A method and a component for despreading a multi-code signal that has been generated using two or more spreading codes with different spreading factors are described. The method comprises subjecting the signal to a first despreading step (40) that includes a first Fast Hadamard Transform (FHT) to jointly despread the spreading codes. During the first despreading step one or more spreading codes are despread only partially. The signal or signal portion including one or more partially despread spreading codes are then subjected to one or more further despreading steps (42).

Wireless communications is growing unabated. The predominant problem with respect to a continued growth is the fact that while the amount of electromagnetic spectrum available for wireless communications is limited, novel applications and an increasing number of customers necessitate an ever increasing data throughput. Thus, innovative solutions are required to meet these increasing capacity needs.
Spread spectrum communications is one of the solutions for efficiently using limited spectrum resources. In a spread spectrum transmitter, a digital bit stream at a basic data rate is spread to a transmit pulse rate, also called chip rate. This spreading operation involves applying a user unique spreading (or channelization) code to the bit stream that increases its bandwidth. Additionally, scrambling can be performed. The resulting pulse sequence (chips) is then modulated to generate an output signal. This output signal is added to other similarly processed output signals for multi-channel transmission over a communications medium. The fundamentals of spreading and scrambling are described in more detail in chapter 3.3 of Harri Holma and Antti Toskala, WCDMA for UMTS, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., second edition, 2002.
The output signals of multiple users (channels) advantageously share one transmission communications frequency, with the multiple signals appearing to be located on top of each other in both the frequency domain and the time domain. Because the applied spreading codes are user unique, however, each output signal transmitted over the shared communications frequency is similarly unique. Therefore, through the application of proper processing techniques at a receiver the individual output signals associated with individual users may be distinguished from each other.
In a spread spectrum receiver the received signals are demodulated and the appropriate digital code for the user of interest is applied to despread the desired transmitted signal and return to the basic data rate. The despreading operation thus comprises a correlation process comparing the received signal with the appropriate digital spreading code.
Modern spread spectrum receivers usually have to despread more than one spreading code simultaneously. To keep in such multi-code scenarios the complexity and power consumption of the despreading operation as small as possible, efficient techniques for jointly despreading two or more different spreading codes have to be implemented. Usually, these techniques perform quite well if the spreading codes have the same spreading factor, i.e. an identical code length.
Often, however, multi-code transmission is based on spreading codes with different spreading factors. There is thus a need for a method and a device for efficiently despreading a multi-code signal that has been generated using two or more spreading codes with different spreading factors.

Multistage despreading of spread spectrum communications signals


A system (method and apparatus) for optimizing the relationship between resolution and time in chromatograms, especially chromatograms obtained by supercritical fluids (CSF) chromatography. The pressure or temperature or fluid density of the solution caring the material under analysis is varied dynamically under computer control to provide an optimum capacity factor for a particular transporting fluid in a particular chromatographic system to obtain the resolution of interest in the shortest period of time.

Chromatography is an instrumental procedure, used for separating and analyzing the chemical composition of chemical mixtures based upon physical adsorption principles, which is used widely for organic, chemical, biological and medical studies. Chromatography depends upon the selective retardation and separation of substances by a stationary bed of porous sorptive media (the substrate) as they are transported through a column containing the substrate by a moving transport fluid (which may be, for example, gas, liquid or supercritical fluid). The rate of migration of each substance being tested is determined by its relative partitioning affinity between the substrate and the particular transport medium at the particular flow rate of transport medium being used. A detector positioned at the end of the column generates an analog signal from which quantitative and qualitative information can be derived. A time record (or spectrum) of the detector signal is called a chromatogram, and is a signature of the composition being analyzed. This record contains lines, usually in the form of Gaussian peaks. The amplitudes and time spacing (distance) between peaks are characteristic of the substances being analyzed. The resolution of a chromatogram is determined by the distance separating the means of these peaks on the chromatogram as well as the spread of the peak about the peak mean. Since the chromatogram is a function of time, resolution, which is basically based upon the distance between peaks on the chromatogram, increases as the time needed to transport the sample through the column is increased. Consequently, there is a trade off between resolution and time. To obtain ultra high resolution, the chromatographic analyses must be slowed to a relatively slow speed. Conversely, when relatively lower resolution are sufficient, relatively faster analysis times may be employed. However, in many instances, ultra high resolution is not needed, in which case it is desirable to speed up the transport process, so that the analyte solute species will emerge from the column more quickly. This may be done by changing or altering certain properties of the transport fluid, such as, for example, density, in the case of supercritical fluid chromatography.
In the past, to obtain a certain resolution in the fastest time for a given combination of sample substrate and transporting fluid, etc., the alteration needed to be applied to the particular transport fluid could only be arrived at by trial and error methods. Supercritical fluids have the ability to change density markedly when the temperature or pressure is changed. Consequently, by manipulating the temperature and/or pressure in a supercritical fluid chromatography system, the relative affinity for the solutes partitioning between the solid phase and a supercritical fluid can be controlled. This inherently affects the resolution obtained and the transport time of analytes through the column. However, to arrive at the optimum pressure, temperature and density combination needed for a given supercritical fluid and material under analysis, a great deal of trial and error experimentation was still necessary, even for supercritical fluid chromatography. For example, see Retention and Resolution in Density-Programmed Supercritical Fluid Chromatography, by Wilsch and Schneider, J. Chromatography, Vol. 357, pp. 239-252 (1986).


A climate control system (26) for a cabin (22) of an electric vehicle (10) has at least one liquid-to-air heat exchanger (38) in heat exchange relation with air in the cabin and a set of control valves for selectively placing the climate control system in a cabin heating mode of operation in which hot liquid circulates through a hot liquid flow loop (42) and in a cabin cooling mode of operation in which cold liquid circulates through a cold liquid flow loop (44). An electric compressor motor (30M) is operated by electricity from a battery bank (16) for operating a refrigerant compressor (30C) to circulate refrigerant in a refrigerant loop that comprises a refrigerant-to-liquid hot side heat exchanger (32) that provides the hot liquid and a refrigerant-to-liquid cold side heat exchanger (36) that provides the cold liquid.

A wheeled vehicle, such as a car or truck, that is propelled solely by an electric motor, sometimes referred to as a traction motor, that draws electric current from an on-board source of electricity, such as a battery bank, has a range of travel that is limited not only by how it is driven and the physical characteristics of the geographical area within which it travels, but also by the amount of on-board stored energy that the on-board source can deliver to the motor.
Because the propulsion system of such a vehicle lacks a combustion engine that is powered by fuel combusted in combustion chambers and therefore also lacks a liquid cooling system through which liquid coolant circulates to cool the engine, hot liquid coolant is unavailable for heating the interior of a cabin, or cab, for a driver of the vehicle. If the cabin is to be heated and windows are to be defrosted, another source of heat is used. Consequently, it is known to use electric heaters in such vehicles, but if such a heater draws electric current from the on-board source that also serves the electric traction motor that propels the vehicle, it does so at the expense of limiting the vehicle's range of travel for a given quantity of energy that is stored on-board at the start of travel.
If such a vehicle has an air conditioning system for cooling the cabin, that system too may draw electricity from the on-board source, and in doing so also limit the vehicle's range of travel.

Climate control system for the interior of an electric drive vehicle

International Truck Intellectual Property Company, LLC


A microphone system (100) includes a MEMS microphone (102) and at least one audio port (110) accessing the rear volume portion (106) of the MEMS microphone providing directional functionality, preferably through a MEMS switch (112).

Acoustic performance is an important product differentiator amongst portable cellular telephones. In addition to the traditional operation where the phone is held close to a user's mouth, the newer generation of cell phones offers hands-free speakerphone operation, both to address driving safety concerns as well convenience. A variety of techniques have been developed to detect whether the phone is operating in a close-talking or speakerphone mode. In one technique, a host processor keeps track of the current operating mode of the device based on user selection. If a user selects the speakerphone option, then the host processor sets a number of device parameters such as echo cancellation thresholds, microphone sensitivity and high audio speaker output level to optimize the performance of the device in that mode. Another technique for detecting whether the phone is operating in a close-talking or speakerphone mode utilizes the outputs of gravitational sensors. According to this technique, the processor not only keeps track of the current mode, but will also switch from one operating mode to the other based on the output from the gravitational sensors.
The desired acoustical performance varies between the close-talking and speakerphone modes of operation. For optimal performance, in the close-talking mode, the phone should have a highly directional microphone behavior and in the speakerphone mode, it should have omni-directional behavior. Using traditional microphones, realizing both the close-talking mode and speakerphone mode of operation requires the use of more than one microphone and complex electronics and/or mechanical systems to close and open the noise-canceling port.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved microphone system which can provide both noise-canceling and omni-directional capability.

