This invention provides an air control system which is retrofittable in an intermediate position between upstream compressors and air storage vessels and downstream useful production equipment or the like to provide benefits of greater air-utilization efficiency and a better air system balance between supply and demand, especially on an air-weight flow basis. A preferred embodiment employs a plurality of servo-driven flow controllers in parallel between a pair of header tanks and controls them in response to sensed downstream pressures and to the pressure differential across the control system.

Many factories use compressed air as a major source of power for operating their production machinery. The air is typically supplied from on-site or nearby compressors and piped to a downstream use or demand area through a distribution system, with pressure-stabilizing storage means being provided upstream, in the form of tanks or receivers. Typical equipment includes pneumatically powered machine tools, drills, wrenches, presses and lathes, as well as mills and buffers, and low demand spray booths and instrumentation. Such equipment is commonly referred to in the art as the "article", a generic term connoting anything connected to the air system to make use of the supply.
End users want the air system to maintain adequate pressure to run their air-powered equipment and few consider the energy costs of the air.
Major changes in downstream demand create varying loads on the compressors. Air compressors are typically controlled according to system supply pressure, coming on-line as system pressure at the compressor, or nearby, drops below a threshold pressure and going off-line at a higher cutout pressure. This is necessarily a rather crude control system, especially as air compressors are slow to respond to changes. As factory production drops off, for example at the end of a shift, air demand declines, and this decline can be quite sudden.
System pressure rises substantially to unload compressor horsepower until compressor output can be adjusted and this overpressure can increase the air consumption rate as still-operating machinery uses more air and also increases leakage. These overpressure losses constitute an artificial demand resulting in wasted energy. Being designed to maintain a threshold working pressure under conditions of heavy demand, most air systems use an excess of compressor capacity over the theoretical capacity needed to give satisfactory operational results, with consequent unnecessary capital expenditure and running costs.
Prior art pneumatic control systems generally depend upon the above-described crude compressor switching together with pressure regulators operating at the article to protect individual pieces of equipment from pressure surges. Such regulators can be controlled from downstream pressure detectors with a feedback loop and typically discharge overpressures to atmosphere.
In general, the prior art uses local control with little if any thought given to overall system control. In general, the prior art has paid little, if any attention to overall system efficiency. Indeed, it has been a surprising observation relating to the genesis of the present invention that most operators set their regulator valves to maximum, probably in the belief that they will get more performance out of their equipment. Such operators display little regard for system efficiency and equipment durability.
These rather simple control devices merely provide a preliminary level of control and do little if anything to improve the overall system efficiency. Other substantial drawbacks associated with the use of such downstream flow controllers are that mechanical and pneumatic inertia, or hysteresis, slow the responsiveness of the system allowing, substantial abnormalities and consequent air, or energy, losses to develop.


An absorbent fabric material of synthetic endless fibers, in particular for use in clinical areas and also clean room areas and also in company and public washrooms, in which, in order to simultaneously achieve absorbent high absorbency and handling acceptance the fiber of the fabric material is texturizable and the woven material has an open woven structure in which longer non bound in thread sections (3, 6) alternate with firmly bound in thread sections (4, 5 or 7, 8 respectively) which thereby generate capillary-like interstitial spaces between the fibers.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an absorbent fabric material of synthetic endless fiber, and in particular to an absorbent fabric material for use in clinical areas and clean room areas, as well as in company and public washrooms.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the clinical area, in particular in the operating theater, in just the same way as in clean rooms, the use of fabric material of natural fibers causes problems because natural fibers form fluff and lint which are carriers of germs and other contamination and which are distributed in the room's air. A further disadvantage lies in the fact that through the long drying period, swollen natural fibers, such as for example cotton, produce a favorable breeding ground for the growth of bacteria and germs.
In order to satisfy clean room conditions and requirements of hygiene, natural fiber materials are thus being increasingly avoided in the clinical area and in the clean room area and, instead, synthetic fibers are being used as much as possible. Since synthetic fibers can be manufactured as endless yarns and have a high yield strength, no fluff or lint formation arises with synthetic fabric material. It is however a disadvantage of synthetic fabric material that it is not absorbent or is only absorbent to a small degree. This disadvantage can be tolerated in the clinical area when it is used for drapes and articles of clothing, but can't be tolerated when it is used for hand towels and cloths for sucking up liquids. Thus, in spite of the disadvantages of fabric material made of natural fibers, hand towels and absorbent cloths made of cotton are used in the clinical area.
A further disadvantage of natural fabric materials lies in the fact that they have to be washed at a high temperature, in particular 95.degree. C., with a large amount of detergent in order to remove contamination and to kill germs, whereas synthetic materials can be hygienically cleaned at a washing temperature of 60.degree. C. and with a smaller quantity of detergent. Moreover, the energy required for drying is less with synthetic materials than with natural fabric materials since natural fabric materials pick up moisture and thereby swell, whereas the moisture only sticks to the outside of the synthetic materials.
With the synthetic materials in towel-form there is, in addition to the low absorbency, the disadvantage that these materials feel smooth and plastic-like and thus, from the point of view of their feel or handling, a lower acceptancy exists for cloths of these materials when they are to be used as hand towels which are required to be absorbent. A further disadvantage lies in the so-called "pilling effect". This is a name for a knot-like formation in which synthetic short fibers occur which, in contrast to natural fibers such as cotton fibers, do not break off under mechanical loading, but rather form knots once subjected to alternating loads.

Absorbent fabric material of synthetic endless fiber


A method for forming microspheres on a microscopic level comprises the steps of defining holes through a substrate, disposing a sheet of thermally formable material onto the substrate covering the holes, heating the sheet of thermally formable material until a predetermined degree of plasticity is achieved, applying fluidic pressure through the holes to the sheet of thermally formable material, while the sheet of glass is still plastic, and forming microspheres on the substrate in the sheet of thermally formable material by means of continued application of pressure for a predetermined time. The invention also includes a substrate having a plurality of holes defined therethrough, a layer of thermally formable material disposed onto the substrate covering the plurality of holes, and a plurality of microspheres thermally formed in the layer by means of applied pressure through the holes when it has been heated to a predetermined degree of plasticity.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of micromachined glass components and methods of manufacture of the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In addition to consumer glass products, glass-blowing is often used to create confinement chambers for different types of gases. A normal glass-blowing process is (roughly) as follows:                Heat the glass to its softening point        Remove glass from the heat source (e.g. flame)        Immediately apply pressure (blowing) to shape the glass        Repeat all steps if needed
In the past, micro-spheres have been fabricated using polymer droplets that are allowed to fall through a high column whose temperature profile is controlled by independent heating units, allowing for expansion of the spheres. See R. Cook, "Creating Microsphere Targets for Inertial Confinement Fusion Experiments", Energy & Technology Review, pp. 1-9, April 1995; and R. Dagani, "Microspheres Play Role in Medical, Sensor, Energy, Space Technologies", Chemical and Engineering News, pp. 33-35, December 1994
However, all of these prior efforts have dealt with the fabrication of spheres that are not attached to any surface and can only be filled with specific gases during the fabrication process. Small confinement chambers can be achieved by etching (using dry or wet etchant) glass, silicon, or other materials. However, etching usually leads to rough surfaces as well as very thick sidewalls making it unfit for many applications (e.g. when optics need to be integrated with the chamber). Furthermore, it is not possible to achieve a spherical shape with traditional etching techniques. Large-scale confinement chambers have been created in the past using traditional glass-blowing techniques. However, conventional glass-blowing can only be used to create large components (not micro-fabrication compatible).
What is need is a method and apparatus where glass-blowing is performed in a parallel batch process on a microscopic level.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for wafer-level micro-glass-blowing

The Regents of the University of California


An internal combustion engine having a reciprocating multi cylinder internal combustion engine with multiple valves. At least a pair of exhaust valves are provided and each supply a separate power extraction device. The first exhaust valves connect to a power turbine used to provide additional power to the engine either mechanically or electrically. The flow path from these exhaust valves is smaller in area and volume than a second flow path which is used to deliver products of combustion to a turbocharger turbine. The timing of the exhaust valve events is controlled to produce a higher grade of energy to the power turbine and enhance the ability to extract power from the combustion process.

For over a hundred years, piston engines have been utilized to convert the energy in hydrocarbon based fuel to useful power outputs. Typically, these engines have incorporated variable volume combustion chamber or chambers using a cycle having an intake portion, a compression portion, an expansion portion and an exhaust portion. The variable volume combustion chamber is most typically defined by a reciprocating piston in a cylinder bore and connected by appropriate mechanical devices to a crankshaft or other rotary output component. The engines may be two cycle or four cycle according to the need.
The consideration of efficiency has always been important but with advances in regulatory limits during the last twenty years, reducing emissions, including nitrous oxides, has become exceedingly important. The usual steps for combustion management to minimize emissions typically decrease efficiency of the engine. In the case of the compression ignition or diesel engine cycle, the need to reduce oxides of nitrogen requires significant alteration to the operating conditions which tends to decrease the otherwise outstanding efficiency of such an engine type.
A number of attempts have been made to increase efficiency by fully utilizing the energy available in such engines through power extraction devices in the exhaust of the engine. Such power extraction devices may be a turbo supercharger (turbocharger) which receives the exhaust from the engine and drives a compressor connected to the engine intake by appropriate manifolds. The heat of pressurization by the compressor may be supplied to an intercooler or aftercooler to reduce the temperature of the gases flowing into the engine and thus increase the density of the mixture. Another energy extraction device is found in a power turbine which may be used to supply additional power to the engine output via an appropriate mechanical connection or may be used to drive a turbo generator supplying electrical energy for accessory and other loads.
While some systems have been proposed to provide a separate exhaust for different power extraction devices, such systems do not provide a system having a maximum efficiency.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a prime mover system incorporating an internal combustion engine and power extraction devices which more efficiently utilize the energy available from the internal combustion engine.

