An elongated low profile sheet metal tray has a bottom panel adapted to seat on the bolster plate of a stamping press under a die set. The panel supports adjacent upper and lower runs of an endless belt directed around guide rollers and a drive roller supported by cast support members removably connected to opposite ends of the tray. A motor and gear reducer unit is mounted on one support member and drives the belt drive roller, and the sheet metal tray has opposite integral side rails forming inclined surfaces and channel portions enclosing opposite edge portions of the belt. A sheet of plastics material extends between the bottom panel and the bottom run of the belt, and a detector senses belt stoppage for stopping the motor and stamping press.

In the field of stamping presses used for blanking and forming parts from sheet metal, it is common to use endless belt conveyors for removing both the parts produced by a tool and die set installed in the stamping press as well as for removing sheet metal scrap produced by the die set during production of the parts. Jets of compressed air are also commonly used to remove parts from a stamping press. When an endless belt conveyor is used for removing the parts and/or scrap from below a die set, it is known to extend the upper and lower runs of the endless belt beneath the die set with the runs adjacent to each other over the bolster plate of the press. The endless belt is directed around rollers mounted on corresponding shafts supported by bearing brackets mounted on opposite sides of the bolster plate. However, substantial time is required to install such endless belt conveyors on the bolster plate and to mount a motor for driving one of the shafts supporting a drive roller. The endless belts also have a relatively short service life, primarily due to the support of the endless belt and the selection of the belt material.

Endless belt conveyor unit for a stamping press


An information writing device in which the information can be written accurately efficiently and in which variable formats of the disc-shaped recording mediums can be coped with without the necessity of providing master discs from one format of the disc-shaped recording medium to another. A grating interferometer clock scale system is formed by a clock pattern disc 50 having a clock track 52 carrying an optically readable clock pattern 51 and an optical head 60 for optically reading out the clock pattern 51. Clock signals are generated in a clock generator 90, to which is transmitted, via an optical fiber 80, the interference light obtained as an optical output obtained in turn by optically reading out the clock pattern 51 by the optical head 60, based on electrical signals obtained on photoelectrically transducing the optical output. The servo information synchronized with the clock signals is generated by a servo information generating part 93.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information writing device for writing the information on a disc-shaped recording medium used on being mounted on a disc driving device.
2. Description of Related Art
In a disc driving device, employing a disc-shaped recording medium, such as a hard disc, a flexible disc, an optical disc or a magneto-optical disc, a head is moved to a target track, based on the servo information written from the outset as the head positioning information on the disc-shaped recording medium, for correctly positioning the head by closed loop control.
Conventionally, a so-called servo track writer, writing the servo information on a magnetic disc, such as a hard disc or a flexible disc, is designed and constructed so that the magnetic disc is rotated at a high speed by an air spindle motor, having a high axis shake precision, the magnetic head, loaded on a head slider, is positioned on the disc from track to track by a positioner employing a high precision scale, such as a laser encoder, the servo information is written by the magnetic head and, when the servo information for one round, that is, for one complete track, is written, the head slider is radially moved along the radius of the disc a distance corresponding to one prescribed track pitch, to write the servo information for the next track, and so on, until the servo information is written in the entire track.
At this time, circumferential position detection is needed. The routine practice is to record clock signals on the disc by a separately provided magnetic head, to detect these clock signals and to re-record clock signals on the disc.
For raising the servo information write efficiency, there has also been proposed, for a servo track writer in which a plural number of discs are stacked together, and the same plural number of heads, associated with the recording surfaces of the stacked discs, are provided for writing the servo information simultaneously on the recording surfaces of the discs, a method comprising providing a master disc, on which the servo information has been written to high precision, causing the rotation of the master disc and the discs, on which the servo information is to be written, by a spindle motor, as the master disc and the discs are stacked together, and to perform head positioning control based on the servo information read out from the master disc (see, for example, Cited Reference 1). [Cited Reference 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-162874
Meanwhile, in the method employing the master disc, having the servo information recorded thereon to high precision, it is necessary to provide a master disc, free of defects, each time the disc format is changed. Moreover, crash of the master disc may be caused in the course of the information write operation.
Moreover, the servo track writer is used in a clean room. Thus, if a magnetic clock head is used for reading out clock signals, crash of the magnetic head for clocks tends to be produced on deposition of dust and dirt on the surface of the clock head to contaminate the inside of the clean room.
Recently, with the progress in the art of recording and/or reproduction, the tendency is towards a high density recording for the recording mediums, such that the clock frequency of data recorded on the disc-shaped recording medium is becoming higher. If, in order to raise the clock signal density further, the clock frequency of the data is increased, there may be presented the problem of unneeded radiation and signal attenuation in the transmission system of the servo information.


The invention disclosed herein includes a system and method for electronically transferring data through a communications connection in a transparent manner such that the data transfer does not interfere with other traffic sharing the connection. The invention transfers data using bandwidth of the connection that other traffic are not using. If other traffic desires to use the bandwidth currently being used by the invention, the invention relinquishes the bandwidth to the other traffic and retreats to avoid bandwidth contention. Although a retreat may cause gaps in the data transferred, a key aspect of the invention is that any missing data due to these gaps is recovered easily and in a bandwidth-efficient way using novel error correction and recovery.

As technology becomes increasingly a part of current society, the electronic transfer of information and data is becoming more widespread. Electronic data transfer involves the electronic transmission and reception of data. Electronic data transfer may take many forms, such as the broadcasting of network television over the airwaves, cable television delivered by cable to paying subscribers, and the satellite transmission of consumer entertainment.
One of the most popular mediums for electronic data transfer is the World Wide Web (WWW) via the Internet. The Internet facilitates the connection of a multitude of computers to form the WWW, an enormous computer network. In general, a computer network is two or more computing devices that are connected by communication facilities. The network typically includes a server, which is a computing device that provides shared resources to clients on the network, and a client, which is a computing device that accesses the shared network resources provided by the server using the communication facilities. One or more clients may be request information from a server, which then transmits the information to the requesting clients.
A client typically connects to the network using a fixed bandwidth connection, such as a dial-up, a DSL, or a cable modem connection. On a fixed bandwidth connection, each application on the client must compete for the available bandwidth with other applications on the same machine or other machines on the same network. For example, if a user uses a client application to start downloading a large file (such as a video file or software patch) from a web site, and then wants to use a browser application on the client to surf the Internet, both the client application and the browser will be competing for the available bandwidth of the fixed connection.
In general, the user will experience a noticeable reduction in browser performance when using the browser while the large file is downloading. In fact, frequently the experience for the user is that it becomes excruciating slow to continue to do other things like navigate the WWW or check e-mail. These processes become slowed down tremendously by the large file that is being downloaded simultaneously because the download uses a large amount of bandwidth.
One cause of the large reduction in performance when a large file is downloading has to do with the type of protocols involved in transferring data. There are two common protocols that run over Internet Protocol (IP), namely TCP and UDP. In general, TCP is a responsive flow that has a feedback feature that detects congestion. Specifically, by noting that rate at which the client is receiving the data, the server knows the level of congestion in the connection. Using TCP a server begins sending data at a low rate continues increasing the rate so long as the client continues receiving the data. Once the client notifies the server that it is losing portions of the transmitted data, the server backs off the rate at which data is sent. On the other hand, UDP is a non-responsive flow that has essentially no feedback feature. A server using UDP simply sends the data out at a certain rate and has no way of knowing whether the client received the data or not. UDP often is used for real-time streaming of video where there is no time to have feedback.
Another type of non-responsive flow used by servers to transmit data to any client that is listening is multicast. Multicast is a compute network equivalent of broadcasting. Like a television broadcast, there may be a million clients receiving the transmitted data but the server has no way of knowing who is receiving. It is well know that responsive flows, such as TCP, which back off in the presence of congestion, fare poorly when contending for bandwidth with non-responsive flows, such as UDP and multicast.
Because non-responsive flows like UDP have no feedback feature, the server transmitting data to the client has no way of knowing whether the client is receiving all of the data. Some clients may be receiving all of the data, but many clients will be routinely losing a percentage of the data sent for various reasons causing a gap in the downloaded file. Thus, each client generally will have different loss characteristics or loss patterns. The loss patterns may change depending on what is occurring on each client. For example, gaps may be cause in one client by a problem with the network connection, and in another client by the browser being used to surf the WWW.
If the server is multicasting, one solution to gaps is to continuously repeat the multicast. For instance, if a file takes six hours to download and a few packets are missing, the client can listen again around the time the packets are being multicast again. In reality, however, this solution does not work well because it becomes harder to obtain the final packets needed to complete the downloaded file. This is a probability problem known as the "Coupon Collector's Problem", and in the above example the loss of even a few packets might require the client to listen to the multicast another several more times just to acquire a small number of missing packets. If the multicast was six hours long, this process could take several hours or days. This is a highly inefficient use of bandwidth.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system and a method for electronic data transfer that allows recovery from gaps in a bandwidth efficient manner. In addition, there is a need for an electronic data transfer system and method that is transparent to other applications such that contention for the available bandwidth is avoided.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