Microphone system for a communication device


A fuel nozzle with both a Venturi shut-off mechanism and an electronic pressure switch shut-off mechanism. The increased reliability can be obtained at minimal increased cost if the two pressure-activated mechanisms are combined in a single housing so that each sensing port in effect becomes the reference pressure for the other.

There are two different techniques presently in use for detecting the fluid level in the fill-pipe of a fuel tank to provide automatic shut-off of the dispensing of the fuel in order to prevent overflow from the fill-pipe. Both of the currently used techniques rely on the basic principle of using a diaphragm to sense a pressure difference. In both cases, the pressure on one side of the diaphragm is a reference pressure, and it is maintained at atmospheric pressure by a passageway or port that is open to air surrounding the nozzle. The diaphragm moves when the pressure at a sensing port or passageway in the nozzle spout is different from that of the reference, and movement of the diaphragm controls shut-off of the fuel flow.
The first technique that is used to control the shut-off of fuel (gasoline, diesel, etc.) flow from a dispensing nozzle spout that is inserted into the fill-pipe of a tank of a motor vehicle or other fuel container relies on a Venturi shut-off mechanism. The second, more recent, technique for controlling fuel shut-off uses an electronic pressure switch. Although one mechanism is mechanical and the other is at least in part electronic, both rely on the action of a diaphragm as it responds to a pressure difference. The major distinction between the two control devices is that one depends upon a decrease in pressure being generated on one side of the diaphragm relative to atmospheric pressure on the other side, while the other depends upon a positive pressure increase on one side of the diaphragm relative to the atmospheric pressure on the other side, as will be described in detail below. What they have in common is that the sensing port is in the nozzle spout, near the tip, and gets covered by fuel as the tank fills. It is the covering of the sensing port that provides a sudden difference in pressure (positive in one case, negative in the other) across the diaphragm.
With the introduction of newly developed vapor recovery systems, particularly vacuum assist systems, sudden changes in the pressure in the fill-pipe region near the sensing port have been observed. Such changes affect the reliability of operation of a shut-off mechanism. It has become important to provide a more reliable shut-off mechanism.


A receiver utilizes pilot channel propagation channel estimates and a signal-to-interference metric derived from the pilot channel to form combining weights for use in obtaining soft symbols from a desired channel for subsequent decoding. The soft symbols thus obtained are substantially independent of the pilot channel amplitude.

1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to methods and apparatus for processing received wireless communication signals, and particularly relates to generating soft symbols from a traffic channel signal using combining weights derived from pilot channel propagation channel estimates, such that the resulting soft symbols do not vary with changes in the pilot-channel-to-traffic-channel amplitude ratio.
2. Background
In wireless communication systems, a base station typically transmits several physical channels. Physical channels may be separated in a variety of ways, including by frequency, time, or code, or by some combination of these. In Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) systems defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), numerous physical channels are employed. For example, some of the channels defined for the downlink (base-station-to-mobile transmissions) include the downlink dedicated physical channel (DPCH) for carrying user-specific data traffic, and the common pilot channel (CPICH), which is used by mobile stations to derive information about other channels (such as the DPCH) transmitted by a base station. 3GPP has also defined a High-Speed Physical Downlink Shared Channel (HS-PDSCH), which may carry data traffic targeted to several mobile stations.
A received signal differs from the transmitted signal in various ways due to the effects of the signal passing through the propagation channel, which includes the transmission medium (e.g. the air) as well as the analog components of the transmitting and receiving equipment. In wireless systems in particular, such effects on the radio-frequency signal include multipath fading, interference from other signals passing through the medium, and thermal noise. The signal received at the receiver can therefore be thought of as a composite signal consisting of a desired component and one or more impairment components representing distortion caused by the propagation channel, e.g., interference and noise.
Pilot symbols are often transmitted among information symbols on physical channels. These pilot symbols are used in mobile receivers for synchronization purposes and to derive information about the propagation environment experienced by the signals transmitted by the base station and received by the mobile receivers. This latter information may include propagation channel estimates, which model the effects of the propagation channel. These channel estimates are used by the receiver to reverse the effects of the channel and to reconstruct the transmitted symbols. Generally speaking, the more accurately the propagation channel is modeled in the receiver, then the more accurately the transmitted symbols can be reconstructed and decoded.
Channel estimation is well known in the art and is discussed, for example, in "Digital Communications" 4th Edition, by John G. Proakis, McGraw-Hill, 2000. In general, channel estimators compare received signal samples to "known" symbols to produce estimates of the channel response. These known symbols, or pilot symbols, may be derived from a physical channel specifically designated for carrying pilot symbols. For example, 3GPP has defined a common pilot channel (CPICH) which may be used by the mobile terminal as a source of pilot symbols for channel estimation. In general, pilot symbols may be transmitted on channels specifically designed to carry pilot symbols, or may be interleaved among information bits on a channel primarily intended for carrying data traffic. Although pilot symbols may be used for various purposes, the term "pilot symbol" as used herein refers to symbols used for channel estimation purposes, and "pilot channel" refers to a physical channel that carries pilot symbols.
In WCDMA systems, the CPICH is commonly used to provide a phase reference for the demodulation process, since the received CPICH signal is often stronger than other received signals and accurate channel estimates may be obtained from it. In some cases, propagation channel estimates derived from received CPICH symbols may be very useful in reconstructing and demodulating other symbols. For example, because the DPCH and the CPICH may be transmitted using much of the same radio frequency equipment at the base station, and from the same antenna, the two channels may experience essentially the same propagation response. In other words, the two channels will experience similar delays and phase changes, and will undergo similar multipath responses. Thus, it is recognized that channel estimates based on the received CPICH signals may be useful for estimating the channel response experienced by the DPCH signals.
However, the power of the CPICH will in many cases be much higher than the power of a traffic channel, such as the DPCH, transmitted by the same base station. Furthermore, the transmission powers for the traffic channel and the CPICH will in some cases differ by an amount unknown to the mobile, and may differ by amounts that vary over time. If pilot symbols are also available on the traffic channel, then the amplitude of the traffic channel response can be estimated by a channel estimator, and compared to the estimated pilot channel response to determine a ratio between the pilot channel amplitude and the traffic channel amplitude. In this case, pilot channel estimates may be scaled by this ratio to obtain estimates of the traffic channel response. Because the amplitude difference is accounted for, the resulting traffic channel estimates are largely independent of the pilot channel amplitude. This approach is described by U.S. Patent Application Publication 2007/0072552 A1.
However, other channels, such as the HS-PDSCH, may not carry pilot symbols from which the traffic channel amplitude can be easily estimated. In this case, the above technique is not practical.

Method and apparatus for removing pilot channel amplitude dependencies from RAKE receiver output


