A forming process of plastic parts is simulated. The position and time of plastics particles which exceed at least one defined critical limit are detected. The final positions of particles in the surface layer of the plastics part are computed. The positions of the particles in the surface layer are defined as positions with deviations in the surface appearance.

The present invention relates to a method for simulating deviations in surface appearance of plastics parts caused by a forming process of plastics parts according to claim 1, and a respective computer system, computer program and computer program product.
The surface appearance of plastics products is a very important topic in the plastics industry. A major criteria of plastics product quality is the surface appearance. The surface quality of plastics parts is influenced by the surface structure, the forming process parameters and by the polymer material itself. Although a lot of efforts to improve surface appearance are done, the results are not always satisfying. The so called tigerstripes phenomenon of the surface appearance has been object of the scientific world for many years.
The plastics part consists of a polymer material of specific geometric design and may comprise thermoplasts and/or thermosetting plastics comprising duroplastics and elastomeric polymer materials. Plastics parts are produced by a forming process.
The forming process is a process where the polymer raw material is formed to specific plastics parts under expenditure of forming energy. In most of the cases the polymer raw material has the form of pellets. Different forming processes are common in the plastics industry: e.g. injection molding including special types of injection molding processes: like gas assisted injection molding, co-injection molding, backside molding, compression molding and any combination of injection molding and compression molding, polymer extrusion, blow molding and foaming.
A plastics particle or polymer particle is defined as a volume portion of the plastics part. The sum over volume of all plastics particles of a plastics part coincides with the volume of the plastics part.
The surface of a plastics part is defined as the total face (surface) of the plastics part in any details. Due to the fact that plastics parts are generally thin, the ratio between plastics part face to plastics part volume is quite high. This fact also emphasises the importance of the surface quality of plastics parts.
The surface appearance of plastics parts is a very important issue of quality in the plastics industry. The surface appearance is determined on one hand by physical material properties and by inherent properties of the polymer and polymer morphology of very small sized dimension such as color pigments, crystallinity, constituents, kind of molecules. On the other hand the surface appearance is determined by the surface structure of the plastics part, which is the negative copy of the cavity surface of the tool, where the plastic melt is injected. Grain and roughness of the cavity surface are the main structure parameters in terms of surface quality of the plastics parts. It is evident that parameters of the forming process influence the surface appearance of plastics parts.
The surface layer defines a thin layer of polymer material, which influences the surface appearance of the part. Different surface appearance effects are determined by different physical constitutions and therefore the thickness of the surface layer may vary with the effect examined. It is defined, that the volume particles positioned exactly on the surface of the plastics part are part of the surface layer, but polymer particles beneath may also be part of the surface layer.
The "tigerstripes" phenomenon is a common problem in the plastics industry and describes a specific surface defect. Tigerstripes, as known in the plastics industry, describe a visible periodic inhomogenity in surface gloss. Mostly these are alternating dull (or rough) and glossy (or smooth) areas on the surface of injection molded or extruded plastics parts, which surface should be glossy (or smooth) all over.
The thermoplastic polymer may consist of polyolefins, such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), but also of polyamides (PA), polycarbonates (PC), acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) or polyetherimide (PEI) and compounds and blends of thermoplastic polymers. Compounds are polymers or blends of polymers with every kind of constituents like talc, minerals, glass, rubber and pigments. In addition polymer compounds are equipped with additivation packages.
The simulation of the forming process is common in the plastics industry and is based on the continuum mechanics combined with the method of Finite Elements and/or Finite differences. Finite difference computer based solving algorithms (software) to simulate the forming process are available on the market, such as software of Moldflow Corporation, see e.g. EP 1 218 163 B1. The content of EP 1 218 163 B1 is herewith incorporated as disclosure of the invention of this patent application.
EP 1 218 163 B1 discloses a method of modelling the injection of a fluid (plastic melt) into a mold three-dimensionally. The basis for such a model are the equations for the conservation of mass, momentum and energy and can be expressed in the form shown in equations (3) to (6) in EP 1 218 163 B1 or in the form of the e.g. Navier-Stokes equations (see also page 9, lines 31-32 of EP 1 218 163 B1):
                              ∂          p                          ∂          t                    +              ∇                  ·                      (                          ρ                                                                                u                        )                                =    0                                            ∂            u                                ∂            t                          +                              (                          u              ·              ∇                        )                              u                    =                                    -                          1              ρ                                                      ∇            p                          -                  ∇          ϕ                +                              μ            ρ                                                        ∇              2                                    u                                ,                                              ρ                                (                                                            ∂                  ɛ                                                  ∂                  t                                            +                              u                ·                                  ∇                  ɛ                                                      )                          -                  ∇                      ·                          (                                                K                  H                                                                  ∇                  T                                            )                                      +                  p                                ∇                          ·              u                                          =      0.      whereasρ is the density of the fluid,ν is the velocity,ρ is the pressure,Φ is the potential energy per unit mass,T is temperature,μ is the coefficient of shear viscosity;ε is the internal energy per unit mass,KH is the thermal conductivity.
Since the conservation of energy is included in the model, thermal effects can be taken into account during the forming process, and thus for example the thermal effects of phase changes from liquid to solid state can be considered accordingly. In EP 1 218 163 B1 it is said that the following heat transfer mechanisms can be modelled: convection (from the incoming melt), conduction (out of the mold wall), and viscous dissipation (which is related to the thermal energy produced by shearing within the flowing plastic material). Also other mechanisms, such as compressive heating effects (due to heat generated by compression) and cooling effects form decompression (see p. 4, lines 8-11) are to be considered.
The above cited equations describing the flow of the liquid thermoplastic material are solved by a discrete numerical procedure, such as a Finite Element Method, or any other suitable method, see e.g. page 8, line 14-16 of EP 1 218 163 B1. Using the Finite Element Method, the mold cavity volume is divided into single finite elements (finite volumes) and the field variables (such as pressure, temperature, velocity) and the material properties (such as viscosity) are computed iteratively for a node point of a finite element and then interpolated within the element volume.
However, EP 1 218 163 B1 is silent with respect to detecting and predicting surface defects of the plastics part.

Method for simulating deviations in surface appearance of plastics parts


A spray delivery system in combination with a scalp medication is provided which includes a portable container having a gas imperious container wall, a pressure source disposed within the container, and a selectively operable valve assembly affixed to the container. The scalp medication is in liquid form and is disposed within the container. The scalp medication comprises a hair growth stimulation or hair growth maintenance active ingredient in an amount sufficient to stimulate or maintain hair growth disposed within a pharmacologically acceptable carrier solution. The valve assembly of the system produces a 1 mL spray of said scalp medication within about 5 seconds following a single operation of said valve assembly. A method of treating alopecia using a continuous spray employing such a system is also provided. Both bag-on-valve (bag-in-can) and metered dose packages are disclosed.