Two phase exhaust for internal combustion engine


A mobile device and a method for controlling a user interface of the mobile device are disclosed. According to an embodiment, the method includes detecting a movement of the mobile device as applied by a user's gesture, scrolling at least one of a page displayed on the display and a selection point on the display according to the detected movement of the mobile device, determining whether a selectable item displayed within the page is positioned on the selection point of the display, and selecting the selectable item in response to a predetermined event, once the determining step determines that the selectable item is positioned on the selection point of the display.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for controlling a user interface, and more particularly to a mobile device and a computer program and method for controlling a user interface of a mobile device by detecting a user's gesture applied to the mobile device.
Description of the Related Art
There exist many kinds of mobile devices such as a mobile phone, an MP3 player, a PMP (portable multimedia player), a computer notebook, a PDA etc. These devices have limited user interfaces for users to input or output data due to the feature of portability. These mobile devices are usually not used in a fixed place but used while the user is moving with the devices. Also, the size of the mobile device is relatively small.
As such, it is improper to employ general I/O devices in these mobile devices which are devised for fixed devices such as a QWERTY key board, a mouse or a remote control which is devised for a desktop computer, large size TV, etc.
As such, different kinds of user interfaces were devised and widely used for the mobile devices such as a touch pad, a touch screen, a navigation pad, etc.
Nevertheless, the mobile devices are often still limited for users to input and output data and users feel that they can be more user-friendly and convenient to use.
Moreover, in case of mobile phones, tendency is toward adding many kinds of annexed functions to mobile phones such as an MP3 player, a camera, an internet browser, an image viewer, a video player, etc.
Mobile device users often need to use a keyboard especially when the user is browsing an internet webpage through the mobile device to input keywords for a search or password.
In case of a mobile device which substitutes a touch screen for physical buttons such as a full touch screen phone which has a large screen and does not have physical number buttons, if the user needs to input text, he needs to go through a few or more steps by manipulating the menu to have the virtual number buttons show up.
This causes much convenience to the users of the mobile devices. Advanced user interfaces for providing users with easy access to control mobile devices are required.

Method and device for controlling user interface based on user's gesture


A vertical field-effect transistor (FET) device includes a monolithically integrated bypass diode connected between a source contact and a drain contact of the vertical FET device. According to one embodiment, the vertical FET device includes a pair of junction implants separated by a junction field-effect transistor (JFET) region. At least one of the junction implants of the vertical FET device includes a deep well region that is shared with the integrated bypass diode, such that the shared deep well region functions as both a source junction in the vertical FET device and a junction barrier region in the integrated bypass diode. The vertical FET device and the integrated bypass diode may include a substrate, a drift layer over the substrate, and a spreading layer over the drift layer, such that the junction implants of the vertical FET device are formed in the spreading layer.

Power transistor devices are often used to transport large currents and support high voltages. One example of a power transistor device is the power metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). A power MOSFET has a vertical structure, wherein a source contact and a gate contact are located on a first surface of the MOSFET device that is separated from a drain contact by a drift layer formed on a substrate. Vertical MOSFETs are sometimes referred to as vertical diffused MOSFETs (VDMOS) or double-diffused MOSFETs (DMOSFETs). Due to their vertical structure, the voltage rating of a power MOSFET is a function of the doping level and thickness of the drift layer. Accordingly, high voltage power MOSFETs may be achieved with a relatively small footprint.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional power MOSFET device 10. The conventional power MOSFET device 10 includes an N-doped substrate 12, an N-doped drift layer 14 formed over the substrate 12, one or more junction implants 16 in the surface of the drift layer 14 opposite the substrate 12, and an N-doped junction gate field-effect transistor (JFET) region 18 between each one of the junction implants 16. Each one of the junction implants 16 is formed by an ion implantation process, and includes a P-doped deep well region 20, a P-doped base region 22, and an N-doped source region 24. Each deep well region 20 extends from a corner of the drift layer 14 opposite the substrate 12 downwards towards the substrate 12 and inwards towards the center of the drift layer 14. The deep well region 20 may be formed uniformly or include one or more protruding regions. Each base region 22 is formed vertically from the surface of the drift layer 14 opposite the substrate 12 down towards the substrate 12 along a portion of the inner edge of each one of the deep well regions 20. Each source region 24 is formed in a shallow portion on the surface of the drift layer 14 opposite the substrate 12, and extends laterally to overlap a portion of the deep well region 20 and the base region 22, without extending over either. The JFET region 18 defines a channel width 26 between each one of the junction implants 16.
A gate oxide layer 28 is positioned on the surface of the drift layer 14 opposite the substrate 12, and extends laterally between a portion of the surface of each source region 24, such that the gate oxide layer 28 partially overlaps and runs between the surface of each source region 24 in the junction implants 16. A gate contact 30 is positioned on top of the gate oxide layer 28. Two source contacts 32 are each positioned on the surface of the drift layer 14 opposite the substrate 12 such that each one of the source contacts 32 partially overlaps both the source region 24 and the deep well region 20 of one of the junction implants 16, respectively, and does not contact the gate oxide layer 28 or the gate contact 30. A drain contact 34 is located on the surface of the substrate 12 opposite the drift layer 14.
As will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, the structure of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 includes a built-in anti-parallel body diode between the source contacts 32 and the drain contact 34 formed by the junction between each one of the deep well regions 20 and the drift layer 14. The built-in anti-parallel body diode may negatively impact the performance of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 by impeding the switching speed of the device, as will be discussed in further detail below.
In operation, when a biasing voltage below the threshold voltage of the device is applied to the gate contact 30 and the junction between each deep well region 20 and the drift layer 14 is reverse biased, the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is placed in an OFF state. In the OFF state of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, any voltage between the source contacts 32 and the drain contact 34 is supported by the drift layer 14. Due to the vertical structure of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, large voltages may be placed between the source contacts 32 and the drain contact 34 without damaging the device.
FIG. 2A shows operation of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 when the device is in an ON state (first quadrant) of operation. When a positive voltage is applied to the drain contact 34 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 relative to the source contacts 32 and the gate voltage increases above the threshold voltage of the device, an inversion layer channel 36 is formed at the surface of the drift layer 14 underneath the gate contact 30, thereby placing the conventional power MOSFET device 10 in an ON state. In the ON state of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, current (shown by the shaded region in FIG. 2) is allowed to flow from the drain contact 34 to each one of the source contacts 32 in the device. An electric field presented by junctions formed between the deep well region 20, the base region 22, and the drift layer 14 constricts current flow in the JFET region 18 into a JFET channel 38 having a JFET channel width 40. At a certain spreading distance 42 from the inversion layer channel 36 when the electric field presented by the junction implants 16 is diminished, the flow of current is distributed laterally, or spread out in the drift layer 14, as shown in FIG. 2. The JFET channel width 40 and the spreading distance 42 determine the internal resistance of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, thereby dictating the performance of the device. A conventional power MOSFET device 10 generally requires a channel width 26 of three microns or wider in order to sustain an adequate JFET channel width 40 and spreading distance 42 for proper operation of the device.
FIG. 2B shows operation of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 when the device is operating in the third quadrant. When a voltage below the threshold voltage of the device is applied to the gate contact 28 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 and a positive voltage is applied to the source contacts 32 relative to the drain contact 34 of the device, current will flow from the source contacts 32 through each respective deep well region 26 and into the drift layer 14. In other words, current will flow through each built-in anti-parallel body diode in the conventional power MOSFET device 10.
As discussed above, a built-in anti-parallel body diode is located between the source contacts 32 and the drain contact 34 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10. Specifically, the built-in anti-parallel body diode is formed by the P-N junction between each one of the P-doped deep well regions 26 and the N-doped drift layer 14. The built-in anti-parallel body diode is a relatively slow minority carrier device. Accordingly, once the built-in anti-parallel body diode is activated in a forward bias mode of operation, majority carriers may linger in the device even after a biasing voltage is no longer present at the gate contact 30 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10. The time it takes the majority carriers of the built-in anti-parallel body diode to recombine in their respective regions is known as the reverse recovery time. During the reverse recovery time of the built-in anti-parallel body diode, the lingering majority carriers may prevent the conventional power MOSFET device 10 from entering an OFF state of operation by allowing current to flow from the drain contact 34 to the source contacts 32. The switching speed of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 may therefore be limited by the reverse recovery time of the built-in anti-parallel body diode.
Conventional solutions to the switching speed ceiling imposed by the built-in anti-parallel body diode have focused on placing an external high-speed bypass diode between the source contact and the drain contact of a power MOSFET device. FIG. 3 shows the conventional power MOSFET device 10 connected to an external bypass diode 44. As will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, the external bypass diode 44 may be chosen to be a junction barrier Schottky (JBS) diode, because of the low forward voltage, low leakage current, and negligible reverse recovery time afforded by such a device. The external bypass diode includes an anode 46, a cathode 48, a drift layer 50, and one or more junction barrier implants 52. The anode 46 of the external bypass diode 44 is coupled to the source contacts 32 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10. The cathode 48 of the external bypass diode 44 is coupled to the drain contact 34 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10. The anode 46 and the cathode 48 are separated from one another by the drift layer 50. The junction barrier implants 52 are located on the surface of the drift layer 50 in contact with the anode 46, and are laterally separated from one another.
As will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, the JBS diode combines the desirable low forward voltage of a Schottky diode with the low reverse leakage current of a traditional P-N junction diode. In operation, when a bias voltage below the threshold voltage of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is applied to the gate contact 30 of the device and the junction between each deep well region 20 and the drift layer 14 is reverse biased, the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is placed in an OFF state and the external bypass diode 44 is placed in a reverse bias mode of operation. In the reverse bias mode of operation of the external bypass diode 44, each one of the P-N junctions formed between the drift layer 50 and the junction barrier implants 52 of the external bypass diode 44 is also reverse biased. Each reverse biased junction generates an electric field that effectively expands to occupy the space between each one of the junction barrier implants 52. The resulting depletion region pinches off any reverse leakage current present in the device.
FIG. 4A shows operation of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 including the external bypass diode 44 when the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is in an ON state (first quadrant) of operation. When a positive voltage is applied to the drain contact 34 of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 relative to the source contacts 32 and the gate voltage increases above the threshold voltage, an inversion layer channel 36 is formed at the surface of the drift layer 14 underneath the gate contact 30, thereby placing the conventional power MOSFET device 10 in an ON state (first quadrant) of operation and placing the external bypass diode 44 in a reverse bias mode of operation. In the ON state (first quadrant) of operation of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, current flows in a substantially similar manner to that shown in FIG. 2A. Additionally, because the external bypass diode 44 is reverse biased, current does not flow from through the device.
FIG. 4B shows operation of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 including the external bypass diode 44 when the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is operating in the third quadrant, and the external bypass diode 44 is operating in a forward bias mode of operation. When a bias voltage below the threshold voltage of the conventional power MOSFET 10 is applied to the gate contact 30, and a positive voltage is applied to the source contacts 32 relative to the drain contact 34, the conventional power MOSFET 10 begins to operate in the third quadrant, and the external bypass diode 44 is placed in a forward bias mode of operation. In the forward bias mode of operation of the external bypass diode 44, current (shown by the shaded region in FIG. 4) will flow from the anode 46 through one or more channels 54 in the drift layer 50, each one of the channels 54 having a channel width 56 determined by an electric field generated between each one of the junction barrier implants 52 and the drift layer 50. At a certain spreading distance 58 from the anode 46 of the external bypass diode 44, the electric field presented by the junction between each one of the junction barrier implants 52 and the drift layer 50 becomes less pronounced, and the current spreads out laterally to fill the drift layer 50. Finally, the current is delivered to the cathode 48 of the external bypass diode 44. Although the external bypass diode 44 creates a low impedance path for current flow between the source contacts 32 and the drain contact 34, a small amount of current may still flow through the conventional power MOSFET device 10, as shown in FIG. 4B.
By creating a high-speed, low-impedance path for current flow around the built-in anti-parallel body diode, only a small number of majority carriers accumulate in the built-in anti-parallel body diode when the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is operated in the third quadrant. By reducing the number of majority carriers accumulated in the device, the reverse recovery time of the built-in anti-parallel body diode can be substantially reduced. Accordingly, the switching time of the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is no longer limited by the reverse recovery time of the built-in anti-parallel body diode.
Although effective at lifting the switching speed ceiling imposed by the built-in anti-parallel body diode of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, the external bypass diode 44 may increase the ON state resistance as well as the parasitic capacitance of the conventional power MOSFET device 10, thereby degrading the performance of the device. Additionally, the external bypass diode 44 will consume valuable real estate in a device in which the conventional power MOSFET device 10 is integrated.
Accordingly, there is a need for a power MOSFET device with a high switching speed, a low ON state resistance, a low parasitic capacitance, and a compact form factor.

