Provided is a novel use of therapeutic concentrations of an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3), including lithium or any other GSK-3 inhibitor, to block, reduce or inhibit processing of amyloid precursor proteins to beta-amyloid (Aβ) peptides, which are now believed to be the principal cause of Alzheimer's disease, thereby providing methods useful for the prevention, inhibition or reversal of the disease. Also provided are methods of using agents that specifically target the α isoform of GSK-3, which is responsible for APP processing, making such selective GSK-3α-specific inhibitors especially useful in the treatment, prevention, and possible reversal of Alzheimer's disease. Further provided are kits and screening methods associated with the present methods.

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disorder associated with extensive loss of specific neuronal cellular subpopulations, and characterized clinically by progressive loss of memory, cognition, reasoning, judgment and emotional stability that gradually leads to profound mental deterioration and ultimately death. The disease currently affects as many as four million individuals in the United States alone. To date, the disease has proven to be incurable, and presently causes up to 100,000 deaths annually.
The brains of individuals with AD exhibit neuronal degeneration and characteristic lesions variously referred to as amyloidogenic plaques, vascular amyloid angiopathy, and neurofibrillary tangles. It is presently believed that progressive cerebral deposition of particular amyloidogenic proteins, beta-amyloid proteins, play a seminal role in the pathogenesis of AD and can precede cognitive symptoms and onset of dementia by years or possibly even decades.
Alzheimer's disease is associated with aberrant processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), leading to increased production and aggregation of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides. Amyloid plaques are composed primarily of 40 and 42 amino acid peptides (Aβ40 and Aβ42, respectively) (Selkoe, Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 98:11039-11041 (2001)) derived from APP by sequential proteolysis catalyzed by the aspartyl protease, BACE (Vassar et al., Science 286:735-741 (1999)), followed by presenilin-dependent γ-secretase cleavage (De Strooper et al., Nature 391:387-390 (1998)). Aβ42 is less soluble than Aβ40 and is the predominant Aβ species in amyloid plaques (Iwatsubo et al., Neuron 13:45-53 (1994)).
Presenilins 1 and 2 (PS1 and PS2) are integral membrane proteins proposed to have inherent γ-secretase activity (Wolfe et al., Nature 398:513-517 (1999)) and interact in a functional complex with nicastrin (Esler et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 99:2720-2725 (2002); Edbauer et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 99:8666-8671 (2002)), aph-1, and pen-2 (Francis et al., Dev. Cell 3:85-97 (2002)). Presenilins also interact with a number of other proteins, including α-catenin and β-catenin (Soriano et al., J. Cell Biol. 152:785-794 (2001); Yu et al., Nature 407:48-54 (2000)). Presenilin 1, which is required for γ-secretase mediated processing of APP (De Strooper et al., 1998), interacts with glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3)(Takashima et al., Proc. Nat'l. Acad. Sci. USA 95:9637-9641 (1998); Kang et al., J. Neurosci. 19:4229-4237 (1999); Kang et al., Cell 110:751-762 (2002)), although a functional role for this proteins in γ-secretase function has not been previously established.
Glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) is a serine/threonine protein kinase having a monomeric structure and a size of approximately 47 kilodaltons. It is one of several protein kinases which phosphorylate glycogen synthase (Embi et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 107:519-527 (1980); Hemmings et al., Eur. J. Biochem. 119:443-451 (1982)). GSK-3 is also referred to in the literature as factor A (FA) in the context of its ability to regulate FC, a protein phosphatase (Vandenheede et al., J. Biol. Chem. 255:11768-11774 (1980)). Other names for GSK-3 and homologs thereof include: zeste-white3/shaggy (zw3/sgg; the Drosophila melanogaster homolog), ATP-citrate lyase kinase (ACLK or MFPK; Ramakrishna et al., Biochem. 28:856-860 (1989); Ramakrishna et al., J. Biol. Chem. 260:12280-12286 (1985), GSKA (the Dictyostelum homolog; Harwood et al., Cell 80:139-48 (1995), and MDSI, MCK1, and others (yeast homologs; Hunter et al., TIBS 22:18-22 (1997)), tau protein kinase (mammalian) and GSKA (Dictyostelium).
The gene encoding GSK-3 is highly conserved across diverse phyla. In vertebrates, GSK-3 exists in two isoforms, designated GSK-3α (51 kDa) and GSK-3β (47 kDa). These two isoforms are the products of distinct genes. The amino acid identity among vertebrate homologs of GSK-3 is in excess of 98% within the catalytic domain (Plyte et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1114:147-162 (1992)), although GSK-3α is known to be slightly larger than GSK-3β.
Sun et al., J. Biol. Chem. 277(14):11933-11940 (April 2002) have reported that in brain extracts and in MAP fractions, the amounts of GSK-3α and GSK-3β are almost equal, but that there are profound differences between the amounts of each kinase complexed with tau, further distinguishing the functions of the two. The authors determined that 6-fold more tau is complexed with GSK-3β than with GSK-3α in the brain, and that GSK-3β is bound to tau within an approximately 400-kDa micro-tubule-associated complex. Thus, GSK-3β associates with the microtubules via tau.
GSK-3 phosphorylates numerous proteins in vitro, including beta-catenin, glycogen synthase, phosphatase inhibitor I-2, the type-II subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase, the G-subunit of phosphatase-1, ATP-citrate lyase, acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase, myelin basic protein, a microtubule-associated protein, a neurofilament protein, an N-CAM cell adhesion molecule, nerve growth factor receptor, c-Jun transcription factor, JunD transcription factor, c-Myb transcription factor, c-Myc transcription factor, L-myc transcription factor, adenomatous polyposis coli tumor suppressor protein, and tau protein (Plyte et al., 1992; Korinek et al., Science 275:1784-1787 (1997); Miller et al., Genes & Dev. 10:2527-2539 (1996)). The phosphorylation site recognized by GSK-3 has been determined in several of these proteins (Plyte et al., 1992). The diversity of these proteins suggests a wide role for GSK-3 in the control of cellular metabolism, regulation, growth, and development. GSK-3 tends to phosphorylate serine and threonine residues in a proline-rich environment, but does not display the absolute dependence upon these amino acids which is displayed by protein kinases which are members of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase or cdc2 families of kinases.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,441,053 (Klein et al.) teaches a method of identifying inhibitors of GSK-3 and for treating a GSK-3-related disorders—other than Alzheimer's disease in an animal. The method comprises providing a mixture comprising GSK-3, a phosphate source, and a GSK-3 substrate, incubating the mixture in the presence or absence of a test compound, and assessing the activity of GSK-3 in the mixture. A reduction of GSK-3 activity following incubation of the mixture in the presence of the test compound is an indication that the test compound is an inhibitor of GSK-3. In the '053 patent, however, the GSK-3 inhibitor is expressly not lithium.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,057,117 (Harrison et al.) teaches a pharmaceutical composition comprising a selective GSK-3 inhibitor identified by: (a) contacting a first radiolabeled peptide substrate comprising an isolated nucleotide sequence, in which the N-terminal serine is the target of phosphorylation by GSK-3 and the C-terminal serine is prephosphorylated, coupled to an anchor ligand with GSK-3 in the presence of radiolabeled phosphate-γATP, a substrate anchor, and a candidate inhibitor, then (b) contacting a second radiolabeled peptide substrate coupled to an anchor ligand with GSK-3 in the presence of radiolabeled phosphate-γATP, and a substrate anchor, and (c) identifying an inhibitor of GSK-3 kinase activity by a reduction of radiolabel incorporation in step (a) compared to step (b). The identified composition is also used to treat a subject having a condition mediated by GSK-3 activity or susceptible to such a condition. In an alternative embodiment of the '117 patent a second therapeutic compound may be added, wherein the compound may be lithium. However, no lithium therapy is suggested with regard to blocking or inhibiting the activity of the GSK-3α isoform. See also Stambolic et al., Current Biology 6(12): 1664-1668 (1996).
The activity of both GSK-3α and -3β has been reported to be inhibited by lithium (e.g., Klein et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93:8455-8459 (1996); Hedgepeth et al., Dev. Biol. 185:82-91(1997); Phiel et al., Annu. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol. 41:789-813 (2001); U.S. Publ. Patent Appl. 20010052137 (Klein et al.)), yet specific inhibitors of the activity of the GSK-3α isoform alone (without affecting GSK-3β) remain unknown. Inhibition of GSK-3β is a physiological mechanism by which lithium exerts its therapeutic effects in animals (e.g., humans) afflicted with a variety of disorders. For example, lithium is an effective drug for treatment of bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder (Price et al., New Eng. J. Med. 331:591-598 (1994); Goodwin et al., (1990) In: Manic-Depressive Illness, New York: Oxford University Press), and can be used to treat profound depression in some cases, although it is not known whether lithium works through GSK-3 in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Despite the remarkable efficacy of lithium observed during decades of its use, the molecular mechanism(s) underlying its therapeutic actions have not been fully elucidated (Bunney et al., (1987) In: Psychopharmacology: The Third Generation of Progress, (Hy, ed.) New York, Raven Press, 553-565; Jope et al., Biochem. Pharmacol. 47:429-441 (1994); Risby et al., Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 48:513-524 (1991); Wood et al., Psychol. Med. 17:570-600 (1987)).
Lithium is a fixed monovalent cation and the lightest of the alkali metals (group 1a of the Periodic Table of the elements). Li+ has the highest energy of hydration of the alkali metals and, as such, can substitute for Na+ (and to a lesser extent K+) for ion transport by biological systems. Lithium is both electroactive and hydrophilic, and trace amounts of Li+ are found in human tissues; typical human blood plasma concentrations of Li+ are about 17 μg/L.
Unlike other psychotropic drugs, Li+ has no discernible psychotropic effects in normal man, although the therapeutic efficacy of lithium in the treatment of acute mania and the prophylactic management of bipolar (manic/depressive) disorder has been consistently demonstrated. The oral and parenteral administration of lithium salts, such as lithium carbonate and lithium citrate, has also found widespread use in the current treatment of, for example, alcoholism, aggression, schizophrenia, unipolar depression, skin disorders, immunological disorders, asthma, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as for use in many other diseases and conditions.
Unfortunately, no drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease have, to date, proven to be very satisfactory, and demonstrating the effectiveness of such drugs in the treatment of dementias can be quite difficult, see, e.g., Handbook of Dementing Illnesses, (John Morris, Ed.), Marcel Dekker 1994, p. 591. Part of this difficulty arises from the fact that it can often be difficult to clearly diagnose the type of dementia with which the patient is afflicted. Thus, there exists a pressing need to identify compositions that have a blocking or inhibiting effect in humans on the control of GSK-3α specifically required for APP processing to (Aβ) peptides, and/or to reduce formation of both amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, recognized as two pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. By finding a GSK-3α-specific inhibitor, preferably that does not also affect GSK-3β, it will be possible to treat Alzheimer's disease in a patient without inhibiting GSK-3β, which serves many critical functions in cells.