Alopecia, the loss of hair in men and women, involves a gradual decrease of scalp hair density in adults, with a transformation of terminal to vellus hairs which become lost as a result of familial increased susceptibility of hair follicles to androgen secretion following puberty. Two areas of the scalp are commonly affected in men, as evidenced by a receding frontal and bilateral triangular temple hair lines, and a balding patch on the vertex, which may progress to complete male pattern baldness. In females, a diffuse partial hair loss in the central parietal area of the scalp with preservation of the frontal and temporal hair lines is most common.
One of the more common therapies for alopecia is minoxidil, which has been proven to be an effective hair growth stimulator that can both maintain and increase scalp hair counts. Minoxidil was first used as a patent antihypertensive drug. It was later discovered that Minoxidil had positive effects on hair growth when applied topically to the scalp. Minoxidil was first mass marketed as Rogaine® lotion by Upjohn, Inc. for the treatment of hair loss in the late 1980s. Rogaine® lotion still remains the only FDA approved topical medication for the treatment of hair loss in the United States, as of this date. The directions associated with traditional minoxidil lotions, such as Rogaine® lotion, now manufactured by Johnson and Johnson, is that a total dose of 1 mL minoxidil topical solution should be applied twice per day to the scalp, beginning at the centre of the affected area. Each 1 mL of minoxidil solution contains 20 mg of minoxidil for 2% solutions and 50 mg of minoxidil for 5% solutions. This dose should be used regardless of the size of the affected area. The total daily dose should not exceed 2 mL. The method of application varies according to the disposable applicator used. Packages contain several applicator options, including a dropper marked with a 1-mL calibration, a spray applicator, and an extended-spray applicator, which is ideal for long hair. Six pumps of the applicators release 1 mL of minoxidil. Because systemic absorption could affect blood pressure, the patient should not inhale the aerosol generated by the spray applicators.
Although the following systemic effects have not been associated with the topical use of minoxidil topical solution, there is some absorption of minoxidil from the skin and the potential exists for systemic effects such as tachycardia, angina, edema or potentiation of the orthostatic hypotension produced by guanethidine. Systemically absorbed minoxidil is secreted in human milk.
The application times for minoxidil should be at least four hours apart, suggesting that the best times to apply the product would be right after the morning shower, and before bed at night. The traditional 5% minoxidil Rogaine® lotion utilizes as much as 50% by volume propylene glycol (20% v/v of propylene glycol for 2% minoxidil) as a vehicle for extending the delivery of the active medication to the scalp, and for ensuring that the applied minoxidil is evenly spread across the affected area and easily absorbed into the skin. Propylene glycol and ethanol alcohol are also used to solubilize minoxidil. The problem associated with smearing copious amounts of propylene glycol on one's scalp is that it leaves the hair and scalp with a greasy texture for an extended period of time after the application. The resulting appearance is often unflattering. It also leaves the hair looking matted down and even thinner than it really is, which may be considered an unfortunate step in the wrong direction for a hair loss treatment.
Another issue associated with propylene glycol is that it can irritate the user's scalp, resulting in itching, flaking, redness of the scalp, oiliness of the scalp, excessive dandruff, and even peeling in some cases. Because of these effects, the use of traditional minoxidil solution was not an option for many hair loss sufferers, and glycerine versions of the popular medication have been developed, available by prescription from Minoxidil.com.
Johnson and Johnson is currently marketing Rogaine® Foam, which delivers minoxidil to the scalp in a manner that is just as effective as the traditional propylene glycol based minoxidil lotions, but without some of the mess or unpleasantness. Rogaine® Foam is designed to retain its "foamy" texture at room temperature, but quickly liquefies, spurring quick skin absorption at body temperature.
Fast skin absorption by Rogaine® Foam means that the active ingredient of Rogaine® Foam, minoxidil, will be readily absorbed into the hand of the user, where it clearly is not intended to be absorbed. Over-absorption of minoxidil can result in vision changes, chest pain and fast or irregular heart beat. Women exposed to over-absorption of minoxidil may experience additional unwanted facial hair growth. Additionally, minoxidil may pass from mother to child through breast milk. It is for these and other reasons that the Rogaine® Foam package insert suggests that the user rinse his or her hand under cold water before applying the foam, to slow down absorption of the active ingredient into the hand. This, of course, requires another step (or two, if the user also dries his or her hand, as recommended by the manufacturer) in the application of the medication. It may also dilute the concentration if one does not immediately dry one's hand after wetting, and before applying the foam. In addition, hair does feel a little stiffer after the application of the Rogaine® Foam and the smearing of the foamy application, with or without a wet hand, can also mat down hair styles, making them less natural looking.
Accordingly, there remains a need for further dispensing systems and methods for scalp medications, including minoxidil and other products, such as DHT inhibitors, finesteride (Propecia®), copper peptides (Tricomin® and Folligen®), other DHT inhibitors (Dutasteride®), all-around treatments or combinations (Proxiphen®) androgen receptor blockers (Spirondactone®), corticosteroids, vitamin A derivatives (Retin-A®), tretinoin, azelaic acid, zinc, B6, grape seed extract, nicotinate and/or progesterone, which are easy to use and provide a more natural appearance than conventionally applied propylene glycol-based and foam-based products delivery systems.

Continuous spray scalp therapy and dispensing systems for same


The present invention provides an aqueous liquid bleach composition which remains stable over an extended period of time. The liquid bleach is easily pourable since it has a relatively low viscosity. The liquid bleach generally comprises (a) from about 1% to about 25% by weight of a water-soluble bleach activator; (b) from about 0.1% to about 10% by weight of hydrogen peroxide; (c) from about 1% to about 20% by weight of a phase stabilizer; (d) from about 0.001% to about 2% by weight of a chelating agent; and (e) the balance water. The liquid bleach composition is isotropic, translucent and has a viscosity of less than about 500 cps.

There are numerous categories of bleaches which are well known in the art. Of the wide variety currently available, chlorine releasing bleaches, inorganic peroxygen bleaches, and organic peroxyacid bleaches are the most common. The chlorine releasing bleaches have certain disadvantages associated with their use such as, for example, their tendency to weaken or degrade fabrics, a tendency to react with other components in the composition in which they are present and their general propensity for fading colors in many dyed fabrics. Additionally, under several bleaching conditions chlorine bleaches cause yellowing of certain synthetic fabrics.
While inorganic peroxygen bleaches overcome many of the disadvantages found with chlorine bleaches, they have limitations on use in that they must be used at relatively high temperatures, such as 85.degree. C. or higher. This drawback becomes significant in light of the modern trend of using lower wash temperatures which are generally less than about 60.degree. C. in order to reduce energy costs and prolong the life of the fabric. As a consequence, it is generally necessary to improve the low temperature performances of inorganic peroxygen bleaches through the addition of peroxygen bleach activators also known as peroxyacid precursors.
In the past, ninny have also attempted to use peroxyacid bleaches, either alone or in combination with a bleach activator, as an alternative to the chlorine and inorganic peroxygen bleaches described above. Unfortunately, upon dissolution in water, peroxyacid bleaches such as peroxycarboxylic acids lose their active oxygen and convert to carboxylic acid. Thus, those in the past have found it difficult to formulate stable liquid bleaching compositions.
Many, however, have attempted to stabilize the peroxyacids in their compositions by various means such as encapsulation or incorporation of stabilizing systems. Representative of such attempts include Hardy et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,314; Thompson et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,539,130; and Burns, U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,838, all of which are commonly assigned. All of these patents are directed to bleaching compositions containing peroxyacids and bleach activators. While the bleaching compositions disclosed therein are suitable for their intended use, they only contemplate compositions in "granular" form as opposed to a stable "aqueous liquid" bleach. Past attempts in this regard, however, have found that it is extremely difficult to formulate a stable aqueous bleach solution based on peroxyacid and/or the combination of a bleach activator and a peroxygen bleach. In addition to the degradation to carboxylic acid problem discussed previously, bleach activator/hydrogen peroxide systems have also exhibited stability problems arising from extraneous reactions with the conventional components of liquid bleaches including solvents, pH adjusting agents, surfactants and soil suspending agents.
To alleviate these problems, attempts have been made to maintain peroxyacids and bleach activators in a suspension or slurry as an alternative to a homogenous liquid bleach system. By way of example, Reuben, U.S. Pat. No. 5,039,447 (Monsanto Company), discloses a pourable sulfone peracid bleaching composition. The composition is an aqueous stable liquid bleach comprising sulfone peroxycarboxylic acid and a stabilizing system including anionic and nonionic surfactants and a salt stabilizer such as sodium sulfate. While this particular bleaching composition may be effective, it has a cloudy appearance not particularly aesthetically pleasing to users. Moreover, because the composition contains the peroxyacid as a solid suspension or slurry, there is a strong likelihood of the solid phase separating from the liquid phase, especially over extended storage periods and across varying temperature conditions. Additionally, the presence of a solid suspension in the bleaching composition increases the viscosity, thereby rendering it less pourable, a feature not especially convenient for users.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need in the art for a stable aqueous liquid bleach composition which can be used as an additive. There is also a need in the art for such a stable liquid bleach composition which is isotropic or in a single phase and is translucent in appearance. Further, it would be desirable to have a liquid bleach composition having a lower viscosity so as to facilitate pouring of the bleach into the washing solution.

Translucent, isotropic aqueous liquid bleach composition


A gas discharge tube includes a light-emitting section in an envelope sealing a gas therein, positioned at distal ends of lead pins while spaced from an inner side wall of the envelope. The light-emitting section includes a hot cathode, an anode, a focusing electrode, and a discharge shielding member having a front surface which faces the hot cathode. The front surface of the discharge shielding member is defined by a first surface being in direct contact with the focusing electrode, for defining a position of the focusing electrode, a second surface continued from the first surface, for defining a distance between the focusing electrode and the anode, and a third surface continued from the second surface and being in direct contact with the anode, for defining a position of the anode.

1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a gas discharge tube and, more particularly, to a gas discharge tube used as an ultraviolet light source for a spectrophotometer, liquid chromatography, or the like.
2. Related background art
A conventional gas discharge tube is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-255662. According to this prior art, a cathode and an anode, both of which are held by only lead lines, are disposed in a vessel, in which deuterium gas is sealed.

Gas discharge tube with discharge shielding member


A non-contact in-situ temperature measurement apparatus for a single crystal substrate such as a semiconductor wafer using X-ray diffraction. Utilizing the Bragg condition for X-ray diffraction, the lattice constant of the semiconductor substrate can be determined either by measuring the diffraction angle for a monochromatic X-ray (monochromatic approach) or by measuring the wavelength of an X-ray diffracted with a certain scattering angle (polychromatic approach). The lattice constant, as a well-known function of temperature, is finally converted into the temperature of the semiconductor substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to in-situ temperature measurement in semiconductor processing using X-ray diffraction and, more particularly, to in-situ temperature measurement conducted by measuring single crystal substrate (e.g., semiconductor wafer) lattice parameters by X-ray diffraction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Accurate temperature control is required in many semiconductor processes such as rapid thermal processing (RTP), annealing, oxidation, nitridation, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). It is also required for processes such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), and reactive ion etching (RIE). Temperature measurement during semiconductor processing, however, is very difficult because it usually requires the use of contact methods such as thermocouples. If non-contact in-situ measurement is required, then methods such as optical pyrometry are often used. Optical pyrometry has several drawbacks including inaccuracy at lower temperature ranges, since it is dependent on the measured wavelength, and dependence on wafer (backside) emissivity or film structure on the substrate.