Seminconductor device with spreading layer


A coverage area picture imaging a maximum area is displayed on a coverage area picture display. A camera is moved within a predetermined range and a plurality of frames obtained as a result form a picture. The pixels of the picture is decimated in vertical and horizontal directions and form a thumbnail as the coverage area picture. The coverage area picture display presents a display indicating a direction in which the camera is currently directed for picture photographing. In accordance with the display, a photographing direction is controlled. A plurality of frames are photographed with respect to a designated position, then stored, and displayed. A whole picture display presents a whole panorama picture. A selective picture display presents a frame at the position designated within the whole panorama picture as a selected picture.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring system, monitoring method, computer program and storage medium for use with a surveillance camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Monitoring systems for monitoring a wide area are conventionally used. For example, a monitoring system may be used for surveillance of sea and river regions, monitoring of trespassers, monitoring of the behavior of wild animals, and for other purposes. A video camera having a large number of pixels is used to capture the image of a wide area. For this reason, the cost of the system typically becomes higher. A technique has been proposed which captures a still picture by shifting successively capture areas from one to another and then linking the still pictures to generate a picture of the area to be monitored. The whole picture has an extremely high resolution. When an expanded picture of one portion of the whole picture is obtained, the resolution of the expanded picture is still high and a clear image thus results.
To capture the picture of a wide area, the number of still pictures forming the whole picture of the wide area increases. Time required to capture still frame pictures forming the whole picture is prolonged. In practice, an area to be monitored is typically limited. The monitoring system is preferably usable in a dark environment under which the naked eye of the human is unable to see objects. Using an infrared camera, the monitoring system may have a dark vision feature. However, captured image is typically dark and unclear to identify. The operability of the monitoring system is not satisfactory because of image darkness particularly when the user attempts to direct the camera to a desired direction while viewing the captured picture, or when the user attempts to expand an arbitrary point or area in the captured picture.

Monitoring system for a photography unit, monitoring method, computer program, and storage medium


A method for producing a blend comprising randomly substituted mesogens comprising: providing one or more platform molecules have the following general structure:

Photocurable resins which are transparent or translucent, radioopaque, have good workability, and have good mechanical strength and stability are useful in medical, dental, adhesive, and stereolithographic applications.
Low polymerization shrinkage is an important property for such resins. In dental applications, the phrase "zero polymerization shrinkage" typically means that the stresses accumulated during curing do not debond the dentin-restorative interface or fracture the tooth or restorative, which can result in marginal leakage and microbial attack of the tooth. Low polymerization shrinkage also is important to achieve accurate reproduction of photolithographic imprints and in producing optical elements.
Another advantageous property for such resins is maintenance of a liquid crystalline state during processing. For comfort in dental applications, the resin should be curable at "room temperature," defined herein as at typical ambient temperatures up to about body temperature. Preferred curing temperatures are from about 20° C. to about 37° C. Mesogens which have been found to polymerize in a relatively stable manner at such temperatures are bis 1,4 [4′-(6′-methacryloxyhexyloxy)benzoyloxy] t-buylphenylene mesogens and their structural derivatives. These mesogens have the following general structure:

Methods for varying the rheology and phase transition temperature of the mesogens, without adversely affecting the mechanical strength and stability of the cured mesogenic resin, are always needed.

Methods and blends for controlling rheology and transition temperature of liquid crystals

Abstract: wherein at least one member selected from the group consisting of X and Y comprises one or more spacer groups; R2 is a bulky organic group whereby, when both X and Y are reacted with polymerizable groups to produce polymerizable mesogens, R2 provides sufficient steric hindrance to achieve a nematic state at room temperature while suppressing crystallinity of the polymerizable mesogens at room temperature; and, R1 and R3 are selected from groups less bulky than R2; and independently substituting at least one member selected from the group consisting of X and Y with a polymerizable group, thereby producing a blend of randomly substituted mesogens.


A disk-storing disk device includes a mechanism base provided at a position beyond the perimeter of a disk stored in a disk storing region provided vertically within a middle portion of a casing, and a switchover member which moves following an arc path is provided on the mechanism base. Switching operations of various types of mechanisms can be performed by this switchover member. Also, other switchover members can be disposed vertically overlapping the mechanism base. Accordingly, the vertical movement region for holding disks can be made larger, and also, the planar area of the casing can be reduced. This allows a greater number of disks to be stored within the casing, while reducing the size of the casing.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk-storing disk device wherein multiple disks are stored within a casing, and the disks are selected to be driven.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-63017 (hereafter also referred to as "known document") discloses a disk changer wherein multiple supporting members are stored within a casing. With this disk changer, disks inserted from an insertion opening in the casing are held by respective supporting members. Provided within the casing is a supporting member selecting mechanism for selecting one of the multiple supporting members and increasing the spacing between the selected supporting member and another supporting member adjacent thereto below.
With the disk changer described in the above known document, a driving unit having a turntable on an end thereof is provided within the casing, the driving unit turns on a supporting axis serving as a pivot situated at the base thereof, and pivots from a position beyond the perimeter of a disk supported by a supporting member toward the inside of the casing. The driving unit enters the space between the selected supporting member and the supporting member situated below, and the disk held by the selected supporting member is clamped to the turntable.
With this type of disk device, various types of motive force transporting paths are necessary, such as motive force for turning the driving unit, motive force for moving the supporting members vertically with the supporting member selecting mechanism, motive force for carrying disks in the casing from the insertion opening and carrying disks out of the casing from the insertion opening, and so forth.
With the disk changer disclosed in the known document, motors serving as the power sources of each of the motive forces, and switchover mechanisms for switching the motive power of the motors, are primarily disposed in a concentrated manner on the base face of the casing. However, such types of switchover mechanisms for performing various actions such as turning of driving units, supporting member selection with the supporting member selecting mechanism, and so forth, require a great number of mechanism components, gears, and so forth. Disposing such motors, mechanism components, gears, and so forth, in a concentrated manner on the base face of the casing requires a wide placement space for the mechanisms on the base face of the casing.
In this case, moving a supporting member supporting a disk to a position close to the base face of the casing at the time of selection operations may lead to the supporting member or the disk colliding with the mechanisms, and accordingly the movement range in the downward direction is restricted. Accordingly, the number of supporting members which can be disposed within the casing is restricted, so that either the number of disks which can be stored in the casing needs to be reduced, or the vertical height of the casing needs to be increased.
Also, in the event of increasing the number of supporting members within the casing and bringing a supporting member close to the base face of the casing in the selection operation, there is a need to disperse the placement of the motors, mechanism components, gears, and so forth, on the base face of the casing, to positions away from the edge of the disk held by the supporting member. Accordingly, a wider footprint is required for the casing, and the width and depth dimensions of the casing cannot be reduced.