Regulation of GSK-3α activity for the treatment or prevention of Alzheimer's disease

The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania


The resolution of narrow band imaging is improved, while color reproducibility is improved when performing white-light observation. Provided is an endoscope system including an image pickup device having three types of color filters, said types being blue, green, and magenta, and also including an image processor that generates an image by processing a signal acquired by the image pickup device. The image processor includes a ratio calculator that calculates the ratio between a blue signal and a magenta signal, and also includes a red-signal generator that generates a red signal based on the ratio calculated by the ratio calculator.

A known endoscope system in the related art includes primary color filters for red (R), green (G), and blue (B) colors. A color filter having a main sensitivity region and a sub sensitivity region is disposed at each G pixel, and a component of the sub sensitivity region is extracted from a pixel value of the G pixel (e.g., see Patent Literature 1).

Endoscope system and image acquisition method with red signal generator


Methods for demulsifying an emulsified petroleum source having a predetermined resin-to-asphaltene ratio without substantial aggregation or precipitation of asphaltenes may include adding a resin supplement to the emulsified petroleum source to form a resin-supplemented emulsion having a resin-to-asphaltene ratio above a predetermined critical value. An acidic-to-basic ratio of acidic functional groups to basic functional groups in the supplemented emulsion may be adjusted to be from about 0.25 to about 4.0. The resin-supplemented emulsion may be contacted with carbon dioxide to form an initial mixture having an emulsified oil phase and an emulsified aqueous phase. The initial mixture may be stabilized to facilitate rupture of the resin-supplemented emulsion, to cause phase separation, and to allow removal of a separated oil phase. The resin-to-asphaltene ratio being above the predetermined critical value in the supplemented emulsion maintains asphaltene suspension during demulsification, such that asphaltene agglomeration and precipitation are avoided.

1. Field
The present specification generally relates to petroleum processing and, more specifically, to methods for demulsifying an emulsified petroleum source using carbon dioxide without precipitation of petroleum components such as asphaltenes during the demulsification.
2. Technical Background
Oil in water (o/w) and water in oil (w/o) emulsions cause many problems in the petroleum industry and require attention from the oil producers during the recovery, treatment, and transportation of crude oils. Emulsion breaking is always a challenge for the oil producer and the refiners. Currently, crude oil is the most important hydrocarbon resource in the world, and heavy crudes account for a large fraction of the world's potentially recoverable oil reserves. Heavy crude oils presently account for only a small portion of the world's oil production because of their high viscosities that cause problems during transportation. Nevertheless, increasing needs for addressing the concerns related to heavy crude oils cannot be avoided, because the supply of light crude is dwindling all across the globe.
Usually, crude oil is considered to be a colloidal dispersion of asphaltene and resins, which constitute the discrete and polar components, dispersed in a continuous phase made of non-polar compounds. Crude oil may also be described as a heterogeneous, complex organic mixture predominantly composed of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons. It also contains heteronuclear compounds, emulsified water, and other inorganics. The hydrocarbon portion contains normal alkanes, isoalkanes, cycloalkanes, and aromatics (mono-, di-, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with alkyl side chains); resins (aggregates with a multitude of building blocks such as sulfoxides, amides, thiophenes, pyridines, quinolines and carbazoles); and asphaltenes (aggregates of extended polyaromatics, naphthenic acids, sulfides, polyhydric phenols and fatty acids) with thousands of assorted derivatives. The asphaltenes are colloidal in nature and the atomic H/C ratios ranges between 1.0 and 1.2 and N, S, and O content of a few weight percent implying that a large segment of the asphaltene backbone is constituted of fused aromatic carbons interspersed with polar functional groups containing five to seven heteroatoms per macromolecule. Asphaltenes do not have a specific chemical formula. Individual asphaltene molecules can vary in the number of atoms contained in the structure, and the average chemical formula can depend on the source.
Asphaltenes are typically present in micelles within crude oil. When crude oil is recovered as an emulsion such as an o/w emulsion or a w/o emulsion, for example, the protective shell of the micelles may be broken down, causing the asphaltenes to agglomerate or precipitate. Agglomerated or precipitated asphaltenes are notorious for fouling or clogging production equipment in the petroleum industry. Accordingly, ongoing needs exist for methods to demulsify petroleum sources such as crude oil, particularly asphaltene-rich heavy crude oil, without agglomeration or precipitation of asphaltenes.

Demulsification of emulsified petroleum using carbon dioxide and resin supplement without precipitation of asphaltenes


A method and an apparatus for software upgrade in a digital television receiving device are disclosed. The method includes multiplexing service software into a transport stream according to a predefined protocol, extracting by the digital television receiving device data of the service software from the transport stream and storing the data, restarting the digital television receiving device, so that digital television receiving device software and the service software may obtain addresses of interface functions of the opposite party, and updating by the digital television receiving device software and the service software, default addresses of the interface functions of the service software and the digital television receiving device software according to the obtained addresses. With the invention, the digital television receiving device software and the service software may be independent from each other, and may be upgraded separately.

In addition to abundant digital television programs, broadcast television operators have to frequently offer personalized, bi-directionally interactive, and development-sustainable digital television data services in order to attract the subscribers, to boost the growth of the number of digital television subscribers, and to excavate new profit increasing points.
In the field of digital television, a digital television receiving device provider and a digital television service provider are usually not the same entity. However, their software is closely linked with each other on a digital television receiving device and neither is dispensable. The software from the digital television receiving device provider is oriented to providing fundamental and hardware-level software operation platforms, for example, providing a stable operating system platform, resource management, hardware driver, image decoding, and screen displaying. The software from the digital television service provider is oriented to a secondary development on the basis of the platforms provided by the digital television receiving device provider, i.e., providing digital television data services such as Multimedia Messaging Service, Short Message Service, stock information service, and information consultation, according to the requirements of the broadcast operators. The different orientations bring about different requirements for software upgrades.
Digital television receiving device provider software currently available in the market usually includes three parts, such as system terminal software (i.e. digital television receiving device software or set-top box terminal software), service software, and interface adaptation software. After being processed by a compiler and a linker, these three parts are stored as a whole in a nonvolatile memory in a digital television receiving device under certain rules. Any partial modification to data in one of the three parts regardless of the other two parts may cause a system collapse during running. Therefore, when any of the three parts needs an upgrade, a Makefile has to be re-created. The three parts have to be upgraded together. FIG. 1 shows the principle of a conventional upgrade solution.
When a service provider requires to upgrade his software, the conventional upgrade solution executes the following steps.
(A) A compiler coordinated with the CPU of the digital television receiving device is obtained to make a Makefile, to compile service software, and to create a service software library.
(B) The digital television receiving device modifies the Makefile, creates a digital television receiving device software library and an interface adaptation module library.
(C) The digital television receiving device links the service software library, the digital television receiving device software library, and the interface adaptation module library into an object file, and generates an executable file.
(D) The executable file is multiplexed into a Transport Stream (TS) via an upgrade server according to a predefined protocol.
(E) An upgrade module of the digital television receiving device software receives and extracts the data, and assembles a new upgrade file;
(F) The new upgrade file is written into a nonvolatile memory (e.g., a FLASH).
Apparently, in the conventional technical solution, the digital television receiving device software has to be upgraded together with the service software. However, the digital television service provider has a much higher demand for software upgrades than the digital television receiving device provider. In consideration of the inconvenience of the subscribers experienced during the upgrade process, the digital television receiving device provider is often unwilling to upgrade the software, or is unwilling to provide assistance to the digital television service provider to upgrade the software. Undoubtedly, this may cause unnecessary troubles in the development of digital television services. Due to the fact that the digital television receiving device software has to be upgraded at the same time when the service software is upgraded, the service software provider is restricted by the digital television receiving device provider sometimes. In addition, in the case of a narrow bandwidth, it will take a long time to upgrade the software, resulting in a poor experience of the subscriber, and the bandwidth of the multiplexer will be wasted.

