A modified rocker assembly having an offset end is designed to be used in engine heads having an obstruction that would not allow a switching rocker arm to be used. The modified rocker assembly is described having an obstructed side and a non-obstructed side. The rocker assembly has an outer structure with a first end, and an inner rocker structure fitting within the outer structure, the inner structure also having a first end. The modified rocker assembly has an axle pivotally connecting the first ends of inner structure to the outer structure, such that the inner structure may rotate within the outer structure around the axle. At least one torsion spring on one side of axle, rotationally biases the inner structure relative to the outer structure. The outer structure, on the obstructed side as it extends from the second end toward the first end, is offset toward the non-obstructed side creating the first offset portion to provide additional clearance on the obstructed side. This design allows the modified rocker arm to fit into an engine head having an obstruction on its obstruction side.

Global environmental and economic concerns regarding increasing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission, the rising cost of energy worldwide, and demands for lower operating cost, are driving changes to legislative regulations and consumer demand. As these regulations and requirements become more stringent, advanced engine technologies must be developed and implemented to realize desired benefits.
FIG. 1B illustrates several valve train arrangements in use today. In both Type I (21) and Type II (22), arrangements, a cam shaft with one or more valve actuating lobes 30 is located above an engine valve 29 (overhead cam). In a Type I (21) valvetrain, the overhead cam lobe 30 directly drives the valve through a hydraulic lash adjuster (HLA) 812. In a Type II (22) valve train, an overhead cam lobe 30 drives a rocker arm 25, and the first end of the rocker arm pivots over an HLA 812, while the second end actuates the valve 29.
In Type III (23), the first end of the rocker arm 28 rides on and is positioned above a cam lobe 30 while the second end of the rocker arm 28 actuates the valve 29. As the cam lobe 30 rotates, the rocker arm pivots about a fixed shaft 31. An HLA 812 can be implemented between the valve 29 tip and the rocker arm 28.
In Type V (24), the cam lobe 30 indirectly drives the first end of the rocker arm 26 with a push rod 27. An HLA 812 is shown implemented between the cam lobe 30 and the push rod 27. The second end of the rocker arm 26 actuates the valve 29. As the cam lobe 30 rotates, the rocker arm pivots about a fixed shaft 31.
As FIG. 1A also illustrates, industry projections for Type II (22) valve trains in automotive engines, shown as a percentage of the overall market, are predicted to be the most common configuration produced by 2019.
Technologies focused on Type II (22) valve trains, that improve the overall efficiency of the gasoline engine by reducing friction, pumping, and thermal losses are being introduced to make the best use of the fuel within the engine. Some of these variable valve actuation (VVA) technologies have been introduced and documented.
A VVA device may be a variable valve lift (VVL) system, a cylinder deactivation (CDA) system such as that described U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/532,777, filed Jun. 25, 2012 "Single Lobe Deactivating Rocker Arm" hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, or other valve actuation system. As noted, these mechanisms are developed to improve performance, fuel economy, and/or reduce emissions of the engine. Several types of the VVA rocker arm assemblies include an inner rocker arm within an outer rocker arm that are biased together with torsion springs. A latch, when in the latched position causes both the inner and outer rocker arms to move as a single unit. When unlatched, the rocker arms are allowed to move independent of each other.
Switching rocker arms allow for control of valve actuation by alternating between latched and unlatched states, usually involving the inner arm and outer arm, as described above. In some circumstances, these arms engage different cam lobes, such as low-lift lobes, high-lift lobes, and no-lift lobes. Mechanisms are required for switching rocker arm modes in a manner suited for operation of internal combustion engines. Rocker arms that are driven by a camshaft to actuate the cylinder intake and exhaust valves are typically mounted on the cylinder head. There are structures extending from the cylinder head such as cam towers to secure the camshafts in an overhead cam design. There are also spark plug tubes that extend upward from the top of each cylinder through the head to receive spark plugs.
As described above, some embodiments of VVA switching rocker arm assemblies include a rocker arm within a rocker arm that are biased together with a spring on either side. Since the inner/outer arm design often employs a roller in the center to engage a cam lobe, it is advantageous to keep the roller the same width of the cam lobe. Therefore, the structures on either side of the roller add width to the rocker assembly causing it to be wider than original non-VVA rocker arms and too wide to fit certain cylinder head designs.
For example, some Type II engine heads employ cam towers that have a hydraulic lifter adjuster (HLA) near the centerline of the head and spark plug tubes that obstruct one side of a wide VVA switching rocker arm assembly.
Many engine parts are designed by manufacturers to work with a specific cylinder head, making the cylinder head very difficult to modify because changes may impact many interrelated components, possibly increasing cost and causing assembly clearance issues.
One example of VVA technology used to alter operation and improve fuel economy in Type II gasoline engines is discrete variable valve lift (DVVL), also sometimes referred to as a DVVL switching rocker arm. DVVL works by limiting engine cylinder intake air flow with an engine valve that uses discrete valve lift states versus standard "part throttling". A second example is cylinder deactivation (CDA). Fuel economy can be improved by using CDA at partial load conditions in order to operate select combustion cylinders at higher loads while turning off other cylinders.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed a 4% improvement in fuel economy when using DVVL applied to various passenger car engines. An earlier report, sponsored by the United States Department of Energy lists the benefit of DVVL at 4.5% fuel economy improvement. Since automobiles spend most of their life at "part throttle" during normal cruising operation, a substantial fuel economy improvement can be realized when these throttling losses are minimized. For CDA, studies show a fuel economy gain, after considering the minor loss due to the deactivated cylinders, ranging between 2 and 14%.Currently, there is a need for VVA rocker arms for increased performance, economy and/or reduced emissions that fit specific engine head designs.

Custom VVA rocker arms for left hand and right hand orientations


This instant disclosure provides a control method for interleaved multiphase Boost PFC converter. The interleaved multiphase Boost PFC converter has a master phase and a plurality of slave phases, the master phase operates in the critical conduction mode, the master of each slave phase has an inductor and a power switch. The control method comprises, configuring the phase difference between each slave phase and the master phase; setting up each slave phase to operate in the critical conduction mode; monitoring the operating mode of each slave phase is in the continuous conducting mode, the discontinuous conducting mode, or the critical conduction mode when the system is disturbed; and adjusting the power switch on time of the slave phase according to the operating mode of the slave phase so as to make the slave phase return to operate in critical conduction mode.

1. Field of the Invention
The instant disclosure relates to a control method for a power converter; in particular, to a control device for multiphase interleaved DC-DC converter and control method thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
European Standard IEC 61000-3-2 limits the distortion of the current harmonics of the input current caused by the electrical equipment. In order to reduce the distortion of the current harmonics and achieve higher power factor, a boost converter is most utilized. The boost converter with a single phase is usually utilized for the circuit having power consumption less than 300 watts. For the circuit having power consumption larger than 300 watts, the current ripple rises fast, such that a large EMI filter is needed accordingly. The boost converter usually operates in critical conduction mode (CRM) for obtaining higher power converting efficiency. The peak of the inductor current is twice as large as the average current, thus the switching loss is less and the conduction loss is larger. When the output power ranges from 400 watts to 800 watts which is refer to medium power applications, the peak of the inductor current of the single phase CRM PFC converter would be too large, so as to result larger power loss, and it is not conducive to the component selection accordingly.
In order to take advantage of the critical conduction mode in high power applications, the multiphase interleaved boost power factor correction circuit operating in critical conduction mode has been extensively studied to decrease the peak value of the input current ripple.
However, the variation of the operation frequency of the multiphase interleaved boost power factor correction circuit operating in critical conduction mode is quite large, thus the design of the control circuit is relatively complicated. Conventionally, the interleaved control could be divided to the open-loop control and the close-loop control. Referring to Huber, L., Irving, B. T., Jovanovi{grave over (c)}, M. M., "Open-Loop Control Method for Interleaved DCM/CCM Boundary Boost PFC Converters," IEEE transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 1649-1657, July 2008, the open-loop interleaved boost power factor correction circuit operating in critical conduction mode cannot return to a stable operating state when the turn-on signal is disturbed unless that the circuit operates in synchronized turn-on current mode (SNCM). On the other hand, the close-loop control needs a phase detector which usually is implemented by a phase-lock-loop (PLL) circuit for adjusting the phase difference. However, referring to Chung Ping Ku, Dan Chen, and Chin Yuan Liu, "A novel SFVM control scheme for two-phase interleaved CCM/DCM boundary mode boost converter in power factor correction applications," in IEEE ECCE 2010, pp. 906-911, 12-16 Sep. 2010, the price of the phase-lock-loop circuit is expensive, the design of the phase-lock-loop circuit is more complex, meanwhile the phase-lock-loop circuit has bandwidth limitations.

