                  j                  +                  1                                )                                      ×            g                                                                          j                    +                                    p                                            (                                  j                  +                  3                                )                                      ×                          p                                            (                                  j                  -                  2                                )                                      ×                          g                                            (                                  j                  +                  1                                )                                              +                                    p                                            (                                  j                  +                  3                                )                                      ×                          g                                            (                                  j                  +                  2                                )                                              +                      g                                      (                              j                +                3                            )                                                          (        6        )
Carry propagation signal output circuits 5, 6, 7, 8 generate carry propagation signals P3_0, P7_4, P11_8, and P15_12, respectively. With regard to carry propagation signal P(j+3)_j (where j is one of the integers 0, 4, 8, or 12), when 4-bit input data [aj, . . . a(j+3)] and [bj, . . . b(j+3)] are added, it is a signal indicating whether carry signal c(j+3) to the more significant digit changes, depending on carry signal C(j−1) (or CIN when j=0) from the less significant digit with respect to said 4 bits. When said signal is "1," carry signal c(j+3) changes to "1" or "0," depending on the carry from the less significant digit.
Carry propagation signal P(j+3)_j is represented by the following equation:
[Mathematical Equation 5]P(j+3)—j=p(j+3)×p(j+2)×p(j+1)×pj  (7)
Carry propagation signal output circuits 9, 10 generate carry propagation signals P11_0 and P15_0, respectively. Carry propagation signals P11_0 and P15_0 are represented by the following equations, respectively:
[Mathematical Equation 6]
                                                                        P11_                                0                            =                              P11_                                8                ×                P7_                                4                ×                P3_                                0                                                                                =                              p                                                                                11                ×                p                                                                                10                ×                …                ×                p                                                                                0                                                                        (        8        )                                                                                P15_                                0                            =                              P15_                                12                ×                P11_                                8                ×                P7_                                4                ×                P3_                                0                                                                                =                              p                                                                                15                ×                p                                                                                14                ×                …                ×                p                                                                                0                                                                        (        9        )
Carry generating signal output circuits 11, 12 generate carry generating signals G11_0 and G15_0, respectively. Carry generating signals G11_0 and G15_0 are represented by the following equations, respectively:
                    [                  Mathematical                                                              equation                                                              7                ]                                                                      G11_                    0                =                              P11_                        8            ×            P7_                        4            ×            G3_                        0                    +                                    (        10        )                                                                                P11_                        8            ×            G7_                        4                    +                                                                                G11_                    8                                                                                =                                    p                                                                                11              ×              …              ×              p                                                                                1              ×              g                                                                                0                        +                                                                                p                                                              11          ×          …          ×          p                                                              2          ×          g                                                              1                                                                                ⋮          +                                                                                p                                                                          11            ×            g                                                                          10                    +                                                                                g                                                              11                                                                              G15_                    0                =                              P15_                        12            ×            P11_                        8            ×            P7_                        4            ×            G3_                        0                    +                                    (        11        )                                                                                P15_                        12            ×            P11_                        8            ×            G7_                        4                    +                                                                                P15_                        12            ×            G11_                        8                    +                                                                                G15_                    12                                                                                =                                    p                                                                                15              ×              …              ×              p                                                                                1              ×              g                                                                                0                        +                                                                                p                                                              15          ×          …          ×          p                                                              2          ×          g                                                              1                                                                                ⋮          +                                                                                p                                                                          15            ×            g                                                                          14                    +                                                                                g                                                              15
Here, by substituting equations 8 and 10 into equation 2, one obtains carry signal c11 represented by the following equation:
[Mathematical Equation 8]c11=P11—0×CIN+G11—0  (12)
Also, by substituting equations 9 and 11 into equation 3, one obtains carry signal C15 represented by the following equation:
[Mathematical Equation 9]c15=P15—0×CIN+G15—0  (3)
Selector 13 selects and outputs carry generating signal G11_0 when carry propagation signal P11_0 is "0," and it selects and outputs carry signal CIN when carry propagation signal P11_0 is "1." When carry propagation signal P11_0 becomes "1," all the carry generating signals g0-g11 become "0," and carry generating signal G11_0 becomes "0." Consequently, the output signal of selector 13 becomes equal to carry signal c11 shown in equation 12.
Selector 14 selects and outputs carry generating signal G15_0 when carry propagation signal P15_0 is "0," and it selects and outputs carry signal CIN when carry propagation signal P15_0 is "1." Just as was explained above, when carry propagation signal P15_0 becomes "1," carry generating signal G15_0 becomes "0," and the output signal of selector 14 becomes equal to carry signal c15 shown in equation 13.
CSA15 computes beforehand the addition value for each of the 13th-16th digits when carry signal c11 is "1" and "0," and from the two sets of computed addition values, the addition values selected corresponding to the value of carry signal c11 are output as addition results s12-s15. Also, just as in the case of the 15th carry, CSA15 selects one of the two pre-computed values corresponding to the value of carry signal c11, and outputs it as carry signal c14.
Exclusive-NOR circuit 16 computes the exclusive-NOR of carry signal c14 output from CSA15 and carry signal c15 output from selector 14. From the relationship of equation 1, the result of the operation of exclusive-NOR circuit 16 becomes overflow detection signal OVF16.
FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a circuit constitution for the output of carry signal C15A to the 17th digit. The same reference numbers are adopted as those in FIG. 12. Selector 17 selects and outputs carry signal Cdual input from the outside when dual mode assigning signal Mdual is "1," and when Mdual is "0," it selects and outputs carry signal c15 of the less significant 16 digits generated in the circuit shown in FIG. 12. The output signal of selector 17 becomes carry signal C15A to the 17th digit.
FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a circuit constitution for generating overflow detection signal OVF. The circuit shown in FIG. 14 has CSA 18, AND circuit 19, NOR circuit 20, OR circuit 21 and selectors 22 and 23. The circuit shown in FIG. 14 computes overflow detection signal OVF40 of the 40-bit mode and overflow detection signal OVF32 of the 32-bit mode, respectively.
Overflow detection signal OVF40 is a signal that is "0" when overflow occurs in the addition result for input data in the two's complement form, with the 40th digit being taken as the sign digit, and it is "1" when overflow does not occur. It is represented by the following equation:
[Mathematical Equation 10]OVF40= c38⊖c39  (14)
Also, overflow detection signal OVF32 is a signal that is "0" when overflow occurs in the addition result for input data in the two's complement form with the 32nd digit being taken as the sign digit, and it is "1" when overflow does not occur. It is represented by the following equation:
[Mathematical Equation 11]OVF32=(s31×. . . ×s39)+ (s31 +. . . +s39)  (15)
As can be seen from equation 15, in the 32-bit mode, overflow occurs when addition results s31-s39 are neither all "1" nor all "0." For the situations when carry signal c30 is "1" and "0," CSA18 computes beforehand the addition values of the various digits from the 32nd-40th digits, and from the two sets of the addition values computed, the addition values selected corresponding to carry signal c30 are output as addition results s31-s39. Together with said addition values, the pre-computed carries of the 39th digit and 40th digit are used, and when carry signal c30 is "0" and "1," signals SC0 and SC1 for predicting whether overflow of the 40-bit mode occurs are respectively computed.
When carry signal c30 is "0," the computed carry values of the 39th digit and 40th digit are taken as carry signals c38_0 and c39_0, respectively, and when carry signal c30 is "1," the computed carry values of the 39th digit and 40th digit are taken as c38_1 and c39_1, respectively. The overflow prediction signals SC0 and SC1 are respectively represented by the following equations:
[Mathematical Equation 12]SC0= c38—0⊖c39—0  (16)SC1= c38—1⊕c39—1  (17)
Selector 22 takes overflow prediction signals SC0 and SC1 computed by CSA 18 as inputs, outputting prediction signal SC0 when carry signal c30 is "0," and prediction signal SC1 when carry signal c30 is "1." The output signal is input to selector 23 as overflow detection signal OVF40. AND circuit 19 computes the AND of addition results s31-s39 computed by CSA 18. The result has a value equal to the first term on the right hand side of equation 15. NOR circuit 20 computes the NOR of addition results s31-s39 computed by CSA 18. This result has a value equal to the second term on the right-hand side of equation 15. OR circuit 21 computes the OR of the output signals of AND circuit 19 and NOR circuit 20. The result is input to selector 23 as overflow detection signal OVF32. Selector 23 selects one of the two input overflow detection signals OVF32 and OVF40 corresponding to mode assigning signal M40, and outputs it as overflow detection signal OVF.
In the circuit shown in FIG. 12, in order to increase the speed of generating carry signal c15 and overflow detection signal OVF16, the processes for generating the two carry signals c14 and c15 are performed in parallel. That is, carry look-ahead circuits (9, 11) for generating carry signal c14 and carry look-ahead circuits (10, 12) for generating carry signal c15 are independent from each other. Consequently, the capacitive load rises for the former-stage carry look-ahead circuits (1-8) for driving said circuits, the power consumption increases, and the speed of overflow detection signal OVF16 decreases. This is undesirable.
In the circuit shown in FIG. 13, carry generating signal G15_0 that is required to have the highest speed among the signals that generate carry signal c15A has to pass through the two stages of selectors (14, 17) before reaching the output. Consequently, the generation of carry signal c15A becomes slower, and the operating speed drops. This is undesirable.
In addition, in the circuit shown in FIG. 14, after the arrival of carry signal c30 as the most delayed signal, the addition results s31-s39, output signal 0 of AND circuit 19 and NOR circuit 20, the overflow detection signal OVF32 and overflow detection signal OVF are established sequentially. In other words, because the path of carry signal c30 that requires a high speed is long, the speed of overflow detection signal OVF decreases, and this is undesirable.
A general object of the present invention is to solve the problems of the prior art by providing a type of adder that can detect the generation of overflow at high speed.