Disk-storing disk device with laterally disposed switchover member


A tokenization system includes a vector table and one or more token tables. The tokenization system accesses sensitive data and a vector from a vector table column, and modifies the sensitive data based on the accessed vector. The tokenization system then queries the one or more token tables using a portion of the modified data to identify a token mapped to the portion of the modified data. The portion of the modified data is replaced with the token to create tokenized data. The vector table can be updated by replacing a vector table column with an updated vector table column. The tokenization system can modify subsequent data using the updated vector column prior to tokenization.

Many websites, services, and applications implement various data protection techniques. Certain techniques involve the use of an encryption key or password that can be subject to interception or brute force guessing. Other methods may protect data but require extensive computing resources to encode and decode data. Such methods often fail to utilize various data format advantages when protecting the data. In addition, such methods often result in the re-use of secrets, such as encryption keys, encryption algorithms, and the like. This makes such methods particularly vulnerable to hacking or compromise. Thus, it may be advantageous to implement data protection techniques that minimize the re-use of secrets while bolstering the protection of the data.


A camera system produces omnidirectional RGBD (reg-green-blue-depth) data, similar to a LiDAR but with additional registered RGB data. The system uses multiple cameras, fisheye lenses and computer vision procedures to compute a depth map. The system produces 360° RGB and depth, from a single viewpoint for both RGB and depth, without requiring stitching. RGB and depth registration may be obtained without extra computation and result presents zero parallax misalignment.

This invention relates to acquisition of a wide field of view image and depth information and, more particularly, acquisition of registered image and depth information over very wide field-of-view ("FoV"), such as from 120 degrees to full panoramic or 360 degrees.
Multi-camera rigs may, in principle, acquire stereoscopic information from which depth information could be obtained to determine distances to objects in images acquired by cameras in the camera rig. Numerous applications require both the image and the depth information for an object.
Depth describes the volume or shape of a person, thing, or room. Some depth sensing technologies, such as LiDAR, return depth information. But they do not return an image to go with it. Structured light solutions, such as the Microsoft Kinect or Intel RealSense, have a very narrow field of view (FoV)—70×30. There is no fully satisfactory wide field of view (180 to 360 degree), real time, depth with image solution.
Some existing stereoscopic image-based approaches for depth estimation focus on two camera systems using pin hole representations for the lenses. Other existing systems combine a single image representation with an alternative sensor. These include sensors that receive structured light, or in some cases LiDAR.
LiDAR achieves high accuracy on a per point basis. But it has two major limitations. First, there is no image; LiDAR only provides depth. Second, there are major tradeoffs between pixel density, FoV and speed. The first limitation means that the depth information must be fused together with the image. This is particularly true for applications that depend on image-based AI to identify objects and then need to know the distance (e.g. collision avoidance). The second limitation means that one must either wait many minutes per frame to obtain dense, wide FoV information or be content with coarse data at best at 20 FPS in a very narrow band.
The blended sensors can be limited by the FoV of the structured light sensor. They may be able to achieve relatively high frame rates, but only capture information in the overlap between the camera and the sensor.
Some camera systems can achieve high FPS but have limited FoV. Commercial solutions have avoided the use of fisheye lenses because of the additional complexity of the fisheye lens itself, and in establishing the relationships between the lens and sensor (intrinsic calibration) and between the two cameras (extrinsic calibration).

Wide view registered image and depth information acquisition


The present invention relates to an isolated bacterial reverse transcriptase. The reverse transcriptase synthesizes a peculiar RNA-DNA complex called msDNA which is a single-stranded DNA structure branched out from an RNA molecule. The gene coding for the reverse transcriptase has been isolated and sequenced. It codes for a polypeptide of 485 amino acid residues. This is the first time that a reverse transcriptase has been found, identified and isolated from a prokaryotic microorganism of which the amino acid sequence is shown in FIGS. 2a-2d.

The existence of a peculiar branched RNA-linked DNA molecule called msDNA (multicopy single-stranded) has been demonstrated in various myxobacteria, Gram-negative soil bacteria (Yee et al., 1984; Dhundale et al., 1985; Furuichi et al., 1987; Dhundale et al., 1987; Dhundale et al. 1988 J. Biol. Chem. 48, 47-53 and 55-62. msDNA (msDNA-Mx162) from Myxococcus xanthus consists of 162-base single stranded DNA, the 5' end of which is linked to the 2' position of the 20th rG residue of a 77-base RNA molecule (msdRNA) by a 2', 5'- phosphodiester linkage (Dhundale et al., 1987). It exists at a level of approximately 700 copies per genome. Stigmatella aurantiaca also possesses an msDNA (msDNA-Sa163) which is highly homologous to msDNA-Mx162 (Furuichi et al., 1987). In addition to msDNA-Mx162, M. xanthus has another smaller species of msDNA (mrDNA or msDNA-Mx65), which has no primary sequence homology with msDNA-Mx162 or msDNA-Sa163 (Dhundale et al., 1988 J. Biol. Chem.). However, all msDNAs so far characterized share key structural features such as a branched rG residue, stem-and-loop structures in RNA and DNA molecules, and a DNA-RNA hybrid at the 3' ends of DNA and RNA molecules.
Previously it was predicted that reverse transcriptase is required for msDNA biosynthesis on the basis of the finding that msdRNA is derived from a much longer precursor, which can form a very stable stem-and-loop structure (Dhundale et al., 1987). This precursor molecule was proposed to serve as a primer for initiating msDNA synthesis as well as a template to form the branched RNA-linked-msDNA. The latter reaction requires reverse transcriptase activity. In M. xanthus, the region coding for the RNA molecule (msr) is located on the chromosome in the opposite orientation to the msDNA coding region (msd) with the 3' ends overlapping by 6 bases for msDNA-Mx65 (Dhundale et al., 1988 J. Biol. Chem.) or by 8 bases for msDNA-Mx162 (Dhundale et al., 1987). In addition, as in all the msDNAs found in myxobacteria, there is an inverted repeat comprised of a 14-base sequence for msDNA-Mx65 (Dhundale et al., 1988 J. Biol. Chem.) or a 34-base sequence for msDNA-Mx162 (Dhundale et al., 1987) and a 33-base sequence for msDNA-Sa163 (Furuichi et al., 1987) immediately upstream of the branched G residue and a sequence immediately upstream of the msDNA coding region. As a result of this inverted repeat, a longer primary transcript beginning upstream of the RNA coding region and extending through the msDNA coding region is considered to self-anneal and form a stable secondary structure. When three base mismatches were introduced into the secondary structure immediately upstream of the branched rG residue, msDNA synthesis was almost completely blocked. However, if three additional base substitutions were made on the other strand to resume the complementary base pairing, msDNA production was restored (Hsu et al., 1989). This result strongly supports the proposed model for msDNA synthesis.
It has also been shown that a deletion mutation at the region 100 base pairs (bp) upstream of the DNA coding region (msd) and an insertion mutation at a site 500 bp upstream of msd caused a significant reduction in msDNA production (Dhundale et al., 1988 J. Bacteriol.). This indicates that there is a cis- or trans-acting positive element required for msDNA synthesis in this region. In this report we determined the DNA sequence of this region and found an open reading frame (ORF) of 485 amino acid residues beginning with an initiation codon, ATG, which is located 77 bp upstream of msd (or 231 bp downstream of msr). The very close proximity between msd and the ORF suggests that they may be transcribed as a single transcript. The amino acid sequence of the ORF shows similarity with retroviral reverse transcriptases. A possible origin of the reverse transcriptase gene as well as a possible relationship between the msDNA system and retroviruses is discussed herein. Recently, some strains of Escherichia coli were found to produce msDNA and the gene for reverse transcriptase which is essential for msDNA production, is linked to the msd region, (Lim and Maas, 1989; Lampson et al., 1989 Science). Comparison of the msDNA systems of M. xanthus and E. coli raises an intriguing question as to how the extensive diversity found in msDNA systems has emerged in bacteria and what possible functions msDNA may have.
It is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,151 that msDNA is in fact synthesized by reverse transcriptase in a cell-free system in M. xanthus (Lampson et al., 1989 Cell).

Isolated bacterial reverse transcriptase

University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey


A user may routinely wear or hold more than one computing devices. One of the computing devices may be a head-mounted computing-device configured for augmented reality. The head-mounted computing-device may include a camera. While imaging, the camera can consume power and processing resources that diminish a battery of the head-mounted computing device. To improve a battery life and to enhance a user's privacy, imaging of the camera can be deactivated during periods when the user is not interacting with the head-mounted computing device and activated when the user wishes to interact with the head-mounted computing device. The activation of the camera can be triggered by gestured data collected by a computing device other than the head-mounted computing-device.