Control device for multiphase interleaved DC-DC converter and control method thereof


A method of adjusting the engaged clearance between rotors of a screw compressor which has a male rotor and a female rotor inside a casing, both of the rotors being rotated while maintaining a required very small clearance using timing gears fixed individually to the rotors through shrink fitting, wherein the very small clearance between the rotors is set to a required value by loosening the shrink fitting between one of the timing gears and the rotor on which the one of the timing gears is mounted, while movement of the other of the timing gears is being restricted; and intermittently applying torques to the rotor on which the one of the timing gears is mounted using a servo motor. In this way, it is possible to obtain a screw compressor in which a very small clearance between the rotors can be set to a required value in a short time, and in which high reliability in the symmetrizing adjustment and a high compressing performance can be obtained.

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for adjusting the engaged clearance between rotors of a screw compressor comprising a male rotor and a female rotor inside a casing, both of the rotors being rotated, while maintaining a required very small clearance, by means of timing gears fixed individually to the rotors by a shrink fit, and more particularly relates to a method and an apparatus for adjusting the engaged clearance between rotor of a screw compressor for setting a very small clearance between both rotors to a desired value in a short time.
A conventional method of adjusting the clearance between rotors of a screw compressor is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-155089, where a very small clearance between the rotors is set using a rotating phase difference between male and female rotors as measured by an encoder or the like, under a condition in which one of the rotors is rotated in forward and backward directions, while the other of the rotors has a braking force applied thereto, under a state in which at least one of the timing gears is removed, which is referred to as a timing adjustment or symmetrizing adjustment.
The setting of a clearance is performed during the assembling process of the screw compressor. Oil hydraulic pressure is applied between one of the timing gears and the rotor on which the one of the timing gears is fixed to loosen the shrink fit between both elements while the movement of the other of the timing gears is being restricted. Then, relative positional displacement is produced between the one of the timing gears and the rotor to which the one of the timing gears is fixed by hitting the tooth surface of the one of the timing gears using a hammer, a shim (thickness gage) is inserted between the rotors to confirm whether the clearance between the rotors is at a required value (shim measurement), and the hammer hitting and the shim measurement are repeated to set the clearance between the rotors to the required value.
In the conventional method described above, there has been a problem in that not only does the shim measurement take a long time, since the setting of the clearance between the rotors (symmetrizing adjustment) is performed by hand, but also the reliability of the symmetrizing adjustment is low, since the accuracy of the symmetrizing adjustment is disturbed by the hammering, which depends on the skill of the worker, leading to rotor hitting or low performance of the compressor as a result.

Method for adjusting engaged clearance between rotors of screw compressor and apparatus therefor


To avoid burn in a scanning cathode ray tube, the address of the scanning spot at each clock period is recorded in a memory. During each frame period, the logarithms of the number of occurrences of each address are fed to a peak detector. The peak value is used to determine a maximum allowable beam current for the next frame. In another embodiment, the number of occurrences of each address during a line period is monitored and if this number exceeds a given number the CRT is blanked.

A problem with flying spot telecines and cathode ray tubes in general is burn. This is caused by the flying spot moving too slowly or stopping altogether at a point on the CRT face. The result is that the phosphor on the screen at this point is burnt which seriously degrades the response of that part of the screen.
We have appreciated that there are a number of types of fault or operating conditions which could lead to phosphur burn and which it would be desirable to protect against in high power cathode ray tubes such as telecine flying spot scanners.
A first situation occurs where there is a high concentration of beam energy on a single spot or scan location for a very short time; that is a few microseconds. A second situation is where there is a high concentration of beam energy in certain areas over longer periods of time; that is, a few milliseconds.


A method and apparatus for locating position of a GPS device is described. In one example, a method for provisioning a mobile device with a model for determining a position of the mobile device in at least one geographic area is provided. The method includes obtaining an estimate of the position of the mobile device, forming one or more satellite orbit models from the estimate and a wide area model, and sending the at least one satellite orbit model to the mobile device. The wide area model is formed from measurements from a plurality of satellites of a Global Positioning System, and the measurements are obtained by a plurality of reference stations.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile wireless devices as used in personal and asset location systems. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for utilizing the Global Position System (GPS) to locate objects over a large geographic region and to provide information or services related to a real time position of the object.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advent of the Global Positioning System (GPS), there is growing demand for mobile devices that can locate and track children, the elderly, emergency situations, tourists, security, valuable assets, and the like. Devices built using conventional GPS receivers have been developed by a number of companies. These current generation devices have major limitations in terms of indoor penetration, power consumption, accuracy, and acquisition time.
To address the above issues new GPS processing architectures have evolved that utilize a combination of mobile GPS receivers and fixed GPS infrastructure communicating via wireless links. Systems with this architecture collect the majority of the data for location using the fixed infrastructure and, compared to traditional GPS, are able to offer large improvements in accuracy, indoor penetration, acquisition time, and power consumption. Thus far, such systems are based upon a fixed site GPS receiver that is physically located in the local vicinity of the mobile receiver and are therefore difficult to extend to broad coverage areas without a large proliferation of fixed site GPS receivers. Furthermore, such systems require a wireless link that provides communication in real-time and therefore such systems cannot take advantage of non real-time messaging systems such as paging networks.
Thus there is a need for a GPS processing architecture and device technology that provides the benefits of improved accuracy, indoor penetration, acquisition time, and power consumption and also offers the capability to function over large geographic coverage areas without requiring a fixed site GPS receiver in the local vicinity of the mobile device. Furthermore, to take advantage of broad coverage messaging systems, the architecture should have the ability to operate over a link which is not real-time, i.e. a link where there is significant and possibly unknown message latency.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method and apparatus for locating position of a GPS device


An arc lamp igniter circuit (10) employs a resonant inverter circuit (16) to convert low-voltage DC to a relatively high-voltage, 80 kilohertz sinusoidal AC voltage that is rectified and voltage-doubled (42, 44, 46) to about 2,500 volts DC for repetitively charging an igniter capacitor (50) until it discharges through a spark gap (58) and a primary winding (54) of a compact, low-mass igniter transformer (52). A secondary winding (56) of the igniter transformer provides repetitive 20 kilovolt pulses, which are sufficient to ionize a metal halide arc lamp (14), causing it to ignite and produce intense illumination.

There are previously known apparatuses and methods for igniting arc lamps used in various applications requiring a bright light source, such as computer-generated image and slide projectors. In particular, prior igniter circuits discharge a capacitor through a spark gap that is electrically connected in series with the primary winding of a step-up transformer to produce a high-voltage pulse suitable for igniting a metal halide arc lamp.
Developing a sufficiently high voltage across the capacitor typically employs at least one of generating direct current ("DC") pulses, rectifying an alternating current ("AC") square wave, or rectifying a flyback voltage generated by an inductor. All such techniques employ relatively large and heavy magnetic components that are unduly inefficient because of parasitic winding capacitance and poor coupling between windings.
Image projectors are generally referred to as being ultra-portable if they are sufficiently small and lightweight to be carried by one. However, the above-described arc lamp igniter circuits typically have a mass of at least about 140 grams, making them one of the heaviest subassemblies employed in portable image projectors.
What is needed, therefore, is an efficient, low-mass, and compact arc lamp igniter circuit for use in "ultra-portable" projectors.


A capacitor (100) includes first and second electrodes (102, 103) that each have an electroactive material (115, 120) disposed on a metallic substrate (105, 110). A solid electrolyte (125) including a polyacid is positioned between the first and second electrodes (102, 103). Polyacids are relatively low in cost, and their high ionic conductivity together with their thermal stability makes polyacids a viable alternative to solid polymer electrolytes.

Electrochemical capacitors typically include outer substrates upon which electroactive material is disposed. Both outer substrates and electroactive material disposed thereon can be formed from equivalent materials, in which case the capacitor is "symmetrical", or different materials, in which case the capacitor is "asymmetrical." Each outer substrate and its corresponding electroactive material forms an electrode, and positioned between the two electrodes is an electrolyte that is ionically conductive and electrically insulative. In a multiple cell capacitor, several electrode and electrolyte layers can be formed between the two outer electrodes to provide the functionality of a plurality of capacitors within a single package.
It is desirable for solid electrolytes to be highly ionically conductive, stable at temperatures between 100 and 200.degree. Centigrade (C), minimally reactive, and low in cost. However, only a few known capacitor electrolytes, such as perfluorinated sulphonic membranes, e.g., Nafion by DuPont, and polybenzimidazoles (PBI), can be used at high temperatures, and these electrolytes are relatively expensive. Acid-doped solid electrolytes give good performance but are highly corrosive, requiring that current collectors used therewith be highly resistant to acid.
Thus, what is needed is an improved electrolyte for use in capacitors.