Method and apparatus for software upgrade in a digital television receiving device


An oscillating wet shave razor with a battery powered motor rotating an eccentric element within the head portion of the razor handle to generate an oscillating vibration signal which is transmitted to the razor blade cartridge to desensitize the facial nerves from the discomforts of shaving. The vibration which is transmitted to the cartridge is partially damped in the direction perpendicular to the surface of the cartridge that engages the user's face so that the blades mounted in the cartridge tend not to chop at the whiskers of the user's beard during shaving.

Vibrating shaver elements have been known for some time. Traditional electric razors, also known as dr shavers, are used without water or soap or shaving cream. Although such dry electric shavers provide a satisfactory shave many believe that the shave provided by an electric razor is not as close as a wet shave.
Wet shaves traditionally use water and soap or some kind of shave cream to soften the individual hairs of the beard of the user. The water and soap soften the individual hairs of the beard to make them much easier to cut. It would be desirable to combine the beard softening action of a wet shave with the oscillating cutting element of the traditional dry electric shaver.
There have been many attempts to provide an oscillating wet shaver none of which have been entirely satisfactory. Because the wet shave is used in an environment of water, it would be impractcial to plug them into an electrical outlet. Thus, the power source must be housed in the razor itself and should be battery powered. In the past, oscillating wet shavers have been bulky and uncomfortable to use because the battery and motor elements required for such an oscillating shaver tended to be larger than would fit within a traditional wet shave hand-held razor.
It would be desirable to design an oscillating wet shave razor that would accommodate miniaturized motors and batteries that are presently coming available. It would also be desirable to incorporate such miniaturized technology in a handle that provided the desired level of oscillation at the blades of the razors but at the same time reduces the vibration felt by the hand of the user.
Vibration at the surface of the razor blade cartridge is desirable because that vibration has a tendency to massage the skin and isolate the facial nerves from the discomforts of shaving. However, if a large amount of vibration were transmitted through the razor handle to the user's hand, those vibrations could interfere with the touch and feel of the razor.
It would also be desirable to take advantage of the vibrations to assist the blade cartridge in floating over the skin so that the blades would slide more easily over the skin.
It would also be desirable to balance the weight and the vibrations of the razor as a whole so that it would function as a finely crafted instrument having a relatively high vibration at those parts of the razor that interact with blade and a relatively low vibration at those parts of the razor handle that interact with the hand of the user.
It is also important that the mechanism for switching the power on and off be easy to use and conveniently incorporated into a razor.


A run-time environment for use with multiple multi-player, networked games and simulations includes a game model which defines the specifics of a game and a game engine which runs the game defined in the game model. The game model includes a database which stores the objects and their properties (properties include communicable properties) as well as the rules of the specific game which are to be executed on the objects and their properties. The game engine includes a rule evaluator, a database engine, a triggering mechanism and a communication unit. The rule evaluator evaluates the rules thereby changing the properties. The database engine updates the database whenever a property is changed. The triggering mechanism activates the rule evaluator whenever database engine changes a property. The communication unit is activated by the triggering mechanism whenever a communicable property changes and transmits the changed communicable property to another simulation unit. The communication unit also provides received communicable properties to the database engine.

Games have been played by the human race for a very long time. There are simple, one person games where the individual matches his wits against a deck of cards or a computer and there are multi-player games where a number of people gather together to match wits against each other.
Typical computer games include chess, where the computer acts as the opposing player, solitaire, where player plays against himself and the computer ensures that the player follows the rules, and action games, such as DOOM.TM., manufactured by GT Interactive of New York City, N.Y., USA, where the player has to move through a two- or three-dimensional world, fighting various objects and people to achieve maximal points. The computer presents the landscape of the world, moves the various objects and people and maintains the score of the player. Other types of computer games are simulation games, such as SIMCITY 2000.TM., manufactured by Maxis Inc. of Walnut Creek, Calif., USA, which enable the player to create a world and then simulate how that world will function.
With data networks which connect multiple workstations together, such as local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs) and the Internet, have come multi-player games, such as AIR WARRJOR.TM., manufactured by Kesmai Corporation of the USA, and MULTIPLAYER BATTLETECH.TM., manufactured by FASA Inc. of the USA. With networked multi-player games, players can play together even though they are not physically close.
Unfortunately, creating such multi-player games for networks is difficult and time-consuming. In addition to programming the game concept, the programming team must program the constantly changing graphics, the responses to the player input and the communication with the other players. The latter is extremely difficult over wide area networks due to the latency inherent in transmitting data packets. Thus, the action on the screen of one player might not match the action on the screen of another player. This is undesirable. It is noted that programming a multi-player networked game typically takes many man-years.

Run-time environment for simulations and games


A method of preparing spray dried recombinant erythropoietin (rhEPO) is disclosed. The method comprises providing an aqueous solution of rhEPO and atomizing the solution into a spray drying the spray and separating the dried rhEPO from the drying air. Also disclosed is rhEPO made by the disclosed method.

Erythropoietin (EPO) is a glycoprotein hormone primarly synthesized in the kidney and is the chief regulator of red blood cell production in the body. Commercially available human EPO is produced via recombinant DNA techniques and is known as recombinant human EPO (rhEPO). rhEPO has a molecular mass of approximately 36,000 Daltons, as determined by SDS-PAGE. The molecular mass of the protein backbone is 18,398 Daltons, which indicates that the entire molecule is heavily glycolsylated. The carbohydrate residues are important for in vivo biologic activity.
Maintaining proteins, such as rhEPO, in their native state in aqueous solution or in solid phase is a major challenge to those working in the field of pharmaceutical formulations. The existence of a protein in its native state depends on protein concentration, temperature and nature of solvent, ionic strength of the buffer, etc. Changes in any of these parameters can affect the stability of a protein in solution or solid phase.
Commercial preparations of rhEPO are presently sold as either dilute aqueous solutions or in a lyophilized form which is used to form a dilute aqueous solution, both of which are administered to the body by injection. The concentration of rhEPO in these preparations is very low and the rhEPO is cleared from the body fairly quickly after administration. In view of this limitation of present preparations, there is a need for concentrated preparations of rhEPO, e.g., those containing higher amounts of rhEPO, which can be used in alternate drug delivery systems. We used spray drying techniques to prepare such preparations.
The spray drying of pharmaceuticals is known in the art. For example, see Broadhead, J. et al., "The Spray Drying of Pharmaceuticals," in Drug Dev. Ind. Pharm, 18 (11 & 12), 1169-1206 (1992). In addition to small molecule pharmaceuticals, a variety of biological materials have been spray dried and these include: enzymes, sera, plasma, micro-organisms and yeasts. Spray drying is a useful technique because it can convert a liquid pharmaceutical preparation into a fine, dustless or agglomerated powder in a one-step process. The basic technique comprises the following four steps:
a) atomization of the feed solution into a spray;
b) spray-air contact;
c) drying of the spray; and
d) separation of the dried product from the drying air.
Although known in the field of pharmaceuticals, there has not been much use of spray drying for therapeutic proteins, such as rhEPO. One apparent reason for this is the concern that such proteins may be thermally degraded by the high temperatures utilized in the spray drying process. This is especially true of complex glycoproteins, such as rhEPO, which, in addition to their polypeptide backbones, also have complex branched carbohydrate portions that are required for biological activity. The availability of lyophilization as a ready alternative further steered workers in the field away from using spray drying for therapeutic proteins. However, spray drying provides certain advantages over lyophilization in that it is more economical, fast and easy to scale up. Also, spray dried powders are often more amenable to further processing than lyophilized powders.
It is usually impractical to design formulations based merely on the lyophilization of the bulk drug. This is so because many polypeptides are relatively unstable when lyophilized in low concentrations and they can adsorb to product packaging and lose activity. In order to overcome these problems, many lyophilized pharmaceutical compositions rely on the use of solid diluents, cryoprotectants or bulking agents to increase the amount of solid material present during the lyophilization process. As a result the final lyophilized material contains a small percentage (w/w) of active drug mixed with a large percentage of other solid material.
In contrast, the present invention provides a method for producing an rhEPO powder from bulk rhEPO wherein the powder produced is pure or essentially pure rhEPO or has a higher percentage (w/w) of rhEPO than can be prepared using traditional lyophilization techniques.