System and method for transparent electronic data transfer using error correction to facilitate bandwidth-efficient data recovery


The method for generating steam with concentrated solar radiation includes the step of heating an absorber by solar radiation and directing a stream of air through the absorber to produce a heated air. The heated air is guided through a heat storage device provided for compensating short-term temperature fluctuations. Steam is generated with the heated air and is thereby cooled. At least a portion of the cooled air is returned to the upstream side of the absorber. The device for preforming the method includes a tower having an air heating device with a solar radiation absorber connected to the top of the tower. An air inlet for introducing air into the air heating device is provided. A steam generator is connected to the tower downstream of the air heating device. A heated air channel is arranged at the tower for guiding the heated air from the air heating device to the steam generator. A blower is connected to the tower downstream of the steam generator and a connecting line connects the steam generator to the blower. A return line is arranged at the tower for connecting the blower to the air inlet and returning at least a portion of the cooled air to the air heating device.

The present invention relates to a method for generating steam with concentrated solar radiation in which a stream of air is guided through an absorber of an air heating device heated by concentrated solar radiation and heated by passing through the absorber, the heated airstream is then cooled by generating steam and at least a portion of the cooled air stream is returned to the upstream side of the absorber.
In the book "Second Generation Central Receiver Technologies" (Becker, Klimas, published by Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Luft-und Raumfahrt, Verlag C. F. Muller GmbH, Karlsruhe 1993, Pages 1-2, FIGS. 1-2) such a method is disclosed. When using a volumetric air heating device the heated air is guided with blowers directly to the steam generator and/or to a thermocline storage device. The storage device serves as a compensation means for differences between the energy supply and usage over time and is switched in parallel to the steam generator.
In certain devices according to FIGS. 4-7 on pages 4-41 of the aforementioned book a burner operated with fossil fuels is arranged upstream of the steam generator. With such a burner the production of electricity in cooperation with the thermocline storage device can be maintained when no solar energy is present or no heat energy can be removed from the storage device. In the known devices the receiver, with which the solar radiation collected with a solar panel field is concentrated, is arranged on top of a high tower and the steam generator is positioned at the bottom of the tower.
The steam generator used for producing steam requires with respect to its service life and with respect to protection of the steam turbine loaded therewith a substantially constant air inlet temperature and a substantially constant air mass flow at least within short time intervals. This can not be insured with an air heating device because it can only be operated either with a constant mass flow or a with a constant air outlet temperature. For a constant mass flow the air outlet temperature changes with the changing solar radiation received by the solar panel field. Temperature fluctuations of the heated air may occur when clouds suddenly cover the large surface area of the solar panel field because the temperature of the air leaving the air heating device then drops. This results in a change of the average temperature with which the steam generator is loaded as well as in a change of the three dimensional temperature profile, especially when only a portion of the solar panel field is shaded by clouds. It has been shown that the conventionally used absorber for the air heating device in the form of woven metal etc. have a to low storage effect so that a change of the radiation energy very quickly effects the air outlet temperature. For a controlled and thus constant air outlet temperature the mass flow is the variable parameter.
It is thus the object of the present invention to provide a method of the aforementioned kind with which a quasi stationary operation of the steam generators/turbine is possible, i.e., an operation with such temperature transients that are acceptable to the steam generator/steam turbine.

Method for generating steam with concentrated solar radiation and solar apparatus therefor


When a machine-control ON/OFF switch is switched to the ON position, a controller outputs either a first control signal generated by an operation lever or a second control signal that operates a boom cylinder in accordance with a predetermined condition; when the ON/OFF switch is switched to the OFF position, the controller outputs the first control signal; when a control signal has been switched from one of the first control signal and the second control signal to the other control signal by the operation of the ON/OFF switch, the controller applies a rate limit to the control signal, and controls the boom cylinder on the basis of the control signal obtained after the limitation.

Techniques for improving the work efficiency of a work machine (e.g. a hydraulic excavator) including a work implement (e.g. a front work implement) driven by hydraulic actuators include machine control (Machine Control: MC). MC is a technique for assisting operation by an operator by executing semi-automatic control for operating a work implement in accordance with a predetermined condition in a case where an operation device (operation lever) is operated by the operator.
In recent years, for the purpose of improving construction precision and efficiency, active efforts are being made for development of computerized construction machines in which respective machine bodies retain data about target construction surfaces, and a semi-automatically control operation of work implements is performed such that the work implements do not move into the target construction surfaces. An operator proceeds the construction works by using a computerized construction machine while switching the semi-automatic control between ON and OFF.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a work-vehicle control system that includes: a first operation lever for a work machine; a first operation member provided to the first operation lever; and a controller that performs automatic control of the work machine. In the work-vehicle control system, the controller executes an automatic control function allocated to the first operation member in accordance with operation of the first operation member when an execution condition including that the first operation lever is at a neutral position is satisfied. Further, Patent Document 1 states that, according to the work-vehicle control system, "The automatic control function allocated to the first operation member is executed in accordance with operation of the first operation member when the execution condition including that the first operation lever is at the neutral position is satisfied. Because of this, it is possible to prevent simultaneously performing an execution of the automatic control function allocated to the first operation member and an operation of the work machine through the first operation lever even if the first operation lever is moved during operation of the first operation member. Thereby, it is possible to prevent unintended operation of the work machine due to an operational error, and construction with high quality by automatic control can be performed."

HITACHI CONSTRUCTION MACHINERY CO., LTD.


Foot securing device, particularly usable in trekking boots, including a traction element which has a first portion which embraces the upper heel and malleolar region and a second portion which is curved at the foot instep region and defines grip loops for laces. The device furthermore includes a third portion which passes below approximately the median region of the sole of the foot. The device allows, once the boot has been closed, to optimally support the foot while walking, since the foot is secured in the regions overlying the heel and the foot instep.