An AR environment may include one or more computing devices configured to blend real information with virtual information so that a user can perceive and interact with the virtual information as if it were a natural part of the user's environment. Generating the AR requires a device (or devices) to sense a user and/or the user's environment; to process the sensed information to determine AR information, and to display the AR information to the user. For example, AR glasses may simultaneously capture images of a user's view and display AR information overlaid onto the user's view. For sensing, an AR-device may include a camera that is required to have sufficient resolution and speed to facilitate an immersive AR experience. While imaging, the camera may consume a relatively large amount of power for a wearable AR-device, such as AR glasses.


The garbage container, having a simple structure, a reliable performance, and being easy to install and cost effective, includes a container body, an infrared induction device, a movable cover automatically opened through infrared induction device, an infrared induction device, an automatic cover-opening device connected with the control unit, an output shaft of the driving motor connected with a cable-collecting wheel via a first set of reduction gears. One end of the cable is fixed to the cable-collecting wheel while the other end of the cable is connected with the cover. An output shaft of the cable-collecting wheel is connected with a cam via a second set of reduction gears. The protruding part of the cam is rotated to contact a cover-opening stroke switch and a cover-closing stroke switch respectively. The cover-opening stroke switch and the cover-closing stroke switch are connected respectively with the control unit through a data line.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a garbage container, and more particularly to a garbage container with an automatic cover.
2. Description of Related Arts
The existing garbage containers, having an automatic cover, do not have stroke switch, so the opening and closing time of the cover is controlled by a timing device. If the time interval is set longer than the time of actuation for the cover, the driving motor is still electrified after the opening or closing action is completed. In other words, the driving motor is blocked and unable to move after the opening or closing action is completed. If the time interval is set too short, the opening or closing action of the cover cannot be fully completed.
In addition, such automatically openable garbage containers generally use battery as the power source. However, the rotating speed is gradually slowing down as the battery voltage keeps dropping. Therefore, the time of the opening and closing process is changing with respect to the voltage of the battery.
Even through the automatically openable garbage container do have stroke switch, the design of the stoke switch is not proper. Some stroke switches are installed beside the cover, and connected with the space of the garbage container. After used for some time, the stoke switch will be corroded by the gas in the garbage container, which may affect the performance of the stroke switch, such as the contact disabling. Some stroke switches are too complicated to be installed.

Garbage container automatically openable through infrared induction


A memory system includes a memory controller, a transmission bus, a power divider, a first memory chip, and a second memory chip. The transmission bus is coupled from the memory controller to a first node of the power divider for transferring signals. The first node of the power divider is coupled to a second node of the power divider via a first line, and the first node is also coupled to a third node of the power divider via a second line. The first memory chip is coupled to the second node via a first branch bus and the second memory chip is coupled to the third node via a second branch bus. Accordingly, reflected wave due to an impedance mismatching can be reduced to enhance the signal integrity.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a memory system, and more particularly to a memory system including a Wilkinson power divider on a multi-module memory bus architecture capable of enhancing the signal integrity along the bus architecture.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the operation frequency of a processor in a memory system increases toward the giga hertz (GHz) level, the performance of a main memory needs to be improved for matching the performance of the entire system.
One such method of improving the main memory includes using a memory system that adopts a multi-module memory bus architecture with increased bandwidth to improve the performance of the entire system. The multi-module memory bus architecture may be patterned on a printed-circuit board. The main memory in a computer system typically includes DRAM that coupled to a processor through a multi-bit interface as a system on chip (SoC).
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a conventional memory system including a multi-module memory bus architecture with On-Die Termination (ODT).
Referring to FIG. 1, a multi-module memory bus architecture has a configuration in which a plurality of memory modules 20 and 30 are coupled in common to a memory controller 10 via a transmission bus 12. In the memory bus architecture, the memory modules 20 and 30 are coupled to a memory controller 10 via two branch buses 22 and 32 branched from the main bus 12.
These branch connections for a one-to-two connection line configuration (that is, the stubs) are usually sources of impedance mismatching. The impedance mismatching causes inter-symbol interference, and thus limits the speed of high-speed digital systems. Therefore, a memory system having improved signal integrity is desirable.

Memory system including a power divider on a multi module memory bus

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)


A method of producing a glass-particle-deposited body that has a small diameter variation and the like resulting from alteration of the deposition condition is offered. When the glass-particle-deposited body is produced, a burner row constituted by placing a plurality of burners is moved relative to a starting member, and glass particles ejected from the burners are deposited on the starting member. In the method of producing a glass-particle-deposited body, alteration of the deposition condition is performed during the course of the deposition of the glass particles on the starting member. The method of producing a glass-particle-deposited body has a feature in that the alteration of the deposition condition is performed at least twice and that the burner positions along the length of the starting member at which the deposition condition is altered are placed at intervals shorter than the intervals between burners.