Electrochemical capacitor with solid electrolyte


Systems and techniques for propagating spot healing edits from a source image to a target image include receiving a source image depicting a face with a healing region and a target image depicting the face. The face is detected in the source image including detecting facial feature points in the source image. The face is identified in the target image including detecting facial feature points in the target image. Facial feature point correspondence is determined between the facial feature points of the source image in the facial feature points of the target image. Region correspondence is determined between regions of the source image and regions of the target image using the facial feature point correspondence. The healing region of the face in the source image is transformed to a corresponding region of the face in the target image using the region correspondence.

Photographers often find it very time consuming to apply the same set of edits on multiple images. Imagine a photographer capturing a large number of photographs at a party. At such an event, there will be a series of photographs in which every single photograph will contain largely the same group of people. Editing each one of these photographs independently would be very tedious and unproductive for the photographer.
To speed up this workflow of editing a series of photographs, current photo editing software products provide the ability to transfer the edits from one photograph to several other photographs. Users can edit just one image and then propagate the changes to the rest of making them look consistent and saving the time of manually duplicating edits to multiple similar images.
Though the workflow is powerful and helpful for the photographers, this workflow does not solve the problem entirely. Current implementations and techniques of these photo editing software products for transferring edits may work for regular edits like exposure and white balance, but they do not work well for transferring spot corrections, especially when it comes to healing facial imperfections.
In spot healing, the selection of the source patch and the target patch is driven by the image content and is highly likely to change across images. For example, a person's face may change its position. The face posture and expressions are also likely to vary across images. Therefore, existing techniques that simply use the same image region for applying spot corrections for source and target images can produce undesirable results. Similarly, techniques that allow a copy and paste of the spot healing changes from one image to another do not take into account the change of content across the images and therefore does not provide good or desirable results.
It is technically challenging to propagate the spot healing of an object in a source image to the same object in multiple target images, especially when the object in the multiple target images is different in one way or another from the object in the source image. For example, the object in the target images may be offset or angled or at a different distance from the object in the source image even though it is the same object in the source image and the target images. The change in orientation or rotation of the object in the target images presents technical challenges when attempting to propagate edits made to the object in the source image.
What is desired is a technical solution that will enable spot healing edits to be transferred from one image to multiple other images in a manner that provides desirable results across the images.

Propagation of spot healing edits from one image to multiple images


A processor arrangement is provided. The processor arrangement includes: a first processor; a plurality of second processors, each second processor including a bit-mask generator configured to generate a processor-specific bit-mask sequence; wherein the first processor includes a bit-mask generator configured to generate the processor-specific bit-mask sequences of the second processors; wherein the first processor is configured to bit-mask a data bit sequence to be transmitted to one second processor of the plurality of second processors using a processor-specific bit-mask sequence specific to the one second processor, to thereby generate a processor-specific bit-masked data sequence to be transmitted to the one second processor.

Smart cards may transmit data between a CPU core and peripherals via a bus system. The data must be protected against attacks such as spying. The data may for these purposes, be provided with a dynamic mask. A successful external attack on a peripheral may make it possible to manipulate the peripheral, for example through error induction, so that the peripheral may accept certain data not intended for this peripheral. Furthermore, the dynamic mask may be removed from the data. Therefore, it may be possible for an attacker, during the manipulation to watch the data. Up till now, no known practical methods of preventing this are known.

Processor arrangements and a method for transmitting a data bit sequence


A backup device in case of power failure comprises a device for continuing, when power failure is detected by a power failure detecting circuit during a recording operation, the recording operation by turning a switch on, and a device for turning the switch off when data which have been stored in both memories immediately before power fails and all data composing two blocks to which the data belong have been recorded on a recording medium, to stop the recording operation.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a backup device in case of power failure in an image recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An image recording apparatus for alternately writing an image picked up by a monitoring camera or its compressed data in two memories for each block, reading out, every time data corresponding to one block are written into the memory, the data from the memory into which the data corresponding to one block have been written, and recording the data read out on a recording medium has already been developed.
In such an image recording apparatus, when power fails during a recording operation, the data which have been stored in both the memories immediately before power fails are lost.

Backup device in case of power failure in image recording apparatus


An alignment apparatus for guiding a cutting element along a predetermined path, the apparatus including a frame for guiding the cutting element along the predetermined path; and an adjustable clamp assembly, connected to the frame, for clamping a bone such that an intramedullary canal of the clamped bone is disposed along the predetermined path.

In hip replacement surgery, a prosthesis is connected to the femur via cement or other adhesive material provided in the femoral canal. In hip replacement surgery in which a previously insert prosthesis is replaced (e.g., because the cement or adhesive has become weak), it is necessary to remove at least a part of the original cement or adhesive from the femoral canal. Loose fragments of the original cement or adhesive must be completely removed. Accordingly, at least some rechannelization of the femoral canal is necessary, and at least some reaming out of the old cement or adhesive is necessary to accommodate the new prosthesis. When reaming out the old cement or adhesive, it is essential that no damage be done to the canal or femoral shaft, since perforations may prevent adequate fixation of the new prosthesis or weaken the femur. Consequently, during the reaming operation, a guide device is needed so that the drill or other cutting element does not deviate from the drilling or cutting path, thereby preventing perforation or other trauma to the bone.
The following are examples of different alignment devices known in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,737 to Davey et al discloses a drill alignment apparatus which includes a housing handle having a drill shaft which extends therefrom along an axis, an alignment rod which is parallel to the drill shaft, and an alignment rod support which is connected between one end of the alignment rod and the housing handle. The Davey et al apparatus further includes a clamp having apertures for receiving the alignment rod. The clamp further includes "tines" for engaging the femur.
As indicated above, Davey et al discloses the use of "tines" for engaging the femur, and also discloses that a set or inventory tines be provided to accommodate various bone sizes. The "tines" disclosed in Davey et al correspond to a plate or a set of plates each having tines separated by varying distances. In this regard, the Davey et al apparatus is similar to the so-called "Charnley guide". In Davey et al, the tines of the set of plates vary to accommodate varying widths of bones. However, two disadvantages are attendant with the Davey et al and the so-called "Charnely guide". First, a relatively large inventory of different-sized plates are required in order to accommodate the various sizes of bones. Second, while a plate can be selected from the inventory of different plates for a particular bone, the selected plate usually does not provide a tight grip of the bone, thereby requiring the surgeon to constantly hold the plate against the bone so that the dill bit does not slip off of the bone or bounce off the hard cement and perforate softer surrounding bone.
Great Britain Patent No. 1,448,111 to Crabbe discloses a device for fixing bone fractures. Specifically, Crabbe discloses a device used to guide a pin for neck fractures of the femur. The device includes an L-shaped rod or tube having a sleeve for receiving a tubular shaft and a clamp having an arcuate section adapted to engage the head of a femoral neck. The Crabbe device is not suited to guide a drill to ream out the medullary canal or shaft.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,663 to Vandewalls discloses a femoral drill jig including a clamping mechanism including an operating arm, and a cross beam. The jig is used to center a cup over the ball of the femur, which is a procedure seldom used anymore.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,364,381 to Sher et al discloses a surgical clamp and drill-guide instrument including a C-clamp having a curved lower portion, an upright post, and an upper vice arm which extends from a central body portion located on the upright post. The instrument is used exclusively in the jaw for postioning dental implants.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,181,746 and 3,945,377 disclose bone clamps/drill guide devices which employ scissor-like clamps.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,502,475 to Weigle et al discloses a drill guide and clamping apparatus including an adjustable scissor-like assembly. The apparatus is used to align screw holes in plates used to fix broken fractured bones.

Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation University of Va. Medical Center, P.O. Box 159

Department of Rehab. Engineering, University of Virginia Medical Center, P.O. Box 346


An electrode for an electric double layer capacitor including a current collector electrode and an active substance carried on the current collector electrode, wherein the active substance is composed of a carbon-based fiber and a conductive polymer fiber formed by the electrospinning method, whereby a high capacity capacitor electrode having of a larger specific surface area than a conventional capacitor electrode and an electric double layer capacitor using the same is provided.