A system is provided that simulates cartographic features of an electronic map. The system employs one or more geometric shapes, such as a clothoid, to represent cartographic features of the electronic map. The system may more accurately and realistically describe the cartographic features of the map than a straight line system. The system may include a data model and methodology for converting data from a straight line system to a clothoid system. The system may also reduce the amount of memory capacity needed to describe the cartographic features of the electronic map. The electronic map may be displayed on a computer network, such as a wide area network, a local area network, a wireless or wireline network, Intranets or the Internet. This system may also be used with other systems, such as navigation systems.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to mapping cartographic features, and in particular to electronic maps that may be used with navigation systems or displayed on a computer network.
2. Related Art
The use of guidance navigation systems, such as those that use electronic maps to help guide users to their destination is becoming increasingly prevalent. Such guidance navigation systems typically use a medium such as a compact disc (CD) or digital video disc (DVD) to store data relating to the cartographic features of the map, such as streets, buildings, parks and rivers. The coupling of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) data with navigation systems has made use of navigation systems practical for a number of applications. GPS-based navigation systems may be found in a variety of vehicles, as well as in user portable devices.
Known navigation systems typically use electronic maps to represent cartographic features by saving and recalling a series of points connected by straight lines. This type representation, however, includes a number of disadvantages. For example, in reality, roads and rivers are not composed of a series of straight lines, but instead are composed of a series of smooth curves. As a result, a navigation map displaying graphical information to the user on a display unit does not typically show features of map details to a high degree of accuracy. In an attempt to more accurately represent map details, the number of straight line segments used to represent the map details can be increased. However, increasing the number of line segments leads to a large increase in the amount of data that must be stored to accurately represent the features. Therefore, there is a need for mapping system for navigation systems that accurately models and displays information indicative of cartographic features without requiring large amounts of memory.

Harman International Industries, Incorporated


The invention comprises a mounting assembly for an optical sight. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a mounting assembly may comprise a first foot (552) and a second foot (556). The first foot (552) may include a top (563), a first side (570), and a second opposite side (574). The top (563) may have a first tab (566) sized to fit a first recess (568) of a sight (20). The first side (570) may engage a first edge (572) of a rail (562). A first clamp (554) may be coupled to second side (574) of the first foot (552) to engage in combination a second edge (576) of the rail (562). The second foot (556) may include a top (586), a first side (594), and a second opposite side (596). The top (586) may include a tab (590) sized to fit a second recess (592) of the sight (20) substantially normal to the first recess (568). The first side (594) may engage the first edge (572) of the rail (562). A second clamp (558) may be coupled to the second side (596) of the second foot (556) to engage in combination the second edge (576) of the rail (562).

Day/night sights would typically be used by military and law enforcement personnel to aim weapons used in both day time and night time conditions. Typically, a day/night sight includes an objective lens, a reticle and an eyepiece in series with parallel day and night channels. A channel selector may be used to alternatively direct an image of a target into the day or night channel.
In a day/night sight, the objective lens and the eyepiece may be telescopic to provide a magnified image of the target. The day channel generally uses ambient light to generate an image of the target. The image may be projected to the reticle during day time use to be viewed by the user. The night channel generally includes an image intensifier to generate an illuminated image of the target. The illuminated image may be transmitted to the reticle during night time use to be viewed by the user. The reticle may include markings for aiming the weapon.
Day/night and other types of sights are typically mounted to a weapon with integral feet members configured for that specific weapon. Consequently, an adapter must often be used when a sight is mounted onto a weapon for which it was not particularly designed. The adapter is generally mounted directly to the weapon and the sight mounted to the adapter. As a result, adapters generally raise the position of the sight relative to the weapon. The additional spacing between the sight and the weapon may make the sight awkward to use and thus degrade the user's performance with the weapon.


In code division multiple access communications wherein a plurality of data streams carrying a plurality of transmit symbols are spread by a plurality of assigned spread code, the data streams are divided into a plurality of data blocks and a plurality of prefixes in symbol-level are added to the data blocks prior to the data streams being spread and combined for transmission. At the receive side, the prefixes are removed from the received data stream in the time domain and the prefix-removed data stream is converted into a transformed signal in the frequency domain. A feed-forward filter is used to implement a joint equalization and despreading operation by element-by-element multiplications in frequency domain. A feedback filter is used to remove the inter-symbol interference and update the feed-forward filter through a feedback loop.