A method of image processing. A band-averaged spectral radiance is measured using at least one optical filter upon scanning a plurality of original radiances. The measured band-averaged spectral radiance includes a measured in-band-averaged spectral radiance and a measured band-gap-averaged spectral radiance. A multispectral radiance vector is generated from the measured band-averaged spectral radiance. The multispectral radiance vector and an out-of-band correction transform matrix corresponding to the at least one optical filter are matrix-multiplied to generate a band-averaged spectral radiances image vector representing a plurality of recovered band-averaged spectral radiances. The plurality of recovered band-averaged spectral radiances is analyzed for a presence of a target.

Multispectral remote sensing images are acquired from aircraft and satellites. To quantify ground surface characteristics, the measured spectral radiances must be converted into target reflectance. In these applications, accurate and consistent sensor calibration is essential. Out-Of-Band ("OOB") response is defined as the ratio of integrated response outside the one percent of peak response points of a spectral band to the integrated response inside the one percent points. Several multispectral radiometric instruments are known to exhibit significant radiance contribution from OOB spectral response.
The typical scale of OOB spectral response is in the range of several percent, which can, for example, result in chlorophyll retrievals that are biased high for clear water by OOB response to short wavelengths. A methodology to dealing with the OOB response had been suggested and adopted for SeaWiFS calibration. These calibration methods adjust the measured radiances to correct for OOB response for ease of comparison to in situ measured multispectral radiances. The SeaWiFS correction scheme has been successfully applied to data products retrieved over Case 1 ocean waters. "Case 1" ocean waters are those for which the inherent optical properties are determined primarily by phytoplankton and co-varying chromophoric dissolved organic matter ("CDOM") and detritus. However, the correction scheme is inherently not useable for SeaWiFS data product corrections over Case 2 turbid waters or over land.
The first VIIRS instrument, Flight Unit 1 ("FU1"), now flying on the NPP satellite platform, has known performance issues. Seven channels located between 0.4 and 0.9 μm in the VisNIR focal plane have problems related to OOB responses, i.e., small amounts of radiance far away from the center of a given channel that pass through the filter and reach the detector. The newly launched VIIRS instrument requires developing highly accurate operational calibration procedures and algorithms to process VIIRS data.

Method of out-of-band correction for multispectral remote sensing

The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy


A system and method for optimizing the uploading of digital assets from a client node to a central node in a digital asset sharing system are provided. Digital assets residing at a client node are each tagged with one or more keywords. The client node sends a list of the keywords used to tag the digital assets to the central node and requests that invitations including the list of keywords be sent to potential guests. The potential guests select one or more of the keywords and send responses to the central node identifying the selected keywords. The central node processes the responses to generate a list of desired keywords and requests the digital images tagged with one or more keywords from the list of desired keywords from the client node. In response, the client node uploads the requested digital assets to the central node where they are stored.

With the proliferation of digital cameras, numerous online photosharing services have emerged and are becoming widely accepted by photo enthusiasts. The photosharing services are generally based on one of two architectures. The first is a centrally hosted architecture where a central server hosts digital images for a number of users and provides photosharing services by serving the digital images to a web browser of a user or guest. The second is a peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, such as that used by QURIO® photosharing software, where a user creates and stores photo albums on the user's computer. The user's computer then operates as a web server to provide the photo albums to the web browser of another user or guest.
One issue with the centrally hosted architecture is that the owner of the digital images must predict which images will be of interest to guests. More specifically, the owner has a limited amount of storage space on the central server. Since the owner will typically have more digital images than may be stored on the central server, the owner must predict which of his or her digital images will be of interest to the guests and upload only these images to the central server. As a result, the images in which the guests are actually interested may or may not be stored in the central server.
One issue with the peer-to-peer architecture is that the digital images at a peer node may only be available when the peer node is online. One system for addressing this issue is a hybrid peer-to-peer architecture that uses a proxy server to route traffic between a requesting node and a peer node. In order to make the digital images residing at the peer node available even when the peer node is offline, the proxy server may cache the digital images after serving a first request for the digital images. Thus, for subsequent requests, the digital images may be served directly from the proxy and are available even if the peer node is offline.
However, one issue with the hybrid peer-to-peer architecture having a caching proxy server is that there may be a time lag between the time at which the owner sends an invitation inviting a guest to view the digital images and the time at which the guest requests the digital images. During this time, the peer node may go offline. If the guest requests the digital images while the peer node is offline and before the digital images are cached by the proxy server, the digital images will not be available to the guest until the peer node is again online.
Thus, there remains a need for a system and method of uploading digital assets to a central node in either a centrally hosted system or a P2P system that does not require an owner of digital assets to predict which digital assets will be of interest to potential guests and improves the availability of digital assets in P2P system when a peer node hosting the digital assets is offline.

System and method for optimizing data uploading in a network based media sharing system


A surface emitting semiconductor device comprises: a semiconductor region including an active layer; a first DBR having first layers and second layers; and a second DBR. The first and second layers are alternately arranged, and the first layers are made of dielectric material. The first DBR, semiconductor region and second DBR are sequentially arranged along a predetermined axis, and the semiconductor region is provided between the first DBR and the second DBR. The cross section of the first DBR is taken along a reference plane perpendicular to the predetermined axis. The distance between two points on an edge of the cross section takes a first value in a direction of an X-axis of a two-dimensional XY orthogonal coordinate system defined on the reference plane, and the distance between two points on the edge takes a second value in a direction of a Y-axis of the above coordinate system. The first value is different from the second value. The cross section of the second DBR is taken along another reference plane perpendicular to the predetermined axis, and a shape of the cross section of the first DBR is different from a shape of the cross section of the second DBR.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface emitting semiconductor device.
2. Related Background Art
A vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) has an active layer provided between an upper DBR and a lower DBR. Patent Publication 1 (Japanese Patent No. 2,891,133) discloses a vertical cavity surface emitting laser which includes an upper DBR of a post structure. The vertical cavity surface emitting laser emits light through the upper DBR on the top, and in the top view, the upper DBR made of III-V compound semiconductor is a rectangle.


In a piezoelectric ceramic which has an alkali-containing niobate-based perovskite structure in which constituent elements are Li, Na, K, Nb, and O, a Li3NbO4 crystal phase is intentionally deposited on a piezoelectric ceramic having an alkali-containing niobate-based perovskite structure, whereby sintering becomes possible at about 1000° C. rather than at the normally required sintering temperature of 1050° C. or greater.

Piezoelectric ceramics are a type of piezoelectric material that converts electrical energy to mechanical energy, and mechanical energy to electrical energy, and they are applied in many electronic devices. Among such piezoelectric ceramics, binary Pb-containing piezoelectric ceramics constituted by the two constituents of PbTiO3 and PbZrO3 (hereinafter referred to as "PZT") and tertiary Pb-containing piezoelectric ceramics containing Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3 or Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3 as the third constituent, are known. Such PZT provides high piezoelectric effect and is widely used as piezoelectric ceramic components. However, piezoelectric ceramics whose main constituent is PZT present problems in that they have high environmental burdens in the form of volatilization of PbO in the production process, flow-out of Pb constituent due to exposure to acid rain, and the like.
Accordingly, non-Pb piezoelectric ceramics containing no lead are pursued. As disclosed examples of Pb-free piezoelectric ceramics, Nature, 432 (4), 2004, pp. 84-87 (Non-patent Literature 1) and Applied Physics Letters 85 (18), 2004, pp. 4121-41232 (Non-patent Literature 2) disclose piezoelectric ceramics providing piezoelectric effect equivalent to PZT, having an alkali-containing niobate perovskite structure.
Such piezoelectric ceramics having an alkali-containing niobate perovskite structure are also disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-068835 (Patent Literature 1), Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2003-342069 (Patent Literature 2), and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-300012 (Patent Literature 3). The piezoelectric ceramics in Patent Literatures 2 and 3 have Li, Na, K, Nb, Ta, Sb and O as main constituents, are expressed by the general formula {Lix[Na1-yKy]1-x}a{Nb1-z-wTazSbw}bO3 (in the formula, x, y, z, w, a and b indicate mol ratios, where 0≦x≦0.2, 0≦y≦1, 0≦z≦0.4, 0≦w≦0.2, a≦0.95, and b≦1.05), and have high piezoelectric characteristics (piezoelectric constant, electro-mechanical coupling coefficient, etc.). Also, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2008-169113 (Patent Literature 4), adding 0.001 mol to 0.15 mol of Ag as an additive element to 1 mol of chemical compound whose main constituent is expressed by the above general formula will improve at least one of the characteristics that include the piezoelectric constant, electro-mechanical coupling coefficient, specific dielectric constant, dielectric loss, and Curie temperature.
Among the piezoelectric ceramics expressed by the above general formula, however, antimony (Sb) belongs to the heavy metal class and presents concerns over toxicity to the human body. Accordingly, piezoelectric ceramics not containing antimony are desired. Also, while tantalum (Ta) can lower the Curie temperature, raise the dielectric constant of piezoelectric ceramics, and enhance the piezoelectric constant and other characteristics, use of tantalum raises the sintering temperature needed to obtain dense ceramics.
As explained above, piezoelectric ceramics having an alkali-containing niobate perovskite structure, not containing Sb or Ta and having Li, Na, K, Nb and O as constituent elements (hereinafter referred to as "LNKN"), offer excellent piezoelectric characteristics, but the sintering property is poorer than Pb-containing piezoelectric ceramics. For example, Li0.06Na0.47K0.47NbO3, which is a type of LNKN, exhibits excellent characteristics as evident from displacement characteristics d33 in the polarization axis direction of 235 pC/N, but it must be sintered at temperatures of 1050° C. to 1100° C. in order to obtain a dense sintered compact, as disclosed in Non-patent Literature 2. Sintering at high temperatures causes alkali metal elements to evaporate easily and piezoelectric effect may deteriorate. Accordingly, sintering temperatures must be controlled precisely in order to obtain ceramics having sufficiently high piezoelectric effect.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2008-207999 (Patent Literature 5) discloses a technology to obtain a dense sintered compact at low sintering temperatures by using a sintering auxiliary in which Li2CO3, LiBO2 and Li2B4O7 are mixed. However, Li2CO3 remains in the sintered compact as Li2O after sintering, which causes the resistance of ceramics to drop. Additionally, LiBO2 and Li2B4O7 can cause piezoelectric characteristics to drop.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-115293 (Patent Literature 6) discloses a piezoelectric ceramic whose sintering property has been improved by adjusting the composition of the starting material to contain excessive elements (Nb, Ta) at the B site of (K,Na)(Nb,Ta)O3 beyond the stoichiometric ratio, and also by adding CuO. However, this piezoelectric ceramic also requires sintering temperatures of 1050° C. or above in order to obtain a dense sintered compact.