A housing for a control device includes an enclosed cavity configured to secure an optical detection system, including a light source and a sensor, and a face of the enclosed cavity configured to include a window to allow light from the light source to scatter light off of a surface and configured to allow reception of the scattered light on the sensor. In this configuration the housing is structured to prevent exposure of the optical detection system to external elements such as the surface. Also disclosed is a homodyning system for use with a coherent light source optical pointing device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to optical control devices, and more particularly, to structures for optical control devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Displacement detection based on optical technology is used in several applications, including optical input devices for computer systems. Data processing systems, or computer systems generally, are used in conjunction with a variety of input devices, such as, keyboards, pointing devices (e.g., mice, touchpads, and trackballs), joysticks, digital pens, and the like.
One example of optical displacement detection technology used in a pointing device is an optical mouse. Examples of pointing devices using optical detection technology and their operation are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,993 to Bidiville, et al. (issued Feb. 22, 1994) entitled "Cursor Pointing Device Utilizing a Photodetector Array with Target Ball Having Randomly Distributed Speckles" and U.S. Pat. No. 5,703,356 to Bidiville, et al. (issued on Dec. 30, 1997) entitled "Pointing Device Utilizing a Photodetector Array," the relevant portions of which are incorporated herein by reference.
There are significant advantages to using optical input devices over other types of input devices, such as, mechanical or opto-mechanical input devices. For example, mechanical or opto-mechanical input devices have mechanical components that are more susceptible to breakdown, wear, or clogging. Optical input devices reduce, and in some instances eliminate, a number of mechanical parts susceptible to these problems. Instead, optical input devices are manufactured with solid-state components that are less susceptible to such breakdown, dirt, or wear.
Optical displacement detection systems use differences in images captured over short periods of time to detect displacement and derive movement of a device relative to a surface. In general, a first image of a surface is captured at a first time and is compared with a second image captured shortly after the first image. The changes in the images over a small period of time correspond to displacement of the systems with respect to features of the surface. This displacement information is processed to derive movement data, such as, movement associated with a user display. For example, an optical pointing device in the form of a mouse captures images of a desk surface, and in the case of trackball, of a ball, providing displacement data of features on the surface that is processed to derive movement of a cursor in a computer screen.
A conventional optical displacement detection system, or optical system in general, includes a conventional illumination subsystem and a conventional optical sensor or detection subsystem. The conventional illumination subsystem includes a conventional illumination lens and a conventional source of electromagnetic energy or light source. Typically, the light source is a type of light emitting diode (LED). Generally, the light source is attached to a printed circuit board (PCB) and positioned with respect to the illumination lens to direct light through an opening on a bottom of the optical mouse onto an illumination spot on a surface (e.g., a desk).
The conventional sensor subsystem includes an imaging lens and a sensor. The sensor typically includes an image-capturing module, for example, one or more photosensor arrays. Some sensors also include controller circuitry associated with the image-capturing module, for example, in the form of digital circuits in the same die or device package. Generally, the controller circuitry performs digital signal processing (DSP) to derive movement data from the captured images. The sensor assembly is also typically mounted on the PCB and positioned so that the imaging lens optimally captures the electromagnetic energy (e.g., light) scattered from (or reflected off) the surface.
The sensor receives the scattered light from the imaged area through the opening at the bottom of the optical mouse. Thereafter, the sensor analyzes the images scanned or taken off the surface to provide displacement information. The imaged area substantially overlaps with the illumination so that the light is efficiently used to illuminate only that area of the surface that is imaged or scanned by the sensor.
As noted above, the solid state architecture of the conventional optical mouse allows for less structural wear and tear, which increases product life, while also allowing for relative ease of manufacturing, which decreases production costs. However, a conventional optical mouse may be susceptible to the entry of foreign elements into the housing through the opening at a bottom of the optical mouse. Examples of foreign elements include dust, liquids, and electrostatic discharge, all of which can damage components in the optical mouse. In turn, these foreign elements decrease reliability of the optical mouse, e.g., reducing photosensitivity, or causing the optical mouse to malfunction altogether, e.g., shorting the solid-state components.
Hence, there is a need for an optical mouse with a continuous or flush bottom (or base) that still provides characteristics of emitting light from the optical mouse while minimally impacting the intensity of the scattered light off of a surface back into the optical mouse.

Continuous base beneath optical sensor and optical homodyning system


The present disclosure discloses an intelligent wearing device with LED lamps and relates to the technical field of outdoor wearing. The intelligent wearing device includes a knitted hat body, a fixed leather ring and a main housing, wherein a heat radiation plate is transversely fixed inside the main housing, an aluminum substrate is fixed to the obverse side of the heat radiation plate, white-light LED lamps are fixed to middle positions of the obverse side of the aluminum substrate, and an intelligent electrical control system and a lamplight adjusting apparatus are mounted in the main housing. According to the present disclosure, the irradiation range of lamplight may be adjusted by a lamplight focal length adjusting mechanism, so that the irradiation effect is effectivelyimproved; and the irradiation height of the lamplight may be adjusted by a lamplight height adjusting mechanism.

A knitted hat is a lightweight and practical product popular with the young and is a necessary product in cold winter so as to be a very popular product, An outdoor hat of an LED lamp apparatus is a combination of the knitted hat and an LED lamp module. Running exercise at night is relatively dangerous under the condition that no street lamps are provided, the knitted hat product is integrated with functions of LED lighting and SOS warning to improve the safety during outdoor sports and walks.
A multifunctional LED headlamp of a hat as shown in the application number 201610613756,2 includes a hat brim and a lighting apparatus which are disposed on the hat, the hat brim and the lighting apparatus are buckled by a nylon velvet tape disposed on the hat brim and a nylon hook tape disposed on the lighting apparatus, the lighting apparatus is provided with a solar cell panel and an LED lamp, and a control apparatus is disposed in the lighting apparatus. In the present disclosure, the hat brim and the lighting apparatus are buckled together by Velcro, so that the lighting apparatus is fixed to the greater extent, convenience is brought during operation. Power required by the LED lamp is supplied by the solar cell panel, so that not only are high efficiency and high speed achieved, but also energy conservation and environmental protection are achieved. Lighting modes having functions such as focus searchlighting, diffuse reflection of soft light and flickering for seeking help may be freely adjusted by the control apparatus, and therefore, it is very practical.
However, an existing apparatus is poorer in waterproof effect and is easily damaged under the influence of rainwater during use so as to be shorter in service life. The LED lamp module of the existing apparatus is fixed to the knitted hat and may not be detached, which is not beneficial to the cleaning of the knitted hat. The existing apparatus is incapable of controlling the irradiation height to easily blind personnel in an opposite direction, thereby causing a danger. The existing apparatus does not have a gesture control function so as to be poorer in practicability, Therefore, it is necessary to provide a novel solution for the  above-mentioned problems.

Intelligent wearing device with LED lamps


A method for making carbon nanotube field emitter includes providing a carbon nanotube array formed on a surface of a substrate. A plurality of carbon nanotubes of the carbon nanotube array is selected and pulled out a carbon nanotube film by a drawing tool, wherein the carbon nanotube film includes a plurality of carbon nanotubes oriented along a fixed direction. The carbon nanotube film is cut to a plurality of uniform carbon nanotube sub-films along the fixed direction. The plurality of carbon nanotube sub-films is treated to a plurality of carbon nanotube yarns. The plurality of carbon nanotube yarns is fixed on a surface of a conductive base, and cutting off the plurality of carbon nanotube yarns by a laser beam, to form a carbon nanotube field emitter.

1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a method for making carbon nanotube field emitter.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Many potential applications have been proposed for carbon nanotubes, including conductive and high-strength composites, energy storage and energy conversion devices, sensors, field emission displays, and nanometer-sized semiconductor devices.
A method for making a field emission electron source is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 7,988,515 to Wei et al. The method includes steps of: (a) providing a CNT array; (b) drawing a bundle of CNTs from the CNT array to form a CNT film; (c) soaking the CNT film in an organic solvent, and shrinking the CNT film into a CNT string after the organic solvent volatilizing; (d) applying a voltage between two opposite ends of the CNT string, until the CNT string snaps at a certain point; and (e) attaching the snapped CNT string to a conductive base, and achieving a field emission electron source.
However, a field emitter of carbon nanotube array is made by a plurality of the snapped CNT strings, the snapped CNT strings are difficult to manipulate and be mass produced in a large quantity. Furthermore, it is difficult to make the distance between adjacent snapped CNT strings uniform, which affects field emission efficiency of the field emitter.
What is needed, therefore, is to provide a method for making carbon nanotube field emitter with high field emission efficiency, and the method should be easy to operate and able to mass produce the carbon nanotube field emitters.

Method for making carbon nanotube field emitter


Methods and apparatus for distributing power and data to devices coupled to the human body are described. The human body is used as a conductive medium, e.g., a bus, over which power and/or data is distributed. Power is distributed by coupling a power source to the human body via a first set of electrodes. One or more devices to be powered, e.g., peripheral devices, are also coupled to the human body via additional sets of electrodes. The devices may be, e.g., a speaker, display, watch, keyboard, etc. A pulsed DC signal or AC signal may be used as the power source. By using multiple power supply signals of differing frequencies, different devices can be selectively 15 powered. For example, a 100 Hz signal may be used to power a first device while a 150 Hz signal may be used to power a second device. Digital data and/or other information signals, e.g., audio signals, can be modulated on the power signal using frequency and/or amplitude modulation techniques. The power source and peripheral devices can interact to form a complete computer network where the body serves as the bus coupling the devices together. Devices can include optional batteries, one or more CPUs, transmit/receive circuitry, and/or input/output circuitry. In one particular exemplary network implementation the first device to be placed on the body operates as a master device, e.g., bus master, with one or more subsequently added devices working as slaves.