High bit-rate services such as multimedia transmission will result in frequency-selective fading and inter-symbol interference (ISI). The conventional technique to reduce ISI and the effects of frequency selective fading is to equalize in the time-domain (TD) in W-CDMA, for example. For broadband transmission, the complexity of equalization in TD could be very high because of the large number of channel impulse responses within the spectrum band. Multicarrier (MC) CDMA is an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) scheme which divides the entire bandwidth into multiple narrow-band subcarriers and implements the spreading operation in the frequency domain (FD). See, for example, Hara et al. ("Overview of Multicarrier CDMA", IEEE Communications Magazine, pp. 126–133, December 1997). MC-CDMA is a promising technique to eliminate ISI and the effects of frequency selective fading. Furthermore, it just needs one-tap equalization due to the flat fading in each narrowband subcarrier. However, it has severe disadvantages such as difficulty in subcarrier synchronization and sensitivity to frequency offset and nonlinear amplification. In an MC-CDMA system, Peak-to-Average Ratio (PAR) and frequency offset degrade the system performance.
Single-carrier modulation, which uses broadband equalization in the frequency domain, has been shown to have many advantages over multicarrier modulation. The single-carrier modulation systems have lower peak-to-average power ratio than multicarrier modulation systems. In particular, the single-carrier direct-sequence (DS) CDMA system with cyclic prefix (CP) has been proposed for broadband communications. As shown in FIG. 1, the cyclic prefix (CP) in the conventional CP-CDMA transmitter is added to the W-CDMA signals in the chip level. A plurality of transmitted symbols du[n] are upsampled and filtered by assigned spreading codes Cu[n]. After the power in each code channel is allocated, the spread symbols of different code channels are summed up. Then, a serial-to-parallel converter is used to split the data stream into NK parallel samples. The last L chip samples of the data block are copied and added in front of the data block as CP, as shown in FIG. 2. The CP added data blocks are converted in a single data stream by a parallel-to-serial converter for transmission.
At the receiver side, after CP is removed from the received signal, the signal is converted into a plurality of parallel streams by a serial-to-parallel converter and transformed into frequency domain by FFT (fast Fourier transform) operation, as shown in FIG. 3. The channel is equalized in the frequency domain and the equalized signals is transformed into time domain by IFFT (Inverse FFT). The output of the IFFT is converted to a single data stream by parallel-to-serial conversion and despread. The despread signal is fed to the channel decoder. The detailed description of the conventional CP-CDMA transceiver can be found in Baum et al. ("Cyclic-Prefix CDMA: An Improved Transmission Method for Broadband DS-CDMA Cellular systems" WCNC2002, Vo. 1, pp. 183–188) and Vook et al. ("Cyclic-Prefix CDMA with Antenna Diversity", VTC Spring 2002, IEEE 55th, Vol. 2, pp. 1002–1006).
The CP-CDMA system can be directly applied for current 3G W-CDMA systems by adding CP to the conventional W-CDMA signals in chip level. As such, the required modification on the transmitter side is negligible. However, the major drawback of the CP-CDMA is that the conventional receivers equalize the frequency domain and despread the signal in the time domain separately. Such a system does not give the optimum solution in the MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) criteria.
It is advantageous and desirable to provide a method and device for improving the CP-CDMA system performance.


A planter grid wall is formed by intersecting groups of metal strips, joined together and spaced apart to form a network of open cells. The strips have equal dimensions, with inner edges defining the open ended chamber of the planter, and outer edges defining the planter periphery. The distances between the inner and outer edges is at least one half the size of the cells to facilitate retention of growing medium within the planter. Yet the open cells permit the process steps of aeration of the planting medium and "air pruning" of roots that grow into the cells and out into contact with the surrounding ambient atmosphere. The inner edges also include abrupt sharp corners that engage and mechanically prune the roots, thereby avoiding spiral root growth and encouraging growth of short new root ends. A reflective, insulative coating on the strips aid heating of the plant medium by reflection and prevent conductive and convective heat loss through the strips at night time or in cold conditions.

Potted plants often become "root bound" due to incorrect pot size, or simply due to growth of the plant and the confining nature of the pot walls. To eliminate this problem, larger pots are used, or the plant contained within the pot is transplanted into the ground. The difficulty found in transplanting is that spiral growth of roots may continue in the ground, at least temporarily, thereby reducing potential plant performance, especially in short growing seasons.
It has been found that roots take up nutrients only in the first 2 millimeters of the root tips, so it is important that a root system sprout as many small roots as possible. One avenue for obtaining a maximum number of root tips is accomplished by pruning the roots. Of course this procedure is not readily available to a plant growing naturally in the ground.
Mechanical pruning has been accomplished to a limited degree within specially designed planters. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,442,628; 4,497,132; and 4,716,680 all issued to Whitcomb disclose growth containers which, in some way, are provided to prune roots, either mechanically or by "air pruning." The '680 patent is a mechanical root pruning device with no provision for aeration.
"Air pruning" is a method by which roots may be "pruned" by exposing portions of the root stems to ambient air. Roots exposed to open air abruptly stop growing. Retarded growth in the area influences new root growth in other areas, thereby producing an effect similar to mechanical pruning. Hundreds of secondary or auxiliary roots sprout in place of the "air pruned" root ends. These secondary roots take up nutrients and promote better plant life.
It is advantageous to provide both mechanical and air root pruning while avoiding spiral root growth to maximize the growth and productivity of plants.
German Patent 2,744,143 shows a plant receptacle having a wall configuration with a number of circular apertures formed in the side for permitting outward expansion of roots. The receptacle wall appears to be continuous. The apertures are circular and spaced apart from one another to leave a substantial surface area of the receptacle walls in contact with the planting medium. The circular areas occupied by the apertures and the wall thickness appear to limit air and mechanical pruning by the structure. Furthermore, the circular nature of the apertures, even the flared apertures shown in FIG. 3b of the reference, would not encourage significant soil warming due to reflected sunlight on the aperture surfaces.
French Patent 2,238,422; German Patent 60,174; and German Patent 30,112 all disclose forms of plant arbors utilized to receive growing, above-ground foliage of a plant to hold fruit, blossoms, etc. above the ground surface to avoid spoilage. Of these, German Patent 60,174 discloses a thin apertured wall structure that is selectively based about the fruit plant stocks and is held by a tie wire or string. The apertures in this arrangement are utilized to allow light and air to the stalk and foliage growing therein.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,136 to Vollers shows a container with removable wall sections shaped in a rectangular configuration. The primary function of this container is to facilitate separation of the container walls from the root mass to facilitate transplanting.
The above-described apparatus achieve limited purposes in avoiding spiral root growth in some instances and facilitate plant growth or support in others. However, none specifically addresses both issues of air and mechanical root pruning and none facilitates planting within the vertical wall of the planter itself, thereby significantly expanding the planting surface of the planter.

Planter, and processes for construction thereof and planting therein


A peer-to-peer collaborative network system is described. The peer-to-peer collaborative network system uses an authentication system with multiple levels of authentication. This allows some collaboration applications to allow a collaboration with a high authentication level, but not to allow a collaboration with a lower level of authentication. Other collaborative applications can allow a collaboration with the lower level of authentication.

The present invention generally relates to user authentication for purposes of secure information exchange and more particularly to a system and method of user authentication over a peer-to-peer network.
With the popularity of portable computing devices (i.e., personal digital assistants (PDA's, cell phones, etc.) increasing, there comes a greater need and ability to share information between devices in mobile and ad-hoc environments where fixed network infrastructure varies or does not exist. Peer-to-peer networks can be established between the devices so that collaborative information can be shared. Ensuring that such networks are secure poses a challenge. A key aspect of that security is ensuring the identity of a peer user in the network (i.e., authentication).
Currently, in the prior art, there exist well-established methods for establishing secure connections between client and server computers where security infrastructure exists. These methods assume that the information required for authentication is present prior to establishing a connection. The methods may use public key cryptography and rely on a certificate authority (CA) for certificate validation. The interaction between a web browser and a secure web server is an example of such a method. The server must present a certificate that has been digitally signed by one of the browser's trusted certificate authorities. Root certificates of major certificate authorities must be pre-installed on the user's computer along with the web browser, allowing the browser to verify the digital signature on the server's certificate. However, these methods may not be appropriate for peer-to-peer networks, in which new peers may be encountered at any time, and there is no central authority to issue certificates.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a peer-to-peer system of authentication and secure information exchange. Peers obtain copies of each other's certificates and assign a level of trust to the certificate. A peer may be trusted if a copy of its certificate is already present in the local trusted database, or if a trusted peer has digitally signed its certificate.
PGP enables the user to establish a web of trust that can be extended across several degrees of direction. However, this can weaken authentications as the chain between peers extends. Secure authentications can be made indiscriminately as this chain of trust extends between peers.
While PGP eliminates the need for certificate authorities, it still does not address the security needs of real-time peer-to-peer collaboration. PGP is used for non-real-time applications, such as the encryption of files and email. It does not permit a secure connection to be established for ongoing information exchange in real-time. Furthermore, PGP relies upon publicly accessible certificate directories hosted on centralized servers for the distribution of certificates. Additionally, PGP does not separate encryption and the establishment of encrypted connections from authentication.
In a self-organizing system, peers can maintain all authentication information locally. However, the computing and memory constraints of some portable devices limit the capacity of the device to store and retrieve a large number of certificates, which occurs as users enter and leave the network. An additional difficulty arises in how the authentication requirements are imposed on the participants in the network. Particularly, in ad-hoc network configurations common to portable peer-to-peer networks, users may demand more stringent authentication for particular types of applications or activities without relinquishing the potential to exchange information with peers that have not been authenticated as stringently for less secure activities.