In-situ temperature measurement using X-ray diffraction

International Business Machines Corporation


A nerve probe array has a connector made of a flexible material; and a plurality of probes coupled to the connector, each of the plurality of probe having an electrode formed at a body thereof. The plurality of probes are arranged with intervals in a length direction of the connector, and the connector surrounds an outer circumference of a nerve, and the plurality of probes pierce the outer circumference of the nerve and are inserted into the nerve.

1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a nerve probe array, and more particularly, to a nerve electrode structure connected to a nerve to collect nerve signals through an electrode formed at a probe or apply an electrical stimulation to the nerve.
[Description about National Research and Development Support]
This study was supported by the High-Tech Convergence Technology Development program of Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea (Project No. 1711015332) under the superintendence of National Research Foundation of Korea.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, as a nerve interface used for neuroprosthetics or human-machine interface (HMI), a subminiature nerve electrode structure directly connected to a nerve to apply stimulation to the nerve or collect nerve signal information from the nerve has been studied.
As an example of the subminiature nerve electrode structure, a cuff electrode composed of a body having a broad area and made of a flexible material and an electrode embedded in the body is used.
In the cuff electrode, a flexible body is wound around the entire surface of a nerve like bandaging and is fixed thereto, and a nerve signal is detected through an electrode formed at the surface of the body.
However, the body of the cuff electrode is fixed to perfectly surround the outer circumference of the nerve bundle and thus press a part of the nerve bundle, which may disturb blood circulation in a blood vessel present at the nerve eqineurium and thus cause chronic pain. In addition, the body made of a polymer material does not allow oxygen, water or the like to pass therethrough, which may cause a pain or nerve necrosis at a portion where the body is applied. Therefore, long-term transplantation into the nerve is not easy.
Moreover, since the electrode collects nerve signals at a location out of the nerve bundle, a signal inside the nerve may not be properly read, and signals in the nerve fiber level may not be selectively obtained. Therefore, in case of the cuff electrode, the number of electrodes embedded is generally limited, which may be a factor for limiting applications of neuroprosthetics or HMI.
In order to supplement the problems of an extraneural electrode such as the cuff electrode, an intra-fascicular electrode in which an electrode body is directly inserted into a nerve may be used.
Representatively, there may be used a so-called transverse intra-fascicular multichannel electrode/longitudinal intra-fascicular electrode (TIME/LIFE) for inserting a thread-type electrode body into a nerve bundle to read a nerve signal, a Utah probe electrode having a plurality of probes arranged vertically at a plate-shaped body to put the probes into a corresponding nerve portion, a sieve electrode having a body having a thin plate shape, which may be inserted into a section of a partially cut nerve, so that the body has a hole through which a nerve bundle may pass and an electrode is arranged in the hole, or the like.
However, in case of the TIME/LIFE, it is not easy to position the electrode at a desired location in a nerve, and thus nerve selectivity is low. In addition, since the electrode may not be easily fixed after transplantation, the location of the electrode may be easily varied due to an external force, which is disadvantageous for long-term transplantation.
In case of the Utah electrode, many probes are inserted in a vertical direction of a nerve bundle with large intervals, which results in great redundant damage of neuron. In the fabrication process of the electrode, the material of the probe is limited to hard silicon, which may cause damage of neuron in the long term, and thus the nerve signal acquisition performance may deteriorate.
In addition, in case of the sieve electrode, due to excellent nerve selectivity, when a plurality of electrodes is embedded, a nerve signal corresponding to each electrode may be accurately mapped, but the nerve need to be cut, which results in very serious invasiveness to the nerve.

Neural probe array of high performance and for minimized damage of neuron

Korea Institute of Science and Technology


A pressure coupling for facilitating connection of an air pump with a water faucet to expel water from water lines connected with the faucet by operation of the air pump. In a preferred embodiment the pressure coupling includes a valve stem threadably seated in a metal cap which threads on the spout of the faucet. The hose of a manual or automatic air pump is threaded on the valve stem to pump air from the air pump into the faucet and through the water pipes connected to the faucet to clear the pipes of water and prevent the pipes from freezing and bursting in freezing weather.

Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices for evacuating water from water lines and more particularly, to a pressure coupling for facilitating attachment of an air pump to a water faucet to pump air into the faucet and through the water lines and clear the lines of water. In a preferred embodiment the pressure coupling includes a conventional valve stem, one end of which is threadably seated in a metal cap which threadably receives the spout of a water faucet. The opposite end of the valve stem threadably attaches to an air hose connected with a manual or automatic air pump. After the water supply serving the pipes connected with the faucet is turned off, operation of the air pump forces air through the valve stem, faucet and pipes. Water remaining in the pipes is expelled therefrom through additional faucets which are also connected to the pipes and opened prior to operation of the air pump.
One of the most irritating aspects of freezing weather is that exposed water pipes often crack and break due to expansion of freezing water remaining in the pipes after the water supply serving the pipes has been turned off. When ambient temperature returns to levels above freezing, a supply of running water cannot be maintained to the building since the damaged pipe or pipes leak. The pressure coupling device of this invention is designed to facilitate quick and convenient connection of a manual or automatic air pump with a water faucet to facilitate pumping air through the pipes connected to the faucet and evacuation of excess water remaining in the pipes after the water supply serving the pipes has been turned off, such that the pipes will not expand and break in freezing weather.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Several devices are known in the art for expelling liquid from a pipe or other liquid container. U.S. Pat. No. 3,101,091, dated Aug. 20, 1963, to Forrest O. E. Schultz, discloses a "Moisture Injection Valve" for removing moisture from compressed air systems. A chamber located in the valve housing is first moved to a location adjacent to an opening provided in the housing for receiving a charge of air and water from the system. The chamber then moves to a position isolated from the system and discharges the moisture to the atmosphere. U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,184, dated Dec. 16, 1980, to Walter H. Dudar, describes a "Valve Stem" including an adaptor which fits on vehicle tire stems to allow the attachment of quick connect and disconnect connectors to the valve stem. U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,652, dated Oct. 26, 1982, to Lawrence B. Perkins, details a "Purging Device" for purging liquid from a conduit using pressurized gas. The device includes a gas-holding reservoir connected with a supply of pressurized gas and the liquid-carrying conduit. In response to a first signal, a first valve isolates the gas reservoir from the supply of pressurized gas and a second valve communicates the reservoir with the conduit. In response to a second signal, the first valve communicates the reservoir with the supply of pressurized gas and the second valve isolates the reservoir from the conduit. The first signal indicates when the conduit is carrying liquid and the second signal indicates when the conduit can be purged. U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,112, dated Jul. 5, 1988, to John R. Houser, et al, discloses a "Water/Air Pumping System" including a flat, primary reservoir, a header tank and a pump. At least one reciprocating piston is accommodated in the tank and eccentric drive cams provided on the pistons are directly connected with a motor-driven shaft. The shaft drives the pistons, which pump water or air from the reservoir and into the tank. A water and/or air supply horizontally connected with the reservoir selectively passes the air or water to the reservoir through a control valve. U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,362, dated Oct. 11, 1988, to Chris J. Dominigue, Sr., et al, discloses a "Relief Valve For Fluid Line" for preventing water pipes from breaking in freezing weather and characterized by a substantially cylindrical external valve body, including an internal bore. The valve body is perpendicularly clamped on a water pipe, the bore positioned over an opening provided in the pipe. An internal stem including a tip for reversibly extruding through the opening in the pipe is slidably accommodated in the bore. A piston housed within the valve body is vertically movable from a first position blocking fluid flow from the pipe up through the bore, and a second position allowing fluid to first enter the bore and then a drain port. A spring member positioned above the valve head biases the piston downwardly in a normally closed position. U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,782, dated May 18, 1993, to Donald Thelen, details a "Valve Assembly For Tubeless Tire" including a valve stem having external threads and a valve core positioned in an axial passage provided in the valve stem. The valve stem is installed in an opening provided in a wheel rim using a lock nut that secures the stem to the rim. U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,028, dated Aug. 31, 1993, to John R. Hoch, Jr., et al, details a "Temperature-Sensitive Water Supply Shut-Off System" including a shutoff valve movable between open and closed positions in a line leading from the water supply. An electric motor which actuates the shutoff valve actuates the valve to the open position when the circuit is closed, allowing water to flow through the line. At least one temperature sensor feeds a signal to a logic circuit that controls a switch which cuts off the supply of power to the electric motor when the sensor senses freezing temperatures. U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,963, dated Sep. 28, 1993, to Eldon Hostetler, et al, details a "Flush Apparatus For Watering Systems" including a bypass of the upstream pressure regulator, self-sealing caps for the standpipes and a readity-disassembleable automatic flush valve provided in the end of the water suppy line. A shutoff valve provided in the bypass is operable manually or automatically in response to a timer, environmental sensor or water condition sensor. The automatic flush valve connects the supply line with a drain hose and opens in response to a predetermined water pressure level in the supply line.
An object of this invention is to provide a pressure coupling for facilitating quick and easy attachment of an air pump with a water faucet to allow the evacuation of water from water pipes connected to the faucet by pumping air through the pipes.
Another object of this invention is to provide a pressure coupling characterized by a valve stem threadably seated in a metal cap for threadable attachment to a water faucet, which valve stem is adapted for removable attachment to an air hose connected to a manual or automatic air pump for forcing air through the coupling, water faucet and water pipes connected to the faucet and expelling water from the pipes through additional, open water faucets also connected with the pipes.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a pressure coupling for accommodating unidirectional flow of pressurized air from an air pump and into a water faucet, which pressure coupling is characterized by a metal cap including a cylindrical cavity having multiple, interior cavity threads for engaging faucet threads provided on the exterior of a faucet spout and a valve stem removably threadably mounted in the coupling cap and threadably attachable to an air hose connected to the air pump, such that by operation of the air pump air is forced through the hose, coupling, faucet and water pipes connected to the faucet to expel water from the pipes and thus prevent the water from freezing and breaking the pipes in freezing weather.