The types of the method of producing a glass-particle-deposited body include an outside vapor deposition method (OVD method). In the OVD method, a burner is supplied with a glass-material gas, a combustible gas, a combustion-assisting gas, and an inert gas, glass particles are synthesized by a flame hydrolysis reaction or an oxidation reaction in a flame ejected from the burner, and the glass particles are deposited on a starting rod member (starting member) having superior corrosion and heat resistance to form a glass-particle-deposited body.
The types of the material for the starting member include glass, carbon, and alumina, for example. In addition, a starting member is also known that is composed of an eminently heat-resistive material having a heat- and corrosion-resistive coating. In the production of an optical fiber preform, a glass rod to become a part of the product, including the core, is sometimes used as the starting member.
In recent years, another OVD method has also been employed in which, in place of the glass-material gas, the glass particles themselves are fed to the burner so that the glass particles are ejected from the burner together with the flame to be deposited on the starting member. The two types of feeding methods may also be combined to carry out this process.
To improve the production speed of a glass-particle-deposited body in the OVD method, a method using a plurality of burners is known. This method is known as "a multiburner OVD method." FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing the multiburner OVD method. In FIG. 5, the numeral "1" indicates a starting member, and "2" indicates a glass-particle-deposited body being formed by the deposition of glass particles on the starting member 1. Burners A to C constitute a burner row. In FIG. 5, the movement of the burner row from above downward is referred to as the forward movement, and the movement from below upward as the backward movement. In the multiburner OVD method, the glass-particle-deposited body 2 is produced by ejecting a flame including glass particles from the burner toward the starting member 1 while the burner row and the starting member 1 are being moved reciprocatively relative to each other. To perform the relative reciprocating movement, either the burner or the starting member 1 may be moved.
The burner row starts its downward movement at a position where the position of the uppermost burner A in the burner row faces the uppermost position q0 in the glass-particle deposition range on the starting member 1. It reverses its moving direction at a position where the position of the lower-most burner C in the burner row faces the lowermost position q11 in the glass-particle deposition range and moves upward to return to the original position. The burner row repeats this cycle of movement. Consequently, the individual burners perform the relative reciprocating movement in their respective predetermined ranges on the glass-particle-deposited body 2. More specifically, the burner A moves between the positions q0 and q9, the burner B between the positions q1 and q10, and the burner C between the positions q2 and q11.
The column in the right-hand side of FIG. 5 shows the number of layers of the glass particles deposited on the starting member 1 when the burner row performs one reciprocation. When one burner passes once, one glass-particle-deposited layer is formed. Consequently, when one burner performs one reciprocation, two layers are formed. Therefore, the number of glass-particle-deposited layers produced by one reciprocation of the burner row becomes a constant value of six between the positions q2 and q9. The region in which the number of deposited layers becomes a constant value, such as described above, is referred to as a steady portion. In the end portions of the glass-particle-deposited body 2, which are the portions between the positions q0 and q2 and between the positions q9 and q11, the number of deposited layers decreases as the position approaches the end, and a tapered shape is formed. The region in which the number of deposited layers varies with the position, such as described above, is referred to as an unsteady portion. In the multiburner OVD method, the moving distance of the burner row relative to the starting member 1 is longer than the length of the steady portion.
In addition, "the divisionally synthesizing OVD method" is also known in which glass particles are deposited by using a plurality of burners placed at equally spaced intervals to constitute a burner row having a length corresponding to nearly the total length of the starting member. FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing the divisionally synthesizing OVD method. In FIG. 1, the numeral "1" indicates a starting member, "2" a glass-particle-deposited body, and "3" burners (burners A to D). The burners A to D are placed at nearly equally spaced intervals to constitute a burner row 4. The glass-particle-deposited body 2 is produced through the following concurrent operations: the starting member 1 is rotated around its own center axis, the burner row 4 is moved reciprocatively along the length of the starting member 1, and each of the burners 3 ejects a flame 5 including glass particles 6 toward the starting member 1. In the divisionally synthesizing OVD method, the amplitude of the relative reciprocating movement between the starting member 1 and the burner row 4 is shortened, and the predetermined deposition segments on the starting member 1 are allocated to the individual burners 3.
FIG. 1 shows the case where the burner row 4 is moved relative to the starting member 1. Nevertheless, the starting member 1 may be moved relative to the burner row 4. Furthermore, the two members may also be moved relative to each other. In addition, FIG. 1 shows the case where the starting member 1 is held vertically, and accordingly the burner row 4 moves up or down. Nevertheless, the combination of the starting member 1 and the burner row 4 may be positioned at any orientation including the horizontal one to be moved reciprocatively.
In the divisionally synthesizing OVD method in early stages, the burner row 4 was simply moved reciprocatively over nearly the same distance as that of the burner interval. Thus, the deposition segments having a length corresponding to the burner interval on the glass-particle-deposited body 2 were allocated to the individual burners 3. In this case, the reversing position of the reciprocating movement of the burners 3 allows the accumulation of the influence of the increase in the deposition time due to the speed reduction of the burners 3 and the temperature rise at the deposition surface. As a result, variations in the diameter of the glass-particle-deposited body 2 tend to occur.
In order to decrease the diameter variation at the reversing position of the reciprocating movement in the divisionally synthesizing OVD method, "a zigzag method" has been proposed in the published Japanese patent applications Tokukaihei 3-228845 and Tokukaihei 4-260618. In "the zigzag method," the range of the reciprocating movement of the burner row is predetermined to be an integral multiple of the burner interval. In addition, the moving distance in the reciprocating movement of the burner row is designed to be slightly different between the forward and backward movements. The reversing position of the reciprocating movement of the burner row moves successively from the position at the time of the beginning of the synthesizing and returns to the position at the time of the beginning of the synthesizing. This period is referred to as "one set." The "set" is repeated twice or more. In the zigzag method, the reversing position of the reciprocating movement of the burner row is distributed over the starting member. Therefore, the factor causing the diameter variation at the reversing position can be distributed over the entire glass-particle-deposited body. As a result, the diameter variation in the glass-particle-deposited body is suppressed.
In addition, in the case where the reversing position of the reciprocating movement is fixed in the divisionally synthesizing OVD method, in order to decrease the diameter variation at the reversing position, "a condition-adjusting method" has been proposed in the published Japanese patent application Tokuhyou 2001-504426. In "the condition-adjusting method," while the burner row is simply moved reciprocatively over the same distance as that of the burner interval, the deposition condition is adjusted at the reversing position to decrease the diameter variation. This adjustment of the deposition condition specific to the reversing position in the reciprocating movement of the burner row is referred to as "the condition adjustment at the reversing position" in order to distinguish it from the below-described alteration of the deposition condition associated with the growth of the glass-particle-deposited body. Hereinafter in the present specification, the term "the OVD method" includes the multiburner OVD method and the divisionally synthesizing OVD method (the zigzag method and the condition-adjusting method).
In the OVD method, alteration of the deposition condition other than "the condition alteration at the reversing position" is also performed. More specifically, as the diameter and surface area of the glass-particle-deposited body increase, the following alterations are performed:
(1) The distance between the starting member and the burner is widened to prevent the burner from making contact with the glass-particle-deposited body.
(2) The amount of the glass material or glass particles to be fed to the burner is increased to increase the synthesizing rate of the glass particles.
(3) The moving speed of the burner, the amount of the gas discharged from the reaction container for synthesizing the glass-particle-deposited body, and the flow rate of the combustible gas, combustion-assisting gas, and inert gas all to be fed to the burner are adjusted to suppress the cracking of the growing glass-particle-deposited body.
(4) The flow rate of the gas blown on the glass-particle-deposited body is adjusted to adjust the amount of the glass particles being deposited on the starting member.
Hereinafter, the foregoing items (1) to (4) are integrated into the expression "the alteration of the deposition condition associated with the growth of the glass-particle-deposited body," which is shortened to "the alteration of the deposition condition."
If any of the alteration of the deposition condition from (1) to (4) above is performed during the production process, in particular, in the cases where the relative position between the burner and the starting member is fixed at the time of the alteration of the deposition condition and where the alteration is performed significantly at a time, the alteration may cause variations in the diameter of the glass-particle-deposited body and variations in optical properties of the glass preform obtained by consolidating the glass-particle-deposited body.
In the multiburner OVD method, the alteration of the deposition condition is generally performed when the burner row is positioned at the reversing position of the reciprocating movement, i.e., by referring to FIG. 5, when the burner A is positioned at the position q0 (the burner B at the position q1 and the burner C at the position q2) and when the burner A is positioned at the position q9 (the burner B at the position q10 and the burner C at the position q11). This procedure enables the production of an excellent-quality glass-particle-deposited body 2 having small variations in the diameter at the portion other than the unsteady portion and bulk density. For example, the published Japanese patent application Tokukai 2000-44276 has stated that it is not desirable to alter the gas flow rate while the burner is positioned at the steady portion of the glass-particle-deposited body because the glass-particle-deposited body may include gas bubbles and other imperfections.
In this method, however, when the alteration of the deposition condition is performed, either the burner C is positioned at the position q2 or the burner A is positioned at the position q9 as a matter of course. This condition concentrates the influence of the alteration of the deposition condition at the boundary portions between the steady portion and unsteady portion of the glass-particle-deposited body 2 (the positions q2 and q9). As a result, the diameter variation and the like due to the alteration of the deposition condition tend to spread toward the steady portion from the positions q2 and q9. This tends to shorten the uniform-diameter portion of the glass-particle-deposited body 2, reducing the product yield and hampering the productivity.
In the divisionally synthesizing OVD method, all burners except the burners at the ends of the burner row are positioned at the steady portion at all times. Therefore, it is impossible to implement the method in which the alteration of the deposition condition is performed only when the burner is positioned at the unsteady portion. In particular, in the zigzag method, the alteration of the deposition condition is performed at the end of "the set." In this case, the alteration of the deposition condition is performed invariably at the position where the burner row is positioned at which the synthesizing is started. Therefore, the disturbance in the deposition of glass particles due to the alteration of the deposition condition is concentrated at specific positions of the glass-particle-deposited body. Consequently, the specific positions suffer variations in the diameter and disturbances in the optical property in many cases. This undesirable circumstance has required to establish a method of producing a glass-particle-deposited body having a small diameter variation and excellent quality. In the above-described published Japanese patent application Tokukaihei 4-260618, no description has been given on the alteration of the deposition condition.
Patent literature 1: the Japanese patent application Laid open No. Hei 3-228845
Patent literature 2: the Japanese patent application Laid open No. Hei 4-260618
Patent literature 3: the Japanese patent application Laid open No. 2000-44276
Patent literature 4: the Japanese patent application Laid open No. 2001-504426

Method for manufacturing article comprising deposited fine glass particles


A vehicle control system mounted on a vehicle is provided. The vehicle control system includes a first sensor configured to sense a driver's pupil size and gaze, a second sensor configured to sense an external object which exists in a peripheral region of the vehicle, a controller configured to sense lane change intention according to a change of the pupil size and the gaze, and in response to the lane change intention being sensed, control the second sensor to sense whether the external object exists in a direction of a lane to be changed, and an output unit configured to, in response to the external object existing in the direction of the lane to be changed, output a warning message.

1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept generally relates to a vehicle control system and a method thereof, and more particularly, to a vehicle control system which provides a driver with a warning message regarding a risk factor when a driver is to change a lane.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of a society, population has greatly increased, and various accidents, including a car accident, are happening continuously. As the number of vehicles have increased and the society have been complicated, a death rate due to a car accident has also greatly increased.
A car accident may occur due to various causes such as speeding, signal violation, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drive while drowsy, driver's inattention, etc. For example, as one of the most frequent accidents, a driver may not perceive another vehicle which approaches from an adjacent lane and collide with the vehicle when changing a lane. Specially, there are many accidents due to a surrounding vehicle which exists in a blind spot that a driver cannot see thorough a side-view mirror on a side of a driver's seat. Accordingly, there is a need for a method of preventing such accident.