Peer-to-peer authentication for real-time collaboration


A setting area is stored in association with the external shape of a knitted fabric, and the setting area is altered as the external shape is altered. A unit pattern is vertically copied repeatedly in the setting area. When setting patterns exist on both sides of the boundary between front and rear knitted fabrics, the boundary being a start point of circumferential formation, the setting pattern on the start section side is shifted upward by one course. The range for providing the setting pattern therein can be altered automatically when the external shape of the knitted fabric is altered. Furthermore, the setting pattern does not become discontinuous in a course direction at the boundary between the front and rear knitted fabrics.

In most knit products such as a sweater, a vest and a one-piece garment, a setting is formed on each end section of a knitted fabric. The setting is configured from structural patterns constituting a width of approximately several wales from the end section of the knitted fabric, and has a structural design that is different from the design of the other sections of the knitted fabric. When, for example, forming a front fabric and a rear fabric simultaneously or when forming both sleeves of the front fabric and rear fabric simultaneously by circumferentially forming in a tubular form, settings are formed on the armholes, waist, collar, inside and outside of the sleeves and the like of the front and rear fabrics. In this case, the inside or the outside of the waist and each sleeve is a section for connecting the front and rear knitted fabrics.
The applicant has proposed in WO 04/088022A1 how to simply design a setting pattern. An area for forming a setting has a width of approximately several wales from an edge of a knitted fabric. Therefore, by aligning this section so that the wale direction becomes virtually vertical, a vertically long rectangle is created, for example. This section is taken as a setting area, and by copying a unit pattern having one through several courses aligned vertically to this setting area so as to fill this setting area, the setting can be designed easily.
It is preferred that the shape of the setting area be altered when the external design of the knit product is altered. However, the inventor has focused attention on that the method described in WO 04/088022A1 cannot handle such alteration. When circumferentially forming a knit product, the point for starting the circumferential formation is located in, for example, the boundary between the front fabric and the rear fabric. A setting is usually formed on each side of this boundary. The inventor has focused attention on that the setting pattern on each side of the circumferential formation start point of the knit product obtained after the formation is different from the design data of the knit. Specifically, the setting pattern disposed on the same course according to the design data is shifted upward or downward by one course at each side of the circumferential formation start point in the actual knit product. If the design of the setting pattern changes along a wale direction, i.e., if the type of a stitch changes at every course, the types of stitches become uneven at both sides of the circumferential formation start point, which is not preferred in terms of the design.

Device, method and program for designing knit product


The present disclosure relates to a film dressing having a polymer film and an application system for permitting an improved ease of use of said film dressing. The application system is located on the first side of the polymer film and has at least one first and one second supporting film. At least one first grip strip is formed on the first supporting film and at least one second grip strip is formed on the second supporting film. At least the first grip strip has a grip surface that enables the grip strip to be grasped and the first grip strip at least partially overlaps the second grip strip.

The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Application aids for adhesive bandages or wound dressings have been known for quite some time. These application aids are particularly being used in film or foil dressings. Film dressings are thin, usually transparent, semi-permeable films or foils out of polymer material. The semi-permeability of the film prevents the invasion of bacteria or moisture while allowing a sufficient exchange of oxygen and condensation between the skin to be covered and the outer surroundings of the film dressing. These film or foil dressings are used in multiple applications, for example as incision film for the sterile covering of surgery wounds, as water-proof cover of wound dressings that absorb exudates as well as for the positioning of syringes or catheters. Due to the minimal thickness of these films or foils and their respective instability, these film dressings are equipped with various application aids. Most of these application aids use an additional supporting layer, which is removed during or after the application of the film dressing.
The patent literature has also known film wound dressings for quite some time. EP 81 990 B1 thus describes an adhesive wound dressing that consists of a thin polymer film. This polymer film is coated on one side with an adhesive material that adheres to the skin, which in turn is covered with a removable layer. On the other side, which during application is opposite of the body, the polymer film also has an easily removable support layer to improve the ease of use, which consists of a fibrous material, for example, a non-transparent non-woven material. This support layer has the same size as the polymer film.
EP 690 706 B1 describes an adhesive wound dressing, which has a carrying layer to aid the ease of application of a polymer film, which is comprised by a wound dressing. This carrying layer completely covers the polymer film and can be removed from the polymer film in two steps. For this purpose, a center section is removed from the carrying layer, whereas in the next step a frame section is removed. The fact that it is difficult for the user to grasp the carrying layer of this wound dressing is unfavorable.
Additionally, EP 951 263 B1 describes an adhesive film dressing, where at least one two-part removable protective layer covers the adhesive side and where its non-adhesive second side comprises a one-part support layer. The support layer in this film dressing is hinge-like attached to the protective layer on two opposite sides so that the support layer is removed simultaneously with the protective layer.
EP 473 918 B1 describes a film dressing that comprises a one-sided supporting film, which in turn has one grip strip on each of the two opposite sides. This position of the grip strips has the disadvantage that there is no pre-determined direction for removing the supporting film.
EP 985 931 A1 describes a dressing material on a film basis, which comprises a non-adhesive gripper in the peripheral area of the film. The non-adhesive side of the film comprises a one-part support layer, which is equal to the size of the film and comprises at least one grip strip. By pulling the gripper in the direction of the adhesion, the applied film can again be removed painlessly.
The European patent specification EP 630 628 B1 established a film dressing that comprises for the ease of application a two-part supporting film. This supporting film is larger than the film to be applied and completely covers it. In order to remove the supporting film, the supporting film comprises an additional adhesive removal strip, which is positioned above the intersection line of the supporting film and for handling purposes has two non-adhesive peripheral areas that serve as grip strips. This additional removal strip serves to remove only a portion of the supporting film, whereas the second part of the supporting film remains on the polymer film.
WO 97/25012 A1 suggests a film dressing which is provided either continuously or only on two opposing peripheral areas of the film with a two-part supporting layer. If the supporting film is continuously attached to the film dressing, then gripper supports may be positioned on the supporting film. The adhesive protective layer opposite of the supporting layer is divided into three sections.
These protective rights present various alternative solutions to film and foil dressings with various application systems. The film dressings which have been suggested as a solution in these protective rights are viewed in part as too complicated in their construction and too complicated in their application. Furthermore, the film dressings with application aids suggested in these protective rights all exhibit a rigidity which is considered too high in respect of the very flexible polymer film that is actually to be applied. This flexibility of the film dressings is necessary, however, to apply the polymer films, which are actually to be applied, accurate and wrinkle-free.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Film dressing comprising an application aid


A process is provided which is useful in alleviating inflammation of tendons and/or joints in a patient in need of such treatment. The process comprises administering a vasodilator to the inflamed tissue, either topically or by injection. Advantageously, the vasodilator is papaverine or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof such as papaverine hydrochloride. Advantageously, the papaverine hydrochloride may be administered topically in a composition comprising a carrier. The carrier dissolves the papaverine hydrochloride and enables it to penetrate the skin and be absorbed into the inflamed tissue.