Pressure coupling for cleaning water lines


A home cloud gateway apparatus that is connected to an indoor home network and that provides a service to a client that connects through the network includes an Internet interface unit, a phone exchange unit, a storage unit that stores a virtual computer module, and an authentication processor. The home cloud gateway apparatus provides a virtual computer service by activating the virtualization module that is stored at the storage unit, and provides a phone call service through the Internet and a phone call service through the Internet and a phone network using the Internet interface unit and the phone exchange unit.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home cloud gateway apparatus for a multi-service and a method of providing a service using the same.
(b) Description of the Related Art
With the development of wireless communication, communication technology has been rapidly developed to a step of connecting each home with a network via an increase in a speed of a subscriber access network. While enabling data transmission between apparatuses and data transmission to an external communication apparatus by connecting indoor electronic devices and apparatuses that can perform communication and enabling remote access to indoor apparatuses from the outside and control of the indoor apparatuses, a home network indicates all technologies that provide a bi-directional communication service environment.
In order to provide various services through a home network, by providing information sharing and service interlock between indoor apparatuses, a virtual home network in which a networking range is extended to a public network has been developed. However, apparatuses for substantially providing a service through an indoor communication apparatus are individually provided on a service basis. For example, in order to provide a wireless Internet service, an access point (AP) should be installed, and for a satellite television service, a set-top box should be installed. Further, in order to use a personal computer (PC) function indoors, a separate computer should be installed. Accordingly, a cost for separately installing, maintaining, and managing apparatuses for each service increases, and integration management of each apparatuses is not easy.
In addition, nowadays, as a smart phone is widely used, an information technology (IT) environment changes and thus a request for various operation software (OS) increases, and a hardware apparatus (e.g., a PC) that can support the request is requested and thus an economic burden increases.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Home cloud gateway apparatus for multi-service and method of providing service using the same

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


A procedure for detecting microparticles released by at least one dispenser, encompassing the following steps: (a) triggering the dispenser over an oscillation target (20) with a sensor material (21), so that at least one microparticle hits the sensor material (21) and excites an acoustic wave, (b) detecting the acoustic wave with at least one oscillation sensor (31) connected with the sensor material (21), which emits an electrical sensor signal when the acoustic wave arrives, and (c) evaluating the sensor signal to determine the impact of the microparticle. The procedure is aimed at detecting the impact and/or impact positions of microparticles on a target. A detector for executing the procedure is also described.

The invention relates to a procedure for acoustically detecting microparticles, in particular for determining the appearance and/or positions of dispensed microparticles or for detecting the orientations of dispensers of a microparticle dispensing head, in particular for calibrating dispenser heads. The invention also relates to a procedure for executing such procedures, in particular to a detector for detecting the impact and/or impact position of microparticles released from a dispenser head.
It is generally known to place the smallest amounts of solid and/or liquid substances on a substrate with a microdispenser in the form of drops or solid particles (hereinafter generally referred to as microparticles). The microdispenser is used to apply defined volumes on the substrate at predetermined positions. A microdispenser can have a dispenser head with several dispensers, for example to position various substances on the substrate.
The microparticles released by a dispenser are generally so small that the function of a dispenser cannot be visually checked either qualitatively or quantitatively. However, malfunctions are extremely disadvantageous, since samples or reactants might inadvertently not be made to interact on substrates in the desired manner, for example during applications in biotechnology and genetic engineering. Therefore, there is interest in having a reliable measuring system with which the microparticles released by dispensers can be recorded.
There is also an interest in placing the samples or reactants on substrates with an extremely high surface density for the mentioned applications in biotechnology and genetic engineering. In addition to high accuracy and reproducibility for dispenser head positioning, this also requires knowledge of where the dispensed microparticles impact the substrate. Experience shows that the relative positions of the impact points do not correlate with the relative positions of the dispensers on the dispenser head. PCT/EP98/07559 describes this problem and various techniques for its resolution.
In earlier optical dispenser head calibrations performed with stroboscopic procedures, a new calibration principle was established by the technique underlying Patent Application PCT/EP98/07558. In this case, a dispenser head is repeatedly traversed over an optical or electroacoustic interaction area with linear borders while microparticles are released, and the impact of dispensed microparticles on the borders is detected. The impact times and geometric properties of the linear borders are used to determine the relative impact positions of the individual dispensers. This calibration technique offers the advantages of complete automation, high speed and reliability. However, the disadvantage to this technique is that the dispenser head must be repeatedly moved, or the accompanying system of coordinates must be activated repeatedly. In addition to the accuracy, this restricts primarily the speed of calibration.
There is interest in increasing the surface density of the samples applied to a substrate. This placed higher demands in particular on the accuracy of the dispensing head calibration.
The object of the invention is to indicate an improved procedure for microparticle detection, with which disposed microparticles can be recorded and/or localized at a higher rate and precision, and in particular which enables a functional check and/or calibration of dispenser head with an elevated accuracy and reproducibility. The object of the invention is also to indicate a detector for executing the mentioned procedure.
The invention is based on the idea of acoustically detecting the impact of a dispensed microparticle on a sensor target by having the microparticle impacting a sensor material (e.g., sensor film) of the sensor target trigger an acoustic wave that is detected with at least one sound converter. Depending on the application, the electric sound converter signal is evaluated only relative to the recording (detecting) of the microparticle or its localization.
In order to localize the microparticle, is it provided that the impact point (impact position) of at least one dispensed microparticle released by at least one dispenser be determined from the differences in run times required by an acoustic wave excited by the microparticles on the sensor material (e.g., stepped up sensor film) to pass from the impact position along at least three different predetermined paths to at least one oscillation or sound sensor (sound converter).
In a first embodiment of the invention aimed only at recording a dispensed microparticle, the acoustic wave is detected with at least one oscillation sensor connected with the sensor material, whose electrical sensor signal is evaluated for detecting the impact of the microparticle. To this end, the sensor signal is compared with a predetermined impact signal.
In a second embodiment of the invention also aimed at localizing a dispensed microparticle, the mentioned three paths are formed by a combination of at least two reflector elements and at least one oscillation sensor (or at least one reflector element and at least two oscillation sensors) on the sensor material (sensor film). The paths are the straight paths from the impact point directly to the oscillation sensor or from the impact point via the reflector elements to the oscillation sensor. In a third embodiment, at least three oscillation sensors are provided on the sensor material for particle localization. At least three straight paths are formed by the paths from the impact point directly to a respective oscillation sensor. The third embodiment is preferred due to a simplified setup and simplified signal evaluation.
The impact positions are determined from the run time differences as an absolute calculation, taking into account the known lengths of the paths and speeds of the acoustic waves, or as a relative determination by comparing the run time differences determined with various dispensers. In particular, the invention provides that the relative impact positions of dispensed microparticles from various dispensers of a dispenser head be determined by ascertaining reference run time differences for a reference dispenser of the dispenser head, and correlating the measured run time differences with the reference run time differences for all other dispensers of the dispensing head, and determining the relative impact positions from this.
The run time differences are preferably measured using a simple counting technique, for example by having one of the oscillation sensors where the surface wave is first detected emit a start signal to a counter, and having the remaining oscillation sensors emit a read signal to the counter on detection of the surface wave. The count differences each corresponding to the start and read signals are determined, and the run time differences are determined from this. The impact positions can be directly derived from the count differences. If a high-frequency counter module (counting rate in MHz range) is used as the counter, impact positions can be determined to within xcexcm accuracy.
Depending on the size of the oscillation target with the sensor material (sensor film or sensor film), the acoustic signals supplied following the impact of a microparticle can be determined for all dispensers of a dispenser head simultaneously, or for the individual dispensers in sequence (alternating with an adjustment movement of the dispenser head).
In particular, a detector according to the invention exhibits an oscillation target with a sensor material (especially with a clamped-on sensor film), with which reflector elements and at least one oscillation sensor are connected, depending on the embodiment. The oscillation sensors, which are preferably formed by capacitor microphones with oscillation couplers, or the reflector elements are spaced apart from each other.
According to a further preferred embodiment, the sensor foil is made from a piezoelectric material (piezoelectric foil). The oscillation sensors are formed by metallic layers which are deposited at predetermined positions on the foil. The metallic layers on the piezoelectric material fulfill the function of the above mentioned microphones.
The invention offers the following advantages. Microparticle detection according to the invention provides a direct monitoring and validation of dispenser function, e.g., during the manufacture of microdispensed substance grids. A robust, fast, highly precise and easily automatable dispenser head calibration is also enabled. The dispenser head to be calibrated does not have to be repeatedly moved over the oscillation target according to a specific path. It is enough to reproducibly set the dispenser as desired relative to the sensor film. While the dispensing procedure is in progress, the dispenser head must be moved. The relative positions of the impact points of dispensed microparticles can be determined with an accuracy of roughly 10 xcexcm (or under down to the 100 nm range). The acoustic particle detection takes place with a minimal evaluation time.