Small portable electronic devices are commonplace today. Small portable devices commonly used by people today include wristwatches, radios, communications devices, e.g., pagers and cell phones, and 20 personal data assistants (PDAs) to name but a few exemplary devices. As electronics manufacturing techniques have improved, weight and power consumption requirements of many small portable devices have decreased. At the same time, the capabilities of the devices have increased. As a result, it is now possible to power many small electronic devices including watches, audio players, personal data assistants, portable computers, etc. with relatively little power.
Given the small size and portable nature of many of today's portable electronic devices, people have begun wearing them on their bodies. For example, wristwatches are worn on people's arms, pagers and PDAs are worn on people's belts, and small displays are sometimes worn mounted on headgear.
As a result of carrying multiple portable electronic devices, there is often a significant amount of redundancy in terms of input/output devices included in the portable devices used by a single person. For example, a watch, pager, PDA and radio may all include a speaker. In order to reduce the redundancy in input/output devices, networking of portable electronic devices has been proposed. By exchanging data, e.g., as part of a network, a single data input or output device can be used by multiple portable devices, eliminating the need for each of the portable devices to have the same input/output device.
Various approaches have been taken in an attempt to network portable devices. The uses of radio (RF) signals, infrared (IR) communications signals, and near field intrabody communication signals are examples of various signals that have been suggested for use in networking portable devices. Radio signals between devices can cause interference. In addition radio devices can be expensive to implement and tend to consume relatively large amounts of power. In addition, decoding another person's transmitted information and controlling another person's device is plausible using RF, raising the concern for security and privacy. IR communications signals present similar privacy concerns to those of RF signals while further being subject to additional limitations in terms of the tendency for many objects, e.g., opaque objects, to block the transmission of IR signals. Near field intrabody communication signals represent a relatively new and still largely undeveloped field of signal communications.
In the case of one near field intrabody communications system, information is exchanged between electronic devices on or near the human body by capacitively coupling picoamp currents through the human body of a person.
While some work has been done to minimize the redundancy that exists in data input/output devices, in portable devices frequently used by a single individual, there still remains room for improvements in the way information is communicated between portable devices. In addition, some wearable devices are not big enough to have any kind of interface at all; e.g. earrings.
There remains significant room for improvement with regard to how portable devices are powered. Portable electronic devices frequently rely on power supplied by batteries to operate. Batteries have a limited energy storage capability. As a result, batteries periodically need to be replaced or, assuming they are rechargeable, recharged. The need to replace or recharge batteries posses a serious limitation on known portable battery powered devices. Battery replacement normally involves physically removing a current set of batteries and replacing them with a new set of batteries. Recharging of batteries normally involves plugging the portable device into a battery charger thereby limiting the devices portability until the re-charging is complete or, alternatively, swapping a charged battery pack for a battery pack including the batteries, which need to be recharged.
The swapping of battery packs, replacement of batteries, and/or recharging of batteries by plugging in a portable device represents an inconvenience in terms of time involved with a user performing a battery replacement operation or recharging operation. In many cases it also represents an interruption in service, i.e., often during the battery swapping or recharging operation, the device cannot be used or its portability is limited.
Until the present invention, the focus with regard to portable device power issues has been largely on improving the quality of batteries, reducing the amount of power required by a portable device to operate, and/or in providing backup power sources, e.g., to permit the swapping of batteries without causing an interruption in operation.
While recent improvements in batteries and device power consumption has increased the amount of time portable devices can operate before needing the batteries to be recharged or replaced, the need to periodically recharge or replace batteries in portable devices remains an area where improvements can be made. In particular, there is a need for making recharging of batteries easier to perform, preferably without requiring an interruption in device operation or for backup batteries inside the device. There is also a need for eliminating batteries in at least some portable devices, thereby reducing the weight of the portable devices making them easier to wear for extended periods of time.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body


Apparatuses and methods for delaying thermal throttling of processor devices by decreasing threshold voltages are disclosed.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to, but are not limited to, electronic devices, and in particular, to the field of processors.
2. Description of Related Art
In the operation of a processor device the temperature of the processor may fluctuate considerably depending on the activities of the various units of the processor device. A processor device as described herein may be, for example, a microprocessor that resides on a die or a microprocessor package. Such devices are typically comprised of at least the core of a processor (processor core) that is made of numerous functional blocks or component units. These functional blocks may include, for example, execution units, register files, cache memory, control circuitry, and clock generation circuits. These functional blocks may be disposed in different portions of the processor core. Each of these functional blocks may be further comprised of numerous transistors such as n-channel metal-oxide semiconductor (NMOS) and/or p-channel metal-oxide semiconductor (PMOS) devices.
When a processor device is idle, many of the functional units may be shut off and the overall processor temperature may be relatively low. However, when the processor is in use and depending upon the application being run on the processor, the amount of heat generated by each of the functional blocks may vary significantly. This may cause the processor device to experience significant temperature variations and may even result in hotspots forming within the processor core. The "speed" at which these processor devices can operate will typically depend upon their operating temperatures.
The operating speed of a processor device is normally influenced by several factors. These various factors may include for example, clock frequency, circuit delay, and thermal throttling.
The clock frequency is the frequency of periodic pulses that are used to schedule the operation of the processor device, which may also be referred to as the operating speed of the processor device. The clock frequency is typically preset during the initial testing of a processor device. The clock frequency for a processor device is typically set during the testing stage of the processor device. The clock frequency will likely be preset based on the operating temperature that the processor device is likely to experience during its operation and the speed at which the processor device can be operated at that temperature with no or a "minimum" amount of errors (i.e. an amount of error within an acceptable precision threshold). Processor devices typically can operate at higher speeds when the operating temperature is relatively low. For example, if the operating temperature of a microprocessor is expected to be relatively low, then the clock frequency may be set at a relatively high rate than if the operating temperature is projected to be relatively high.
Circuit delay, in contrast, relates to the amount of time it takes for signals to transmit from one point to another point of a circuit. That is, one way to define a circuit delay is to define it as the amount of time it takes for a signal to propagate along a signal path. In a processor device, the amount of the delay will typically increase when the operating temperature of the processor increases.
Thus, the clock frequency is typically also preset at a particular level to match the circuit delays under the expected operating temperature in normal operating conditions. Unfortunately, there are situations whereby the temperature of a processor will rise beyond what was projected to be the typical operating temperature. For example, applications that include a "power virus" may sometimes be run on a processor. These power viruses may make certain functional blocks contained in the processor to dissipate large amounts of heat by making these blocks do unnecessary work.
In order to address the temperature spikes that occur as a result of power viruses or other power-consuming applications, processor devices may incorporate thermal throttling. In thermal throttling, whenever the temperature of a processor is equal to or exceeds a throttling temperature, the processor is "throttled" or "throttled down" by reducing or shutting off the clock frequency, increasing the threshold voltages (VT) of the transistors that make up the processor device and/or reducing the voltage supplied to the processor. Once the throttling has commenced, the processor activities are reduced, the heat being dissipated is reduced, and as a result, the processor device temperature falls into an acceptable range. Note that the throttling temperature is typically set in view of the temperature supported by the circuitry on the die for a fixed clock frequency. Once the temperature falls into the acceptable range, the processor is allowed to return to its normal operating speed.
FIG. 1 depicts thermal throttling as implemented with a conventional processor device. When a conventional processor device is operating below the throttling temperature 102, the processor device may operate at a preset clock frequency as indicated by ref. 103. However, once the temperature of the processor device as indicated by ref. 106 rises above the throttling temperature 102, the processor device is throttled. This means that the clock frequency (and/or voltage) is reduced during the throttling period 108 as indicated by ref. 107. Although not indicated, in some cases, the threshold voltages of the transistors that may make up the processor device may be increased to further "slow down" the processor device. Once the processor device temperature 106 has fallen to within a desirable range of temperature, the throttling is ended and the frequency is allowed to go back up to the pre-throttling level as indicated by ref. 110.

Processor apparatus with body bias circuitry to delay thermal throttling


A detecting method of a detecting circuit with a plugged test lead. The method includes setting an operation mode of the detecting circuit by a recognizing unit, transmitting a signal to the recognizing unit by an oscillating unit when the test lead plugs or unplugs into a split contact jack, receiving the signal from the oscillating unit by the recognizing unit, and determining a condition of the detecting circuit, and sending a message to a user in accordance with the determining result of the recognizing unit. Further, the oscillating unit is stopped from oscillating and outputs a quiescent state voltage to the recognizing unit when the plugged test lead is inserted into the split contact jack.

In various electrically measuring instruments, test leads are needed to couple to the measuring instrument so as to connect to a DUT (device under test) for measuring. Typical test lead includes two terminals, one terminal coupled to a DUT (device under test), and another terminal inserted into receptacles of the electrically measuring measurement so that physical quantities, for example voltage, current and power, measured by the DUT (device under test) are transmitted to the electrically measuring instrument through the test lead in order to measure for acquiring the data of the physical quantities. Generally speaking, an electrical measuring instrument has multiple receptacles used to measure different physical quantities. For example, one set of the receptacles is employed during a voltage measuring and another set of the receptacles is used during a current measuring. Because impedance of the measurement circuitry connected to the current measurement receptacle is very low, applying a large voltage to the current measurement receptacle may result in an extremely high currents flowing through the current measurement circuitry thereby causing the electrically measuring instrument being damaged or destroyed.