Inflammation of tendons and joints is characteristic of many common ailments such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and tendinitis. The symptoms are often painful and debilitating. There are many currently-accepted treatments for these ailments, including prescription and non-prescription nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), oral and injectable steroid compositions, chemotherapeutics such as methotrexate, and injectable gold solutions, to name only a few. While such treatments often can reduce the inflammation accompanying the ailment, they typically also provoke unpleasant or unacceptable side-effects.
Additionally, there are several marketed over-the-counter topical rubs which are capable of making the area lo of the skin or muscle feel hot or cold. Those rubs, however, while generally harmless in terms of unwanted side-effects, can provide only temporary topical relief and cannot relieve the inflammation which is the source of the patient's discomfort. Thus, there remains a great need for alternative methods of treating such disorders.

Method and composition for treating tendon or joint inflammation using a vasodilator


A valve for use in musical wind instruments, associated musical instruments, and methods of fabricating such valves and musical instruments are provided. An exemplary rotor valve includes a solid rotor body having a first, substantially straight passage defined therein extending from a first opening in a peripheral surface of the rotor body to a second opening in the peripheral surface. Second and third passages are formed and extend from associated openings in the peripheral surface to associated openings in a face surface of the rotor body. The first passage may define a first, primary flow path of the instrument and the second and third passages cooperatively define a second flow path of the instrument, which incorporates an added length of tubing. In one embodiment, an interchangeable tube insert may be installed in the first passage to define flow characteristics in the first flow path.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to musical instruments and, more particularly to musical instruments conventionally termed brass musical instruments, and to valves for use with such musical instruments.
2. State of the Art: The term "brass musical instrument" is used herein in its conventional usage in the art, to denote a musical instrument that defines a length of tubing, and which has at one end a "cup mouthpiece" to receive a player's lips and has at the other end a flared opening or bell from which the sound emerges. The sound is generated when a player vibrates their lips and, simultaneously, forces air through the mouthpiece, the length of tubing and out the bell. As is well known, such so-called "brass musical instruments," while often being made of various metals, including brass, are also known to be made in whole or in part of other materials, including fiberglass, plastics, carbon fiber, etc.
Conventional brass musical instruments that are constructed to be at least in part chromatic, or to play notes other than those found in the harmonic overtone series of the basic flow path defined by the instrument, include mechanisms for effectively changing the length of the tubing within the instrument through which a vibrating column of air generated by the player's lips passes. By changing the length of the tubing, a different harmonic overtone series is established that allows the generation of additional notes. Conventionally, the length of tubing may be changed by either of two primary mechanisms. A first mechanism, as used in a modern trombone is through use of an easily moveable slide, through which the length of the tube may be changed as desired by the player to facilitate the playing of all notes in a scale. The second mechanism is through the use of valves, which are selectively actuated to change the length of tubing. In modern instruments, the actuation of a valve alters the flow path of the instrument to add a given length of tubing which is sufficient to lower the harmonic series a given increment, or number of notes. Some instruments may include multiple valves for adding multiple lengths of tubing to a flow path of the instrument. For example, a modern instrument that is intended to be chromatic may include three valves, wherein the first valve lowers the harmonic series, by two steps or chromatic notes, the second valve lowers the harmonic series by a single step or note, and the third valve lowers the harmonic series by 3 chromatic steps or notes.
The environment of the present invention will be discussed primarily in reference to instruments of the trombone family, where the primary pitch adjustment mechanism is through use of a moveable slide, because that is an exemplary application in which the present invention is believed to have particular utility. However, instruments in accordance with the present invention may also include any valved instrument.
Trombones in their simplest form have a slide as their pitch adjustment mechanism. Because of the length of the slide relative to the overall length of the tubing of the instrument, trombones typically have a primary air path in which the air column changes direction only twice, reversing direction at the bottom of the slide, and again behind the player's head, to turn toward a forward-facing bell. Due to the limited turns, and the gradual nature of those turns, trombones offer a very free path for the movement of an air column through the tubing. In general, the contours of the internal path through a brass musical instrument, or the bore of the instrument, in large part define the playing characteristics of that instrument to the player. Bends or alterations of the bore can introduce varying degrees of resistance to movement of the air column being transmitted through the instrument. Such resistance can ultimately introduce undesirable playing characteristics in the instrument.
As noted above, for practical reasons it is desirable for many trombones to also include one or more valves, which may be used to add an additional length of tubing to the air path thereby providing an alternate way in which the pitch of the instrument may be varied. For example, changes between notes played with the slide fully extended, in what is known as the "seventh position," to a note played with the slide fully retracted, in what is known as the "first position," may be difficult, if not impossible, to play quickly and accurately. A valve that adds additional tubing to the airpath can dramatically improve the dynamics and mechanics of playing such changes in notes. Additionally, the lowering of the pitch of the shortest tube of the instrument also extends the bottom range of the instrument, relative to an instrument without the valve and additional tubing. Thus, depending upon the player's preferences and needs, it is common for trombones to have one or more valves. Where, for example, two valves are included, there are several known configurations as to how much tubing is added, and whether the two valves may be operated to add tubing independent of, or in conjunction with, one another. However, these variations in valve combinations are well known in the art, and any of them may benefit from the present invention.
Trombones, because of the relatively free air path provided through the basic instrument, are often viewed as being highly sensitive to structures that provide obstructions to air flow though the bore. As can be envisioned, trombones offer a much more open path than an instrument that is coiled into a more compact shape, such as euphoniums and tubas, which require many bends to achieve their conventional shapes. Conventional rotary valves, which are often used in trombones, add tubing (i.e., lengthen the flow path) by rotating between two positions, including an unactuated position in which the air flows through the valve in a generally longitudinal, but somewhat deviated or curved path, and an actuated position, wherein the valve causes the bore to make a 90° bend into the valve tubing, through the tubing, which will inherently reverse direction to return to the valve and through another 90° bend in the valve to return to the primary bore. Such a construction, however, conventionally requires that one of the 90° bends be used in defining the primary flow path thereby introducing flow inefficiencies even when the valve is in an unactuated position.