Procedure and device for acoustically detecting microparticles


Methods and systems are disclosed for enriching a viewing experience of a user watching video content on a screen of a client terminal by increasing the relevance of additional media content proposed or provided to the user. Disambiguation of named entities detected in a video content item being played is performed by identifying and accessing an information source directly associated with the video content item, and/or by analyzing visual content of a segment of the video content item. Selecting, proposing and/or providing an additional media content item is based on the information source and/or on the analyzing.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a well-known technology field which deals with analysis and understanding of natural language texts by computers. Extensive research is already going on in this field for several decades and good progress had been achieved, even though there is still much to be improved until computers will get close to humans in understanding free and general-purpose texts.
A specific topic within the NLP field is Named Entity Recognition (NER). A named entity may be a real-world object, such as a person, a location, an organization, a product, etc., that can be denoted with a proper name. It can be abstract or have a physical existence. Examples of named entities include Barack Obama, New York City, Volkswagen Golf, and anything else that can be named. Named entities can simply be viewed as instances of classes of entities (e.g., New York City is an instance of a city). Many natural language sentences contain named entities, and understanding such sentence requires (i) identifying the existence of named entities, and (ii) for each term identified to be a named entity, finding what does that named entity refer to.
For example, in order to correctly understand the sentence "I am familiar with New Jersey" a computer must detect that the word "Jersey" is part of the named entity "New Jersey" (a state of the US) and does not refer to its stand-alone meaning of "knitted clothing". One may argue that the fact that in the above example Jersey starts with a capital letter makes the task trivial. However, it should be remembered that in many cases the text to analyze is received from a speech-to-text automatic converter, where no capital letters can be known. Additionally, not all languages capitalize first letters of names as English does. If the above sentence would be written in Hebrew, there would be no detectable difference between the two interpretations of "Jersey" Similarly, in a language such as German wherein all nouns are capitalized (and not just 'proper nouns' as in English), there would be no detectable difference between two interpretations of any given noun that has an everyday meaning in addition to its meaning as a named entity.
Much research has gone into solving the Named Entity Recognition task and reasonably good solutions exist. Typically, NER implementations make extensive use of a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a database or a knowledge base for identifying a term as a named entity and for extracting its meaning. Wikipedia is the most commonly used source that is used for that purpose, because of its large size and diversity of covered fields.
However, recognizing a term in a sentence to be a named entity does not always bring with it immediate understanding of what it refers to. Consider the sentence "I admire Washington". Prior art Named Entity Recognition systems should have no difficulty in identifying "Washington" to be a named entity, but will face difficulties when having to determine which entity the sentence refers to—(i) Washington D.C., (ii) Washington State, (iii) Washington Irving, (iv) George Washington, or (v) another person called Washington. The problem of distinguishing between multiple candidate interpretations of a given named entity is called Named Entity Disambiguation (NED).
As for the NER problem, much research was done for solving the NED problem. Several examples of such research papers are:    1. Gentile, A. L., Zhang, Z., Xia, L. and Iria, J., 2010, January. Semantic relatedness approach for named entity disambiguation. In Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries (pp. 137-148). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.    2. Hoffart, J., Seufert, S., Nguyen, D. B., Theobald, M. and Weikum, G., 2012, October. KORE: keyphrase overlap relatedness for entity disambiguation. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM international conference on Information and knowledge management (pp. 545-554).    3. Hoffart, J., 2015. Discovering and disambiguating named entities in text. Ph.D. thesis.    4. Mann, G. S. and Yarowsky, D., 2003, May. Unsupervised personal name disambiguation. In Proceedings of the seventh conference on Natural language learning at HLT-NAACL 2003-Volume 4 (pp. 33-40). Association for Computational Linguistics.            All of the four above documents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The issue of identifying the existence of a NED problem is straightforward—for example, a NER implementation that uses Wikipedia for identifying named entities can easily detect the existence of multiple Wikipedia pages referring to the same name. (Wikipedia actually provides an explicit "disambiguation page" for every name having multiple pages matching it, with the disambiguation page pointing to the different candidates for the name). The really difficult issue is determining which of the multiple candidates matching the same name is the one referred to in the analyzed text.
Prior art NED implementations use a variety of approaches. The simplest ones take their decision by looking only at the competing Wikipedia entries, without referring to additional inputs. For example, some NED systems determine which of the potential Wikipedia pages is most "popular" and pick it to be the intended meaning. Popularity of a given Wikipedia page can be determined, for example, by counting how many other Wikipedia pages contain a link pointing to the given page. Thus, in such NED systems the candidate Wikipedia page having the highest number of incoming links from other Wikipedia pages will always be selected for a given named entity.
More advanced NED systems do not always select the same candidate for all occurrences of a given named entity, but use the context in which the named entity appears in the analyzed text to customize the selection for each specific occurrence. The context of an occurrence of a named entity is typically taken to be the full sentence in which it appears, the full paragraph in which it appears, the full chapter in which it appears, or even the full document in which it appears. The competing Wikipedia pages are analyzed against the context of the named entity, and the "relatedness" between each of the competing pages and the context text is evaluated. The page found to be the most "related" to the context text is picked to be the intended interpretation of the named entity in its current occurrence.
"Relatedness" between two blocks of text obviously does not have a clear-cut measurement scale. Consequently, many algorithms were proposed in the research literature for measuring relatedness.
Some relatedness measuring algorithms are based on counting words that appear in both blocks.
Other relatedness algorithms are based on counting links from other blocks of text into the blocks whose relatedness is evaluated, working under the assumption that a third block containing links pointing to the two blocks whose relatedness is evaluated is a proof of a relation between them.
Other relatedness algorithms allocate different weights to different words, with some words contributing more to the relatedness when appearing in both text blocks. For example, words that appear in headers or in links may be considered more "important" and should contribute more, or words that appear multiple times in one or two of the compared text blocks should contribute more than words that appear only once in each block.
Going back to the NED disambiguation issue, the currently most advanced disambiguation algorithms use a semantic approach that takes into account the fact that there is usually some inter-dependence between multiple named entities appearing in the same context. When an analyzed block of text contains multiple ambiguous named entities, each having multiple candidates to select from, it is reasonable to assume the correct selections for the multiple named entities depend on each other. This is in contrast to all previously described disambiguation algorithms that deal separately with each ambiguous named entity and pick the most reasonable candidate for it independently of the disambiguation selections made for the other ambiguous named entities.
Ignoring inter-relations between adjacent ambiguous named entities may result in a clearly incorrect interpretation of the analyzed sentence, even when each one of the named entities in question is assigned its most reasonable interpretation. For example, a text about a football game may say "The game between Amsterdam and Barcelona will take place in Madrid". Each of the three named entities ("Amsterdam", "Barcelona" and "Madrid") is ambiguous—it may refer either to a city or to a football club associated with a city. As the text is known to be about football, most NED algorithms disambiguating each ambiguous named entity on its own will resolve all three named entities as referring to a football club, which is indeed the most reasonable decision for each of the three ambiguities. The analyzed sentence would then be assumed to mean "The game between Ajax Amsterdam and FC Barcelona will take place in Real Madrid," which is obviously wrong. Thus, ignoring the semantic relations between named entities might lead to easy-to-detect failures in disambiguation.