Detection circuit for measurement of test lead and using the same


A head is formed by stacking a plurality of plates including a cavity plate and a manifold plate, and includes a plurality of manifolds formed in the manifold plate, a communicating channel which makes the manifolds formed in the manifold plate communicate, and a plurality of pressure chambers formed in the cavity plate, which communicate with the manifold. Each pressure chamber is isolated by a partition wall of the cavity plate. Since the communicating channel and the pressure chambers are formed at different positions in terms of height, it is possible to widen a width of the communicating channel without widening an interval between the pressure chambers, and it is possible to accelerate a movement of a liquid between the manifolds.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid droplet jetting apparatus which jets a liquid droplet and an ink-jet printer which jets an ink.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink-jet head which includes a plurality of pressure chambers communicating with a plurality of nozzles respectively, and a common liquid chamber supplying an ink to these pressure chambers, and which jets a droplet of the ink from a nozzle has hitherto been known. Such an ink-jet head selectively applies a pressure to the ink in the pressure chambers, and jets a droplet of the ink on to a recording paper from a nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber which is selected. For example, a serial ink-jet head described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-291311 includes a plurality of pressure chamber rows (three pressure chamber rows), and each pressure chamber row includes a plurality of pressure chambers (ink cavities) arranged in a longitudinal direction (paper feeding direction) of the serial ink-jet head. Furthermore, a common liquid chamber (ink supply chamber) which supplies the ink to each of the pressure chambers is extended along the longitudinal direction of the serial ink-jet head, in an area on an outer side of the pressure chamber rows and an area on an inner side (between the adjacent pressure chamber rows) of the pressure chamber rows.
The common liquid chamber which is arranged at the inner side of the two adjacent pressure chamber rows supplies ink to each of the pressure chambers belonging to the two pressure chamber rows positioned at both sides thereof. Therefore, in a case in which it is necessary to jet the ink simultaneously from a multiple number of pressure chambers, since an amount of ink supplied to the pressure chambers from the common liquid chamber at the inner side is increased temporarily, there is a possibility that the sufficient amount of ink is not supplied to each pressure chamber. Therefore, in the ink-jet head described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-291311, an ink communicating channel which communicates the common liquid chamber at the inner side with the common liquid chamber at the outer side, is provided in a partition wall (a column) which partitions the pressure chambers belonging to the each pressure chamber row. Moreover, when the amount of ink which is supplied from the common liquid chamber at the inner side, to the pressure chamber is increased temporarily, the ink is replenished from the common liquid chamber at the outer side to the common liquid chamber at the inner side via the ink communicating channel. Therefore, an insufficiency of the ink in the common liquid chamber at the inner side is prevented to a possible extent.

Liquid droplet jetting apparatus and ink-jet printer


Ply wrinkling during hot drape forming of a composite laminate is reduced at corner radii. A tensioning material placed over an uncured composite laminate charge maintains a compressive force on the laminate charge as the charge is formed over a tool.

1. Field
The present disclosure generally relates to processes for forming composite laminates, and deals more particularly with a method and apparatus for reducing ply wrinkling during hot drape forming of radius features.
2. Background
Hot drape forming may be used to form features such as flanges of a composite laminate part such as a stiffener. Hot drape forming is carried out by clamping and stretching a laminate charge in a frame, and heating it until soft enough to form. A pressure differential is then applied to the charge to form it over a shaped male tool. In one version of the process, known as top down forming, a compacted laminate charge is heated and formed down over a mandrel-like male tool. In another version of the process, referred to as inverted forming, the laminate charge is placed on a forming table, and a male tool is inverted and placed on top of the laminate charge. After the laminate charge is heated to forming temperature, a vacuum bladder beneath the laminate charge forms the charge upwardly onto and over the male tool.
Using either version of hot drape forming process described above, problems may be encountered when forming part features having relatively sharp radius corners. For example, when forming a composite angle stiffener having an inside radius corner between a flange and a web, the ply material closest to the male tool has a tendency to bunch, gather and form creases or wrinkles that may affect the mechanical performance of the stiffener. In some cases, the completed stiffener may be reworked to reduce creasing/wrinkling, while in other cases the stiffener must be scrapped. In either case, the problem of ply material creasing/wrinkling increases labor and/or material costs.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus which substantially reduces or eliminates ply material creasing/wrinkling during hot drape forming of composite laminate parts having radius features. There is also a need for a method and apparatus of the type mentioned above which is cost-effective, easily implemented and which may reduce material and/or labor costs.

Methodfor reducing ply wrinkling of composite laminates during forming


In an authentication communicating semiconductor device to enhance protection against illegal copying, a logic analyzer probe or the like is connected to a CPU bus to suppress possibility in which the authentication process is intercepted and is analyzed to break the mechanism of illegal copy protection and the electronic device is modified to set a tampered encryption key to the CPU bus. The authentication communicating semiconductor device includes a semiconductor chip, a main processing unit formed on the chip for generating a key code according to a predetermined algorithm, for determining approval/non-approval of communication of data with an external device, and for controlling the communication; an encryption unit formed on the chip for encrypting and decoding communication data using the key code generated by the main processing unit, and an interface unit formed on the chip for conducting communication with an upper-layer or a lower-layer according to a predetermined protocol.

The present invention relates to a data processing technique and a technique suitably applicable to processing to code and to decode digital data using an encryption key code, for example, to a technique efficiently applicable to a communicating semiconductor device and a system using the device in which data is communicated between electronic apparatuses connected to each other via a serial bus conforming to, for example, the standard of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1394 (IEEE1394) while guaranteeing safety of the communication.
The IEEE1394 standard is a standard to serially transmit digital data of audio and video information between electronic apparatuses such as audiovisual (AV) apparatuses via a cable. Recently, there have been proposed electronic apparatuses in which electronic apparatuses such as an integrated receiver decoder (IRD), a digital video home system (D-VHS), and a digital video (DV) camera recorder (camcoder) are connected to each other via a serial bus of the IEEE1394 standard to communicate digital contents including, for example, digital audio data and/or digital video data therebetween using a packet conforming to, for example, the Moving Picture Experts Group 2 Transport Stream (MPEG2-TS) according to the International standardization Organization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 13813 standard and a packet conforming to the IEC61883 standard.
For media such as a digital video tape and a digital video disk to store copyrighted materials such as a film and reproducing apparatuses to reproduce the materials, a technique to prevent illegal copying of the copyrighted material is indispensable in consideration of protection of copyrights. Recently, to protect copyrights of digital contents, an illegal copy prevention technique is being standardized, for example, by a copy protection technical working group (CPTWG) organized by industrial groups organized by the industry for the electric appliance for family use, personal computers, and films. According to an illegal copy protection technique proposed primarily by CPTWG, a specification of content scrambling system (CSS) of DVD video and a specification of 5 company digital transmission content protection (5C-DTCP) for IEEE1394 have been put to practices at present.
However, against CSS of the DVD-video copy protection technique, some crackers, i.e., hackers who illegally access computer systems of other person for malicious purposes have already created software to circumvent or to break security provided by CSS. In the U.S.A. and France, the software has been delivered via the internet through worldwide web (www) servers and has caused damages in various fields of the industry.
Therefore, in a situation in which a large amount of audiovisual apparatuses using an identical security technique such as the standardized CSS or 5C-DTCP are widely spread in the world, highly reliable security is necessary for the audiovisual apparatuses against illegal copy by crackers in consideration of the protection of copyrights for digital contents.
As a vicious example of the illegal copying of copyrighted materials, an illegal or an authorized game machine has been put to market. The illegal game machine is implemented by illegally modifying hardware of a game machine of a known company to enable the illegal copying of game software stored on a compact disk (CD). The copyright of the game software has been infringed. As above, in the present stage of technique, there possibly occurs software wise and hardware wise attack, that is, not only the illegal copy by software but also the illegal copy by modified hardware of electronic apparatuses are used to attack the illegal copy protection technique.
On the other hand, 5C-DTCP has been practically applied to a system below. FIG. 13 shows a general configuration of an audiovisual apparatus as an authentication communicating apparatus of the 5C-DTCP specification and a system using the apparatus according to the prior art. The configuration of FIG. 13 includes a communicating semiconductor device (communicating apparatus) 72 of the 5C-DTCP specification and an authentication device 71 including a microcomputer chip to conduct authentication. The authentication device 71 and the communicating device 72 are mounted on audiovisual apparatuses such as a digital video tape recorder and a set-top box.
As shown in FIG. 13, the communicating device 72 includes a low-layer interface circuit 100 to establish connections to IEEE1394 serial buses 741 to 743, an upper-layer interface circuit 200 to establish a connection to an external device, and an encryption circuit 300. The communicating device 72 is connected between a 1394 physical (PHY) layer as a physical layer including ports 711 to 713 to establish connections to cables 730 of the IEEE1394 standard and an external device 90 such as a display including an MPEG2 decoder, a codec, or a DV codec. The communication device 72 has a function which receives encrypted digital data from the IEEE1394 cable 730 to decode the digital data to pass the decoded digital data to the external device 80. The low-layer interface circuit 100, the upper-layer interface circuit 200, and the encryption circuit 300 may be configured as respectively separate chips depending on cases. The authentication device 71 is connected via an internal bus 41 to the communicating device 72. The authentication device 71 has a function to generate an encryption key code (to be simply referred to as an encryption key herebelow) necessary for the encryption circuit 300 and a function to conduct authentication in response to a request from an audiovisual apparatus which desires to receive data.