Vehicle control system for providing warning message and method thereof

KYUNGPOOK NATIONAL UNIVERSITY INDUSTRY-ACADEMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION


Interconnected master and slave transceivers provide data communication between host computers. Each transceiver receives and encodes elements of a first data sequence from its local host computer at a first rate and employs a finite impulse response (FIR) filter to interpolate elements of the encoded first data sequence to produce elements of a second data sequence at a higher second rate controlled by a local clock signal. The second data sequence controls the amplitude of an analog signal sent to the other transceiver. Each transceiver also processes the analog signal arriving from the other transceiver to produce elements of a third data sequence at that second rate and employs a second FIR filter for Interpolating the third data sequence to produce elements of a fourth data sequence at the slower first rate. Fourth data sequence elements are then decoded to produce elements of a fifth sequence forwarded to the local host computer at the first rate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to data communication transceivers and in particular to an interpolated timing recovery system for synchronizing communications between two transceivers.
2. Description of Related Art
The IEEE 802.3ab ("Ethernet") standard defines a digital media interface commonly used for transmitting data between computers linked through a network. The standard includes a "1000BASE-T" protocol enabling transceivers to communicate with one another through pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) signals conveyed on a set of four category 5 (CAT5) unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) conductors. A transceiver operating in accordance with the 1000BASE-T protocol can concurrently transmit and receive one 8-bit word every 8 nsec, thereby providing an effective communication rate of one Gigabit per second in both directions.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art 1000BASE-T transceiver 10 in block diagram form. Transceiver 10 includes a transmit physical coding sublayer (PCS) 12 for scrambling and encoding an incoming sequence of 8-bit words Tx to produce four sequences of 3-bit data words Tx,a-Tx,d, each of which is an integer value of the set {−2, −1, 0, +1 or +2}. Each data word Tx,a-Tx,d is supplied as input to a separate one of a set of four "physical medium attachment" (PMA) units 16(A)–16(D), and each PMA unit 16(A)–16(D) generates an output 1000BASE-T signal on a corresponding one of four UTPs A–D in response to its input data sequence Tx,a-Tx,d. Each PMA unit 16(A)–16(D) also detects a data sequence conveyed by an incoming 1000BASE-T signal transmitted by a remote transceiver on its corresponding UTP A-D and supplies that data sequence Rx,a-Rx,d to receive PCS 14. Receive PCS 14 de-scrambles and decodes the four Rx,a-Rx,d data sequences from PMAs 16(A)–16(D) to produce a single 8-bit output data word sequence Rx matching the remote transceiver's 8-bit input data sequence.
PCS 12, PCS 14, PMAs 16 and the remote transceiver all operate synchronously at the 125 MHz rate with which data is forwarded on UTPs A–D. When an input M/S signal tells transceiver 10 to act as a "master", a timing recovery system 15 supplies a free running 125 MHz clock signal CLK1 to transmit PCS 12, receive PCS 14 and PMAs 16 for controlling the timing of their operations. The remote transceiver, acting as a slave, synchronizes its own internal 125 MHz clock to CLK1 based on the timing with which data arrives from transceiver 10. Conversely, when the M/S signal tells local transceiver 10 to act as the slave, timing recovery system 15 adjusts the frequency and phase of its output clock signal CLK1 based on the timing of data streams D3, D4 PMA 16(A) derives from the signal arriving on UTP A from the remote transceiver.
FIG. 2 illustrates prior art PMA 16(A) and timing recovery system 15 of FIG. 1 in more detailed block diagram form; PMAs 16(B)–16(D) of FIG. 1 are similar. PMA 16(A) includes a transmitter 18 for sending an analog signal A1 outward on UTP A in response to the incoming 3-bit Tx,a data sequence, a receiver 20 for generating the 3-bit output data sequence Rx,a in response to an incoming 1000BASE-T signal A2 arriving on UTP A, and a "hybrid" circuit 22 for coupling the transmitter and receiver to UTP A.
Transmitter 18 includes a trellis code modulation (TCM) encoder 24 for converting the incoming Tx,a data sequence into a 125 MHz data sequence T1x,a indicating the voltage of each successive level of the outgoing analog signal A1. A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 26 converts each word of the partial response sequence output T1x,a to a voltage, a low pass filter (LPF) 27 smoothes the DAC output signal, and a driver 28 amplifies the output of LPF 27 to produce the analog signal A1 transmitted outward on UTP A via hybrid 22 to the remote transceiver.
Hybrid 22 passes an incoming analog signal arriving on UTP A from the remote transceiver as an analog signal A2 input to receiver 20. Receiver 20 includes an amplifier 32 for amplifying the A1 signal with an adjustable gain and offset. A low pass filter 34 removes high frequency noise from the amplifier output signal to produce an analog signal A3. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 36 digitizes the A3 signal to produce a sequence of data elements D1 representing successively sampled magnitudes of the A3 signal. Automatic gain control (AGC) and baseline wander (BLW) control circuits 33 control the gain and offset of amplifier 32 to keep the peak-to-peak amplitude of the analog signal A3 near the full input range of ADC 36.
A clock signal CLK4 synchronized to the remote transmitter's CLK1 signal clocks ADC 36. The CLK4 signal shifts each element of the D1 sequence into a first-out (FIFO) buffer 37 and the local CLK1 clock signal shifts the D1 sequence out of FIFO buffer 37.
The amount of echo distortion of the incoming A2 signal is proportional to the magnitude of the A1 signal transmitter 18 is currently sending outward on UTP A. The amount of near end crosstalk (NEXT) distortion in the incoming A2 signal is proportional to the magnitude of the outgoing A1 signals currently being transmitted outward by transmitters within the other three PMAs 16(B)–16(D) of FIG. 1. An echo/NEXT canceller circuit 38 monitors the T1x,a -T1x,d data sequences produced by all four transmitters and supplies an offset data sequence D2 to a summer 40 representing the magnitude of echo and NEXT distortion in the incoming signal.
A summer 40 subtracts the D2 sequence generated by echo/NEXT canceller 38 from data sequence D1 output of FIFO buffer 37 to produce a data sequence D3 that is compensated for echo and NEXT distortion. An adaptive feed forward equalizer (FFE) 42 compensates the D3 sequence for channel response (distortions introduced by the incoming signal path) to produce a sequence D4. A trellis code modulation decoder 44 decodes the D4 sequence to produce an Rx,a sequence supplied to PCS 14 of FIG. 1 replicating the Tx,a input sequence of the remote transceiver's A channel PMA.
The 125 MHz clock signal CLK1 output of timing recovery system 15 clocks all of the digital components of transmitter 18 and receiver 20 that operate at 125 MHz. Timing recovery system 15 includes a clock signal generator 46 for producing a free-running 125 MHz clock signal CLK5 and a variable frequency oscillator (VFO) 58 for producing a 125 MHz clock signal CLK4 that is frequency locked to the remote transceiver's CLK1 signal. A multiplexer 48 controlled by the M/S signal selects the CLK5 signal as the source of clock signal CLK1 when the transceiver operate as master and selects the CLK4 signal as the source of clock signal CLK1 when the transceiver operates as slave.
VFO 58 produces clock signal CLK4 at a frequency controlled by input data D9 produced by devices 50–52 in response to the "soft decision" data D4 sequence output of FFE 42 which represents the data conveyed by the incoming A2 signal. When transceiver 10 is operating in the slave mode, elements of the data sequence D4 appear at the remote transceiver's 125 MHz clock rate. A slicer 50 "rounds off" each 8-bit data sequence element D4 output of FFE 42 of receiver 20 to produce a corresponding 3-bit "hard decision" data sequence element D5 representing the nearest integer value which acts as an estimate of the integer value of the D4 data. When the phase and frequency of clock signal CLK4 are correctly adjusted, the current D4 sequence element will be a whole number and will match D5. When the phase of clock signal CLK4 signal is incorrect, the current D4 sequence element will have a fractional component and will be larger or smaller than is corresponding D5 sequence element. Characteristic patterns in differences in between corresponding D4 and DS elements are indicative of phase errors in clock signal CLK4 relative to 125 MHz clock rate of the D4 data. A phase error detector (PED) 51 processes the D4 and D5 sequences to generate data D6 representing the phase error and a filter 52 smoothes the D6 sequence to produce a data sequence D7. The D7 data output of filter 52, which represents the error in the phase of clock signal CLK4, acts as input to VFO 58 and finely adjusts the phase and frequency of clock signal CLK4 to frequency lock it to the remote transceiver's CLK1 signal.
The CLK4 signal is somewhat jittery since VFO 58 is controlled by a feedback loop. Jitter in clock signal CLK4 introduces distortion the D1 sequence output of ADC 36 and such distortion affects the performance of the FFE 42 since a conventional FFE's ability adapt to the predictable channel response distortion is degraded when confronted with unpredictable distortion resulting from random variations in phase of the transceiver's sampling clock. The degradation in FFE performance increases the probability of data transmission errors. Also, when the transceiver is acting in the slave mode, the CLK1 signal supplied to DAC 26 is somewhat jittery because it is derived from the jittery CLK4 signal. Such jitter in the CLK1 input to DAC 28 causes unpredictable distortion in the analog signal A1 sent to the remote transceiver and further adds to the difficulty for the remote transceiver's FFE has in adapting to the channel response.
What is needed is a transceiver architecture allowing two transceivers to communicate with one another even though they concurrently employ free-running clock signals to control the rate at which they encode data into the analog output signals they transmit and to control the rate at which they digitize the analog signals they receive.

Interpolated timing recovery system for communication transceivers


An optical pickup has a light source for generating a first light having a longer wavelength and a second light having a shorter wavelength, an objective, and a phase hologram disposed between the light source and the objective. The objective is designed to have a larger spherical aberration for the first light than a spherical aberration for the second light. The phase hologram is arranged to give a phase difference of an integer multiple of 2.pi. for the second light. The phase hologram is further arranged so that a spherical aberration given to the first light has an opposite polarity to the polarity of the spherical aberration given by the objective.

The present invention relates to an pickup for an optical disc reproducing system, and more particularly to a pickup where a light source emits different laser beams, each having a different wavelength for reproducing information on different optical discs, each having different recording densities.
In order to improve efficiency of recording and reproducing information on the optical disc, an optical disc having a high recording density is proposed. To read such a disc, an optical pickup having a second harmonics generating device or a laser device which emits a beam of a short wavelength such as green light or blue light has been developed.
The pickup having the laser device emitting the beam of the short wavelength reads information recorded in high recording density with accuracy.
Conventionally, a disc having information of a low recording density such as a laser disc or a CD is reproduced by a beam of a long wavelength such as infrared rays.
It is desirable that the pickup can read both the high density disc and the conventional disc.
However, the beam of the short wavelength is radiated on the disc at a small spot diameter for reproducing the information in the high recording density. Therefore, if the short wavelength of the blue light is used for the disc of the low recording density, the spot diameter is too small for the pit on the disc and a phase difference dependent on the depth of the pit is different in wavelength. Accordingly, the level of the reproduced signal is low and signal distortion is increased. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain a good reproduction.
In order to solve such a problem, there has been proposed to provide a pickup having two laser beam sources for emitting laser beams having different wavelengths.
In particular, if the second harmonics generating device (SHG) comprising a laser device and a resonator is used, beams of long wavelength and short wavelength can be obtained.
FIG. 3 shows a conventional pickup having a second harmonics generating device. The second harmonics generating device comprises a semiconductor laser device 1 for emitting a beam of infrared rays and a nonlinear optical resonator 2 for producing a blue beam of a half wavelength of the infrared rays. Laser beams of the infrared rays emitted from the laser device 1 are fed to the nonlinear resonator 2. The nonlinear resonator 2 operates to convert a part of the beams into a beam of a blue light having short wavelength. The beams of the infrared rays and the blue light are reflected on a beam splitter 3 where the beams are changed in a perpendicular direction. The beams from the beam splitter 3 are arranged to parallel beams through a collimator lens 4 and fed to an objective 5. The beams are focused on a recording surface of an optical disc 6 by the objective 5.
The reflected beams from the optical disc 6 are reflected on a dichroic mirror 7 passing through the objective 5, collimator lens 4 and beam splitter 3, where the beams are divided into short wavelength and long wavelength. The beams of the blue light of the short wavelength are focused on a photodetector 8 on which divided photo-sensors are provided. The beams of the infrared rays of the long wavelength are focused on a photodetector 9 on which divided photo-sensors are provided. Thus, the photodetector 8 detects information on a disc having a high recording density and the photodetector 9 detects information on a disc having a low recording density. In the photodetector, a focus error is detected by the astigmatic method and a tracking error is detected by a push-pull method. Thus, the pickup having compatibility is obtained.
In such a pickup, it is necessary to provide the collimator lens 4 and the objective 5 so as to have a diffraction limited performance at the two wavelengths. Namely, both lens must be arranged to have small chromatic aberration. However, it is difficult to make a lens by molding plastic to have diffraction limited performance for two wavelengths. Therefore the objective 5 must be made of three lenses. It is possible to use different collimator lenses in accordance with the wavelength of the beam. However, in order to cooperate with the objective 5, the collimator lens 4 becomes large in size. Accordingly, the lenses are complicated in construction, thereby increasing manufacturing cost, and an actuator for operating the objective 5 becomes large, which causes an increase of power consumption.
Furthermore, since the photodetectors are individually provided, it is necessary to adjust positions thereof with accuracy when assembling, causing troublesome assembling.