The present invention relates to a foot securing device particularly usable for trekking boots.
Trekking boots are currently usually constituted by a sole and an upper which is provided, in a forward position, with a resting tab for the foot instep region and with flaps closeable by means of adapted laces.
Such trekking boots usually have an upper whose height is such as to rise above the malleolar region in order to allow optimum securing of the user's ankle. The following characteristics are usually required of these known boots: in view of their particular use, the sole employed must have a given degree of rigidity in order to support the foot while walking on rough paths, while the upper must be rather soft so as to facilitate the articulation of the foot.
These two characteristics entail a problem in known boots: the foot can in fact move rather freely inside the upper, with consequent shifting while walking which results in lower stability for the user.
The act of tightening the laces of the boots as much as possible in order to stabilize the foot inside the upper is not sufficient, and indeed such tightening causes high tension in the front part of the boot, leading to user discomfort while walking, since the foot flexes several times when walking.

Foot securing device particularly for trekking boots


The development and use of a model to estimate disability insurance exposure for a group of individuals to be underwritten for a coverage period is disclosed. The development of the model includes the use of medical claim data having a plurality of medical claims made by a first model population having at least a respective plurality of first model population members and a disability insurance claim data having a plurality of disability insurance claims made by a second model population having at least a respective plurality of second model population members, which optionally may partially or wholly overlap with the first model population. A clinical medical condition classification system assigns corresponding medical condition causes to the disability insurance claims and the medical claims based on medical condition information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a new technology to underwrite group disability insurance. In particular, the present invention relates to predicting the expected claims to be made by a group based on pooled historical data of claims for disability insurance and pooled historical data of medical claims.
2. Background Art
Group insurance for Long Term Disability (LTD) and Short Term Disability (STD) for employees is widely available. In order to set appropriate premiums for these risks it is necessary to estimate the likelihood of the insured events (number of disabilities) and the severity (or cost) of each event, for each insured group. Because of the relative rarity of these events for long term disability, the experience of a group is too small to provide reliable estimates for any but the largest groups (e.g., with ten thousand or more employees).
The following is an example illustrating the risk profile presented by groups of modest size, in this case for a group of 500 employees. It assumes that the binomial distribution is an accurate representation of the likelihood of disability. A 90% confidence interval is calculated. The following table lists the range of number of long term disability claims in the confidence interval at 3 different probabilities for the event.
TABLE 1Confidence Interval Example90% Confidence IntervalProbability Lower BoundUpper Bound.00102.00505.01029
If a group has 2 events, it is in the 90% confidence interval for probabilities 0.001, 0.005 and 0.010 or a potential range of a 10-fold difference in true underlying probabilities for the event. This could result in a 10-fold difference in premium. If 0 or 1 event occurs, the underlying rate could be a 0.001 or 0.005 or a 5-fold difference in the true probability. Therefore, refined analytic methods are needed for accurate premium rate settings to reflect the group's underlying risk since the 5-fold or 10-fold difference in risk would turn into a 5-fold or 10-fold difference in insurance premium. The 5-fold or 10-fold range in risk and premium should be unacceptable to both the insurer and the insured.
The alternative actuarial approach uses estimates of group risk based on the age and gender (demographics) of each group's employees by using tables based on data pooled from many groups (i.e., manual rates). For example, the likelihood of a 20 year old male having a long term disability claim in a year is about 1/1,000 and the likelihood for a 62 years old male is about 10/1,000. The group risk is calculated by summing each eligible employee's demographic risk, the sum being the group's base risk. The group's experience may be used to adjust (usually done via a weighted average) the demographic risk higher or lower, depending upon the historical experience. While the demographic incidence rates may be modified by the industrial codes and geographic location of specific groups they do not specifically adjust for the considerable variation in the underlying morbidity of employees which underlies the risks of long term disability claims. The experience based rates adjust for the historical or backward looking component of underlying morbidity, where people still on long term disability are not part of the current insured risk (i.e., they do not contribute to the forward looking morbidity risk of the insured group since they are not part of its workforce unless they come back to work and they are no longer disabled).
Accordingly, there is a need for underwriting methods that address groups of modest size and accounts for the underlying morbidity of the employees making up a group.

Computerized medical modeling of group disability insurance using medical claims data

Abstract: Development then categorizes the disability insurance claims and medical claims classified by medical condition, where each morbidity category comprises one or more medical conditions, to form a plurality of morbidity categories of disability insurance claims. Then, the proportions of the two types of claims are calculated for each morbidity category. Then, for each of the morbidity categories, a probability of having a disability claim during the coverage period is calculated using at least one conditional probability, the conditional probability being based on at least the proportion of disability insurance claims and the proportion of medical claims for each of the morbidity categories. From that, for each of the morbidity categories, an estimated the disability claim duration or cost is calculated.


An item may include fabric having insulating and conductive yarns or other strands of material. The conductive strands may form signal paths. Electrical components can be mounted to the fabric. Each electrical component may have an electrical device such as a semiconductor die that is mounted on an interposer substrate. The interposer may have contacts that are soldered to the conductive strands. A protective cover may encapsulate portions of the electrical component. To create a robust connection between the electrical component and the fabric, the conductive strands may be threaded through recesses in the electrical component. The recesses may be formed in the interposer or may be formed in a protective cover on the interposer. Conductive material in the recess may be used to electrically and/or mechanically connect the conductive strand to a bond pad in the recess. Thermoplastic material may be used to seal the solder joint.

It may be desirable to form bags, furniture, clothing, and other items from materials such as fabric. Fabric items generally do not include electrical components. It may be desirable, however, to incorporate electrical components into fabric to provide a user of a fabric item with enhanced functionality.
It can be challenging to incorporate electrical components into fabric. Fabric is flexible, so it can be difficult to mount structures to fabric. Electrical components must be coupled to signal paths (e.g., signal paths that carry data signals, power, etc.), but unless care is taken, signal paths will be damaged or components may become dislodged as fabric is bent and stretched.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved techniques for incorporating electrical components into items with fabric.

Electrical components attached to fabric


A light detecting apparatus includes: a first photoelectric conversion element unit (110) and a second photoelectric conversion element unit (120) each of which converts input light to an electric current and output it; an optical current transducer unit (100) for outputting, as a detected current, a differential current between an electric current outputted by the first photoelectric conversion element unit and an electric current outputted by the second photoelectric conversion element unit; and a first current/voltage converting unit (200) for amplifying the detected current outputted from the optical current transducer unit, converting it to a voltage signal, and outputting the voltage signal.

As this type of light detecting apparatus, for example, there is an apparatus used as a light receiving unit for detecting light from a living body on a laser Doppler blood flowmeter (e.g. refer to patent documents 1 and 2). The laser Doppler blood flowmeter irradiates the living body with light such as laser light, and calculates blood flow velocity or the like of the living body from a change in wavelength due to a Doppler shift in the light reflection or scattering. The light detecting apparatus used as the light receiving unit of the laser Doppler blood flowmeter is typically provided with: a photoelectric conversion element such as a photodiode; and a current/voltage conversion circuit including an operational amplifier (i.e. "operational amplification circuit") for amplifying an output electric current of the photoelectric conversion element and converting it to a voltage signal.
On the other hand, for example, a patent document 3 discloses that on a light receiving circuit used for optical communication or the like, bias elements are connected to both ends of a photodiode and the both ends are connected to an input end of a differential amplifier (operational amplifier) via a condenser and that resistive elements are provided between a positive output and a negative input and between an inverted output and a positive input of the differential.