Authentication communicating semiconductor device


A tool has a slot provided between a pair of extremities at its distal end. The extremities have cutting blades mounted thereon. The slot is configured to receive a plate. The tool has a conduit running along its axis for communication of pressurized fluid to the slot and plate. The plate directs flow of the pressurized fluid outward toward the extremities. The resulting outward force causes the extremities to bend outward, thereby urging the cutting blades outward for cutting, reaming, or other working of the workpiece. The resilience of the tool causes the extremities to return back inward when the fluid pressure is reduced. A plate may be configured to receive a wafer for transferring force from the pressurized fluid to the extremities. Some embodiments of the plate have an adjustment feature that is operable to selectively adjust the flow rate or pressure of fluid directed toward the extremities.

Embodiments of the present invention relates generally to boring and reaming tools, and are particularly directed to a radially-adjustable tool that may form or ream a bore having a relatively high length-to-diameter ratio.
In some conventional machining center rotating tools, lubricant is supplied to the vicinity of the cutting blade through the rotating shaft. An example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,775,853 issued on Jul. 7, 1998, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. Another example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,295 issued on Aug. 7, 2001, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. Yet another example is shown in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/654,328 filed on Sep. 3, 2003, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. While a variety of tools, systems, and methods have been made and used to machine a workpiece, it is believed that no one prior to the inventors has made or used a tool as described in the appended claims.
Reference will now be made in detail to various embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

Tool with selectively-biased member having an adjustment feature


Embodiments of the present invention concern methods of preventing malaria in a target population of humans comprising: uniformly administering a therapeutically effective amount of a live low dose malaria vaccine to each individual within the target population on each of two or three consecutive days. The methods include using Plasmodium infected mosquitoes to inject Plasmodium into individuals through mosquito bites.

Protozoan diseases are endemic in many populations in the world. In chicken, the protozoan Eimeria causes the disease coccidiosis, which is endemic in poultry flocks raised in commercial barns throughout the world, causing morbidity and mortality where it is not well controlled. In humans, the protozoan Plasmodium, which causes malaria, is endemic in certain parts of the world and is a major cause of morbidity to all victims and mortality in some victims in those regions, as effective means of control have not yet been devised, and as prevailing medication is losing its effectiveness.
Coccidiosis is a very common disease of poultry, caused by several species of Eimeria, with E. tenella, E. acervulina and E. maxima being three of the most prevalent species. Species of Eimeria that cause coccidiosis in chickens include E. acervulina, E. brunetti, E. maxima, E. mitis, E. mivati, E. necatrix, and E. tenella. Presently, poultry flocks are protected against coccidiosis by immunization in breeders or parental flocks and by the use of anti-coccidial chemotherapeutic agents in broiler chickens. The study and treatment of coccidiosis is a useful model for other diseases having similar characteristics, such as malaria.
Ionophores of demonstrated commercial use in the control of coccidiosis include lasalocid, salinomycin, monensin, and narasin.
There are reports of resistant strains of Eimeria developing in the field as a result of the use of anti-coccidials.
Another method of controlling chronic infections is the use of immunization.
Live vaccines generally comprise live attenuated or non-attenuated strains of the causative organism, the causative organism being capable of causing a mild form of the disease.
There have been attempts to overcome the drawbacks of using either immunization or chemotherapy alone. For example, my U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,385 claims such a combination of immunization and chemotherapy for treating coccidiosis.
As noted above, malaria, caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium, goes through multiple stages during its life cycle. There are four types of human malaria: Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, and Plasmodium ovale. Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are the most common. Plasmodium falciparum is the most pathogenic. In recent years, some human cases of malaria have also occurred with Plasmodium knowlesi—a monkey malaria that occurs in certain forested areas of South-East Asia. It has been estimated that worldwide two billion people are at risk of developing the disease and up to 500 million cases of malaria occur each year. The disease results in the death of 1 to 2 million people annually, mainly children under 5 years of age as some are not fully immunocompetent, but also a significant number of pregnant women who are immunocompromised by their condition. Generally, malaria is controlled by attempts to control the mosquitoes, which are the vector for transmittal of the disease from one human to another and through the use of anti-malarial drugs, such as various quinine derivatives. Anti-malarial drugs include quinine and related agents, chloroquine, amodiaquine, pyrimethamine, proguanil, sulfonamides, mefloquine, atovaquone, primaquine, halofantrine, doxycycline, clindamycin, and artemisinin and derivatives, and various combinations thereof. The risk with the use of such anti-malarial drugs is that the Plasmodium may eventually become resistant to the effects of the drug. Malaria vaccines comprising isolated surface antigens or the pre-erythrocytic stage of asexual blood-stage are presently under development using antigens identified with variant stages of the Plasmodium. Similarly, malaria vaccines comprising irradiated (attenuated) Plasmodium are also under development. Such vaccines may confer some degree of immunity but generally suffer the drawbacks of all subunit, killed or attenuated vaccines. Such vaccines do not present the full antigenic complement of the infectious organism to the host. Rather, they are limited to the antigens specific for the stage of the life cycle or to the antigens expressed during the stage of the life cycle. If the organism can break through the stage being immunized against, the host will have minimal or no immunity against other life cycles. As an example, attenuated E. necatrix was being used in a vaccine in the past, and this vaccine did not work well in dry regions of the world, such as the South Island of New Zealand, South Africa and Chile, for example.
Macrophages are responsible for an animal's defense against apicomplexan parasites (Lee & Al-Izzi. Avian Diseases Vol. 25, pp 503-512). Lee & Al-Izzi. showed that when macrophages were selectively killed in the peritoneal cavity of chickens previously injected with carrageenan, subsequent challenge with Eimeria tenella resulted in increased severity of E. tenella infection compared with controls. This means that macrophages play an important role in the immune protection against the first exposure to E. tenella and by extension, against apicomplexan parasites in general.
My U.S. patent application, published as US2007087021, describes methods of using a combination of immunization and chemotherapy to protect against malaria.
There thus remains a need for improved methods of providing effective control of malaria.


A subscriber's signal (117) is removed from a composite signal (120) received in a serving base station (100), where the subscriber (113) is not in communication with the serving base station (100). The subscriber's signal (117) is removed from the composite signal (120) by receiving information regarding potential interferers in communication with the non-serving base stations (150). Next, a most reliable signal is determined from the potential interferers in communication with non-serving base stations (150-155). The most reliable signal is then removed from the composite signal (120).

In a communication system such as a direct sequence spreadspectrum code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system, a received signal at a base station comprises a multiplicity of frequency and time overlapping coded signals from individual remote units each of which has undergone multipath scattering. Each of these signals is transmitted simultaneously at the same radio frequency (RF) and is distinguishable only by its specific encoding. In other words, the uplink signal received at a base-station receiver is a composite signal of each transmitted signal and an individual remote unit's signal is distinguishable only after decoding.
In conventional DS-CDMA systems, the receiver decodes each remote unit separately by applying each respective remote unit's code to the composite received signal. Each individual remote unit's signal is thereby "despread" from the composite received signal. Due to the nature of the family of codes utilized, the other remote units' signals remain in a spread form and act only to degrade the recovered signal as uncorrelated interference.
Prior art techniques of interference cancellation are known to reduce even uncorrelated interference. This permits an increase in the sensitivity and or capacity of the multi-remote unit system. The most common technique of interference cancellation is to synthesize a replica of a particular remote unit's received signal, after it has been properly decoded, and utilize the synthesized replica to cancel interference (by subtraction) from the received signal. Such a prior-art method of interference cancellation is described in US Patent "Method and Apparatus for Canceling Spread-Spectrum Noise" by Stilwell et. al., (U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,612) assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated herein by reference. Because serving base stations utilizing prior-art techniques of interference cancellation synthesize a replica of a particular signal only after it has been properly decoded, the serving base stations can only eliminate interference from signals of remote units actually in communication with the serving base stations (i.e., within the serving base station's coverage area). Therefore, by utilizing such prior-art techniques, it is possible for serving base stations to effectively eliminate a remote unit's signal from the composite received signal only if the remote unit happens to be in communication with the serving base station.
In a cellular environment, remote units in communication with nonserving base stations and not communicating with the serving base station contribute as much as half the noise energy to a serving base station. Therefore, prior-art techniques of interference cancellation are deficient in that they fail to eliminate any interference of remote unit's communicating with non-serving base stations and not in communication with the serving base station. Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for canceling interference of signals generated in non-serving cell sites.