Many constructions of valves of this general type have been built. In some cases, the pathway is defined through the valve rotor merely by a hollowed section in a generally solid body—such a hollowed section conventionally exhibiting a cross-sectional area, which might be defined as a "D" shape, when the rotor is placed in a corresponding valve housing. Clearly, such a mismatch in cross-sectional geometry (i.e., a "D" shape as compared to the conventional circular cross section of a tube or bore of the musical instrument) is inefficient in transferring air through the mismatched sections. In other cases, tubes have been assembled within a generally cylindrical housing to define the air passages. Whatever the precise construction utilized in the rotor, the bends required to turn the airstream 90° introduce resistance, which is typically undesirable to the player.
Thus, depending upon the precise configuration of the opening defined through the valve, resistance may be induced even in the primary bore when the valve is unactuated, due to a passage through the valve that is not straight, or which is not a perfectly matched cross-sectional extension of the tubing bore coming into and exiting the valve. Additionally, the configuration of various prior art valves may allow substantial leakage through the valve when subjected to air pressures present during playing conditions. Such leakage may be, for example, because of loose tolerances within the valve due to the variability experienced in manufacturing the valve. Therefore, the greater the variability in manufacturing processes from one process to another, the more leakage may be expected. Of course, leakages in a valve will typically induce undesirable playing characteristics compared to an instrument having a simple basic tube design without a valve (e.g., a trombone having only a tube and slide design).
For these reasons, several attempts have been made to design valves useful in trombones and other instruments that would reduce the impact on the playing characteristics of the instrument while in an unactuated position and/or the actuated position. While offering some advantages, these designs have had offsetting characteristics. One example of such an attempt is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,564 to Thayer. This design includes a frusto-conical valve with passages extending generally in the direction of the axis of rotation of the valve, though angularly disposed relative to such axis. While this design reduced restrictions in the flow path to some degree, it results in a very large valve, with large surface area between the valve body and housing. As a result of the large volume of the valve, the valve bodies are conventionally constructed of separate tubing (to define the passages through the valve) and other components, so as to reduce the mass of the valve body to allow rapid operation of the valve. This leads to undesirable complexity and variability in the manufacturing process. Additionally, regardless of whether individual tubing components are used in order to reduce the mass of the valve rotor or if a rotor body is formed as a cast member, the size of the valve requires the rotor to be displaced through an undesirably large arc to effect actuation thereof.
Another attempt to address some of the deficiencies of use of conventional rotary valves in trombones was a valve design known as the Hagmann valve. A valve rotor 10 of an exemplary Hagmann valve is depicted in FIGS. 1A–1C. The Hagmann valve rotor 10 includes a frame 12 which defines an outer periphery of the rotor 10. A shaft 14 is coupled to the frame 12 to rotate the rotor 10 about a longitudinal axis of the shaft 14. A first section of tubing 16 is disposed within the frame 12 and is coupled with a first opening 20 in the radial periphery of the frame 12 and a second opening 22 in the radial periphery of the frame 12 to define a flow path therebetween. A second section of tubing 24 is disposed within the frame 12 and is coupled with a third opening 26 in the radial periphery of the frame 12 and a first opening 28 in a face plate 30 or wall of the frame 12 to define a flow path therebetween. A third section of tubing 32 is disposed within the frame 12 and is coupled with a fourth opening 34 in the radial periphery of the frame 12 and a second opening 36 in the face plate 30 of the frame 12 to define a flow path therebetween. The faceplate 30 lies in a plane that is substantially perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the rotor 10. It is noted that each of the sections of tubing 16, 24 and 32 are bent or curved, causing a deviation in the flow path of any air transmitted therethrough during the playing of an associated instrument.
Referring to FIGS. 1D and 1E, the valve rotor 10 is shown in an unactuated position (FIG. 1D) and in an actuated position (FIG. 1E), wherein the rotor 10 is rotated about an axis extending through the shaft 14 through a specified angle of rotation. While a valve housing is not shown for purposes of clarity, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that such a housing is used in conjunction with the rotor 10 to cooperatively define a flow path for the vibrating air being transmitted through the associated instrument depending on which position the rotor 10 is in at a given time. Thus, for example, with the rotor 10 in an unactuated position, the first opening 20 in the radial periphery of the rotor frame 12 is aligned and in communication with an inlet tube 40 (shown in phantom) and the second opening 22 in the radial periphery of the rotor frame is aligned and in communication with an outlet tube 42 (also shown in phantom). Thus, air is transmitted from the inlet tube 40, through the first section of tubing 16 and to outlet tube 42 as indicated by directional arrows 44, 46 and 48. The transmitted air travels through the outlet: tube 42 and, ultimately, passes through a bell (not shown) to emit a musical note as discussed hereinabove.
Referring to FIG. 1E, when the rotor 10 is in the actuated position, the third opening 26 in the radial periphery of the rotor frame 12 is aligned with the inlet tube 40 and the fourth opening 34 in the radial periphery of the rotor frame 12 is aligned with the outlet tube 42. Additionally, the first opening 28 in the face plate 30 becomes aligned with first end 50 of an extension loop 52 and the second opening 36 in the face plate 30 becomes aligned with a second or return end 54 of the extension loop 52. Thus, air is transmitted from the inlet tube 40 (directional arrow 60), through the second section of tubing 24 to the extension loop 52 (directional arrow 62), through the extension loop to the third section of tubing 32 (directional arrows 64, 66 and 68), and through the third section of tubing 32 to the outlet tube 42 (directional arrows 70 and 72). The air is then transmitted through the outlet tube 42 (directional arrow 74) having gone through an extended length of tubing to change the pitch of the instrument as discussed hereinabove.
As with other conventional valves, the rotor of the Hagmann valve is constructed by manufacturing and assembling numerous individual components, including the frame and individual tubing sections 16, 24 and 32, which define the passages through the valve and subsequent assembly thereof. As discussed hereinabove, this leads to undesirable complexity and variability in the manufacturing process and ultimately to variability in the performance of the valve and instrument in which it is installed. Additionally, the rotor of the Hagmann valve has a shaft coupled to only one side of the housing, which introduces the possibility of the rotor "wobbling," or experiencing eccentricity, as it rotates about the shaft. Such deviation, whether occurring initially or over time, because of wear or other mechanical or material deterioration of the rotor, can cause misalignment and unneeded restrictions in the flow path as, for example, the flow path transitions between a section of tubing (e.g., 16, 24 or 32) to an associated inlet, outlet or return tube.
It is, therefore, desirous to provide an improved valve for musical instruments that provides at least one flow path that does not introduce substantial resistance to air transmitted therethrough, which is simple and economical to manufacture. It is also desirable to provide an improved valve for musical instruments that is able to be reproduced without substantial variation from one product to the next.