Light detecting apparatus and fluid measuring apparatus


The present invention relates to an active capacitor circuit (40) for use in a driver device for driving a load (22), in particular an LED unit comprising one or more LEDs (23). Further, the present invention relates to a driver device comprising such an active capacitor circuit. The proposed active capacitor circuit comprises coupling terminals (41, 42) for providing a drive voltage (vD) and/or drive current (iD) for driving a load (22) to be coupled between said coupling terminals (41, 42), an output power stage (50) coupled between said coupling terminals (41, 42) for converting said periodic current (iA) into said drive current (iD), a low frequency capacitor (46) coupled between a capacitor output terminal (48) of said output power stage (50) and a coupling terminal (42), and a control unit (60) for controlling said output power stage (50) by use of a control signal (Sd) obtained from a feedback of the drive voltage (vD), a capacitor voltage (vC) across said low frequency capacitor (46) and/or a capacitor current (iC) through said low frequency capacitor (46).

In the field of LED drivers for offline applications such as retrofit lamps, solutions are demanded to cope with high efficiency, high power density, long lifetime, high power factor and low cost, among other relevant features. While practically all existing solutions compromise one or the other requirement, it is essential that the proposed driver circuits properly condition the mains power into the form required by the LEDs while maintaining compliance with present and future power mains regulations. It is of critical importance to guarantee that the perceptible light flicker does not exceed a maximum value (preferably zero) when the power factor is maintained above a certain limit.
Further, in off-line converters, energy from the power mains often needs to be drawn synchronously in proportion to the supplied voltage waveform in order to achieve a high power factor and low harmonic distortion. Power converter architectures with an independent preconditioner stage are traditionally employed to best accomplish this task without compromising the proper form of the energy to be supplied to the load.
Typically, two series-connected power stages are employed to obtain a high power factor while keeping the output power constant throughout a mains cycle (or supply cycle, i.e. the cycle of the mains voltage or the supply voltage). In those architectures, the first stage shapes the mains current and the second stage performs the power conversion to the load.
Nonetheless, for reasons related to complexity and cost, simplified powertrain solutions are adopted known conventionally as single-stage, where either of the two stages may essentially not be incorporated. As a consequence of such simplification, the aforementioned requirements may be largely compromised and/or converter performance highly degraded, particularly in terms of size, reliability and lifetime. The latter is usually mainly attributed to the need for using a bulky low frequency storage capacitor in parallel to the load when constant output power delivery is to be guaranteed.
Single stage solutions are common in literature. One reference example is given in the work of Robert Erickson and Michael Madigan, entitled "Design of a simple high-power-factor rectifier based on the flyback converter", IEEE Proceedings of the Applied Power Electronics Conferences and Expositions, 1990, pp. 792-801.
An intermediate solution, half-way between the two-stage and single-stage approaches, is the single-stage converter with integrated preconditioner. Such solutions can feature reduced component count and high power density while keeping compliance with both load and power mains requirements. Other embodiments with a single power converting stage allow high power factors (HPF) by means of integrating a boost converter operating in discontinuous conduction mode. These converters actually combine the above mentioned two power conversion stages.
Typically, high power factor operation of driver devices for driving a load, such as LED units comprising one or more LEDs, causes strong 100 Hz output current ripple even if large filter capacitors are used. These filters are almost ineffective if employed parallel to LED loads with steep IV (current versus voltage) characteristics (also called "diode characteristics"). It is known from electric vehicles and photovoltaic systems that dc/dc-converters between load and capacitor improve the exploitation of (super-) capacitors.
Q. Hu and R. Zane, "A 0.9 PF LED Driver with Small LED Current Ripple Based on Series-input Digitally-controlled Converter", Proceeding of the APEC 2010, pp. 2314-2320 describe a two-stage LED driver using a bidirectional step down converter as second power stage, which connects the 120 Hz capacitor to the LED load, which also is connected to the output of the first power stage.


The invention provides methods for diagnosing, assessing or quantitating drug use, drug abuse or narcosis or for differentiating drug use, drug abuse or narcosis from brain injury in a subject by tracking eye movement of at least one eye of the subject, analyzing eye movement of at least one eye of the subject, comparing eye movement of at least one eye of the subject the normal or mean eye movement; and, optionally calculating a standard deviation or p value for eye movement of at least one eye of the subject as compared to the normal or mean eye movement.