The semantic approach to NED resolves the multiple ambiguities of the above example by searching for solutions in a single joint vector space combining the possible selections for all three named entities. In this case, a solution vector has a length of three and the solution space has 2×2×2=8 possible values from which we can choose.
In some implementations of the semantic approach, the disambiguation is achieved using semantic relatedness scores obtained with a graph-based model, taking into account the semantic relationships between all named entities. For each Wikipedia page that is a candidate for one of the ambiguous named entities, a list of features is extracted—words in the page title, most frequently used words in the page, words from categories of the page, words from outgoing links in the page, etc. We then construct a graph whose nodes are the candidates and the features, and the graph is used for determining semantic relatedness. The easier it is to move on the graph between two nodes, the more related are the nodes. The entities disambiguation algorithm is then based on a random walk of the graph. Applying such a semantic NED algorithm to the above example should produce the correct interpretation of "The game between Ajax Amsterdam and FC Barcelona will take place in Madrid."
Most NED implementations of the prior art rely for the disambiguation task only on (i) entries of the dictionary, encyclopedia, database or knowledge-base in use (e.g. Wikipedia) corresponding to potential candidates for the ambiguous named entities, and (ii) the textual context of the ambiguous named entities, usually making use only of the other named entities appearing within the textual context, but in some implementations also making use of words in the textual context which are not named entities. At least one prior art NED implementation (KORE, see the second research paper listed above) adds another source of information for disambiguating an ambiguous named entity—Internet websites that are associated with the candidates for the ambiguous named entity. For example, if the candidate entity is a person, then we may use his Internet home page. If the candidate entity is a company, then we may use its Internet website. If the candidate entity is performer, then we may use his/her fan website.
The use of NLP is widespread and the technology is applied in many fields of use. Consequently, the use of NER and NED is also widespread, as practically all NLP implementations require named entities recognition and disambiguation.
For example, NED is widely used in understanding search queries. When a user asks Google's search engine "What is the height of Washington?" the search engine needs to determine what is the meaning of the named entity "Washington" in the query—does the question refer to the height of a person or to the level above sea level of a city.
Another use of NED is in the field of content enrichment for video content consumers. When a user watches video content (a movie, a program, a news broadcast, etc.) on a viewing device (a TV set, a laptop, a smartphone, a tablet, etc.) it is common to present to him recommendations for related video content or other related information he may be interested in watching. The related content may be other movies or programs dealing with similar topics, biographical information about people mentioned or seen in the watched content, etc.
In many cases, the determination of what enriching content to recommend to the user is derived from the text heard in the sound track of the currently watched content. That text is obtained either from the subtitles of the movie or program that are provided in the stream of the watched content, or from an automatic conversion of the spoken text as it is heard in the sound track into written text using a speech-to-text conversion engine. In the case of subtitles in old movies, the text might be burned into the video, in which case extracting it from the video may require OCR technology. Regardless of the way by which the analyzed text is obtained, NED may be required. For example, if the text contains the named entity "Washington" there is a need to know if this refers to Washington State, Washington D.C. or George Washington. This determination will decide whether the TV system will recommend to the user the movie "Disclosure" (which was filmed in Washington State and takes place in Washington State), the TV series House of Cards (which takes place in Washington D.C.) or a documentary about George Washington.
The success rate of prior art NED implementations is not satisfactory. Even a success rate of 85% is considered to be very good (see the Hoffart Ph.D. thesis mentioned above). This is certainly not good enough for many real-world applications. A TV user may become highly frustrated when 15% of the recommendations he gets from his TV system turn out to be completely non-related to what he is currently watching.
Therefore, there is clearly a need for NED implementations that provide better success rates than what is achievable with prior art NED solutions.
The following United States published patent applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety: United States Patent Publication 20170161367, United States Patent Publication 20170153782, United States Patent Publication 20170147924, United States Patent Publication 20170147635, United States Patent Publication 20170147557, United States Patent Publication 20170124065, United States Patent Publication 20170060835, United States Patent Publication 20170039272, United States Patent Publication 20170011092, United States Patent Publication 20160335234, United States Patent Publication 20160306984, United States Patent Publication 20160306789, United States Patent Publication 20160275148, United States Patent Publication 20160203130, United States Patent Publication 20160188597, United States Patent Publication 20160124937, United States Patent Publication 20160117360, United States Patent Publication 20160110350, United States Patent Publication 20160085740, United States Patent Publication 20160078245, United States Patent Publication 20160055845, United States Patent Publication 20160048655, United States Patent Publication 20160012040, United States Patent Publication 20160012021, United States Patent Publication 20160012020, United States Patent Publication 20150332049, United States Patent Publication 20150331850, United States Patent Publication 20150286629, United States Patent Publication 20150269139, United States Patent Publication 20150161237, United States Patent Publication 20150095306, United States Patent Publication 20150081281, United States Patent Publication 20140337372, United States Patent Publication 20140316768, United States Patent Publication 20140297252, United States Patent Publication 20140282219, United States Patent Publication 20140214820, United States Patent Publication 20140195532, United States Patent Publication 20140142922, United States Patent Publication 20140136184, United States Patent Publication 20140101542, United States Patent Publication 20140074886, United States Patent Publication 20140046653, United States Patent Publication 20140039879, United States Patent Publication 20130346421, United States Patent Publication 20130311467, United States Patent Publication 20130275438, United States Patent Publication 20130238312, United States Patent Publication 20130198268, United States Patent Publication 20130173604, United States Patent Publication 20130166303, United States Patent Publication 20130080152, United States Patent Publication 20120324350, United States Patent Publication 20120271624, United States Patent Publication 20120203772, United States Patent Publication 20120117078, United States Patent Publication 20120102045, United States Patent Publication 20110258556, United States Patent Publication 20110246442, United States Patent Publication 20110246076, United States Patent Publication 20110225155, United States Patent Publication 20110125735, United States Patent Publication 20100235313, United States Patent Publication 20100185689, United States Patent Publication 20100145902, United States Patent Publication 20100145678, United States Patent Publication 20100076972, United States Patent Publication 20100004925, United States Patent Publication 20090319257, United States Patent Publication 20090204596, United States Patent Publication 20090192968, United States Patent Publication 20090164431, United States Patent Publication 20090157705, United States Patent Publication 20090144609, United States Patent Publication 20080319978, United States Patent Publication 20080301112, United States Patent Publication 20080208864, United States Patent Publication 20080154871, United States Patent Publication 20080126076, United States Patent Publication 20080071519, United States Patent Publication 20080065621, United States Patent Publication 20080040352, United States Patent Publication 20070233656, United States Patent Publication 20070214189, United States Patent Publication 20070106493, United States Patent Publication 20070067285, United States Patent Publication 20070016580, United States Patent Publication 20060247983, United States Patent Publication 20060149555, United States Patent Publication 20060136385, United States Patent Publication 20060136208, United States Patent Publication 20060136196, United States Patent Publication 20060010138, United States Patent Publication 20050251382, United States Patent Publication 20050216443, United States Patent Publication 20050080613, United States Patent Publication 20050049852, and United States Patent Publication 20030217052.