Musical wind instrument, valves therefor, and methods of manufacturing same


A heated sampling hose assembly includes a sampling hose having an inlet and an outlet for passage of a sample gas. An outer sleeve surrounds the sampling hose with an annular purge gas passage radially therebetween. The outer sleeve is closed at opposite ends by first and second fittings having a purge gas inlet and purge gas outlet, respectively, and a heater is arranged to heat the purge gas in the annular purge gas passage to a temperature of the sample gas.

This invention relates to exhaust gas sampling and, specifically, to a sampling hose assembly construction that reduces or eliminates sample gas bias due to permeation of gaseous species through the wall of the sampling hose.
Measurements of gaseous pollutants in exhaust stacks of, for example, power generating turbines, are often performed by extraction of exhaust gas through long sampling lines. To avoid condensation of moisture contained in the sample gas and losses of minor exhaust species, these sampling lines are typically heated to high temperatures, ranging from 250 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
It has been long known in the stack testing industry, however, that heated lines with fluorocarbon (usually Teflon®) cores often exhibit positive carbon monoxide bias when heated to temperatures in excess of 250° F. In other words, when sampling a known gas, the CO concentration measured at the outlet of the heated line is higher than the CO concentration at the inlet of the heated line. For example, when sampling high purity nitrogen with zero expected CO concentration, the indicated CO concentration can range from 0 to 10 parts per million (ppm), depending on line characteristics (length, diameter, temperature, type of Teflon® material used, wall thickness, etc.).
With increasing demands for accuracy of pollutant measurements, these biases introduced by heated lines quickly become intolerable, especially for measurements of low-level pollutant sources such as gas turbines. The search continues to eliminate or at least significantly reduce heated line bias. To this end, various designs of heated lines and different materials of construction have been proposed. For example, a typical design for a heated sampling line assembly includes a single-wall sampling core (often made of Teflon®), embedded or wrapped in a heating element and surrounded by one or more layers of insulating material such as fiberglass reinforced by organic binders, e.g., phenolformaldehyde resins. One disadvantage of this traditional design is a potential for exhibiting the above-mentioned "positive bias" by the chemical species diffusing from outside of the sampling line to the inside of the sampling line and into the stream being sampled. In fact, some experimental studies suggest that the source of positive CO bias is carbon monoxide emitted by heat insulating materials at high temperature. This emitted CO diffuses from the outside of the Teflon® core to the inside of the core, increasing the concentration of CO in the sampled stream. The process is facilitated by significant increase of gas diffusivity through Teflon® material at elevated temperatures. The same process of gas diffusion through the walls of a Teflon® sampling core can lead to positively biased concentrations of other important pollutants, such as formaldehyde (albeit at lower concentrations). These situations occur when concentration of the chemical species is higher outside of the sampling core than inside the sampled stream.
Another disadvantage of these traditional sampling line assemblies is the possibility of species diffusion from the stream being sampled and accumulation on the outside of the sampling core, when concentration of the chemical species is higher in the sampled stream than outside of the sampling core. This accumulated chemical species can subsequently be released back into the sampling stream when the concentration in the sampled stream becomes lower than concentration outside of the sample core, i.e., when the chemical species concentration gradient is reversed.
Another design for an improved heated hose bundle includes using a double-wall Teflon® sampling line or tube. This approach essentially includes passing a first Teflon® line of a smaller outside diameter (e.g., ⅜″ OD) through a second and larger (e.g., ½″ OD) Teflon® line, embedded or wrapped in a heating element and surrounded by insulating materials. Aside from the intended effect of enabling a change of the inner Teflon® core if it becomes contaminated by the exhaust components (such as particulate matter or salt deposits), this design also somewhat reduces the CO bias due to the double Teflon® wall that CO has to permeate before entering the sample stream, but is subject to the diffusion problem mentioned above.
Another possible solution to the problem of positive bias due to diffusion of chemical species from the outside of the sample line into the sample stream includes use of substantially impermeable material such as stainless steel. However, chemical reactivity of stainless steel makes it unsuitable for measurements of certain chemical compounds. Alternative metals or alloys such as Inconel® or Hastealloy® usually have prohibitively high costs, while still not completely eliminating the problem of surface reactivity. Stainless steel tubing can be suitable for particular permanent sampling installations; however, to maintain line flexibility for mobile stack testing applications, the line must be constructed from corrugated stainless steel tubing. If corrugated steel tubing is used for construction of the sample core itself, it introduces significant increase of the inner surface area in contact with the sample stream, which might be detrimental for some trace gas species due to adsorption and/or heterogeneous reaction with the metal surface. Furthermore, a corrugated wall will result in a large number of pockets of essentially stagnant gas in the corrugation folds, significantly increasing sampling system response time. Increase of response time may be critical in applications such as measurements at transient combustion conditions.
These problems can be overcome by using the combination of an outer shell made of corrugated stainless steel and sample core made of Teflon®. Indeed, such a combination would virtually eliminate the positive bias by completely preventing gas diffusion from outside the metal core into the sample stream. However, the sampling hose or tube of this construction would be costly and heavy, making it less suitable for mobile stack testing applications, where cost and weight are two major factors affecting choice of the heated sample hose. Furthermore, due to significant space volume and high surface area between the inner Teflon® and outer corrugated stainless steel cores, such construction will be especially prone to accumulation of permeated gas species between the two cores and the possibility of release of these accumulated species back into the sampled stream when the concentration gradient is reversed, such as during transient or multi-point stack testing.
A further disadvantage of prior heated sampling hose designs is a possible trapping and subsequent release of gases when the sampling lines are applied intermittently for tests at sources with high pollutant concentrations and at sources with low pollutant concentrations (for example, CO and aldehydes). During sampling at sources with high pollutant concentrations, CO and aldehydes would diffuse out of the sample stream through the Teflon® wall and accumulate in the heated line assembly outside the Teflon® sampling hose. These gas species would be trapped there when the heated sampling hose is cooled down at the end of the test and Teflon® gas permeability drops. If later this heated sampling hose is used at a relatively "clean" source with low CO and aldehyde concentrations, the compounds previously trapped would be released when the sampling hose is re-heated, and would tend to diffuse from the outside of the sampling hose into the sample stream due to concentration gradient. This would result in positive measurement bias at the low-level source due to previous exposure to the high-level source. Similar effects could occur when measurements are performed during transient regimes of a combustion source, biasing high-level measurements low and, conversely, biasing low-level measurements high.

Heated sampling hose assembly and related method


State maintenance of a memory cell and, more particularly, state maintenance pulsing of identified memory cells more frequently than other memory cells, is described. A memory array includes an array of memory cells. State maintenance circuitry is coupled to the array of memory cells. The state maintenance circuitry is configured to select between a first restore address and a second restore address. In a given operation cycle, the first restore address is associated with a first line in the array of memory cells, and the second restore address is associated with a second line in the array of memory cells. The first line has first memory cells coupled thereto. The second line has second memory cells coupled thereto. The first memory cells are capable of passing a threshold retention time with a first frequency of restore cycling. The second memory cells are capable of passing the threshold retention time with a second frequency of restore cycling. The second frequency of restore cycling is greater than the first frequency of restore cycling.

Conventionally, dynamic memories, such as dynamic random access memories ("DRAMs") require a periodic refresh. For DRAMs, this conventionally means a destructive read is done, followed by a write back of the information read. Furthermore, some memory cells in an array of memory cells of a DRAM may need to be refreshed more often than other memory cells. This is generally due to some memory cells being more susceptible to charge leakage at various operating parameters.
To increase yield of DRAMs, as well as to affect overall refresh rate, it has been proposed by others to identify memory cells needing to be refreshed more often than other memory cells. These so-called weaker memory cells could then be refreshed more often than their counterpart stronger memory cells. Additional details regarding this proposed refresh approach may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,545 B1.
For a new type of memory cell known as a thyristor-based memory cell, no refreshing is used. In other words, there is no destructive read followed by a write back to refresh a memory cell back to its original state. Rather than refreshing, a thyristor-based memory cell is periodically pulsed. This pulsing is done at a frequency such that the thyristor-based memory cell maintains its current state. Additional details regarding periodically pulsing a thyristor-based memory cell may be found in Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT") International Publication WO 02/082504.
Like DRAM cells, some thyristor-based memory cells may be more susceptible to charge leakage at various operating parameters due to defects or statistical variations of process parameters. Accordingly, it would be desirable and useful to provide means to maintain state of such thyristor-based memory cells more susceptible to charge leakage than other such thyristor-based memory cells of the same memory integrated circuit without spending the additional power to pulse all memory cells in an array at a frequency associated with those cells more susceptible to charge leakage, namely a "higher frequency."

State maintenance pulsing for a memory device


The device of the present invention includes a flexible container having an administration port and a flexible tube extending therefrom. The administration port includes an access membrane through which a spiked cannula can be inserted to gain access to the interior of the flexible container. The flexible tube contains a frangible or breakaway valve therein. Permanently secured to the end of the flexible tube is a sheath having a substantially circular base and an open-ended skirt including an inner surface depending from the base. The skirt includes a plurality of inwardly projecting bumps intermittently spaced around the inner surface to sealingly engage a standard drug vial. A sharp cannula is mounted within the skirt to pierce the stopper of the standard drug vial to establish fluid communication between the cannula and the interior of the drug vial. A peelable closure is provided covering the skirt opening prior to use to maintain a sterile condition of the device. A lumen is provided in housing to establish fluid communication between the cannula and the frangible or breakaway valve.