Automated Eye Movement Tracking
Automated eye movement tracking has been used for marketing and advertising research, the development of assistive devices for immobile individuals, and for video games. Spatial calibration of the device requires the subject to have relatively intact ocular motility that implies function of cranial nerves II (optic), III (oculomotor), IV (trochlear) and VI (abducens) and their associated nuclei as well as sufficient cerebral function to enable cognition and volition for calibration.
Others have successfully demonstrated the clinical applications of eye movement data (Lee et al., Brain Research. 2011; 1399:59-65; Contreras et al., Brain Research 2011; 1398:55-63; Maruta et al., The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 2010; 25(4):293-305). Trojano et al., J Neurol 2012; (published online; ahead of print) recently described uncalibrated eye movement measurements in a population of minimally conscious and persistently vegetative patients. They report data from 11 healthy control subjects evaluating chronic disorders of consciousness, not acute changes in intracranial pressure. They sample eye movements at 60 Hz rather than 500 Hz, effectively reducing the power of their data 100-fold, and they report differences in on-target and off-target fixations between the groups without spatially calibrated data. Moreover, they use static stimuli moving in a quasi-periodic way.
Eye movement tracking for neuropsychiatric and brain injury research (Heitger, et al., Brain, 2009; 132: 2850-2870; Maruta, et al., J Head Trauma Rehabil., 2010; 25: 293-305) has been performed for nearly 30 years and can evaluate smooth pursuit, saccades, fixation, pupil size and other aspects of gaze. Spatial calibration of the eye tracker is generally performed for each individual being tracked. With calibration, the eye-tracker measures the relative position of pupil and corneal reflection for a period of about 400-800 ms while the subject looks at a target or targets of known position to generate meaningful spatial coordinates during subsequent pupil movement. The process of spatial calibration implies relatively preserved neurologic function because it requires that the subject is able to follow commands and look at specific points.
It is conceivable that the process of spatial calibration may mask deficits in ocular motility. If there is a persistent and replicable weakness in movement of an eye, the camera will interpret the eye's ability to move in the direction of that weakness as the full potential range of motion in that direction due to the calibration process. In other words if the subject is directed to look at a position but consistently only moves halfway there, the calibration process will account for that when tracking subsequent eye movements and interpret movements to the halfway point as occurring at the full range of normal motion. If during calibration one eye only makes it halfway to the target, but the other eye is fully there, the camera will interpret both eyes as being together when one performs half the eye movement as the other. Thus binocular spatial calibration may preclude detection of disconjugate gaze unless each eye is calibrated separately using a dichoptic apparatus (Schotter, et al., PLoS One, 2012; 7: e35608).
Conjugacy of Eye Movement
Conjugate gaze is the motion of both eyes in the same direction at the same time. Conjugate gaze is believed to be controlled by the following four different mechanisms: the saccadic system that allows for voluntary direction of the gaze, the pursuit system that allows the subject to follow a moving object, the optokinetic system that restores gaze despite movements of the outside world, and the vestibulo-ocular reflex system (VOR system) that corrects for the movements of the head to preserve the stable visual image of the world.
Disconjugate gaze or strabismus is a failure of the eyes to turn together in the same direction. Normal coordinated movements of the eyes produces conjugate gaze, in which the eyes are aligned for binocular 3-dimensional vision. Misalignment results in loss of this vision. With the visual axis of each eye fixated on a different point, diplopia (or double vision) usually results and may be perceived as a blurred image if the two images are very closely aligned. However, if the image from the weaker eye is suppressed by higher cortical centers, there is only one image with loss of visual acuity (or a blurred image). Pathology usually resides either in the oculomotor muscles or their neuronal pathways including the medial longitudinal fasiculus, the paramedian pontine reticular formation, the medullary reticular formation, the superior colliculus, or the cranial nerves III, IV, or VI or their nuclei.
Assessment of eye movement conjugacy is commonly performed by primary care physicians, neurologists, ophthalmologists, neurosurgeons, emergency medicine doctors, and trauma surgeons to rapidly assess global neurologic functioning. In stable patients, ophthalmologists and neurologists perform more detailed examination to assess the alignment of the eyes such as the cover test and Hirschberg corneal reflex test. Other tests used to assess binocular conjugacy include the Titmus House Fly test, Lang's stereo test, the Hess screen, red-filter test, Maddox rod evaluation and Lancaster red-green test. In young children, who may be less cooperative with an examiner, binocular gaze conjugacy may only be assessable with simpler algorithms, such as following an object moving in a set trajectory (Cavezian, et al., Res Dev Disabil., 2010; 31: 1102-1108). When such tests are performed in conjunction with the remainder of the neurophthalmic and physical evaluation, one can localize neurologic lesions and quantitate ocular motility deficits with great accuracy. Despite this capability, these tests are not used routinely in the emergency setting due to the need for a trained practitioner to administer them, the requirement for sophisticated equipment, and the urgent nature of many neurologic disorders.
Assessment of binocular gaze conjugacy in primates for research purposes is performed with the magnetic search coil technique requiring coils implanted into the bulbar conjunctiva (Schultz, et al., J Neurophysiol., 2013; 109: 518-545). This technique was first described by Fuchs and Robinson in 1966 (Fuchs, et al., J Appl Physiol., 1966; 21: 1068-1070) and can also be performed in humans fitted with sclera search coils designed specifically for tracking eye movements.
Experimentally, spatially calibrated eye movement tracking using the Bouis oculometer (Bach, et al., J Neurosci Methods, 1983; 9: 9-14), which requires that the head is rigidly fixed, shows that healthy seven year old children have increased disconjugacy of eye movement during saccades relative to adults while both perform a reading task (Bucci, et al., Vision Res., 2006; 46: 457-466). Research on disconjugacy during reading can be performed using a dichoptic apparatus in which the individual eyes are spatially calibrated separately and presented with stimuli to assess movements separately for simultaneous comparison to each other (Schotter, et al., PLoS One, 2012; 7: e35608). U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/881,014, filed Sep. 23, 2013, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, teaches methods for tracking eye movement, and methods and kits for assessing conjugacy and disconjugacy of gaze and strabismus.
Brain Injury
One of the problems associated with the study of outcomes after brain injury, is the heterogeneous nature of such injury in terms of etiology, anatomic sequelae, and physiologic and psychologic impact. The etiology of injury affects the anatomic sequelae and ranges from global mechanisms such as acceleration/deceleration and blast, to potentially more focal mechanisms such as blunt impact and penetrating trauma. Some injury mechanisms result in structural changes to the brain that can be visualized using conventional imaging such as MRI and CT scan, while other injuries appear radiographically normal.
Acceleration/deceleration injury may result in structurally visible coup/contrecoup injuries and less visible diffuse axonal injury (DAI) (Cecil, et al., Journal of Neurosurgery, 1998; 88: 795-801) Acceleration/deceleration is also thought to be one of the potential mechanisms for concussion which is the most common form of civilian radiographically normal brain injury (Bayly, et al., Journal of Neurotrauma, 2005; 22: 845-856; Daneshvar, et al., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, 2011; 22: 683-700). Concussion is brain injury, most often resulting from blunt impact, in the absence of structural abnormality by conventional radiographic imaging such as computed tomography (CT) scan (McCrory, et al., The Physician and Sports Medicine, 2009; 37: 141-159). Concussion may include transient loss or disruption of neurologic function. The term "subconcussion" may be used to describe the sequelae of brain injury in the absence of transient loss or disruption of neurologic function. Both concussion and subconcussion as well as blast injury may be termed "non-structural" brain injury.
Blast injury resembles blunt impact brain injury in that both may be associated with radiographically apparent cerebral edema and intracranial hemorrhage, however with blast injury the edema onset may be more rapid and severe, and there is greater likelihood of clinical vasospasm (Armonda, et al., Neurosurgery, 2006; 59: 1215-1225). Blast injury is very frequently radiographically normal, yet mild or moderate blast injury is strongly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other cognitive dysfunctions (Cernak, et al., The Journal of Trauma, 2001; 50: 695-706). The actual cause of blast brain injury is suspected to be multifactorial and often results in DAI (Leung, et al., Mol Cell Biomech, 2008; 5: 155-168). A shock wave resulting from pressure changes caused by the explosion impacts, both cranial and non-cranial structures (Courtney, et al., Medical Hypotheses, 2009; 72: 76-83; Bauman, et al., Journal of Neurotrauma, 2009; 26: 841-860). Blast injury affects the brain through several mechanisms: primary brain injury caused by blast-wave induced changes in atmospheric pressure directly impacting the brain; secondary injury resulting from objects put in motion by the blast that impact the head, and tertiary injury resulting from the victim striking the head upon falling or being propelled into a solid object (Warden, The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 2006; 21: 398-402).