Named entity disambiguation for providing TV content enrichment


A method for imparting to a general purpose (CISC), or reduced instruction set (RISC), type of central processing unit (CPU; microprocessor) the characteristics and performance of an integer arithmetic digital signal processor (DSP) which executes instructions acting upon multiple ("S") data elements in parallel. The method is applicable to all finite mathematical computations wherein product and sum terms (for example) will never overflow "1/S" fraction of total word width. "S" need not be a multiple of two, but the method is most useful when it is, such as in algorithms containing "butterfly" type computations. It may be used to advantage in the implementation of all discrete orthogonal transforms, and may be generalized to any size CPU word (e.g.: 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, etc.) subject only to limits imposed by the range of vector spaces being handled. Specific applications include single and multiple dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform for image compression, and real and complex Fast Fourier Transform for coding of audio and similar time sequence data.

Most all technological undertakings can be understood and brought to fruition through mathematical analysis. Mathematical formulations and models of problems are used both to predict the outcome of an action and to infer the cause of an observation. Transform methods are often used to reduce the apparent complexity of these mathematical problems, and to take advantage of desirable properties of the restated problem. Everyday examples of very simple transformations include: converting from temperature measurement in degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Centigrade; and changing the description of a large circular groove, from center location and radius, to a chain of (x,y) coordinates so that a milling machine might be used to cut the groove.
Descriptions of complex systems (in fields as diverse as engineering, chemistry, biology, physiology, and economics) tend to give rise to differential equations, which in turn are often advantageously approached through the use of integral transforms. The more well-known integral transforms include the Fourier, Sine, Cosine, Laplace, Hankel, Hilbert, and Abel transforms. The Fourier Transform, for example, has the useful property of turning a convolution in the original function space into a multiplication in the transform domain: thus the behavior of an audio amplifier in response to an input signal, is more readily understood as the product of the signal spectrum and the amplifier frequency response (the transform of its time response), instead of the time convolution of the signal and amplifier transfer function.
Many data handling applications of commercial interest involve performing discrete transforms upon time dependent sequences of values at real-time rates. It is essential that the computation for an N-point transform be completed in less time than passes in the accumulation of another N-point collection of data. The decompression of transform-encoded video data streams, and the compression and decompression of audio signals are two prominent examples of applications wherein speed of transform computation has been of primary concern to designers. The general assumption of practitioners in the field has been that specialized, dedicated-function, electronic hardware must be utilized in such applications. Although it is well recognized that very high performance general computing platforms might provide the requisite speed, the high cost of such platforms prohibits the general utility of such an approach. Consequently, considerable effort has been expended on the reduction of hardware complexity.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,543 to Ligtenberg et al. is one such hardware implementation of a Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT hereinafter) with emphasis placed on the general simplification of the computations. U.S. Pat. No. 4,912,668 to Aubie et al. utilizes the regularity of the DCT algorithm disclosed by B. G. Lee in his paper entitled "A New Algorithm for the Discrete Cosine Transform", IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Vol. ASSP-32, pp. 1243-1245, Dec. 1984, in a direct hardware implementation of the calculations, to minimize the number of multipliers required.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,724 to Borgers et al. is an implementation derived from the DCT algorithms of W. Wang, and N. Suehiro and M. Hatori, with the higher complexity butterfly chains restated as sums of quadruples, thereby ensuring that no transform coefficient computation contained any chained multiplications. See the paper by N. Suehiro and M. Hatori entitled "Fast Algorithms for the DFT and Other Sinusoidal Transforms", IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Vol. ASSP-34, pp 642-644, June 1986. U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,574 to Duhamel essentially implements the B. G. Lee algorithm (1984), similar to Borgers, et al. but handles the required multiplications as serial arithmetic so as to avoid the explicit use of multipliers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,849,922, to Riolfo performs a direct (forward only) DCT computation, wherein restriction to transform coefficient resolution of 8-bits, makes it possible to effect data multiplication using simple shifts and adds of the data values when forming the partial products of the transform. U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,194 to Wilhelm approximates the transform coefficients with 3-bit resolution to allow very simple shift and add implementation of a dedicated eight-point by eight-point DCT. U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,465 to Knauer et al. uses a scrambling of the input and output vectors (see the paper of B. G. Lee entitled "Input and Output Index Mappings for a Prime-Factor-Decomposed Computation of Discrete Cosine Transform", IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Vol. ASSP-37, pp. 237-244, Feb. 1989) to arrive at a transform matrix with symmetries which minimize the number of table entries which must be used for a table look-up approach to multiplication.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method whereby a general purpose computing device, such as comprises the central processing unit of common, small scale (so-called personal, portable, desktop, and so forth), computers, can perform discrete transform computations with adequate speed, so as to obviate the need for specialized electronic hardware, for many time-critical transform applications. One specific example of such a need is in connection with the real-time presentation of video image sequences which are retrieved in compressed form from a digital storage medium or a network communication medium.

Fast inverse discrete transform using subwords for decompression of information


Knowledge inference apparatus and method to determine emerging industrial trends and adapt strategic reasoning thereof are provided. In some aspects, user data, user stimulus-responses and user tracked data is received at a knowledge inference apparatus from multiple compute devices. The knowledge inference apparatus can generate compressed multidimensional profiles corresponding to multiple users and infer based on the received data, and the compressed multidimensional profiles multiple emerging trends developing in an industry. In some other aspects, the knowledge inference apparatus can further develop individualized strategic information for the multiple users to adequately respond to the inferred emerging trends.

Emerging industrial trends can occur rapidly sometimes leaving little or no time for individuals to adequately strategize and adapt to a new trend. Sometimes when individuals are not timely aware of an emerging trend they may react inadequately missing critical industry and professional development opportunities. Additionally, some individuals may have unfounded perceptions of their own strengths and weaknesses. The combination of untimely detection of emerging trends and individuals' misperceptions of their personality traits and abilities can inhibit changes to their customary behaviors. In some instances, the adoption of new behavioral changes may be highly desirable for an individual or group of individuals to adapt and professionally survive in a particular industry. Thus, needs exists for technologies to timely and reliably detect emerging industrial trends and accordingly provide customized strategic information to individuals so they can adjust their behavioral patterns according to new environmental demands.

Knowledge inference apparatus and methods to determine emerging industrial trends and adapt strategic reasoning thereof


A method of updating a data entry stored on a data storage unit, the data entry including data elements that are unique to the data storage unit and the data entry, may begin with generating, at the data storage unit, an update request that includes the data entry for transmission to an authority authorized to update the data entry. The authority then extracts extracting at the authority the unique data elements from the update request and verifies the authenticity of the data storage unit and data entry from the unique data elements. The authority then generates an updated data entry including a further data element unique to the updated data entry and derived from the updated data. The authority then transmits the updated data entry to the data storage unit. The method may then include storing the updated data entry on the data storage unit.

It is increasingly common for more and more information to be stored electronically, rather than, as in the past, on physical records. It is also increasingly common for such information to be stored in a distributed fashion rather than at a single, or small number of, central locations. For example, information concerning individual items of equipment, such as service histories, are increasingly being maintained electronically by means of local memory devices physically attached to the equipment. An example of a suitable memory device for this application is the "Memory Spot" developed by the current applicant, which includes an electronic memory, a data processor and communication means integrated onto a single silicon chip. The local electronic memory can be updated whenever an action is performed on the piece of equipment, such as the replacement of a part or the completion of a routine maintenance action.
The use of local electronic memory is also increasingly common in applications where the stored data is preferably either maintained or verified by an issuing authority. For example, in the previous example the replacement of a part for a particular piece of equipment may be required to maintain the manufacturer warranty conditions and its replacement must therefore be verified in some manner by the authority providing the warranty, such as the manufacturer, so that they can be confident that the warranty conditions have been met by the equipment owner or user. Where such records were previously maintained centrally the act of updating the record itself could be performed by the issuing authority. However, where the information is stored electronically locally, an alternative method of either updating or verifying the information must be found. A further example of this requirement is the update of certain officially issued personal documents, such as a driving licence, identity card or passport. Previously where such documents were issued as physical documents any change of information, such as a change of the owner's address details or the addition or deletion of information such as driving licence endorsements, required the return of the physical document to the issuing authority for updates or and subsequent issue of a new, updated, physical document. As progress is made to replace such documents with electronic versions, such as smart cards, it is desirable for the information held on such electronic documents to be updated by the issuing authority without the physical return of the electronic document to that authority, yet for the data update to be performed to the satisfaction of the issuing authority.
Generally speaking, the increased use of locally stored data also increases the danger of that data quickly going out of date or loosing its synchronisation with a corresponding data record held by a relevant authority.

Updating data entries stored on a data storage unit from an authority

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


The water-insoluble filler in the form of bubbles is provided into the underground cavern. Then, the filler thus provided is allowed to adhere to a bottom surface and a lower wall surface of the underground cavern to permeate thereinto. Subsequently, the filler having permeated is cured. Here, the water-insoluble filler in the form of bubbles may be provided again into the underground cavern. Moreover, water is poured into the underground cavern to float up the filler. The filler having floated up is allowed to adhere to an upper wall surface and a ceiling surface of the underground cavern to permeate thereinto. Thereafter, the filler having permeated is cured. Here, when the filler is allowed to permeate an inner surface of the underground cavern, a pressure inside the underground cavern may be increased. Additionally, when the filler is cured, a temperature inside the underground cavern may be increased.