The activated carbon used for an electrode application in an electric double layer capacitor is produced by carbonizing, granulating and activating a material composed of carbon. The activated carbon has an extremely large number of pores. By forming an electrical double layer at the surface of these pores, electric power can be stored. However, an electric double layer capacitor has a smaller discharge capacity compared with a secondary battery. A further increase in the discharge capacity of electric double layer capacitors is therefore being needed. To increase the storage capacity density of an electric double layer capacitor using an activated carbon electrode, attempts have been made to increase the specific surface area of the activated carbon (i.e., a surface area per unit weight), but since the bulk density is reduced, it is difficult to increase the specific surface area over that of current products to increase the storage capacity density.
To solve the above problem, attempts have been made to utilize carbon nanofibers as the carbon material for the electrode material (see, for example, Patent Document 1). Carbon nanofibers form a network structure, and therefore the holes in the network act as pseudo pores and are effective for obtaining a large capacity, but these are bulky, and therefore, the electrode density is decreased and the capacity per volume is decreased. Further, carbon nanofibers are expensive, and therefore, an increase in cost of the electrodes is incurred. Further, attempts are made to use conductive polymer/porous carbon composites of activated carbon or another porous carbon material and a conductive polymer as an electrode to increase the storage capacity density of an electric double layer capacitor.
Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3 propose preparing a conductive polymer/porous carbon composite by the electrolytic polymerization method and using it as the polarizable electrode of an electric double layer capacitor and use a polyaniline/porous carbon composite as the electrode. According to these Patent Documents, there are the advantages that the specific electrostatic capacity is larger than the case of use of a conventional polarizable electrode and the internal resistance also becomes smaller. However, the electrolytic polymerization method has the problem that the area of the resultant electrode is limited, and therefore, polymerization over a large area is difficult and not practical. Further, Patent Document 4 proposes to chemically polymerize aniline in an aqueous solution in the presence of a porous carbon material to obtain a polyaniline/porous carbon composite and to use this as a polarizable electrode, but there is the problem that the resultant polyaniline/porous carbon composite has to be rinsed, and therefore, the operation becomes complicated. Further, Patent Document 5 proposes to mix an aqueous polyaniline sulfonic acid solution and porous carbon material, then distill off the water in vacuo to obtain a polyaniline/porous carbon composite and to use this as a polarizable electrode, but a polyaniline sulfonic acids is water soluble, and therefore, in a water-based electrolytic solution, the electrode would easily leach the polyaniline sulfonic acid, while in an organic solvent-based electrolytic solution, the affinity of the electrode with the electrolytic solution would be low and, furthermore, the water used at the time of production could not be completely removed from the electrode, and therefore, an electric double layer capacitor using an organic solvent-based electrolytic solution would have the problem of an inferior long term stability. Further, a polyaniline sulfonic acids have a sulfonic acid group at the side chain thereof, and therefore, there is also the problem that the withstand voltage of the electrode will becomes lower depending on the selected electrolytic solution.
Patent Document 6 proposes a battery electrode composed of polypyrrole, polypyridine, or another π-conjugated polymer including a nitrogen atom and a carbon material or other conductive aids. However, the battery electrode described in Patent Document 6 is a secondary battery electrode, the weight ratio of the π-conjugated polymer and a conductive aid is 70:30 to 97:3, and the main substance is the π-conjugated polymer. Further, since the main component substance of the electrode agent is a π-conjugated polymer, when making the film thickness of the electrode 50 μm or more, there is also the problem that cracks etc. occur on the electrode surface and the electrode will not sufficiently function. Further, when using polypyridine or another π-conjugated polymer including a nitrogen atom together with a carbon material and the content of the carbon material is greater than that of the π-conjugated polymer, it will function in the same way as the polyaniline as a capacitor electrode material. By the combined use with a π-conjugated polymer, the electrostatic capacity was improved, compared with an electrode composed of only a carbon material, but it was not necessarily satisfactory.
Patent Document 7 discloses a method for producing a vinyl-based conductive polymer fiber by the electrospinning method, but has no description relating to an electrode material for a capacitor. Further, a polyparaphenylene vinylene or other vinyl-based conductive polymer has a lower conductivity than other π-conjugated polymers and is insufficient in performance as an electrode material for a capacitor. Patent Document 8 discloses a solar battery electrode formed from a mixture of a conductive polymer and a carbon nanotube by the electrospinning method, but no detailed and specific examples relating to a conductive polymer and a carbon nanotube are shown. Patent Document 9 also discloses a solar battery electrode obtained by the electrospinning method, but this is an electrode composed of only a carbon material.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2004-193443
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 7-201676
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2002-25868
Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2002-25865
Patent Document 5: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2003-17370
Patent Document 6: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2000-82467
Patent Document 7: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2005-330624
Patent Document 8: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2006-216562
Patent Document 9: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 2006-331790

Electrode for capacitor and electric double layer capacitor using the same


An efficient input/output (I/O) retry method which can be implemented in an enterprise-server configured with QDIO. The method can include attempting a QDIO-based data transfer between outbound and inbound queues in respective sending and target LPARs in the enterprise server. Responsive to detecting a busy condition resulting from the attempt; it can be determined whether the busy condition arose from an asynchronous busy condition. If it is determined that the busy condition arose from an asynchronous busy condition in the target LPAR, any attempt to retry the QDIO-based data transfer can be delayed. Subsequent to the delay, the QDIO-based data transfer can be re-attempted.