Many drugs are mixed with a diluent before being delivered intravenously to a patient. The diluent may be, for example, a dextrose solution, a saline solution or even water. Many such drugs are supplied in powdered form and packaged in glass or plastic vials. Other drugs, such as some used in chemotherapy, are packaged in glass or plastic vials in a liquid state.
In order for the powdered drugs to be given intravenously to a patient, the drugs must first be placed in liquid form. Other drugs, although in a liquid state, must first be diluted before administration to the patient. As used herein, the term reconstitution includes not only liquidization of powdered drugs but also dilution of liquid drugs.
One way of reconstituting a drug is first to inject a drug diluent into the drug vial. This may be performed by a syringe having a liquid diluent contained in the syringe barrel. After the rubber stopper of the vial is pierced by the syringe needle, the liquid is injected into the vial. The vial is shaken to reconstitute and dilute the drug with the liquid. The liquid is then withdrawn back into the syringe. These steps may be repeated several times to ensure complete reconstitution of the drug. After the final mixing, the syringe is withdrawn and the reconstituted drug may then be injected into an administration set for intravenous administration to a patient.
Another common means of drug administration is to inject the reconstituted drug from the syringe into a parenteral solution container containing a medical solution such as dextrose or saline solution. The drug, now diluted with the medical solution in the parenteral solution container, is delivered through an administration set for intravenous administration to the patient.
Another means for reconstituting a drug is a device utilizing a double pointed needle. The double pointed needle includes a guide mounted around one end of the needle to direct the needle into fluid communication with the interior of a flexible solution container via a port. The opposite side of the needle includes a skirt which fits over and grips a drug vial to establish fluid communication between the needle and the interior of the drug vial.
An improvement to this is a device in which the guide and the skirt are attached to housing which establishes slidable engagement between the guide and the skirt. This allows fluid communication to be established between a lumen defined in the housing and the interior chamber of the flexible solution container while the drug vial can be attached to the skirt without establishing fluid communication between the interior of the vial and the lumen. When reconstitution is desired, the slidable housing is slid which directs one side of the needle into the vial to establish fluid communication for reconstitution.
Still another device utilizes a dedicated drug vial which is secured to a dedicated access site in a dedicated solution container. The dedicated access site includes housing to establish fluid communication between the interior of the dedicated drug vial and the interior of the dedicated flexible solution container.
As is seen, these devices all attempt to balance sterility issues which increase in difficulty as the complexity of the device increases with the issue of efficient storage of the drug prior to reconstitution. What would thus be advantageous is a reconstitution device which effectively reconstitutes and dilutes a drug. This device should also allow for easy storage of the unreconstituted drug preferably in a standard vial. This device should further avoid complexity of parts to reduce sterility difficulties. Such device should further be cost effective to produce and administer. The present invention meets these requirements.


A method for continuous acoustic signature recognition and classification includes a step of obtaining an audio input signal from a resonant microphone array positioned proximate to a target, the audio input signal having a plurality of channels. The target produces characterizing audio signals depending on a state or condition of the target. A plurality of features is extracted from the audio input signal with a signal processor. The plurality of features is classified to determine the state of the target. An acoustic monitoring system implementing the method is also provided.

With the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT), personal digital assistants, wearable devices, and wireless sensor networks, we are seeing a boom in the ubiquitous presence of sensors and environmental data. With these trends, there is a constant tradeoff between functionality and power consumption, which has driven development of battery and energy harvesting technologies, as well as power-efficient processing electronics. The method proposed in this document addresses these limitations of existing technologies by performing a portion of the processing passively in the transducer itself, rather than in the power-hungry digital electronics.
Early detection of asthma attacks can be most effectively achieved by continuous monitoring of lung sounds with a stethoscope. However, there is currently no wearable, wirelessly-connected, always-on lung-sound tracker as effective as evaluation by a trained clinician. An ultra-low-power device with continuous monitoring of the acoustic signature of sensed lung sounds can identify precursors of lung-related health problems such as asthma attacks, and automatically notify for assistance.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods and systems for monitoring respiration sounds in a subject.

Wearable respiratory monitoring system based on resonant microphone array


An external input/output device has a plug-in unit having the same shape as a photographic film cassette. The plug-in unit is insertable in a cassette chamber of a camera having a reflective photo-sensor for reading bar codes from a bar code disc of the photographic film cassette. The plug-in unit has a reflective photo-sensor whose light projecting element and photoelectric element are opposed to a photoelectric element and a light projecting element of the photo-sensor of the camera when the plug-in unit is inserted in the cassette chamber. After setting the camera in a data I/O mode, a keyboard of the input/output device is operated to enter control value data to be written in an EEPROM of the camera, or commands for monitoring control value data stored in the EEPROM. The data or command is inputted as light pulses in the camera through the light projecting element of the input/output device and the photoelectric element of the camera. The control value data from the EEPROM is outputted as light pulses to the input/output device through the light projecting element of the camera and the photoelectric element of the input/output device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera with a data communication system and an input/output device for use with the camera.
2. Background Art
Recent cameras have more and more electronic data processing systems. For example, a memory stores data for correction of light value projected from a light-measuring system or a flash unit, data for checking the battery or other data, while a microcomputer executes various sequence programs with reference to the data stored in the memory. Lately, a camera using a rewritable non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable ROM) in place of ROM (a not-rewritable memory), has been disclosed, e.g., in JPA 2-56532 or JPU 2-30931. This camera permits adjusting and checking its electric data processing system after being completely assembled.
To write or read the EEPROM, the known camera must be connected to an external input/output device through a specific electric terminal which should be difficult for ordinary users to access, but should be easily connectable to the input/output device when it is necessary. Therefore, the electric terminal of the known camera is disposed inside the camera and can be exposed to the outside through a complicated mechanism.

Camera and input/output device for camera


An apparatus and a method for detecting an optimal focal plane of a lithographic projection objective lens, the apparatus including: an illumination device, a beam splitting device, a lens array, a mask plate, a reflecting device, a photoelectric detector and a controller. The illumination device generates a collimated beam, which is transmitted through the beam splitting device, focused by the lens array to the mask plate for spatial-filtering, and delivered to the lithographic projection objective lens. The reflecting device reflects a focused beam passing through the lithographic projection objective lens to generate a reflected beam. The photoelectric detector detects an intensity of the reflected beam from the reflecting device after being spatial-filtered via the mask plate and generates a beam intensity signal. The controller controls a movement of a workpiece table and/or collects the beam intensity signal generated by the photoelectric detector.

The development of the integrated circuit industry is closely related to the advancement of lithography. As a key device in the manufacturing process of integrated circuits, a lithography machine shrinks a circuit structure on a mask plate onto a photoresist-covered silicon wafer. The imaging quality determines a physical size of a single device directly. In order to achieve an optimal exposure effect, the photoresist-covered silicon wafer is required to coincide with an optimal focal plane of a lithographic projection objective lens. Therefore, after a lithographic projection lens system is integrated, it is necessary to detect the position of the optimal focal plane accurately.
One method for detecting the optimal focal plane of the lithographic projection objective lens is to determine the position according to the clarity of exposed lines, by exposing a special mask image at different imaging positions. This method is relatively complex and requires a post-processing on the images after the exposure, which is time-consuming and has a poor real-time performance. In addition, due to the use of additional silicon wafers and exposure process materials during the detection process, an economic cost is increased.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus and a method for detecting an optimal focal plane of a lithographic projection objective lens, which may be economic and also have a good real-time performance.

Apparatus and method for detecting optimal focal plane of lithographic projection objective lens

The Institute of Optics and Electronics, The Chinese Academy of Sciences