Piezoelectric ceramic, piezoelectric ceramic component, and piezoelectric device using such piezoelectric ceramic component


An apparatus and method is provided for testing a spark plug after the spark plug is assembled in an internal combustion engine. The apparatus includes a high voltage test probe to mechanically probe the spark plug. The high voltage test probe includes a non-electrically conductive part, an electrically conductive ring substantially shielded by the non-electrically conductive part, and a high voltage contactor for electrically connecting to a terminal end of the spark plug. The apparatus also includes a high voltage control box having a high voltage source and an electrical ground, and including at least one of an insulator crack detection circuit and a spark plug firing circuit. The method includes using the apparatus to test assembled spark plugs.

Spark plugs are used in internal combustion engines to ignite an air/fuel mixture. The spark plug is generally mounted in the cylinder head of the engine so that the firing tip is in a combustion chamber. A conventional spark plug includes a ceramic body which serves as an insulator between a center electrode and an L-shaped side electrode. The L-shaped side electrode is attached to a metal shell crimped about the ceramic body. At the tip of the spark plug, the center electrode protrudes from the ceramic body and is spaced apart from the side electrode to form a spark plug gap. Once the spark plug has been assembled into the engine, it is desirable to test the spark plug. In a current spark plug tester, an ignition system may be fully assembled so that the ignition coil is connected (or an ignition coil may be connected in a test stand to simulate the ignition system). When the system fires, an electromagnetic field is created around the ignition coil. This electromagnetic field may be monitored or sensed by an inductive sensor placed adjacent the coil inside the electromagnetic field. Changes in the electromagnetic field indicate changes in the spark plug gap and possibly, infrequently, may indicate a crack in a ceramic insulator. In end of line cold test machines, testing for spark plug gaps and cracked ceramic insulators may be unreliable. This potential unreliability may allow spark plugs that are out-of-specification or have a cracked ceramic insulator to remain installed in an engine causing less than optimal engine performance.

Apparatus and method for static testing a spark plug assembled in an internal combustion engine including cracked ceramic insulator detection


A circuit design checker receives a circuit design. The circuit design can include a first set of one or more logic components in a first clock domain and a second set of one or more logic components in a second clock domain. The clock domain checker identifies a first subset of the second set of one or more logic components that receive one or more asynchronous clock domain crossings. The circuit design is traversed to determine whether a subset of the one or more asynchronous clock domain crossings does not pass through a signal having an attribute indicating that the signal is intended to be part of the one or more asynchronous clock domain crossings. If such a crossing exists, an error is indicated for the circuit design.

Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of circuit design, and, more particularly, to electronic design automation (EDA) tools to perform static checking of asynchronous clock domain crossings in a register transfer level (RTL) design of a chip or a system on a chip.
EDA tools are used to evaluate chip designs prior to fabrication. The EDA process broadly consists of two steps. The first step is a check of the RTL design logic. The second step is a creation of a physical circuit design from the RTL design. The first step, checking the design logic, can be referred to as RTL design checking. In RTL design checking, a language such as VHDL (Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language) or Verilog can be used to describe and model the logical behavior of a circuit. RTL design checking itself can be decomposed into two steps: static checking, in which the structure of the design is analyzed without simulating its behavior; and dynamic checking, also referred to as verification, in which the behavior of the design is simulated or analyzed using formal verification techniques.
Asynchronous clock domain crossings (CDCs) are notorious for causing bugs and escapes in hardware designs, due to their difficulty in verifying pre-silicon. They are generally difficult to verify because their behavior is fundamentally nondeterministic and affected by physical delays, clock phase relationships, and possibly synthesis optimizations—things which are typically not modeled accurately in functional simulation environments.
Due to these problems, specialized tools have been developed, to analyze RTL designs, identify asynchronous crossings, characterize them, and sometimes graphically illustrate them. This allows a designer to review the crossings in a design, to determine if they are intentional or not. These tools will often attempt to verify the correctness of crossings as well. For example, a tool may perform static checks, which are checks that can be performed by the tool itself by merely analyzing the structure of the design.
Generally, however, conventional tools require manual intervention, to review and approve or disapprove of reported crossings, and filter out false failures. This is because current approaches typically attempt to infer the properties to be checked from commonly accepted "rules of thumb", or by attempting to recognize "design patterns" within the design to determine designer intent. However, in real designs there are often legitimate exceptions made to these common rules or patterns.
Meanwhile, the number of asynchronous crossings has continued to grow on modern processor and system-on-chip (SoC) designs. For example, modern designs can have over 100,000 individual asynchronous crossing endpoints. This makes any approach that requires manual intervention more expensive and more likely to impact project schedules.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Static checking of asynchronous clock domain crossings

International Business Machines Corporation


An electron flood apparatus for neutralizing positive charge build up on a substrate during ion implantation comprises a tube through which the ion beam passes to the substrate. Inert gas is supplied to the plasma chamber and a cathode in the plasma chamber is heated to emit electrons. An accelerating electrical supply is connected between a cathode and an accelerating electrode in the plasma chamber to accelerate electrons emitted by the cathode to produce a plasma in the chamber. A separate cathode bias electrical supply is connected directly between the cathode and the substrate common terminal to set a desired bias potential on the cathode relative to the substrate independently of the acceleration potential.