1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to enterprise server interprocess communications and more particularly to internal queued direct input/output (QDIO).
2. Description of the Related Art
For twenty-six years, the parallel channel fulfilled the role as the sole enterprise server attachment interface. At its introduction, the parallel channel supported a maximum bandwidth of 2.5 Megabytes (MB) per second which ultimately grew to 4.5 MB/second. In the parallel input/output (I/O) infrastructure, a proprietary controller functioned as a wire concentrator for dumb terminals attached to the interface through coaxial cable links. As the parallel I/O infrastructure reached its limitations, however, in its ability to support large system images, high availability, flexible connectivity, configuration management, and performance, IBM Corporation of Armonk, New York introduced ESCON™ technology as a new I/O interconnection architecture supporting a new topology for high-speed, long distance data exchange.
When IBM Corporation first introduced ESCON, the topology of the enterprise server supported data center had begun to change, though access to the underlying network remained unchanged. Specifically, front end processors, interconnect controllers, and similar devices having parallel I/O or ESCON channel attachment interfaces remained the only connectivity options available when accessing enterprise server resources with outbound and inbound network traffic. In consequence, it was believed that providing an industry-standard open interface would simplify the data center topology and begin to lessen the number of devices required between the enterprise server and the end users, while reducing complexity and the total cost of computing. In response, IBM Corporation developed the Open Systems Adapter™ (OSA).
In consequence of the development of OSA, TCP/IP networks and applications began to proliferate in the late 1990s as the enterprise server now could be directly connected to the TCP/IP network through the OSA attachment interface. Moreover, the expense and complexity associated with the use of parallel and ESCON-attached interconnect controllers and routers, as well as front end processors, now could be lessened with TCP/IP traffic and some SNA traffic flowing directly into the enterprise server through the OSA attachment interface. As a result, enterprise servers now could be incorporated within heterogeneous, multi-vendor networking infrastructures.
Recent versions of the OSA attachment interface support queued direct I/O (QDIO). QDIO is an important channel control unit design that dramatically improves data throughput by allowing data to pass directly to enterprise server memory. With QDIO, the number of I/O interruptions can be minimized. Specifically, in the QDIO architecture, a common storage area can be maintained for memory-to-memory communication, reducing system overhead and improving performance. In consequence, read or write channel programs are not necessary for data exchange. Furthermore, I/O interrupts need not be handled for write processing. Similarly, for read processing, the number of I/O interrupts can be minimized. Notably, in the QDIO architecture a Direct Memory Access (DMA) protocol can be used to transfer all network data between the two processing functions in a highly efficient manner while maintaining the inherent reliability and data integrity of the enterprise server I/O subsystem architecture.
Typically, queues in the QDIO architecture include one-hundred and twenty-eight entries, each entry having a storage block address list (SBAL). Ordinarily, an SBAL represents a single, complete read or write I/O operation and includes a fixed number of entries, typically sixteen. Each entry, in turn can be referred to as a storage list entry and can provide its length and a pointer to a memory page or frame of real storage. The page, typically a four kilobyte page, can include one or more data packets, each packet having a protocol header and associated data. Thus, each SBAL can include sixty-four kilobytes of real storage.
Notably, the QDIO architecture can support internal interprocess communications between multiple logical partitions. As is well-known in the art, a logical partition (LPAR) is the division of an enterprise server's processors, memory, and storage into multiple sets of resources so that each set of resources can be operated independently with its own operating system instance and applications. The number of LPARs that can be created typically can depend upon the processor model of the enterprise server and the enterprise server's available resources. Multiple LPARs can be configured within an enterprise server for varying purposes such as database operations, client/server operations or to separate test and production environments. In any event, using an internal implementation of the QDIO architecture, referred to as "iQDIO", each LPAR can communicate with other LPARs as if the other LPAR were physically positioned within a separate enterprise server.
As an example, using an OSA adapter configured with the iQDIO architecture, Internet protocol (IP) based data traffic can flow between LPARs within the same enterprise server. More particularly, the central processor of the iQDIO architecture can examine the IP address of each outbound packet and, if the destination IP address is associated with one of the LPARs residing in the same enterprise server as defined in an address table, the outbound packet can be forwarded directly to the destination LPAR. Notably, the iQDIO architecture can provide better performance and higher availability between LPARs since an external network is not required to transfer outbound IP packets.
In a conventional enterprise server which has been configured for LPAR-to-LPAR interprocess communications using the iQDIO architecture, each LPAR can have associated therewith a channel path ID (CHPID). Typical enterprise servers can accommodate a discrete number of distinct CHPIDs, typically four (4). Using the iQDIO architecture, the central processor and the enterprise server can share data queues, as compared to the conventional use of QDIO technology in which the central processor shares data queues with the I/O adapter. In this way, data packets can be sent and received in each LPAR referenced by particular CHPIDs.
Ordinarily, in order for a given LPAR to gain connectivity to another LPAR within the same enterprise server, the LPAR must be configured to use the same CHPID as the other LPAR. In particular, an iQDIO logical device can be configured within each LPAR. The iQDIO logical device, often referred to as a "subchannel address", can include an inbound (receive) queue, and multiple outbound (send) queues, allowing the logical device to both send and receive data simultaneously through the iQDIO hardware.
In order for the target LPAR to receive data packets transmitted by a sending LPAR, the central processor can queue SBALs in the inbound queue of the target LPAR, thereby making those read buffers available for use by the iQDIO hardware. Normally, sending LPARs use a signal adapter instruction (SIGA) to transmit data packets to a target LPAR. Responsive to receiving the SIGA instruction, the iQDIO hardware can locate the target LPAR and can move the outbound data packets from SBALs in the outbound queue of the sending LPAR to the previously queued SBALs of the inbound queue of the target LPAR. Once inbound data has been forwarded to the target LPAR, the iQDIO hardware can complete the operation by marking those queued SBALs as "complete".
Importantly, as one-skilled in the art will recognize, the SIGA instruction of the iQDIO architecture is synchronous in nature. Specifically, when a SIGA instruction issues, the entire I/O operation can be performed by the same processor which executed the SIGA instruction. When a subsequent instruction gains control, the execution of the SIGA instruction can be assumed to have completed. If the execution of the SIGA instruction succeeds, the data will have been transferred to the SBALs of the inbound queue of the target LPAR. In contrast, if the execution of the SIGA instruction fails, condition codes can be inspected to allow the issuer, be it an application program or the central processor, to interrogate the outcome of the SIGA instruction.
Occasions will arise, however, where the target LPAR does not have an available SBAL queued in the inbound queue to receive inbound data. Inasmuch as the SIGA instruction is synchronous in nature, though, the QDIO hardware cannot suspend operation of the SIGA instruction until an SBAL can be queued by the central processor. Conventional QDIO designs provide for retrying the SIGA operation in this circumstance. Specifically, the central processor can ignore the out-of-storage condition of the inbound queue and either can allow an associated stack to drop, or the central processor can retransmit the data packets. Alternatively, the central processor can retry the SIGA operation one or more times over a period of time.
Both conventional retry options can be expensive in terms of processor cycles and can lack precision. Moreover, both retry options can provide for an unpredictable and unreliable interface. Internal interfaces ought to provide a reliable and not unreliable transport. Since traditional "network" errors are not a factor in the case of LPARs, the iQDIO architecture also should be much more reliable. Accordingly, there has arisen a need for an effective retry method for use in an iQDIO architecture.

International Business Machines Corporation


A floating construction for launching pipelines, even in low-depth conditions, comprises at least a hollow floating body, engageable with a supporting framework, comprising removably coupling means for providing a removable coupling with a pipeline, removable latching means which can be actuated from the outside for removably latching the pipelines being moreover provided.

The present invention relates to a floating construction for supporting pipelines on water, even in low-depth conditions.
Floating constructions for supporting pipelines on water, comprising a body which is comprising a body which is filled-in with a polyurethane foamed material, are known.
Such an approach does not allow to adjust, depending on the contingent requirements, the floating upward directed force.
A further problem is that, in several cases, the pipeline coupling means are difficult to be properly made.
Due to the above reason, great operating difficulties for disengaging or unlatching the pipeline are encountered.

Floating construction for launching pipelines even in low-depth conditions


A communication control apparatus of the present invention controls communication among a plurality of electronic devices mounted on a vehicle and mainly includes a control unit that is configured of a micro computer or the like and that periodically outputs clock pulses, a trouble detecting unit to detect a trouble in the control unit, and a communication control unit to interrupt communication upon detection of a trouble, that is, to control communication by disconnecting an electronic device. The trouble detecting unit includes an analog amount converting unit to convert clock pulses from the control unit to an analog amount and an analog amount comparing unit to compare the analog amount generated in the analog amount converting unit with a predetermined threshold.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication control apparatus, particularly to a communication control apparatus used for performing communication among a plurality of electronic devices mounted on a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, a plurality of electronic devices are mounted on a vehicle and the electronic devices are connected with each other through a wired network. In the wired network, car body information and the like can be transmitted by using a communication control apparatus mounted on the vehicle. The communication control apparatus has a circuit dedicated for disconnecting an electronic device from the wired network when something wrong occurs in the electronic device. This circuit prevents a bad effect on other electronic devices when one electronic device is broken down in the vehicle, so that communication can be continued by normal electronic devices.
FIG. 4 shows an example of the above-described circuit. FIG. 4 shows a circuit configuration of a known communication control apparatus. This circuit mainly includes a control unit 31 configured of a micro computer or the like, a trouble detecting unit 32 for detecting a trouble in the control unit 31, and a communication control unit 33 that interrupts communication when a trouble is detected, that is, controls communication by disconnecting an electronic device. The trouble detecting unit 32 includes a watchdog circuit 321 for observing signals from the control circuit 31 and a mono multi unit 322 for generating square waves in response to signals from the watchdog circuit 321.
In the communication control apparatus shown in FIG. 4, a pulse signal (clock pulses: signal "a" in FIG. 4) of predetermined intervals is output from the control unit 31 to the watchdog circuit 321 when the control unit 31 normally operates. If the control unit 31 breaks down (or has a trouble) and no pulse signal is output (right side of a broken line of signal "a" in FIG. 4), the watchdog circuit 321 cannot detect a pulse signal and outputs reset pulses (signal "b" in FIG. 4) to the mono multi unit 322. After receiving the reset pulses, the mono multi unit 322 generates a square wave (signal "c" in FIG. 4) whose output time is longer than that of the reset pulse. The communication control unit 33 receives the square wave and then controls communication by disconnecting the electronic device (signal "d" in FIG. 4). In this way, when a failure or trouble occurs in a specific electronic device, the electronic device can be disconnected from the wired network. (Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 7-240969)
In the configuration shown in FIG. 4, however, if noise occurs between the watchdog circuit 321 and the mono multi unit 322, the mono multi unit 322 outputs the noise while amplifying it onto a square wave having a long output time even when the noise has low energy. Therefore, even when the control unit 31 has neither a failure nor trouble, the communication control unit 33 controls communication by disconnecting an electronic device in response to the square wave.


An integrated process and corresponding apparatus that produces a relatively clean, delignified cellulose product from lignocellulosic biomass. The method includes treating a portion of the delignified cellulose itself as a substrate to produce on-site cellulolytic enzymes, including further treating the remaining delignified cellulose with the resulting cellulolytic enzymes for in situ enzymatic hydrolysis. The process and apparatus are useful to produce fermentable sugars for cost-effective manufacturing of fermentable sugars, fuels, bioproducts and chemicals.