Method and apparatus for canceling signals in a spread-spectrum communication system


Described herein are pyrimidinyl-pyridyloxy-naphthyl compounds with inositol requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1) modulation activity or function having the Formula I or I′ structure:

The kinase/endoribonuclease inositol requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1 a, alpha,α), one of the key sensors of misfolded protein accumulation in the endoplasmic reticulum that triggers the unfolded protein response (UPR), is a potential therapeutic target for diverse diseases including cancer for inhibitors that bind to the ATP-binding site on the kinase moiety of IRE1α and block its endoribonuclease activity. IRE1α is a transmembrane, bifunctional protein with a luminal domain that binds to misfolded proteins, a transmembrane segment, and a cytoplasmic portion consisting of a kinase moiety and a tandem endoribonuclease domain. Structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies led to compounds selective in recombinant IRE1α kinase screens and potent against endoribonuclease activity of recombinant IRE1α as well as cellular IRE1α. IRE1α activity mediates certain cytoprotective and pro-survival functions of the UPR, increases viability and growth in certain tumor cell lines, and may be an effective therapeutic target for specific small molecule inhibitors that block malignant tumor growth, contrary to an earlier report (Harrington, P. E. et al (2015) ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 6:68-72). In addition, inhibitors of IRE1α may be therapeutically useful for other types of diseases besides cancer including certain autoimmune, neurodegenerative, fibrotic and metabolic disorders (Wang M. and Kaufman, R. J. (2016) Nature 529:326-335).
Homeostatic regulation of protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is under the control of three key intracellular signaling pathways: IRE1α, PERK, and ATF6, which together orchestrate the unfolded protein response (UPR) (Schroder, et al (2005) Mutat Res-Fund Mol Mech Metagenesis 569:29-63). An increase in demand for protein folding in the ER or certain types of cellular injury or stress lead to the accumulation of unfolded proteins in the ER—a condition called ER stress. Cells respond to ER stress by activating the UPR to help adjust or maintain their high-fidelity protein synthetic capacity (Walter, P. and Ron, D. (2011) Science, 334:1081-1086). IRE1α is the most evolutionarily conserved of the three branches of the UPR. Importantly, the UPR makes life/death decisions for the cell, depending on the severity and duration of ER stress, and the final outcome is either cell survival and recovery or programmed cell death (apoptosis) (Sovolyova et al, (2014) Biol Chem 395: 1-13). All three pathways of the UPR form a coordinated reaction to the accumulation of unfolded proteins; and several studies have demonstrated that there is cross talk between the different pathways (Yamamoto et al, J. Biochem. (2004) 136:343-350); Arai et al, FEBS Letts. (2006) 580:184-190; Adachi et al, Cell Struct. Func. (2008) 33:75-89). ER stress and activation of the UPR can be caused by mechanical injury, inflammation, genetic mutations, infections, oxidative stress, metabolic stress, and other types of cellular stress associated with malignancy. ER stress has also been implicated in diseases that result in fibrotic remodeling of internal organs, such as chronic liver diseases (Galligan et al, J. Toxicol. (2012) Vol. 2012, Article ID 207594, 12 pgs.; Shin et al, Cell Reports (2013) 5:654-665; Ji, Int. J. Hepatol. (2014) Vol. 2014, Article ID 513787, 11 pages), pulmonary fibrosis (Baek et al, Am. J. Resp. Cell Mol. Bio. (2012) 46:731-739); Tanjore et al, Biochim Biophys Acta (2012, online), (2013) 1832:940-947), kidney fibrosis (Chiang et al, Mol. Med. (2011) 17:1295-1305), cardiovascular disease (Spitler & Webb, Hypertension (2014) 63:e40-e45), and inflammatory bowel disease (Bogaert et al, PLoS One (2011) 6(10) e25589; Cao et al, Gastroent (2013) 144:989-1000).
IRE1α (alpha) is a transmembrane, bifunctional protein with cytoplasmic kinase and endoribonuclease activity. The N-terminal domain of IRE1α is proposed to sense the presence of unfolded proteins in the ER lumen, triggering activation of the cytoplasmic kinase domain, which, in turn, activates the C-terminal endoribonuclease. IRE1α transmits information across the ER lipid bilayer (Tirasophon et al, Genes & Develop. (2000) 14:2725-2736). Increased ER protein load and presence of unfolded proteins leads to the dissociation of the ER chaperone GRP78/BiP from IRE1α molecules, which bind to misfolded proteins and then undergo dimerization and trans-autophosphorylation in the cytoplasmic kinase domain. This leads to activation of the IRE1α endoribonuclease moiety in the cytosol. The IRE1α endoribonuclease has the ability to cleave the mRNA that encodes unspliced X box protein 1 (XBP1u); this excises a 26-nucleotide intron and leads to formation of spliced XBP1 (XBP1s) mRNA, which encodes a potent transcription factor. After transport into the nucleus, the XBP1s protein binds to UPR promoter elements to initiate transcription of genes that enhance the ability of the ER to cope with unfolded proteins, for example, through enhanced ER-associated degradation of misfolded proteins, and through elevated levels of chaperones and disulfide isomerases that support protein folding in the ER. IRE1α activation is also associated with enlargement of the ER volume, which has been interpreted as an adaptive mechanism to increase protein folding capacity (Sriburi et al, J. Cell. Bio. (2004) 167:35-41); (Chen, Y. (2013) Trends Cell Biol., 23, 547-555). In addition, the IRE1α endoribonuclease cleaves various mRNAs in a process called regulated IRE1α-dependent decay of mRNA (RIDD), which reduces both protein translation and import of proteins into the ER to help reestablish homeostasis (Hollien & Weissman, Science (2006) 313:104-107). In cancer cells, IRE1α suppresses ER-stress-induced apoptosis by reducing the mRNA levels of death receptor 5 (DR5) through RIDD (Lu et al., Science (2014) 345:98-101).
Besides degrading mRNA (Binet et al, Cell Metabol. (2013) 17:353-371), it was recently shown that IRE1α also has the ability to degrade microRNAs (miRs) (Upton et al, Science (2012) 338:818-822). miRs are short noncoding RNA oligonucleotides consisting of 17-25 nucleotides that generally act to inhibit gene expression by binding to complementary sequences in the 30-untranslated region of target mRNAs, either to repress mRNA translation or to induce mRNA cleavage. A number of cellular functions such as proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis are regulated by miRs, and aberrant miR expression is observed in a variety of human diseases including fibrosis (Bowen et al, J. Pathol (2013) 229:274-285). Inhibitors that specifically target individual components of the UPR have recently been described. The inhibitor 4μ8C that stably binds to lysine 907 in the IRE1α endoribonuclease domain has been shown to inhibit both RIDD activity and XBP-1 splicing (Cross et al, Proc Natl. Acad. Sci. (2012) 109:E869-E878). High levels of 4μ8C cause no measurable toxicity in cells and concentrations ranging from 80 to 128 lM of 4μ8C completely block XBP1 splicing without affecting IRE1α (alpha) kinase activity (Cross et al, 2012). The inhibitor 4μ8C thus represents an important tool to delineate the functions of IRE1α in vivo as IRE1α-knockout mice die during embryonic development. Inhibition of IRE1α prevents activation of myofibroblasts and reduces fibrosis in animal models of liver and skin fibrosis. Pharmacological inhibition of IRE1α could revert the profibrotic phenotype of activated myofibroblasts isolated from patients with scleroderma and indicates that ER stress inhibitors should be taken into consideration when developing new strategies for the treatment of fibrotic diseases (Heindryckx, F. et al (2016) EMBO Molecular Medicine Vol 8(7):729-744).
Activation of the UPR has been shown to be an important survival pathway for tumors of secretory cell origin like multiple myeloma that have a very high protein synthesis burden. Therefore, efforts to disrupt the UPR by blocking the IRE1α endoribonuclease cleavage and activation of XBP1 have been an active area of cancer research. As a specific IRE1α RNase product, XBP1s is a direct indicator of functional IRE1 inhibition. A potent and selective IRE1α inhibitor would serve as an important tool to test the hypothesis that, without full UPR activation, tumor cells would be driven to apoptosis. IRE1α inhibitors and activating compounds have been reported (Harrington, P. E. et al (2015) ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 6:68-72; Volkmann, K., et al (2011) J. Biol. Chem., 286:12743-12755; Cross, B. C. S., et al (2012) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 109:E869-E878; Wang, L., et al (2012) Nat. Chem. Biol., 8:982-989; Ghosh, R., et al (2014) Cell, 158:534-548; Ranatunga, S., et al (2014) J. Med. Chem., 57, 4289-4301; U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,382,230; 8,815,885).