The present invention relates to electron flood apparatus for neutralising positive charge build up on a substrate during implantation of ions in the substrate by ion beam implantation apparatus.
In the manufacture of semiconductor devices, an increasingly popular processing technology is ion beam implantation whereby a beam of desired impurity ions is directed at the semiconductor substrate so that the ions become implanted in the substrate to create regions of a desired conductivity type, for example. Some regions of the substrate being implanted will be electrically insulated from the main body of the semiconductor substrate. As a result during implantation with ions, such regions become progressively charged. Usually the implanted ions are positive so that positive charge build up on the substrate surface occurs. If this charge build up exceeds the breakdown voltage of insulated layers and regions in the substrate, damage is caused.
There is thus a known requirement to neutralise charge build up on the surface of substrates during ion implantation.
Known techniques for neutralising this charge build up involve flooding the region of the ion beam immediately in front of the substrate with electrons. Any positive charge build up on a substrate tends to attract these electrons to the substrate surface to discharge the surface. Examples of electron flood apparatus, also known as plasma flood guns, are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,089,710 and 5,399,871. In order to be effective, these electron flood systems used for substrate neutralisation, must produce relatively low energy electrons, which can then readily be attracted to the substrate by relatively small positive charges arising on the substrate. Further, excessively energetic electrons in front of the substrate can impinge upon and xe2x80x9cstickxe2x80x9d to the substrate surface even though any positive charge on the substrate surface has already been fully discharged, and thereby build up an excess negative electrostatic charge on the surface. The degree to which such a negative electrostatic charge can accumulate on the substrate surface is related to the energy of the electrons in the region in front of the substrate.
In known ion beam implantation apparatus, the substrate, typically a semiconductor wafer, is mounted on a holder which is in turn connected to a common terminal. In the arrangements illustrated in the above two U.S. patent specifications, this substrate common terminal is connected to ground. In each of these U.S. specifications, the electron flood apparatus comprises a tube for axially receiving and passing an ion beam to the substrate. A plasma chamber has an exit aperture which communicates with an opening in the side of the tube. Inert gas is supplied to the plasma chamber. A cathode in the plasma chamber is heated from a cathode power supply to emit electrons. The plasma chamber is made electrically conducting and thereby provides an accelerating electrode. An electrical supply is connected to provide an accelerating potential between the cathode and the accelerating electrode formed by the plasma chamber. As a result, electrons emitted by the cathode are accelerated to produce a plasma in the chamber. The cathode is a directly heated filament.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,089,710, the plasma chamber itself is either connected directly, or biased negatively relative, to the tube surrounding the ion beam in front of the substrate. As a result, electrons from the plasma in the plasma chamber entering the tube of this U.S. specification have an energy of at least the acceleration bias potential between the filament and the plasma chamber walls.
In U.S. Pat. No. ""710, the tube surrounding the beam in front of the substrate acts as a Faraday intended for measuring the total beam current impinging on the substrate. As such, the Faraday tube may be positively biased relative to the grounded substrate common terminal, since the Faraday tube must function to absorb all secondary electrons emitted by the substrate during ion bombardment. In U.S. Pat. No. ""710, the positive bias on the Faraday tube is adjustable. This positive bias has the effect of reducing the energy on the substrate of flood electrons generated in the plasma chamber of the flood source. However, the positive bias also tends to attract these electrons within the Faraday tube, thereby reducing the number of flood electrons available for charge neutralisation on the substrate. Thus, the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. ""710 may provide inadequate numbers of flood electrons to ensure proper neutralisation of positive charge build up on the substrate, when the energy of flood electrons at the substrate is reduced sufficiently to prevent unwanted negative charge build up on other regions of the substrate.
Referring, by comparison, to U.S. Pat. No. 5,399,871, here the filament in the plasma chamber is connected to ground, as is the support for the substrate. The tube surrounding the beam in front of the substrate is biased negatively and acts only as an electron confinement tube to encourage flood electrons emitted into the tube from the plasma chamber to diffuse to the ion beam region which generally has a small positive potential.
With such an arrangement as shown in the drawings of U.S. Pat. No. ""871, the flood electrons can have a very low energy at the substrate, typically no more than about 5 volts, if the filament supply is 5 volts. However, the current of flood electrons emitted from the plasma chamber into the tube is also relatively low and may not be sufficient in some circumstances to neutralise adequately positive charge build up on the substrate.
It is also known to use the arrangement disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. ""871 with the plasma chamber itself connected to ground. The acceleration bias between the plasma chamber and the filament, then also serves to bias the filament relative to ground. This can substantially increase the current of electrons entering the confinement tube from the plasma chamber, but also increases the energy of these electrons at the substrate, thereby increasing the risk of negative charging.
The present invention provides electron flood apparatus for neutralising positive charge build up on the substrate during implantation of ions in the substrate by ion implantation apparatus, the substrate being connected to a common terminal, the electron flood apparatus comprising a tube for axially receiving and passing an ion beam to a substrate, an opening in a side wall of the tube, a plasma chamber having an exit aperture in communication with said opening of said tube, a supply of inert gas to said plasma chamber, a cathode in said plasma chamber, a cathode power supply connected to heat said cathode to emit electrons, said plasma chamber providing an accelerating electrode within said chamber, an accelerating electrical supply connected to provide an accelerating potential between said cathode and said accelerating electrode to accelerate electrons emitted by said cathode to produce a plasma in said chamber, and a cathode bias electrical supply for connection directly between said cathode and said substrate common terminal to set a desired bias potential on said cathode relative to said substrate independently of said accelerating potential.
With this arrangement a cathode bias supply is provided in addition to the accelerating supply (also called arc supply), so that the potential of the cathode in the plasma chamber can be set relative to the substrate common terminal independently of the arc supply. This provides substantial advantages in many applications where the previously known modes of operation provided either an inadequate flux of electrons of sufficiently low energy, or an adequate flux of excessively energetic electrons. By adjusting the cathode bias supply to provide a corresponding bias potential on the cathode, a sufficient flux of electrons can be provided to prevent excess positive charging on the substrate, without producing unwanted negative charging resulting from excessively energetic electrons.
Normally, the cathode comprises a filament and said cathode power supply is a filament power supply connected directly across said filament.
The cathode bias supply (which can be regarded as a filament bias supply when the cathode is a directly heated filament) may be adjustable to set a value of said desired cathode bias potential between zero and minus fifty volts (preferably between zero and minus thirty volts).
In one embodiment, the accelerating supply is adjustable to set a value for said accelerating potential between 20 and 40 volts. The apparatus may provide in addition a tube bias electrical supply for connection between said tube and said substrate common terminal to set a desired bias potential on said tube relative to said substrate. This tube bias supply may be adjustable to set a value of said desired tube bias tube potential between zero and minus thirty volts.
Referring again to U.S. Pat. No. 5,399,871, permanent magnets are provided around the plasma chamber to provide a magnetic field in the plasma chamber substantially aligned with the axis of the exit aperture of the chamber. This field has the effect of concentrating the plasma within the plasma chamber thereby increasing the number of electrons produced in the chamber and enhancing the flow of electrons through the exit aperture. Thus the arrangement disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. ""871 includes magnet apparatus to produce a magnetic field in said plasma chamber having field lines in a central region of said chamber aligned with said exit aperture co increase the density of plasma in said chamber and promote the flow of electrons from said chamber through said exit aperture.
The present invention may also provide electron flood apparatus of the kind known from U.S. Pat. No. ""871 wherein said magnet apparatus comprises a solenoid coil surrounding said plasma chamber coaxially with said exit aperture and a solenoid power supply to energise said coil to produce said magnetic field.
Replacing the permanent magnet by a suitably positioned solenoid around the plasma chamber has surprising beneficial effects. By ensuring a magnetic flux density in the centre of the plasma chamber of at least 250 gauss and preferably at least 300 gauss, the flux of electrons from the plasma chamber into the tube surrounding the beam in front of the substrate can be increased from as low as 50 mA or less to several hundred mA without increasing the bias on the filament in the plasma chamber. As a result, by using a solenoid to produce the magnet field in the plasma chamber, a remarkable increase in electron flux is obtained without the need to increase bias voltage, and so without increasing the energy of the electrons at the substrate.

Electron flood apparatus for neutralizing charge build up on a substrate during ion implantation


A heat dissipation device includes: a first plate with a first surface on which a first heat dissipation fin is formed; a second plate with a first surface on which a second heat dissipation fin is formed, and a heat conduction unit that passes through a first through-hole of the first plate and a second through-hole of the second plate.

Known is a housing with an outer circumferential surface on which multiple fins are provided.
Moreover, known is a plate-shaped heat sink in which multiple fins are provided on a surface of a block, and a hole is formed in the block and is filled with a working fluid.
In addition, known is a plate-shaped heat sink in which an insertion hole is formed in a body with a surface on which multiple fins are formed, and a heat pipe is inserted into the hole.
Moreover, known is a base station device including fins that are attached to a surface of a housing having a heat generating member inside.
For example, when a heat source is installed to the inner side of a housing including multiple side plates on which heat dissipation fins are formed, a side plate that comes into contact with the heat source and a side plate that does not come into contact with the heat source may be present in some cases when reduction in thickness of the housing is performed. In this case, the heat dissipation fins on the side plate that comes into contact with the heat source release a large amount of heat, whereas the heat dissipation fins on the side plate that does not come into contact with the heat source release a small amount of heat. In other words, although the heat dissipation fins are formed on the side plate that does not come into contact with the heat source, no sufficient heat dissipation effect is obtained because little heat is released from the side plate. As described above, the amount of heat dissipation from the heat dissipation fins varies for each side plate of the housing, thereby lowering the heat dissipation efficiency.
In addition, the conventional plate-shaped heat sinks are capable of conducting the heat only in one direction of the vertical direction or the lateral direction. For this reason, as for the housing including multiple side plates, it has been difficult to transfer heat in two directions of a direction between the side plates (the lateral direction) and the vertical direction.
The following are reference documents.                [Document 1] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications No. 2009-164455,        [Document 2] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications No. 2001-156229,        [Document 3] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications No. 10-224068, and        [Document 4] Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications No. 2008-112870.

Heat dissipation device, electronic device, and base station device


Systems and methods for reducing temperature dissipation during burn-in testing are described. A plurality of devices under test are each subject to a body bias voltage. The body bias voltage reduces leakage current associated with the devices under test. Accordingly, heat dissipation is reduced during burn-in. The body bias voltage is selected to achieve a desired junction temperature at the devices under test.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to burn-in of semiconductor devices.
2. Related Art
Semiconductor devices (e.g., microprocessors) frequently dissipate a great deal of heat, particularly when operated at elevated temperatures and voltages to screen for defects during burn-in operations. Such heat dissipation is deleterious during burn-in operations, conventionally requiring complex and expensive test chambers with very high cooling and heat sink capacities.

System and method for reducing heat dissipation during burn-in


The electrical breakdown strength of capacitors is increased by briefly esing the dielectric, the metal foil, and/or the fully assembled capacitor to a low pressure, low temperature gas plasma.