Lignocellulosic plant biomass, being the primary source of renewable materials on earth, is a promising, renewable feedstock to make biofuels, bio-based chemicals, and other value-added products. Spurred by the need to address climate change, energy security, and depleted petroleum reserves, attention is currently directed toward developing novel, economically viable approaches to convert biomass into fuels and other bio-based products. This attention is due, in major part, to the ready availability of large amounts of renewable lignocellulosic biomass. Currently, a large portion of lignocellulosic biomass is burned for its thermal energy or landfilled. But its chemical potential—its usefulness as an alternative raw material to make products now made from petroleum—is a long-felt and unsatisfied need.
Lignocellulosic biomass is made up of three chemically distinct components: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Cellulose, the primary component of biomass (representing up to 50% dry-weight) comprises long, linear fibrils of β-(1,4) glucopyranosides chains having a native degree of polymerization (DP) of roughly about 5000 to about 15000. In contrast, the hemicellulose fraction of biomass exhibits a much broader distribution of sugars. These include branched polysaccharides composed of 1,4-linked β-D-hexosyl residues having a typical DP from about 70 to about 200. The lignin component of biomass is the most intractable component of the plant. Lignin is essentially the structural scaffold of plant material; which enhances the rigidity of the cellulosic and hemicellulosic fiber network. Microorganisms and enzymes cannot effectively attack cellulose fibers present in biomass without prior treatment of the biomass to remove at least a fraction of the lignin. In its native form, the majority of cellulose in plant material is inaccessible to cellulolytic enzymes or bacteria due to the enveloping lignin scaffold. Lignin can also physically and/or chemically inhibit enzymatic degradation of cellulose in native biomass via irreversible enzyme absorption, thereby greatly limiting enzymatic hydrolysis efficacy. Therefore, removal of certain concentrations of lignin from cellulosic biomass will not only enhance enzyme accessibility but will reduce the amount of enzymes needed for hydrolysis and reduce enzyme nonspecific absorption on lignin, thereby significantly improving cellulolytic enzyme activity. Thus, for successful commercial use of biomass as an alternative feedstock for production of fuels and chemicals, separation of a relatively clean cellulose fraction with efficient lignin removal is imperative in concert with the production of on-site enzymes using the pretreated and hydrolyzed cellulose-rich biomass as the carbon source to grow the on-site enzymes.
Accordingly, converting lignocellulosic biomass into fuels, bioproducts and chemicals along the standard biochemical route entails a physicochemical pre-treatment of the biomass, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis of the polysaccharide components cellulose and hemicellulose into monomeric sugars. Conventional lignocellulosic biomass conversion approaches use thermochemical pre-treatment of biomass as the entry point into biorefinery schemes to produce delignified cellulose or pretreated biomass. The pretreated fraction is then subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis to yield monomeric sugars. Hence, various conventional pre-treatment processes have as their primary goal achieving higher sugar yields. Thus, conventionally, the raw biomass has been treated either with dilute acids or bases, or subjected to steam explosion, ammonia fiber explosion, sulfite pretreatment, treatment with organic solvents, etc. However, the major disadvantages of such conventional biomass pre-treatment approaches include: 1) high cost of chemical input; 2) high cost of capital equipment; 3) high operating costs of batch operations; and 4) high energy consumption. These conventional pre-treatment processes do not fill the market need for economically viable techniques to prepare high purity cellulose from lignocellulosic biomass, as either a final product per se or as an intermediate.
Also, current enzyme manufacturers produce highly refined cellulolytic enzyme cocktails composed of three primary cellulolytic enzymes (EC 3.2.1.x): endoglucanase (EC 188.8.131.52), cellobiohydrolase (CBH-1 & CBH-2; EC 188.8.131.52) and β-glucosidase (EC 188.8.131.52). These enzyme manufacturing companies have made great progress during the past twenty years in this highly specialized arena. But the cost of these purified cellulase enzymes is still too expensive to convert cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars and ultimately produce affordable sugars, biofuels, bioproducts, and chemicals. One of the most expensive aspects of manufacturing cellulase enzymes is due to the methods to convert the crude broth of cellulase enzymes into a highly refined cellulase enzyme product. Moreover, costs associated with transporting such cellulolytic enzymes can become a limiting factor where there is no large-scale domestic industrial cellulase production facility that is immediately near the sources of biomass being grown and harvested. Thus, significant cost savings can be achieved if the needed cellulase enzymes are not transported, but rather are produced on-site. On-site production of cellulase enzymes will also render unnecessary additional processing steps typically taken 1) to manufacture highly refined cellulase enzymes; and 2) prior to transport, such as enzyme clarification and stabilization. In many industrial uses, the whole fungal fermentation broth can be used in the enzymatic hydrolysis process. If a portion of lignocellulosic biomass itself could be used as the raw material for production of cellulolytic enzyme, production cost of such enzymes could be further reduced substantially.
Consequently, there is an ongoing need for an art that is industrially feasible, economical, and simple to produce, partially delignified cellulose product from biomass for cost-effective enzymatic hydrolysis conversion into fermentation sugars. There is also a need for significantly reducing the high costs associated with cellulase enzyme production and transport by producing such enzymes at the site of use, where the raw biomass is pretreated to reduce the lignin content within the cellulose-rich substrate. There additionally is a need for methods in a biorefinery set up for on-site production of cellulose enzymes via fermentation using a portion of delignified cellulose as feedstock, while integrating processes for utilizing the resulting crude fungal fermentation broth for in-situ enzymatic hydrolysis of remaining cellulose to produce inexpensive monomeric sugars for efficient production of biofuels, chemicals, etc. These and other needs are addressed by the present disclosure.

Apparatus and process for treating biomass for on-site production of cellulolytic enzymes and method of using the enzymes to manufacture fuels and chemicals


Polyalcohols are produced by a process comprising hydrogenating polyketones, which are copolymers of carbon monoxide and at least one olefin, in the presence of a catalyst and a solvent. The catalyst is prepared from a ruthenium-containing compound and a trialkylphosphine. The trialkylphosphine is represented by the general formula (I): EQU R.sup.1 R.sup.2 R.sup.3 P (I). wherein R.sup.1, R.sup.2, and R.sup.3 each represent an alkyl group having 1 to 12 carbon groups. The carbon groups may be substituted. The process requires minimal amounts of the catalyst, and the polyalcohols produced by this method have a high hydroxyl group content.

The present invention relates to a process for producing polyalcohols. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for producing polyalcohols by hydrogenating polyketones, which are copolymers of carbon monoxide and at least one olefin. The polyalcohols produced by the present invention may be used as, for example, gas-barrier materials, such as packaging materials.
It is known in the art to produce polyalcohols by hydrogenating copolymers of carbon monoxide and olefins in the presence of heterogeneous or homogeneous catalysts. Among processes employing heterogeneous catalysts, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 149828/1989 and 232228/1990 disclose nickel catalysts, such as Raney nickel or metallic nickel, either as is or carried on diatomaceous earth, silica, alumina or the like; Adkins catalysts, such as CuO/Cr.sub.2 O.sub.3 and CuO/Cr.sub.2 O.sub.3 /BaO; cobalt catalysts, such as Raney cobalt and CuO/SiO.sub.2 ; ruthenium catalysts, such as Ru/carbon, Ru/Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 and Ru/SiO.sub.2 ; palladium catalysts, such as Pd/carbon and Pd/SiO.sub.2 ; and similar catalysts. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 339367/1993 discloses catalysts comprising a metal such as nickel, ruthenium or platinum, ruthenium oxide, Raney nickel, Adkins catalysts and the like, and preferably ruthenium carried on a-alumina or ruthenium oxide. Japanese Patent Publication No. 49203/1994 discloses a ruthenium catalyst carried on alumina having an average micropore radius of at least 100 angstroms. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 204929/1989 discloses a reduced nickel catalyst produced by reacting a metal hydride with a nickel compound.
Among processes employing homogeneous catalysts, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 149828/1989 and 23222811990 disclose catalysts comprising ruthenium complexes, such as dichlorotris(triphenylphosphine) ruthenium and dihydridotetrakis(triphenylphosphine) ruthenium; rhodium complexes, such as chlorotris(triphenylphosphine) rhodium; and the like. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 339367/1993 discloses catalysts comprising chlorotris(triphenylphosphine) rhodium, dichlorotris(triphenylphosphine) ruthenium, ruthenium dodecacarbonyl and the like.
To obtain polyalcohols having good gas barrier properties, it is necessary to maximize the content of hydroxyl groups in the obtained polyalcohols. It is also desirable to minimize the amount of catalyst required for commercial application of the process, due to catalyst cost.
The above prior art processes for producing polyalcohols have two principal disadvantages. First, these processes require large amounts of catalyst. For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 149828/1989 uses a heterogeneous catalyst comprising a nickel-rhenium catalyst in an amount of 2 g per 5 g of a polyketone copolymerized from ethylene and carbon monoxide. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 232228/1990 uses a heterogeneous catalyst comprising a copper/chromium/manganese/barium catalyst for a polyketone copolymer of ethylene, propylene and carbon monoxide, in an amount of the same weight as that of the polyketone. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 339367/1993 and 49203/1994 disclose a ruthenium/.alpha.-alumina catalyst in an amount of 8 g per 5 g of a polyketone copolymerized from ethylene and carbon monoxide. It is clear that such large amounts of catalysts, relative to the amounts of the reactants, are economically undesirable.
Second, these processes may result in poor selectivity of hydrogenation, that is, these processes are incapable of maximizing the content of hydroxyl groups in the products. Poor selectivity is caused by the formation of tetrahydrofuran rings in the product of the reaction. The tetrahydrofuran rings are formed from hemiacetals, which are formed by partial reduction of the carbonyl groups in the polyketones to form hydroxyl groups. The hydroxyl groups then react with the carbonyl groups, thereby decreasing the hydroxyl group content. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 204929/1989 discloses a process in which a reduced nickel catalyst is used to hydrogenate a copolymer of ethylene, propylene and carbon monoxide. In this process, about 0.9 g of the nickel compound is required per 10 g of the copolymer polyketone. Although this amount of catalyst is relatively small, compared to other conventional methods, the polyalcohol produced by this process contained 13% residual carbonyl groups and 17% tetrahydrofuran rings. It is thus virtually impossible to produce a polyalcohol having a high hydroxyl group content, and therefore good gas barrier properties, using this process.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 304122/1989 describes a process which comprises hydrogenating a polyketone copolymerized from ethylene and carbon monoxide using a catalyst comprising a ruthenium-carbonyl complex and an iodide. The product of this reaction is a polymer comprising ethylene units and tetrahydrofuran ring units. The use of this ruthenium catalyst therefore leads principally to formation of tetrahydrofuran rings, and no polyalcohol at all.
The use of homogeneous catalysts, such as dichlorotris (triphenylphosphine) ruthenium, is described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication Nos. 149828/1989, 232228/1990 and 339367/1993. None of these applications, however, report any experiments using these catalysts to produce polyalcohols. The present inventors therefore attempted to conduct hydrogenation using dichlorotris(triphenylphosphine) ruthenium, as described in the above applications. However, as shown in Comparative Example 1, these processes could not produce a polyalcohol with high yield and selectivity.