Optical pickup for an optical disc reproducing system


Compounds of Formula I:

A. Biological Activity of Coumarin Derivatives
Anticoagulant and antithrombotic activity of certain natural and synthetic coumarin derivatives is known. See, Murray et al., The Natural Coumarins, Wiley, New York, 1982. Certain coumarin derivatives are also reported as triplet sensitizers (see, Williams et al., Polym. Eng. Sci., 1983, 23, 1022); anti-HIV agents (Spino et al., Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 1998, 8, 3475-78); lipid-lowering agents (Madhavan et al., Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 2003, 13, 2547-51); antioxidants (Kontogiorgis et al., J. Enzyme Inhib. Med. Chem., 2003, 18, 63-69); inhibitors of lipid peroxidation and vasorelaxant agents (Hoult et al., Gen. Pharmac. 1996, 27, 713-22); anti-inflammatory agents (Khan et al., Indian J. Chem., 1993, 32, 817); and free radical scavengers (Mora et al., J. Biochem. Pharmacol., 1990, 40, 793-97). In addition, two naturally-occurring coumarins have been found to exhibit cytotoxicity across a selection of mammalian cancer cell lines (Reutrakul et al., Planta Med., 2003, 69, 1048-51).
Certain coumarin-3-carboxamides have been reported as inhibitors of proteases, including α-chymotrypsin (Pochet et al., Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 2000, 8, 1489-501; Wouters et al., Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 1990, 12, 1109-12; and Mor et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1990, 1038, 119-24) and human leukocyte elastase (HLE) (Doucet et al., J. Med. Chem., 1999, 42, 4161-71; Egan et al., Drug Metab. Rev., 1990, 22, 503-29; and Nicolaides et al., J. Heterocycl. Chem., 1996, 33, 967).
B. Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) Inhibition
One of the most important and fundamental processes in biology is the division of cells mediated by the cell cycle. The cell cycle is regulated by a diverse set of cellular signals both within the cell and from external sources. A complex network of tumor promoting and suppressing gene products are key components of this cellular signaling process. Overexpression of the tumor promoting components or the subsequent loss of the tumor suppressing products may lead to unregulated cellular proliferation and the generation of tumors. CDKs serve to regulate the cell cycle. CDK complexes comprise a catalytic subunit (the kinase) and a regulatory subunit (the cyclin). Nine kinase subunits (CDK 1-9) have been identified along with several regulatory subunits (cyclins A-H).
CDKs are important targets for therapeutic intervention in various proliferative disorders including cancer. Each kinase associates with a specific regulatory partner and together make up the active catalytic moiety. Each transition of the cell cycle is regulated by a particular CDK complex. The coordinated activity of these kinases guides the individual cells through the replication process and ensures the vitality of each subsequent generation.
Overexpression of the cyclin regulatory proteins and subsequent kinase hyperactivity have been linked to several types of cancers (Jiang, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90:9026-9030, 1993; Wang, Nature 343:555-557, 1990). Endogenous CDK inhibitors (e.g., p16INK4 (an inhibitor of CDK4/D1), p21CIP1 (a general CDK inhibitor), and p27KIP1 (a specific CDK2/E inhibitor) have been shown to affect cellular proliferation (Kamb et al., Science 264:436-440, 1994; Beach, Nature 336:701-704, 1993). These inhibitors help to regulate the cell cycle through specific interactions with their corresponding CDK complexes. Cells deficient in these inhibitors are prone to unregulated growth and tumor formation. CDKs are also known to play a role in apoptosis.
New CDK inhibitors, particularly small molecule inhibitors, would be useful in the treatment of cell proliferative disorders such as cancer, familial adenomatosis polyposis, neuro-fibromatosis, psoriasis, fungal infections, endotoxic shock, transplantation rejection, vascular smooth cell proliferation associated with atherosclerosis, pulmonary fibrosis, arthritis glomerulonephritis and post-surgical stenosis and restenosis. U.S. Pat. No. 6,114,365 discloses that CDK inhibitors are useful in the treatment of cancers that include carcinoma such as bladder, breast, colon, kidney, liver, lung, including small cell lung cancer, esophagus, gall-bladder, ovary, pancreas, stomach, cervix, thyroid, prostate, and skin, including squamous cell carcinoma; hematopoietic tumors of lymphoid lineage, including leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, B-cell lymphoma, T-cell-lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, hairy cell lymphoma and Burkett's lymphoma; hematopoietic tumors of myeloid lineage, including acute and chronic myelogenous leukemias, myelodysplastic syndrome and promyelocytic leukemia; tumors of mesenchymal origin, including fibrosarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma; tumors of the central and peripheral nervous system, including astrocytoma, neuroblastoma, glioma and schwannomas; other tumors, including melanoma, seminoma, teratocarcinoma, osteosarcoma, xenoderoma pigmentosum, keratoctanthoma, thyroid follicular cancer and Kaposi's sarcoma. See, U.S. Pat. No. 6,114,365, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Cell cycle control is also implicated in viral replication. CDK9 is known to activate Tat, a nuclear transcriptional activator encoded by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). HIV type 1 (HIV-1) can infect quiescent cells. However, viral production is restricted to actively proliferating cells. The HIV-1 viral protein Tat acts to perturb the cell cycle thereby optimizing HIV-1 replication. Tat regulates the cell cycle by altering factors involved in proliferation and differentiation, and by associating with cyclin/CDK complexes.
Tat protein is a potent activator of HIV-1 transcription that functions at an early step in elongation. Tat acts to enhance the processivity of RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) complexes that would otherwise terminate transcription prematurely at random locations downstream of the viral RNA start site. The mechanism of Tat transactivation is unique in that the cis-acting transactivation response element (TAR) is a stable RNA stem-loop structure that forms at the 5′ end of nascent viral transcripts. Transcriptional activation by Tat through TAR requires proper folding of the RNA as well as specific bases in the bulge and apical loop of the TAR RNA hairpin structure. See, Cullen, Cell 73:417-420 (1993) and Jones et al., Ann. Rev. Biochem. 63:717-743 (1994) the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The role for CDK9 in Tat transactivation has been shown in random drug screens for specific inhibitors of Tat, which yield novel compounds directed against the active site of CDK9 (Mancebo et al. (1997) Genes Dev 11:2633-2644). In addition a dominant negative mutant CDK9 protein has been shown to block Tat activity in vivo (Id.; Yang et al. (1997) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sc. USA 94:12331-12336). Thus, inhibitors of CDK9 represent a means to treat viral infection by inhibiting viral replication. Inhibition of CDK9 has also been shown to inhibit replication of other viruses including varicella-zoster virus and herpes simplex. See, Taylor et al., J. Virol., 78(6), page 2853-62 (2004), the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Cancer and other proliferative disorders remain a major unmet medical need. Cancer treatments often comprise surgery, chemotherapeutic treatments, radiation treatment or combinations thereof. Chemotherapeutic treatments for most cancers only delay disease progression rather than providing a cure. Cancers often become refractory to chemotherapy via development of multidrug resistance. Particular cancers are inherently resistant to some classes of chemotherapeutic agents. See, DeVita et al, "Principles of Cancer Management: Chemotherapy" In: Cancer. Principles and Practice of Oncology, 5th edition, Lippincott-Raven, Philadelphia, New York (1977), pp. 333-347.
Viral infection represents another area of major unmet medical need. Viruses often develop resistance. Present therapies often demonstrate significant toxicity at therapeutic doses, and even then serve only to slow progression of the viral disorder.
Thus, there remains a need to develop new therapeutic agents. Oncoproteins in general, and signal transducing proteins, such as CDKs in particular, are likely to be more selective targets for chemotherapy because they represent a subclass of proteins whose activities are essential for cell proliferation, and because their activities are greatly amplified in proliferative diseases.

3-acyl coumarins, thiochromones and quinolones and therapeutic uses thereof

Abstract: Compounds of Formula I:

Abstract: wherein R1, R2, M, Q and n are as defined herein, are useful as antiproliferative agents including, for example, as anticancer agents.

Temple University-Of The Commonwealth System of Higher Education