The maximum electrostatic energy density that can be stored in polymer based film capacitors depends on the product of the total capacitance of the capacitor and the square of the maximum voltage that can be safely applied across the capacitor (its breakdown voltage). The higher the operational voltage of a capacitor, the greater the attainable energy storage capability because attainable energy densities of film capacitors increase as the square of the voltage applied across the capacitor. If overall breakdown strengths of films can be increased, then capacitors can be operated at higher voltages thereby increasing the electrostatic energy densities of the capacitors.
Polymers with high resistivity, high permittivity, low dissipation factors and high electric field breakdown strengths (Vb) have important applications as dielectrics in film capacitors. Since the capacitor industry is cost and performance driven, constantly increasing demands are made on materials to lower cost, and improve their reliability and performance. Polymer film capacitors have long been of interest because manufacturing technologies associated with extrusion or solution casting of polymer films can be readily combined with thin film metallization techniques to yield devices that are flexible, economical and that can be constructed into very large capacitors. Polymer films such as polycarbonate, polypropylene and polyester have been the insulating media of choice for fabrication of thin film electrostatic capacitors for operation in the kilovolt range.
One such capacitor which is widely known in this art is the wound capacitor. Wound capacitors are constructed by sandwiching a dielectric film such as polycarbonate, polypropylene or polyester film between metal foil sheets and then winding this material around a mandrel to form the capacitor. Generally, the width of the metal foil is less than that of the dielectric polymer strip, so that a margin is created around each of the sides, thereby acting as an apron to prevent flashovers. Specific examples of wound capacitors are found in the following U.S. patents: U.S. Pat. No. 4,320,437, entitled, "Capacitor with Edge Coated Electrode," and issued to Shaw et al on Mar. 16, 1982; U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,539, entitled, "Hermetically Sealed Capacitor," and issued to Lavene on Jan. 12, 1988; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,026, entitled, "Capacitor Forming and Manufacturing Method," and issued to Lavene on Aug. 4, 1987. Other capacitors, such as disk capacitors, are also well known to those skilled in the art.

Capacitor with increased electrical breakdown strength and method of forming the same

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army


A house may be assembled from a plurality of vertically-cast wall sections and produce an aesthetically pleasing, highly desirable home at reduced cost.

Housing construction is important to the health and welfare of any people. As a general rule, as the quality, quantity, and availability of housing improve, cost does too.
Location and construction difficulties adversely affect housing availability and quantity also. It is very desirable to provide housing quality and quantity at a low cost.
The cost of construction of housing is a major problem in solving the housing shortage. There are certain skills that are required for producing housing. Even if the housing is produced in an efficient preplanned manner, it still requires a great amount of skill and dexterity to achieve to complete the house. This variety of skills requires specialists in the field of housing construction including, but not limited to carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and people having similar skills.
It is highly desirable to produce low cost housing in an efficient fashion. If this can be done, the living standard of people can be improved at a reduced cost. Prefabrication of housing is useful in cost reduction. The higher the level of prefabrication, the greater efficiencies of production can be obtained.
Current prefabricated housing is either difficult to assemble, difficult to make, or difficult to transport. If the transportation and assembly problems can be reduced, great advantages are obtained.
Insulation and exterior noise resistance are also important for a house. These features usually must be installed on site. This factor requires an additional skilled worker on the site. Reduction of these on site construction efforts are desired.
It is also difficult to provide appropriate decoration or aesthetic appearance to housing. If the housing lacks certain aesthetic appearance, and becomes unacceptable in the sight of the consumer, the advantages of the efficiency for the housing can be greatly outweighed. Accordingly, it is desired to provide an efficient manner of providing housing while at the same time maintaining an aesthetic appearance.
A particular housing problem is caused by low income housing. The occupants of such housing lack the necessary income or other abilities to obtain proper housing. Many attempts are known to provide proper low cost housing, which attempts have clearly failed to do so.
An attempt has been made to solve the low income housing problem by providing high rise buildings with apartments therein for each family unit. However, these buildings create a substantial number of problems. Gangs of youths make such buildings difficult to safely be inhabited.
Another problem in construction can be vandalism. Such damage is expensive to repair. If a building under construction can be swiftly and easily secured, such vandalism can minimized. Yet it is difficult to provide such security in the early stages of construction.
Even the spray paint damage applied to the structure in inappropriate places can be expensive to repair. Removing of the paint is difficult, especially without damaging the underlying wall. So if the problems of such spray painting can be minimized, great advantages may be obtained.
Even during the 1996 Olympic Games, new townhouses, provided for people who were required to move because of the Olympics, cannot solve the problem. While the townhouses were in substantially better condition than the individual houses the people left, the joining of the houses create certain problems among the neighbors. Thus, it is highly desirable to find an inexpensive efficient method of providing low cost housing.
Since the townhouses and apartments cannot solve the problem, single family homes are desirable. Such homes are too expensive. Changes must be made to solve this problem.


In a control system for a compression-ignition engine whose operation is switchable between a compression-ignition operation in which an air-fuel mixture supplied to a combustion chamber auto-ignites to burn owing to compression and a spark-ignition operation in which the air-fuel mixture is ignited to burn by a spark of a spark plug, it is determined whether a predetermined permissible condition to permit switching from the spark-ignition to the compression-ignition operation is satisfied, and switching from the spark-ignition operation to the compression-ignition operation is permitted when the predetermined permissible condition is satisfied, thereby enabling to expand the compression-ignition operation utilization region so long as permissible in light of the engine operating condition.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a control system for a compression-ignition internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
Gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines known as "compression auto-ignition" or "compression-ignition" engines have emerged in various types in recent years. As taught by Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-87749, in certain operating regions these engines use compression-ignition, i.e., ignition in which the air-fuel mixture supplied to the combustion chamber auto-ignites and burns as a result of being compressed by the piston (sometimes called "Homogeneous Charge Compression-Ignition (HCCI)"), and in other operating regions they use spark-ignition, i.e., ignition in which the air-fuel mixture is ignited to burn by a spark plug. These engines can realize better thermal efficiency and fuel consumption performance than ordinary spark-ignition engines because they can achieve higher compression ratios.
The system described in the reference is directed to enabling constant stable operation of a compression-ignition engine by disabling compression-ignition operation when the engine coolant temperature detected by a coolant temperature sensor is lower than a predetermined temperature set as a function of the intake air temperature detected by a temperature sensor.
Since, however, compression-ignition operation is superior to the spark-ignition with regard to NOx reduction and thermal efficiency (fuel consumption performance), it is preferable to expand the compression-ignition operation utilization region.

Control system for compression-ignition engine


Provided is a polarizer durable against high-temperature and high-humidity conditions, small in changes in the single plate transmittance, and a liquid crystal display device. A polarizer including a polyvinyl alcohol-based resin, a dichroic colorant, and a compound, etc. represented by the formula (1) below, the content of the compound represented by the formula (1) being 0.01 to 30 parts by mass relative to 100 parts by mass of the polyvinyl alcohol-based resin. In the formula (1) , each of R1 and R3 independently represents a hydrogen atom, C1-20 straight-chain alkyl group, C3-20 branched alkyl group, C3-20 cycloalkyl group, C2-20 alkenyl group or C6-20 aromatic group, and R5 represents a substituent.

Liquid crystal display device has been disseminated as a space-saving image display device with low power consumption, and has been expanding its applications year by year.
The liquid crystal display device is generally configured by providing polarizing plates on both sides of a liquid crystal cell. The polarizing plate functionally allows only light having a certain directionality of plane of polarization to pass therethrough, and performance of the polarizing plate largely affects performance of the liquid crystal display device. The polarizing plate is generally configured by a polarizer which is typically composed of an oriented polyvinyl alcohol film having iodine or dye adhered thereto, and translucent protective films bonded to the front and back surfaces of the polarizer.
With recent expanding applications of the liquid crystal display device, there has been an increasing trend of large-sized, high-definition applications such as television set, and this has further pushed up a level of required quality of the polarizing plate. In particular, large-sized, high-definition liquid crystal display devices have increasingly been used outdoors and under various severe environments than before. From this point of view, in recent years, the polarizing plate used for the liquid crystal display device has been strongly demanded to improve the durability of the polarizer under high-temperature and high-humidity conditions.
JP-A-2011-237580 describes that the durability of the polarizer, under high-temperature and high-humidity conditions, was improved by mixing a specific organic acid into the polarizer.
JP-A-2011-118135 describes addition of barbituric acid to the protective film.