Blunt impact and penetrating trauma can result in both diffuse and focal injury. One mechanism by which focal brain injury leads to neurologic damage is cortical spreading depression (Hartings, et al., Journal of Neurotrauma, 2009; 26: 1857-1866), which is currently only thought measurable using invasive means.
Brain injury may be associated with short term sequelae including headaches and memory problems, and longer term problems including dementia, Parkinsonism and motor-neuron disease (Daneshvar, et al., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, 2011; 22: 683-700). Both concussion and mild blast injury may be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and cognitive impairment (Taber, et al., The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 2006; 18: 141-145). Clinical tests for concussion show poor test reliability (Broglio, et al., Journal of Athletic Training, 2007; 42: 509-514) and thus concussion remains a diagnosis that is difficult to treat because it is difficult to detect. Traumatic brain injury can impact eye movement through a multitude of mechanisms including direct compression of cranial nerves, trauma to cranial nerves, injury to cranial nerve nuclei and supranuclear impacts.
Many cases of trauma result in elevated intracranial pressure. If untreated, acute elevations in intracranial pressure (ICP) due to brain injury can result in permanent neurologic impairment or death. Double vision and other ocular disturbances associated with elevated ICP were first described by Hippocrates in approximately 400 B.C. (Aronyk, Neurosurgery Clinics of North America, 1993; 4: 599-609). Papilledema, and its association with elevated ICP was described by Albrecht von Graefe in 1860 (Pearce, European Neurology, 2009; 61: 224-249). In the post-radiographic era, acute and chronic pathology of the optic nerve and disc, and of ocular motility are well characterized in people with elevated ICP (Dennis, et al., Archives of Neurology, 1981; 38: 607-615; Zeiner, et al., Child's Nerv. Syst., 1985; 1: 115-122; Altintas, et al., Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, 2005; 243: 1213-1217). Clinically apparent disruption of ocular motility may precede computed tomography (CT) findings in some subjects with acutely elevated ICP (Tzekov, et al., Pediatric Neurosurgery, 1991; 17: 317-320; Chou, et al., Neurosurgery Clinics of North America, 1999; 10: 587-608).
Elevated Intracranial Pressure
Several potential mechanisms may contribute to cranial nerve dysfunction due to elevated intracranial pressure. The IIIrd nerve (oculomotor) may be directly compressed by the medial aspect of the temporal lobe with frontal or temporal mass lesions, or diffuse supratentorial mass effect. The VIth nerve (abducens) is anatomically vulnerable to infratentorial mass effect at the prepontine cistern and to hydrocephalus from stretch as it traverses the tentorial edge.
Elevated intracranial pressure slows axoplasmic transport along cranial nerves (Balarratnasingam, et al., Brain Research, 2011; 1417: 67-76). The optic nerve (II) is most frequently analyzed because it can be visualized directly with ophthalmoscopy, and indirectly with ultrasound. Edema of the optic nerve appears earlier than ocular fundus changes, and resolves after treatment of elevated ICP Gangemi, et al., Neurochirurgia, 1987; 30: 53-55). Fluctuating elevated neural pressure leads to impaired axonal transport along the optic nerve after as little as 30 minutes in a rabbit model (Balarratnasingam, et al., Brain Research, 2011; 1417: 67-76). Axoplasmic flow stasis and intraneuronal ischemia may occur in the optic nerve exposed to chronically elevated ICP (Lee, et al., Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, 2012). Among the nerves impacting ocular motility, the trochlear nerve (IV), followed by oculomotor (III) and then abducens (VI), has the greatest length of exposure to the subarachnoid space with the narrowest diameter, and thus may be most vulnerable to a pressure induced palsy (Hanson, et al., Neurology, 2004; 62: 33-36; Adler, et al., Journal of Neurosurgery, 2002; 96: 1103-1113). The optic nerve (II) has approximately the same length of exposure as the abducens (Murali, et al., in Head Injury (ed. Paul Cooper and John Golfinos) (McGraw-Hill, 2000)), and thus papilledema, or swelling of the optic disc apparent on ophthalmoscopic examination may be a relatively late indicator of elevated ICP (Killer, et al., Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology, 2009; 37: 444-447; Nazir, et al., J Aapos, 2009; 13: 62-66). Papilledema is not always a sensitive marker for hydrocephalus leading to elevated ICP, and in one study was present in as few as 14% of patients with a shunt malfunction (Nazir, et al., J Aapos, 2009; 13: 62-66) consistent with the relatively short intracranial course of II compared to cranial nerves III and IV. Compartmentalization of subarachnoid spaces is hypothesized to explain why papilledema may be present in a patient without elevated ICP, and not occur in patients with elevated ICP (Killer, et al., Clinical & Experimental Ophthalmology, 2009; 37: 444-447).
Effect of Drugs and Narcotics on Eye Movement
Methadone has been shown to impact ocular movements during both smooth pursuit and saccades, and is thought to impact function of the superior colliculus (Rothenberg et al., Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1980; 67:221-227; Rothenberg et al., Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1980; 67:229-234, 1980). Narcotic naïve subjects administered methadone had decreased smooth pursuit eye movement gain in horizontal pursuit tracking, but showed no significant decrease in gain in vertical pursuit tracking. There was a significant increase in vertical cross correlation measurements but none in horizontal cross correlation. No phase difference between subjects given methadone and control was present, signifying that the difference in gain was not due to failure of eye movement during parts of eye tracking trial or a difference in frequency of eye motion compared to target motion. The lack of vertical pursuit gain in methadone dose subjects may be due to contamination of vertical data from eyelid motion, as eyelid motion occurs with vertical eye motion when movement is greater than 5 degrees from central position. Methadone may have induced loss of eyelid control, resulting in contamination of vertical pursuit tracking. Methadone did not significantly alter maximum saccade velocity. However, initial saccade accuracy is significantly decreased with more pronounced saccade undershoot after use of methadone. In addition, the latency to onset of initial saccade was also significantly increased.
Similar results may be seen with other pharmacologic agents. Diazepam is one of the class of benzodiazepines. Subjects given diazepam showed significant decrease in smooth pursuit gain in a dose dependent manner; 5 mg diazepam significantly reduced gain at 0.4 Hz and 10 mg diazepam at 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, and 1.6 Hz. In contrast to methadone, diazepam induced changes in cross-correlation as function of drug as well. Phase of smooth pursuit did not show a significant change upon administration of diazepam (Rothenberg et al., Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1981; 74:232-236; Rothenberg et al., Psychopharmacology (Berl) 1981; 74:237-240). The dose dependent effects of diazepam on different frequencies of motion track suggest that smooth pursuit eye tracking after diazepam administration may be dependent on stimulus velocity. Saccadic pursuit replaces smooth pursuit upon administration of diazepam. Diazepam may induce the above eye movement changes by its binding to visual CNS benzodiazepine binding sites that are important for oculomotor control. Compared to methadone, diazepam administration shows a greater reduction in amplitude and replacement of smooth pursuit with saccadic pursuit.
Lorazepam is another of the class of benzodiazepines. When administered to subjects undergoing saccade tasks, the gap between successive images were temporally overlapped with the original image still on the screen before the next image appeared. In normal subjects, latency increases with temporal overlap compared to images separated by 200 ms gap. With lorazepam administration, subjects showed significant change during the temporal overlap but not with 200 ms gap (Masson et al., Behav Brain Res 2000; 108:169-180). Temporal overlap had no significant effect on saccadic peak velocity and amplitude in normal subjects. In lorazepam administered subjects, saccadic peak velocity and the amplitude of first saccadic eye movement significantly decreased. With smooth pursuit eye movement, lorazepam showed increased latency and longer reaction time compared to control. In addition, lorazepam significantly decreased eye velocity. Results also indicate that tracking errors in smooth pursuit induced by lorazepam are compensated for by saccadic movements of the eyes.
Alcohol consumption also impacts eye movements. Drinking subjects show decreased gain during smooth pursuit eye movement in a dose dependent manner. In one study subjects were given 0.4 and 0.8 g/kg of alcohol and eye tracking was done on two time points: T1 at 60 min. and T2 at 180 min. after beverage consumption (Roche et al., Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2010; 212:33-44). In smooth pursuit eye tracking, high dose affected gain at both time points while low dose did not have an effect on gain for the latter time point. For pro-saccade, latency was also impaired in a similar, dose dependent manner. Ocular velocity and accuracy decreased only after high dose consumption. Anti-saccade showed similar presentation as pro-saccade with the exception that high dose improved accuracy at T1 and decreased by T2.