Humans need energy to live in society. Indeed, various forms of energy are used in daily life. Electrical energy is a typical example among those forms of energy. To those who consume electrical energy, the way to use electricity (consume power) considerably fluctuates even during a day. To those who generate electricity, on the other hand, continuous operation of a large-scale power station at a constant level is efficient, and it is difficult to synchronize at short intervals with the small daily fluctuations in power consumption.
In addition to the above, various methods of using natural energy such as wind power, sunlight, wave power, and geothermal energy are under discussion and consideration, but often, electricity generation by natural energy does not match the needs of a human society.
In order to fill the gap described above, techniques of storing energy are required. The "CAES" is one of such methods.
The technique CAES is a system in which power generated during midnight at a gas turbine power station is used to store high-pressure air into a reservoir, for example, an underground cavern or a seabed tank in the form of pressure potential, and electricity is generated by use of the stored high-pressure air when the power consumption is high during the daytime.
Regarding the electricity generation systems using compressed air energy storage, reports are presented by the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (incorporated foundation) (see Non-patent Literatures 1 and 2).                Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is implemented in Germany and the United States.        In these countries, compressed air is stored underground in halite layers.        In Japan, which has no halite layers, a possible way is to dig an underground cavern or to install a storage tank on the seabed.        The efficiency of the CAES is currently inferior to that of superconductivity but is superior to that of pumped-storage hydroelectricity. Technological advancements in the future may bring the efficiency of the CAES near the level of superconductivity.        At the current level of technology, it is possible to dig out a cavern for the CAES in hard rock, but there are problems with digging out soft rock and installing a seabed tank.        The CAES for a cavern in hard rock is, under favorable conditions, economically competitive against the pumped-storage hydroelectricity and LNG-combined cycle electricity generation.        Other storage methods require technological development which enhances economic efficiency.        If all fossil-fuel power stations were to be replaced with CAES's, 55% of the current amount of fuel consumption could be saved.        If the CAES could be implemented in the underground soft rock of the suburbs of a large city, problems as with installation of power cables would be alleviated, and the CAES would provide distributed generation in the city.        As of 1990, programs for compressed air storage gas turbine electricity generation listed countries such as Germany (former West Germany), Italy, the United States, Ukraine (the former Soviet Union), France, Luxembourg, and Japan, and halite layers are often designated. Since Japan has no halite layers, however, digging of a cavern in bedrock is planned to be conducted.        In an example of operation, which is under way in Germany, a cylindrical cavern is formed in a halite layer, and it measures 55 m in diameter and 150 m in length.        The compressed air storage is divided into two, namely, variable-pressure storage and constant-pressure storage, and their storage volumes vary depending on the storage pressure. The constant-pressure storage can reduce the storage volume. In comparison with the pumped-storage hydroelectricity, for example, the pressure potential of air of 80 atm with volume 1 m3 equals the potential energy of water of 1 m3 lifted to the height of 810 m.        In order to achieve, for example, 10 hours of electricity generation at 100,000 kW using an existing gas turbine in the case of the constant-pressure storage, the storage volume necessary for the electricity generation is calculated to 140,000 m3 for storage at 30 atm, and 84,000 m3 for storage at 50 atm.
As described above, at a constant pressure, it is advantageous to store compressed air at high pressure (high storage pressure) since the storage volume is small. Conversely stated, in a cavern where there is leakage of air, the storage pressure decreases and loss is incurred despite a large amount of civil engineering operation. Some countries create and make practical use of caverns for storage of compressed air in halite layers, but Japan has no halite layers with such favorable conditions, but rather, weak strata of earth with many faults. Hence, it is necessary to develop a technique capable of creating a cavern for the storage of the compressed air without the leakage of air even in such strata of earth.
Given the circumstances, regarding the making of an underground cavern, there has been proposed a method of making a seal layer with a predetermined thickness along an inner wall of a storage space by: placing a flexible water-tight balloon inside the storage space, then providing a filler between the balloon and the storage space and supplying pressurized water inside the balloon, and curing the filler provided between the balloon and the storage space, as a method capable of effectively filling numerous cracks in the inner wall of the storage space (see Patent Literature 1).
Since the underground cavern used in the CAES is very large, however, it is troublesome to place the balloon inside the underground cavern and make the seal layer along the inner wall of the underground cavern which serves as the storage space for the compressed air, not to mention the manufacturing and the preparing of the balloon fitted to the inner shape of the underground cavern.

Method of preventing leakage of air inside underground cavern


A wiring board includes: a first insulating layer; a first wiring layer formed on a lower surface of the first insulating layer; a first through hole which penetrates the first insulating layer; a first via wiring including: a filling portion formed to fill the first through hole; and a protruding portion protruding upward from an upper surface of the first insulating layer; a second wiring layer including a land, wherein the land includes an outer circumferential portion and a central portion, a second insulating layer formed on the upper surface of the first insulating layer; a second through hole which penetrates the second insulating layer in the thickness direction; a second via wiring formed to fill the second through hole; and a third wiring layer formed on an upper surface of the second insulating layer.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a wiring board and a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
As wiring boards for mounting electronic components such as semiconductor chips thereon, wiring boards having various shapes and structures have been proposed. For example, there has been known a wiring board which has a structure in which an internal wiring layer is centered, insulating layers are formed respectively on opposite upper and lower sides of the internal wiring layer, and via wirings formed respectively in the insulating layers are connected to the internal wiring layer (e.g. see JP-A-2011-134957). Lands for securing conduction to the respective via wirings on the opposite upper and lower sides are formed on the internal wiring layer.
In recent years, a demand for micronization and density increase of wirings in a wiring board on which a semiconductor chip can be mounted has risen in accordance with higher integration and higher functionality of the semiconductor chip. However, when each land of the internal wiring layer is formed to have a smaller planar shape and each via wiring is formed to have a smaller diameter in the aforementioned wiring board, connection reliability between the land and the via wiring may be lowered.


An extruder screw that enables mixing of viscous materials, such as rubber mixtures and thermoplastic materials, is disclosed. The screw includes a core extending from a sealing end to a nose cone end. At least one flight extends radially from the core in a quasi-helical pattern, wherein flights adjacent one another form channels therebetween. A plurality of elongate lugs extend radially from the core and are disposed in the channels. The shape as well as the number of lugs can be varied to ensure the requirements for a thorough and turbulent deflection and mixing of the material stream.

It is known in the art of processing or mixing highly viscous materials, such as rubber, to subject the material to a kneading and blending in an extruder having a screw rotating inside a housing section. The screw can have a single flight or a plurality of flights of the screw thread. The pitch or lead of any flight as well as the depth of the screw channel between the flights can be constant or variable. In the method, different mixing means are used to achieve a satisfactory blending of the material during its feed along the screw.
It is for instance known to change the lead or pitch of the screw flights at periodic or variable intervals or to interpolate reversibly directed flights of the screw threads or to interrupt the thread of the screw by gaps. As the screw rotates, the material is directed into vortex-like patterns that bring about a blending of the various and irregular flow paths caused by these mixing means.
Although prior art extruder screws have used pins or ramps between screw flights to facilitate mixing, these embodiments have still been found to be somewhat limited in their ability to fully mix the rubber material. Accordingly, there is a need in the art to provide an extruder screw with lugs that permit mixing of rubber or other polymeric material while still allowing the material to flow easily through the housing section without adversely affecting the material's flow rate or the molecular structure of the material.


A source of radiation is detected by an optical scanning system including a otating mirror and an array of V-shaped detector elements. The detectors are arranged in vertically stacked pairs in a common plane, with the time of travel of a target image between a given pair of detectors determining the azimuth and elevation coordinates of the target. Signals from the detectors are amplified, filtered and passed through a processor which provides the desired information from the time and spatial relationships of the target and detectors. Each pair of detectors covers a given sector of the elevation angle scanned by the total array.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to radiation detection devices and particularly to a system for locating a source of radiation in both azimuth and elevation with a high degree of resolution.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Present systems for detecting and locating radiation sources are somewhat complex, require a plurality of separate detectors, and have limited resolution capability for scanning in the elevation direction. An example of a known device is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,101 issued Nov. 16, 1976, wherein a pair of individual spaced detectors is used to obtain location and spectral information from a point source of optical radiation.

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


A new and distinct Echinacea plant named ‘TNECHPG’ is provided, characterized by soft orange to soft pink multicolored flowers, an amazing number of inflorescences starting in the first season, a very compact habit, very long bloom time with excellent rebloom, ray florets held horizontally, and excellent vigor.

The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Echinacea and given the cultivar name 'TNECHPG'. Echinacea is in the family Asteraceae. The new cultivar is part of a planned breeding program for a landscape series with very compact habits and profuse inflorescences. The exact parents of this selection are unknown, unnamed, proprietary interspecific hybrids bred from Echinacea paradoxa, Echinacea purpurea, and Echinacea tennesseensis.
Compared to Echinacea 'Big Kahuna' (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 26,159), the new cultivar is much shorter and the inflorescences are smaller.
This new Echinacea cultivar is uniquely distinguished by:                1. soft orange to soft pink multicolored ray florets,        2. an amazing number of inflorescences starting in the first season,        3. a very compact habit,        4. very long bloom time with excellent rebloom,        5. ray florets held horizontally, and        6. excellent vigor.
This new cultivar has been reproduced only by asexual propagation (division and tissue culture). Each of the progeny exhibits identical characteristics to the original plant. Asexual propagation by division and tissue culture using standard micropropagation techniques with terminal and lateral shoots, as done in Canby, Oreg., shows that the foregoing characteristics and distinctions come true to form and are established and transmitted through succeeding propagations. The present invention has not been evaluated under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary with variations in environment without a change in the genotype of the plant.


An image forming apparatus is provided with a developing unit for making a visible image out of an electrostatic latent image with use of developer. The apparatus has a determination unit for making a determination as to whether the developer is stored or not in the developing unit, a supply unit for supplying the developer from a bottle detachably provided to body of the apparatus to the developing unit, and a control unit for actuating supply operation by the supply unit when it is determined by the determination unit that no developer is stored in the developing unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to image forming apparatuses such as copying machine and laser printer, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus in which developer loading work conducted for a developing unit especially in setting up the apparatus is simplified.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to set up a copying machine and make initial adjustments of the copying machine at a service place, service men have used to visit the place to install the machine for users. Among the setting-up works, there is a loading work of developer, called "starter", to a developing unit. This work is to load a developing unit uniformly with developer (when it is of two component system, a mixed developer of toner and carrier) in a container and has been done by a service man who draws the developing unit out of body of the machine to load the same.
However, if such service men have to be sent to every installation place to set up a machine and make some adjustments, various costs involved in such works add to cost of the copying machine itself. This has been a great factor of an increased cost especially in the cases of low-price small-size machines.

Apparatus for initial set-up of developer unit in an image forming apparatus