Polarizer, polarizing plate using the same, liquid crystal display device, and method of manufacturing polarizing plate


A transmitting apparatus is disclosed, that comprises a transmitting means for transmitting the same contents of update information a plurality number of times, the update information representing that data has been updated, wherein the transmission timing of the same contents of the update information transmitted by the transmitting means is designated corresponding to operating state information of receiving means that receives the update information from the transmitting means.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transmitting apparatus, a transmitting method, a receiving apparatus, a receiving method, a transmitting and receiving apparatus, and a transmitting and receiving method suitable for broadcasting hierarchical data that is distributed on a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many data delivering methods have been proposed. For example, http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is used to publish pages on the Internet. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) enables computers connected to the Internet to exchange data. In the TCP/IP, a receiving side that receives data calls a transmitting side. Whenever data is transmitted or received corresponding to the TCP/IP, a connection is established between the receiving side and the transmitting side. Thus, with such protocols, data can be delivered with high reliability. On the other hand, the transmitting side and the network are adversely loaded and thereby data cannot be effectively delivered.
In other words, when the number of terminal units that receive data is becoming large and they access a server that delivers data thereto at a time, the server and the network are adversely loaded. Thus, even if a terminal unit requests the server for data, the terminal unit cannot receive the requested data from the server in a short time.
To solve such a problem, a method using a satellite line, a CATV (Cable Television) line, a ground wave digital broadcast, and so forth that allows data to be broadcast has been proposed. With this method, even if the number of terminal units increases, the server and the network are prevented from being adversely overloaded.
In recent years, as digital communication networks such as the Internet have become common, a huge amount of data has been stored on the networks. Thus, it is desired to effectively use such data. To do that, a directory service for hierarchically managing data distributed on a network and providing the data to the user is becoming popular. Using the directory service, the user can quickly find desired information from data distributed on the network and access the desired information.
The directory service has been set forth as X.500 series in OSI (Open System Interconnection) that is an international standard. In the X.500, the directory is defined as a set of open systems. Individual open systems cooperatively have logical databases of information with respect to a set of objects of the real world.
With major directory services defined in the X.500, the user can search and browse information stored in the directory. The directory services also provide the user with a list service (such as a telephone directory) and a user authenticating service. In the directory service, each object is assigned a unique name so that the user can easily memorize, infer, and recognize each object.
The directory services defined in the X.500 are very comprehensive. The program size of each directory service is very large. Thus, it is very difficult to accomplish a directory service on the Internet that uses the TCP/IP as a protocol. To solve such a problem, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) has been proposed as a compact type directory service for the TCP/IP.
In recent years, a directory service using a broadcast data transmitting means such as a satellite line, a CATV line, a ground digital broadcast, or the like has been proposed. In this case, information is uni-directionally delivered with the directory service. Thus, the user cannot request the directory service for desired data. Consequently, in such a directory service, the same information is repeatedly transmitted. The user side stores received information to an IRD (Integrated Receiver Decoder) or an STB (Set Top Box) that is a digital broadcast receiver connected to a television receiver.
Next, information synchronization between the directory server side and the user side (namely, synchronization management) will be considered. The directory server side detects a substantial update of the directory corresponding to a dynamic change of the hierarchical structure of the directory. The directory server side transmits directory information corresponding to the change of the hierarchical structure of the directory to the user. At this point, only the difference of the changed data rather than all directory information is extracted and transmitted.
The directory server side transmits difference update data to the user whenever the directory server side detects an update of the directory information or at intervals of a predetermined time period. When the user side always receives the difference update data corresponding to an update of the directory and updates the stored directory information with the received difference update data, the directory information is synchronized between the directory server and the user.
Now, it is assumed that the user side is in a pause state (for example, the power of the receiver is turned off) and cannot receive difference update data from the directory server for a predetermined time period. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, the directory server successively transmits difference update data Msg1, Msg2, and Msg3 to the user. The difference update data Msg2 is the difference of the directory information updated by the difference update data Msg1. The difference update data Msg3 is the difference of the directory information updated by the difference update data Msg2.
To solve such a problem, for example, an overall structure of a directory is transmitted from the directory server to the user side at intervals of a predetermined time period. Difference update data against the received overall structure is transmitted in the above described manner. However, when the overall directory structure is frequently transmitted, the transmitting resources are wastefully used. Thus, in the conventional method, the advantageous feature of which difference update data is transmitted becomes meaningless.

Transmitting apparatus, transmitting method, receiving apparatus, receiving method, transmitting and receiving system, and transmitting and receiving method

Information Broadcasting Laboratories, Inc.


An earth boring bit of the type having at least one rotatable cutter on a bearing shaft, a hydrostatic pressure compensator to balance the pressure of the lubricant with the pressure of the drilling fluid in the borehole, a metal face seal assembly of the type that enables movement of the seal to compensate for dynamic pressure changes in the lubricant as the cone moves on the bearing shaft, and a protuberance extending from a metal ring of the seal assembly into an aperture in the body of the bit adjacent the shaft with both axial and radial clearances sufficient to enable compensating movements of the seal assembly.

1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates generally to earth-boring bits, lubricated with a system that includes a hydrostatic pressure compensator to balance the internal pressure of the lubricant inside the bit with the hydrostatic pressure of a liquid drilling fluid that surrounds the bit during drilling. In this combination the invention relates to a metal face seal assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
The first successful cantilevered rolling cutter bit invented by Howard R. Hughes, Sr., U.S. Pat. No. 930,759, did not have an effective seal but nonetheless utilized a piston type pressure lubricator that urged a heavy grease into a friction or journal bearing. Because the grease was expended too rapidly, sealed bearing designs were eventually abandoned in favor of unsealed bits with anti-friction, ball and roller bearings that were unlubricated. Such bits were commercially successful in the '40s and in the '50s, lasting into the '60s when Gerald O. Atkinson et al perfected the first seal useful for relatively long periods in retaining lubricant in the anti-friction bearings, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,075,781.
Because a friction or journal bearing has greater load carrying capacity than an anti-friction bearing, its potential was not forgotten and was unlocked in the late 1960's by Edward M. Galle, who provided an O-ring sealed journal bearing combination that sometimes lasted twice as long as anti-friction bearings in the hard, slow drilling of West Texas. (See U.S. Pat. No. 3,397,928.) This bit became predominant in the marketplace, but the O-ring seal has limitations that prevented it from being the final solution to the puzzle of sealing rock bit bearings.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,641 of Bruce H. Burr discloses the first commercially successful rock bit which utilizes a metal face seal. In this bit the seal assembly acts as a secondary compensator, being free to move axially in the seal groove to limit pressure buildup in the lubricant behind the seal caused by the rapid movement of the cutter on the bearing shaft.
The prior art recognizes an advantage in preventing the rotation of a Bellville and certain other seals by press fit, adhesives, staking or the use of an abutment. (See U.S. Pat. No. 3,680,873 and the prior art referred to therein.) One attempt to prevent rotation of a metal face seal relative to the bearing shaft is to roughen the seal groove by particulate blasting to increase the coefficient of friction between the metal and a resilient portion of the seal. If rotation occurs, the roughened surface may result in an accelerated deterioration of the resilient member and a consequent loss of sealing effectiveness.

Mechanical lock to prevent seal ring rotation


In a method for controlling the display of information on a display area, the information is structured hierarchically in objects, in which an object and a path, which leads to the object in the hierarchical structure, are displayed. The path is divided into individual path elements, the path elements belonging to different hierarchy levels of the path leading to the object, and the path elements being selectable buttons, and the information display jumping to the hierarchy level of the selected path element when a path element is selected.

Conventionally, various items of information are displayed in a vehicle, which visually illustrate for the driver in particular the operational data of the vehicle. Furthermore, traffic-related data may be displayed for the driver in the vehicle. In the past, analog mechanical display instruments were used to display this information. These were arranged in particular within the so-called instrument cluster in the vicinity of the driver's primary field of view behind the steering wheel. The instrument cluster is used in particular to indicate the speed, the fuel level, the radiator temperature and other operational information of the vehicle.
With the increase of electronic devices in the vehicle it has become necessary to display a greater quantity of information in the vehicle. Modern vehicles comprise for example a plurality of driver assistance systems, the information of which must be displayed in the vehicle. Furthermore, vehicles often include a navigation system. Such a navigation system is able to display digital geographic road maps including a route and possibly various additional information. Finally, modern vehicles often include communication and multimedia applications, including a mobile telephone interface and devices for playing back music and voice. For these applications it must also be possible to display information in the vehicle.
In order to be able to display the manifold information in a flexible manner, freely programmable displays are used for example, which often also take over the display of traditional mechanical instruments. German Published Patent Application No. 10 2006 032 118 describes an instrument cluster for a motor vehicle for example, which includes a display that is able to indicate variably the speed of the motor vehicle, the rotational speed of the engine of the motor vehicle, the temperature of the engine of the motor vehicle, the fuel level and/or the time. Furthermore, it is possible to display information of a navigation system, a telephone, a music system, an infotainment system and/or an air conditioning system.
In addition to the instrument cluster, a display device is often situated above the center console of the vehicle, via which additional information may be displayed. This display device is used in particular as a multifunction display and for representing a geographic map of a navigation system. Such a multifunction display is described, for example, in German Published Patent Application No. 199 41 956.
The display of information in a vehicle and the operation of the manifold devices of the vehicle entail very specific requirements. In the vehicle, it is, among others, the driver who takes in the information and operates the respective device. The information should thus be represented in the vehicle such that while taking in the information the driver is not distracted from driving. The driver should therefore be able to grasp the represented information intuitively and quickly such that he has to take his eyes off the driving action only very briefly when taking in the information. Likewise, the operation of the vehicle devices should be as simple and intuitive as possible such that the driver is able to operate the devices even while driving. If the operation is supported or guided by a display, then the display should occur in such a way that the driver has to view the display only very briefly in order to carry out the operation.
It is conventional to structure the information to be displayed hierarchically in objects so that the user is able quickly and intuitively to display specific desired information or to control the execution of specific functions quickly and intuitively. For this purpose, the objects may be divided into a plurality of menus. These menus are in turn structured hierarchically such that when selecting an object of a hierarchy level one reaches the next lower hierarchy level. In order to return to a higher hierarchy level, a so-called return button is often provided. It is furthermore known to display the entire hierarchical structure in the form of a tree diagram, which a user is able to navigate.

Method for controlling the display of information on a display area