An electrical connector assembly comprises first and second connectors (20 and 40), each having contact portions arranged in a direction perpendicular to the plugging direction. The first connector (20) has a pair of guide portions (36) provided at sides thereof and each having guide surfaces (36A and 36B). The second connector comprises (40) has a pair of guided portions (41), each having a guided surface (41A) which is guided by the guide surface when the second connector is plugged into the first connector. At least one of the guide and guided surfaces has a relief recess (36C and 41C) in a middle thereof to permit large inclination of the second connector with respect to the first connector when the second connector is removed from the first connector.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Kokai Number 2001-143786 (FIG. 1) discloses an electrical connector assembly for connecting a plurality of circuit boards, in which an intermediate board is used.
An electrical connector assembly disclosed in the above Patent Document comprises, as shown in FIG. 6, a connector 50, which is fixed, and a mating connector 70, which is plugged into and removed from the connector 50 for electrical connection and disconnection.
(The connector 50)
The connector 50 is an intermediate connector which is made substantially symmetric vertically so that the mating connector 70 and another connector 80 having the similar structure as the mating connector 70 are connected to the connector 50 in opposite directions. The connectors 70 and 80 are usually connected to corresponding circuit boards extending in a plane perpendicular to the sheet of the drawing and the connector 50 is used for connecting these circuit boards. Since the connector 80 is fixed to an apparatus, when the connector 80 is plugged into the connector 50, the connector 80 is locked. Accordingly, for disconnection between both the circuit boards, the connector 70 is usually unplugged from the connector 50.
The connector 50 comprises an intermediate board 51 and a guide frame 52 for supporting the intermediate board 51. As shown in FIG. 6, a plurality of connection portions 53 (connection pads) are arranged laterally along upper and lower edges of the intermediate board 51. Circuit traces (not shown) are provided in the inner layer of the intermediate board 51 and connected to the connection portions 53. A thin-plate-like shield 54 is provided on substantially whole area between the upper and lower contact portions 53 to shield the circuit traces in the inner layer of the intermediate board 51. The shield 54 is connected to some of the contact portions 53. An engagement hole 55 is provided in the center of the intermediate board 51 to engage a projection 60 (described below) provided in the guide frame 52.
The guide frame 52 comprises a substantially plate-like support portion 56 for supporting the intermediate board 51 and a pair of columns which are integrally provided with the support portion 56 at ends in the lateral direction of the support portion 56.
The support portion 56 has a supporting surface for coming in contact with and supporting a substantially whole area of one face (back face in FIG. 6) of the intermediate board 51, and the projection 60 for engaging the engagement hole 55 and positioning the intermediate board 51. Each of columns has a holding portion 57 for supporting ends of the intermediate board 51 in the lateral direction and a pole-like guide portion 58 extending in the plugging direction and guiding the mating connector 70 in the plugging direction.
The guide portion 58 has a guide surface 59, a flat surface extending in the plugging direction of the mating connector 70 outside the area in which the contact portions of the intermediate board 51 are arranged. The flat surface of the guide surface 59 extends in substantially whole range of the area projecting from the edge of the intermediate board 51 in the plugging direction. The guide portion 58 guides the mating connector 70 with the guide surface 59 guiding a guided surface 74 (described below) of the mating connector 70.
(The Mating Connector 70)
The mating connector 70 comprises a housing 71, an accommodation cavity 72 provided in the housing 71 for receiving the upper edge of the intermediate board 51 in which the contact portions 53 are arranged, and a pair of hole-like guided portions 73 which are provided in the housing 71 and guided by the guide portions 58 of the guide frame 52 when the connector 70 is connected to the connector 50. A plurality of resilient contact portions of terminals (not shown) are provided in the accommodation cavity 72 at positions corresponding to those of the contact portions 53 of the intermediate board 51 so that resilient contact portions are brought into resilient contact with the contact portions 53 when the connector 70 is connected to the connector 50. The terminals extend outwardly from the opposite side of an opening of the accommodating cavity 72. The terminals have a plurality of contact portions on the opposite side which are connected by soldering to corresponding circuit traces of a circuit board (not shown) provided in a direction perpendicular the intermediate board 51.
Each of the guided portions 73 has the guided surface 74 which faces to the guide surface 59 closely when the connector 70 is connected to the connector 50 (FIGS. 6 and 7).
(Connection between both the Connectors)
As described above, the resilient contact portions of the terminals of the connector 70 are connected to the contact portions 53 provided in the upper edge of the connector 50 when the connector 70 is guided in the plugging direction. The connector 80 is also connected to the lower edge of the connector 50 in the similar way. That is, any of the connectors 70 and 80 can be a mating connector of the connector 50. Accordingly, the connectors 70 and 80 are electrically connected to each other through the connector 50. Consequently, the two circuit boards attached to the connectors 70 and 80 are electrically connected to each other under the condition that they are perpendicular to the intermediate board 51.
When disconnecting the connector 70 from the connector 50, the connector 70 is pulled out from the connector 50.
When removing the connector 70 from the connector 50, the connector 70 should not be pulled by force because the guide surface 59 and the guided surface 74 face to each other closely.
Actually, however, the connector 70 is frequently pulled by force. Especially, when the circuit board is attached to the connector 70, since the connector 70 is hidden behind the circuit board, the condition of the connector 70 is not visible accurately. Accordingly, when the connector 70 is attempted to be pulled out from the connector 50, an edge of the circuit board is grasped and the connector 70 is gouged. Under the condition, since the distance between the edge of the circuit board and the connector 70 is relatively large, the gouging force is large. The connector 70 is gouged repeatedly, being tilted in the right and left direction alternately.
When the connector 70 is gouged, as shown in FIG. 7 showing the left-hand guide portion 58, the guided surface 74 of the guided portion 73 of the connector 70 is tilted with respect to the guide surface 59 of the guide portion 58 of connector 50. Since the guide surface 59 is in close to the guided surface 74, the gap between them is small. Accordingly, if the connector 70 is gouged over the gap, the lower edge of the guided surface 74 is strongly pressed to the guide surface 59. As the result, a large force is applied to the guided and guide portions 73 and 58 and the lower edge of the guided surface 74 may bite the guide surface 59.
When the above-described large force is applied, the guide portion 58 or the guided portion 73 may be damaged, or the soldering portions between the connector 70 and the circuit board are damaged resulting in connection defective. Also, when the lower edge of the guided surface 74 bites the guide surface 59, it may be difficult to pull out the connector 70 from the connector 50.
In addition, if the removal operation of the connector 70 is finished under the condition that, for example, only the right-hand guided portion 73 in FIG. 6 is removed from the guide portion 58 and the left-hand guided portion 73 still stands in the other guide portion 58 shallowly, the connector 70 is inclined largely. In this case, since the right-hand guide portion 73 is already removed from the guide portion 58, the connector 70 rotates largely by the weight of the circuit board, which produces a force much larger than the gouging force. Accordingly, the guide portion 58 and so forth is readily damaged. Even if it does not cause the damage, the lower edge of the guided surface 74 may bite the guide surface 59, which makes it difficult for the connector 70 to be removed from the connector 50.