Alcohol significantly affected both pro and anti-saccade accuracy; however, greater accuracy for high dose alcohol at T1 may be due to alcohol increasing the amplitude of anti-saccade relative to normal conditions and not that alcohol is improving anti-saccade functioning. This suggests that high dose alcohol may be affecting neurocircuitry required for rapid processing of visuospatial information. High dose and low dose alcohol consumption show similar impairment in smooth pursuit gain and anti-saccade functions; however, high dose patients have less awareness of the impact of this dysfunction, placing them in higher risk for injuries.
Internuclear Ophthalmoplegia (INO)
The medial longitudinal fasciculus is a bilateral axonal bundle that functionally coordinates the actions of cranial nerves III, IV and VI, and receives inputs from the frontal eye fields, cerebellar flocculus, superior colliculus, accessory oculomotor nuclei, pontine reticular formation, fastigial nucleus and cranial nerve VIII (Reulen et al., Brain 1983; 106 (Pt 1):121-140). It enables saccadic and reflexive eye movements and carries the descending tectospinal and medial vestibulospinal tracts into the cervical spinal cord.
Internuclear ophthalmoplegia (INO) results from impaired function of the medial longtitudinal fasciculus (Zee et al., Baillieres Clin Neurol 1992; 1:455-470) and can be either unilateral or bilateral. The most common causes of INO are multiple sclerosis and stroke/ischemic injury. Other causes are trauma, tentorial herniation, infection, tumor, iatrogenic injury, hemorrhage, vasculitis, and other (Keane et al., Arch Neurol 2005; 62:714-717).
INO can be difficult to detect in patients with mild or intermediate slowing of adduction and a variety of technologies have been proposed to increase the accuracy of detection, such as quantitative infrared oculography (Frohman et al., Neurology 2003; 61:848-850), saccade testing and electrooculography (Jozefowicz-Korczynska et al., J Neurol 2008; 255:1006-1011) and oculo-vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (Rosengren et al., Clin Neurophysiol 2011; 122:1264-1267). MRI sequences in patients with INO may also reveal lesions in the MLF (McNulty et al., Clin Neuroradiol 2014).
INO can also be difficult to differentiate from infranuclear palsies of cranial nerves such as a partial third nerve palsy, or disorders such as myasthenia gravis or Guillain Barre or ocular globe trauma. A method for quantitation of INO would be a useful outcome measure for assessing the efficacy of treatments for INO. Since INO is often seen in multiple sclerosis such a method may also be useful for assessing the efficacy of treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS).
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a form of encephalopathy that is a progressive degenerative disease, which can currently only be definitively diagnosed postmortem, in individuals with a history of multiple concussions and other forms of head injury. In March 2014, researchers announced the discovery of an exosome particle created by the brain which has been shown to contain trace proteins indicating the presence of the disease, however, a test is not yet available. The disease was previously called dementia pugilistica (DP), as it was initially found in those with a history of boxing. CTE has been most commonly found in professional athletes participating in American football, ice hockey, professional wrestling and other contact sports who have experienced repetitive brain trauma. It has also been found in soldiers exposed to a blast or a concussive injury, in both cases resulting in characteristic degeneration of brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein. (Individuals with CTE may show symptoms of dementia, such as memory loss, aggression, confusion and depression, which generally appear years or many decades after the trauma.
Repeated concussions and injuries less serious than concussions ("sub-concussions") incurred during the play of contact sports over a long period have not yet been found to result in CTE. In the case of blast injury, a single exposure to a blast and the subsequent violent movement of the head in the blast wind can cause the condition.
CTE is a neurological degenerative disease found in individuals who have been subjected to repetitive traumatic brain injuries by way of the acceleration of the head on impact and the subsequent damage to axons. (McKee et al., J. Neuropathol. Exp. Neurol. 68 (7): 709-35) While repetitive brain trauma is thought to be necessary to cause CTE, it is not sufficient, meaning that not everyone exposed to repetitive brain trauma will get the disease. Other risk factors are possible but have not yet been reported, due to the donated brains in the brain bank at the Boston University School of Medicine and elsewhere, which consists mostly of the brains of athletes with a history of professional participation in contact sports. (Saulle et al., "Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: A Review," Rehabilitation Research and Practice 2012: 1) Professional level athletes are the largest demographic to suffer from CTE due to frequent concussions from play in contact-sport. These contact-sports include American football, ice hockey, rugby, boxing, and wrestling. (Daneshvar et al., Clin Sports Med 2011; 30(1):1-17) Other individuals that have been diagnosed with CTE were involved in military service, had a previous history of chronic seizures, victims of domestic abuse, and or were involved in activities resulting in repetitive head collisions. (Daneshvar et al., Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am 2011; 22(4): 683-700) Reports of CTE have steadily increased in younger athletes, most likely due to increased awareness of the issue and perhaps due in part to athletes becoming bigger and stronger producing greater magnitudes of force in collision.
The primary physical manifestations of CTE include a reduction in brain weight, associated with atrophy of the frontal and temporal cortices and medial temporal lobe. The lateral ventricles and the third ventricle are often enlarged, with rare instances of dilation of the fourth ventricle. (Baugh et al., Brain Imaging and Behavior 2012; 6(2): 244-254) Other physical manifestations of CTE include anterior cavum septi pellucidi and posterior fenestrations, pallor of the substantia nigra and locus ceruleus, and atrophy of the olfactory bulbs, thalamus, mammillary bodies, brainstem and cerebellum. (Jancin, "Chronic traumatic encephalopathy test sought," Internal Medicine News. December 2013) As CTE progresses, there may be marked atrophy of the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and amygdala. (McKee et al., J. Neuropathol. Exp. Neurol. 2009; 68(7):709-35)
On a microscopic scale the pathology includes neuronal loss, tau deposition, TAR DNA-binding Protein 43 (TDP 43) beta-amyloid deposition, white matter changes, and other abnormalities. The tau deposition occurs as dense neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), neurites, and glial tangles, which are made up of astrocytes and other glial cells[7] Beta-amyloid deposition is a relatively uncommon feature of CTE. (McKee et al., (2012) "The Spectrum of Disease in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy" Brain: 1-22)
A small group of individuals with CTE have chronic traumatic encephalomyopathy (CTEM), characterized by motor neuron disease symptoms and mimics Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) (known in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease). Progressive muscle weakness and balance and gait problems seem to be early signs of CTEM.
Effects of Alcohol on Eye Movement
A substantial percentage of trauma subjects are simultaneously intoxicated with alcohol: (Dinh et al., Emerg Med J 2014; 31:390-393; O'Keeffe et al., J Trauma 2009; 66:495-498) Alcohol impedes assessment of patients with acute trauma by decreasing the Glasgow coma scale score and obfuscating the clinical examination. (Jurkovich et al., JAMA 1993; 270:51-56; Rundhaug et al., J Neurosurg 2014; 1:1-8) The impact of alcohol intoxication on eye movements has been well-described. Alcohol intoxication (0.6 g/kg for men and 0.55 g/kg for women) inhibits volitional antisaccades, impairs smooth pursuit and impacts the latency and accuracy of pro- and anti-saccades in a dose dependent manner. (Roche et al., Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2010; 212:33-44; Roche et al., Alcohol Clin Exp Res 2014; 38:844-852; Fogt et al., Aviat Space Environ Med 2001; 72:579-585; Fransson et al., Clin Neurophysiol 2010; 121:2134-2142) Alcohol also alters saccadic velocity. (King et al., J Stud Alcohol 2004; 65:27-36) These findings correlate closely with self-report of intoxication.
All publications, patent applications, patents and other reference material mentioned are incorporated by reference in their entirety, for instance, Patent Cooperation Treaty Application No. PCT/US2013/033672 filed Mar. 25, 2013 and Patent Cooperation Treaty Application No. PCT/US2014/042645 filed Jun. 17, 2014, and U.S. provisional applications 61/835,927, filed Jun. 17, 2013, 61/881,014, filed Sep. 23, 2013, 61/929,238, filed Jan. 20, 2014, 62/032,769, filed Aug. 4, 2014, and 62/065,057, filed Oct. 17, 2014, 62/068,047 filed Oct. 24, 2014, and 62/102,164 filed Jan. 12, 2015. In addition, the materials, methods and examples are only illustrative and are not intended to be limiting. The citation of references herein is not to be construed as an admission that the references are prior art to the present invention.