Pyrimidinyl-pyridyloxy-naphthyl compounds and methods of treating IRE1-related diseases and disorders

Abstract: or stereoisomers, tautomers, or pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof, and with the substituents and structural features described herein. Also described are pharmaceutical compositions and medicaments that include the Formula I or I′ compounds, as well as methods of using such IRE1 modulators, alone and in combination with other therapeutic agents, for treating diseases or conditions that are mediated or dependent upon estrogen receptors.

The Regents of the University of California


System and method for data quality management and control of heterogeneous data systems. In a preferred embodiment, the system functions as a resource management tool that simplifies the process of managing data systems. More specifically, the system provides connections to source data systems, allows users to view data structures and enables simple management and manipulation of data contained within possibly heterogeneous data systems. The system utilizes an advanced graphical user interface, which allows users to access and manage systems using a simple point and click methodology. The system uses portals, which are tools that collect, visualize, analyze and directly edit data sets associated with different data sources. In another aspect, the system keeps track of its operational status, allowing users to automatically reproduce in one logon session work done in the previous session, without the need to replicate previous data analysis. Various additional features of the system and methods are disclosed and illustrated.

The present invention is directed to data management and data quality management and control and more particularly to a system and method that provide connections to source data, allow users to view data structures and enable management and manipulation of data contained within possibly heterogeneous data systems. A data system in this application is any system that contains data and provides management of this data. Data management refers more specifically to the management aspect of a data system. In common usage database systems typically refer to relational data systems, such as Oracle and DB2.
Data management and data quality management and control are essential to the operation of modern business and government entities. The establishment of a database, its day-to-day maintenance and data quality testing is a complex task, frequently assigned to specially trained operators or information system groups. The task of maintaining and testing databases is made especially difficult because of the existence of different database formats and the need for business, government and public interest entities running such different formats to cooperate effectively.
One reason for these difficulties is the current practice of developing separate test and management packages for different data systems. For example, if a company is operating an Oracle database, specific test and management software is typically developed with the intention of operating solely on the Oracle database. A similar process is undergone for each database being operated by a business, government or public interest entity. Since separate systems are developed and used for the maintenance of different data systems, operators of the differing systems must separately interface with the various data systems being managed and tested. The lack of a single interface capable of manipulating different data sources and formats in the prior art made this task highly time consuming and very often frustrating for operators.
To better appreciate the problem, it should be pointed that the applicable user environment is one of mixed technologies and mixed human operator skills. Due to the complexity of modern applications and tools it is frequently the case that Information Systems (IS) organizations can successfully train only one person to operate one or two applications or tools. As known, most software applications and tools are limited to only a few features, and thus IS corporate groups and organizations are forced to allocate a number of specialized users in order to support all applications required to run the business. Further aggravation stems from the cost of licensing and implementing each of the applications and tools, in addition to the high labor cost of training the operators.
It will be appreciated that the above problems fundamentally also involve issues of data quality management and control leading ultimately to the adequacy of quality assurance. Consider for example the problem of an organization developing a new inventory system with tracking features. Clearly, a major concern would be the accurate and reliable update of all forms of inventory information with respect to any particular inventory item processed through its life cycle. To ensure such accuracy and reliability, the developed application software is frequently run on test databases to avoid corruption of the operational data. After execution, the test data must be examined for errors. Error types can range from inconsistent data patterns to complete loss of data. Naturally, one has to be able to recognize the error(s) and then attempt to fix the underlying problem. A traditional technique for finding errors is to simply compare the resulting data to the original data. While merely identifying the presence of an error is relatively straightforward, many sophisticated analysis tools may be needed to discover the nature of the errors, and to do so quickly. In order to be commercially successful, such tools must require little concentration and effort on the part of the human operators—otherwise the tool's operation will interfere with the thought process of the operator and may lead to additional delays or errors. The above example is merely illustrative of the type of problems that exist in the data quality control and assurance context. Very few tools exist at present that even come close to satisfying the users' demands in this regard.
For helpful background information the interested reader is directed to the disclosure of the following patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,714,989; 4,714,995; 4,769,772; 4,881,166; 5,046,002; 5,058,000; 5,142,470; 5,161,158; 5,239,577; 5,247,664; 5,257,366; 5,278,978; 5,301,302; 5,345,587; 5,381,534; 5,452,450; 5,561,797; 5,581,749; 5,581,758; 5,630,124, and printed publications:                Arbee L P. Chen, A Localized Approach to Distributed Query Processing, Bell Communications Research, Piscataway, N.J., Mar. 26, 1990, pp. 188-202;        M. Rusinkiewicz et al., "Query Transformation in Heterogeneous Distributed Database Systems," IEEE, pp. 300-307, 1985.        T. Yu Clement et al., "Query Processing in a Fragmented Relational Distributed System: Mermaid," IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, vol. SE-11, No. 8, pp. 795-810, August 1985.        M. Rusinlaewicz et al., "An Approach to Query Processing in Federated Database Systems," Proc. of the Twentieth Annual Hawaii Intl'Conf. on System Sciences, pp. 430-440, 1987.        S. Kang et al., "Global Query Management in Heterogeneous Distributed Database Systems," Microprocessing and Microprogramming, vol. 38, pp. 377-384, 1993.
Attempts have been made to remedy aspects of the above problems by providing data management tools that are capable of operating across heterogeneous data systems. In this application, "heterogeneous data systems" are systems that are capable of operating simultaneously with differing multiple data systems. Examples of such data systems include DB2 produced by International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Oracle produced by Oracle Corp., Sybase produced by Sybase Inc., flat files and others. Such heterogeneous database systems, when used together, collectively also represent a heterogeneous, distributed data environment or system. Heterogeneous, distributed data systems are also sometimes called federated data systems or sometimes multi-database systems. At present, there is a need for convenient and reliable data-management system-independent software tools and methods capable of operating in multiple data system environments. Further, there is a need for such tools and methods for the purpose of data quality management and control. However, to the best of applicants' knowledge, none of the known prior art systems provide a robust system for data quality management and control of differing data system. It is the purpose of this invention to address the problems associated with the prior art and meet these and other users' needs.

System and method for data quality management and control of heterogeneous data sources


A sorting and bagging apparatus including a container defining an internal chamber with an opening thereinto and a lid configured to be positioned on the container. The lid defines a through opening aligned with the opening into the container. A basket extends through the through opening and is supported by the lid. The basket has sidewalls and a bottom surface and at least the bottom surface has a plurality of passages therethrough. A funnel having a funnel body extending between an inlet edge and an outlet edge is secured relative to the basket such that the inlet edge extends along the basket bottom surface wherein a sorting chamber is defined between the basket sidewalls, the basket bottom surface and the funnel. The lid is configured to be tilted such that contents within the sorting chamber pass from the sorting chamber to the funnel and out of the funnel at the outlet edge.

Since its legalization in several states, the marijuana industry has become one of the largest growing industries in the United States. As a part of this growth, the need to produce and package marijuana has similarly increased. Generally it is desirable to package the marijuana buds separate from the "shake", the small bits of bud that break off of the buds during handling or the like. Generally, sorting of the shake from the marijuana buds has been done either manually or using complex machinery. The manual sorting is very time consuming while complex machinery requires a large monetary investment, which is usually not desirable for small business or home growers. Additionally, even after the shake has been sorted out of the marijuana buds, the buds must still be bagged, which is an additional step with associated additional time and cost.
While marijuana production is described herein as an illustrative application requiring sorting and bagging, it is recognized that other products have a similar need to sort out a first portion of the product and then bag the remaining, second portion of the product.

Sorting and bagging apparatus and method