Methods and kits for diagnosing, assessing or quantitating drug use, drug abuse and narcosis, internuclear ophthalmoplegia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), chronic traumatic encephalopathy, schizophrenia spectrum disorders and alcohol consumption


The method and system described herein provides an interface for accessing a database containing information pertaining to traffic conditions. Using the interface, a driver can receive traffic conditions potentially affecting the driver's particular commute, just prior to the time at which the driver chooses between one or more routes for the commute. Several embodiments are disclosed in accordance with the present invention by which the driver can easily receive timely traffic information from the interface via the driver's wireless communications device, such as a wireless telephone.

Over the past decade, automobile traffic has become an increasingly severe problem in many cities, affecting employees' productivity and quality of life. The amount of traffic congestion that occurs on any particular road to any given time may vary dramatically on each day, due to unpredictable variables including traffic accidents or road construction. If a commuter is unaware of the traffic conditions until he has become delayed in traffic, it is then too late to plan a viable alternative route. Despite attempts to avoid traffic by altering work schedules and experimenting with different routes, most commuters continue to experience intolerable traffic, often on a regular basis.
Although there are several resources that are presently available to provide drivers with traffic information, none is effective for enabling drivers to easily obtain the information in time to avoid unpredictable traffic congestion while en route. For example, traffic reports that are broadcast over local radio stations typically provide driving conditions only at periodic intervals, and only for certain major highways. As another example, computerized, overhead traffic message displays that are located on some major roads or highways are usually not very useful because drivers are not given sufficient advanced notice to divert traffic to alternative routes. While radio traffic reports and programmable signs can provide useful information, these resources cannot be customized to provide information on demand for each individual driver's commute, and therefore have only a limited effect.
Recently, Internet web sites have been created for providing traffic information concerning specific roadways in certain metropolitan areas. The traffic information that is provided on such web sites is retrieved from databases containing traffic information that is periodically updated at regular intervals. Traffic.com, Inc. operates a web site for providing traffic information for several major routes in certain metropolitan areas. The web site provides color-coded maps that illustrate the traffic conditions along several major roadways in metropolitan areas. Using a "keyroute summary," the web site also indicates, for several major routes, the average speed of traffic and whether there are any traffic advisories on the routes. As another example, a web site operated by The Washington Post, enables a user to select or "click on" one of several roadways on a map of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and receive a short written report concerning traffic conditions for the selected roadway.
While web sites may provide accurate traffic conditions from databases of traffic information, many drivers either do not have access to the Internet or otherwise do not wish to access the Internet from their home or office before beginning a commute. In either case, since traffic information changes constantly, the information that one obtains from a web site may no longer be accurate during the time that the user is driving. Although it is possible to access information from a web page while in transit, for example, via in-vehicle computer systems or personal digital assistants, this is difficult and sometimes unsafe to do while driving, and such systems can be quite expensive.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems that enable drivers to easily access traffic information while commuting.

Methods and systems for reporting automotive traffic conditions in response to user-specific requests

BellSouth Intellectual Property Corporation


A combined wiper and head cover for a golf club, including a club head scrubber, and the method of applying the cover to the club and in particular to a putter. The cover includes a towel section and a head-engaging section secured to the towel section for engaging the heel of the club head, and fastening means for releasably securing the head-engaging section to the club such that the towel section drapes from the toe of the club head and is substantially confined to one side of the club shaft when the club's head is positioned above its shaft.

This invention relates to covers for club heads, and more particularly to a head cover for a golf club which may conveniently be used as a wiper and scrubber for cleaning a golf ball or golf club, as well as to the method of applying the cover hereof to a golf club.
Although golf club head covers exist in various configurations for providing protection for golf club heads while the club is not in actual use, only a few have been developed which are intended to serve an additional purpose of permitting the golfer to utilize the cover as a wiper for cleaning the golf ball or the club during play. One such dual purpose club head cover is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,570, issued to Edra J. Stewart, in which it is pointed out that such dual purpose covers are particularly useful as a putter cover. When a golfer takes the putter to the putting green, he/she removes the dual purpose cover from the putter and may use it to wipe the ball and/or the putter prior to putting. The Stewart device, which is constructed of terry cloth or toweling, includes a head-engaging portion conforming to the configuration to the putter head, a narrowed "waist" portion which may be elasticized for grasping the club shaft, and an elongate skirt portion hanging loosely around a considerable portion of the length of the shaft of the club. The skirt portion may, alternatively, be fastened by VELCRO.RTM. fasteners or other quick fastening means on the skirt, for causing the skirt to furl around the club shaft when the club is not in use.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,652, issued to Alsie G. Hyden and Bill J. Blundell, discloses a combined putter head cover and towel, in which a boot-shaped sheath fits over the putter head and may include an elastic band for aiding in the retention of the boot on the putter head. A towel is secured about the peripheral edge of the boot's leg portion and is open along its length, apparently for hanging about the putter's shaft in a manner similar to the cover of the Stewart patent.
In each of these prior art devices, the head-engaging portion is shaped to the configuration of a particular type of putter head for fitting over the entire club head including the head's heel end and the club's distal toe end, and the towel portion substantially surrounds the putter's shaft. It would appear that such devices are not freely usable with different shapes and sizes of golf club heads, or even with different shapes and sizes of putter heads. Moreover, the circumstance of the towel's surrounding the shaft may interfere with the placing of the covered club in the golf club bag, as well as with the placing or withdrawing of other golf clubs in or from the bag containing the covered club. Further, the golfer would not conveniently be able to directly grasp the covered club by its shaft in the vicinity of the club head when withdrawing or replacing the club from or into the bag.
The foregoing disadvantages of prior art combined wiper and club head cover devices are overcome by means of the invention disclosed in the aforementioned co-pending U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,968, which patent is incorporated herein by reference. A combined wiper and club head cover device is disclosed therein which may be used with golf clubs having heads of various sizes or shapes, and which does not surround the club shaft but instead is disposed away from the shaft and drapes over an end of the club, so that the covered club may be positioned in the golf bag with the draped portion of the device disposed outside the periphery of the golf club bag. The manner in which the cover is disposed precludes interference with other clubs in the bag while permitting the covered club to be withdrawn from and returned to the golf club bag with ease and convenience not previously available with prior art combined wiper and head cover devices.
In describing the head cover of U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,968 as well as of the present invention, it is recognized that a club to be utilized with the head cover includes a head attached to a shaft, the head including two opposed ends conventionally referred to as the heel and the toe of the club head. The head cover of the parent application comprises a panel of pliant material such as cloth; means for engaging the panel with a first end of the club head such that the panel drapes from or over the second end of the club head when the club is vertically positioned with its head above its shaft; and means for releasably securing the panel to the club shaft with the engaging means the first end of the club head such that the draping panel extends away from the shaft and substantially confined to one side of the shaft. The panel, which is preferably of terry cloth or toweling material, includes an end-engaging portion inwardly extending from an edge of the panel, for engaging the first end of the club head; and the cover includes fastening means along the panel's edge in the vicinity of the panel's end-engaging portion, for releasably securing the panel to the club shaft with the end-engaging portion engaging the head's first end and with the panel covering the club head and draping over the head's second end when the club is vertically positioned with its head above its shaft.
As discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,968, the panel may be considered as including two edges joined at the end-engaging portion. The fastening means, which is preferably a quick-fastening and quick-release device such as cooperating strips of mating hooks and loops marketed under the trademark VELCRO, is situated at the panel edges in the vicinity of the end-engaging portion for releasably securing the panel to the club shaft with the end-engaging portion engaging the head's first end and with the panel covering the club head and draping over the second end of the head when the club is vertically positioned with the head above the shaft.