An epoxy and polyurethane-based sizing composition for fibers used in the reinforcement of engineered thermoplastic molded composites, which exhibits improved hydrolytic stability and reduced discoloration.

It is well known in the art to use glass fibers as reinforcements in the manufacture of molded polymeric composites. Glass fibers do not shrink or stretch in response to changes in atmospheric conditions and thus provide dimensional stability to the resulting composite. Further, the high tensile strength, heat resistance, moisture resistance, and thermal conductivity of glass fibers can improve the mechanical properties of the composite as well.
Glass fibers are commonly manufactured by supplying glass in molten form to a bushing, drawing fibers from the bushing, and then gathering the fibers into a tow or strand. A sizing composition, or chemical treatment, is typically applied to the fibers after they are drawn from the bushing to protect the fibers from breakage during subsequent processing, and to improve the compatibility of the fibers with the matrix resins that are to be reinforced. The sized strands are then typically chopped into lengths suitable for dispersing throughout a matrix resin to form a molding compound that can be molded into shaped composite articles. The strands may be chopped wet or dry (i.e., before or after the sizing composition dries) and the resulting strand segments may be densified and combined to form pellets, if desired. The strand segments or "chopped strand" is then typically dispersed throughout the matrix resin via an extrusion operation commonly referred to as compounding, to form a molding composition that can be molded into fiber-reinforced composite articles.
The size compositions applied to the fibers to reduce interfilament abrasion and improve the chemical coupling between the fiber and the polymer matrix typically comprise one or more film-forming polymeric or resinous components, lubricants and glass-resin coupling agents dissolved or dispersed in water. However, in addition to improving the processability of the fiber and the fiber-polymer coupling, the sizing composition should also enhance the wetting of the individual fibers by the matrix resin.
Accordingly, in view of the dual role of the sizing compositions in improving processability of the fibers while improving the physical properties of the resulting composite, as well as the vast variety of polymeric materials that can be advantageously reinforced with glass fibers, a continuing need exists for specifically tailored sizing compositions that provide enhanced physical properties and appearance to articles molded from specific polymeric matrix materials.

Sizing composition for glass fibers for reinforcement of engineered thermoplastic materials


A harness for supporting an instrument includes a pair of shoulder straps extending from waist belts and terminating above the person's chest and another strap connected to the pair of shoulder straps and extending therefrom downward to receive a hook assembly for supporting a musical instrument.

An extensive use of a weight harness in general and, particularly, for musical instruments has not undergone substantial modifications since the original one had been used by first musicians. Many of the known harnesses were invented and manufactured without taking into consideration anatomical specifics of a human body.
Thus, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,215,239 discloses a harness for a saxophone which, in many ways, is representative of the products available in the market in this particular field. Traditionally such harness is formed with two shoulder straps extending downwardly to a region of an abdomen where an instrument is removably mounted on a hook which is, in turn, attached to respective ends of the shoulder straps.
Musicians often spend long hours playing the instrument which becomes excessively heavy with time. Because of the two shoulder straps a main load naturally falls on shoulders which tend to bend forward and inward detrimentally affecting thereby a spinal cord as well as a group of back muscles. Such posture of a musician also affects a rib cage limiting an access of air the musician needs while inhaling.
Further, the traditional two strap harness creates additional difficulties for a female musician by pressing against the musician's breast and thereby causing physical inconvenience as well as imparting the quality of a sound.
Finally, since the instrument is always displaceable by the musician, while the latter is playing, a distribution of forces acting upon shoulders is not uniform thereby causing excessive fatigue of one shoulder while leaving the other shoulder underused. Needless to say such unequal distribution of forces also detrimentally affects the musician.


A method of setting hand over (HO) parameters for a user equipment (UE) connected to a first cell of a base station (BS) may include receiving, at the BS, history data corresponding to the UE, the history data including, for each of a plurality of cells the UE was previously connected to, an entry including HO information of the UE at the cell; determining at the BS, an activity type of the UE based on the received history data; and setting, at the BS, the HO parameters for the UE based on the determined activity type, the HO parameters controlling the manner in which the UE detects conditions for initiating an HO event.

1. Field
Example embodiments relate generally to handling handovers in long term evolution (LTE) networks.
2. Related Art
The LTE Hand-Over (HO) events that are triggered by User Equipments UEs, are very sensitive to HO parameter thresholds which are used to determine if a HO event needs to be triggered. HO parameter thresholds are specified in 3GPP TS 36.331, which is incorporated herein in its entirety, and include, for example, the hysteresis and A3Offset parameters. These parameters are configured per cell or enhanced NodeB (eNB) and are provided to all the UEs served by the cell or eNB.
Different UEs may have different service level agreements (SLAs), and the key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with each SLA may differ. The particular HO parameter thresholds selected for a cell or eNB may affect the ability of a UE connected to that cell or eNB to maintain KPIs which are acceptable with respect to the SLA of the UE.

Method and apparatus for LTE handover reduction


A resonant circuit includes three resonant circuit input nodes and three output nodes and a transformer device having three primary windings and three secondary windings. The three primary windings are magnetically connected to the three secondary windings. The resonant circuit also includes a first resonant tank device, a second resonant tank device, and a third resonant tank device each connected between the respective first, second, and third resonant circuit input nodes and the respective first, second, and third primary windings.

High efficiency galvanic isolation is needed in many power electronic applications. Transformer based isolation may be needed due to safety, change of voltage levels, or functional issues. Some renewable energy sources need galvanic isolation to work properly; among them are different types of thin film solar panels.
A solar cell panel generates DC power. To supply the DC power to an AC load, either directly or via an AC power distribution network, a power converter system must be connected between the solar cell panel and the AC load for converting the DC power to AC power. Such power converter systems normally comprise a DC/DC converter and a DC/AC converter, the DC/AC converter normally being referred to as an inverter. In addition, the system comprises a control system for controlling the converters, and other components such as filters, fuses, cooling systems etc.
The DC output power generated by a solar cell panel is changing with sun intensity and temperature. High conversion efficiency is very important to maximize energy harvest from a solar plant in the context of making the investment profitable.
The series resonant LLC DC/DC converter has become a popular alternative to PWM type converters in many applications. One advantage with the resonant converter is that it can be designed for high efficiency for all load and input/output voltage conditions since it can maintain zero-voltage switching for all operating conditions.
The practical limitation for a single resonant LLC converter is set by the increasing size and cost of the resonant inductor as the output power increases. Therefore, high power DC/DC-converters are provided as many smaller series resonant LLC converters in parallel, which increase the cost considerably due to the number of components.
The object of the present invention is to provide a resonant circuit with high efficiency and low cost, and which has high efficiency for a wide input voltage range. Moreover, the object is to reduce the number of components, and thereby reducing the complexity and costs involved. In addition, it is an object of the invention to reduce the ripple currents generated by the converter.
The object of the invention is also to provide a resonant DC/DC converter with such a resonant circuit.

Resonant circuit and resonant DC/DC converter


A system and method of processing a digital image for user assessment of an output image product intended to be generated using the digital image. The method comprises the steps of: (a) accessing the digital image using an imaging device having a viewing member; (b) selecting the output image product intended to include the digital image; (c) digitally modifying at least a portion of the digital image using the imaging device to produce a substantially accurate representation of at least a portion of the output image product; and (d) displaying, using the viewing member, for assessment by the user, the substantially accurate representation of the at least a portion of the output image product.

Digital images can be captured using a digital image capture device, such as a digital camera. Alternatively, a film scanner can be used to convert a visual image into a digital image. The digital image can be manipulated using computer software, with the manipulation of the digital image including zooming, cropping, and image magnification whereby the original image is converted into an output image intended for an output image product. The output image product can be a hardcopy print produced by means of an appropriate printer, such as an optical printer, digital printer, ink jet printer, thermal printer, or other known printer system. The output image product can also be a mug, tee-shirt, CD, or other product comprising an image.
The output image product is dependent on several factors, including the film scanner resolution, the resolution of the digital image capture device, the resolution of the output device, and the output image product being produced. In addition, the original image in its manipulated form is displayed on a computer monitor or display. This displayed image is dependent on the resolution of the display, and may not be an accurate representation of the output image product.
It is often not apparent to a user of image processing software what selection of image processing parameters (i.e., zoom, crop, magnification) will cause the resultant output image product to be degraded to the point at which the reproduced image is considered unsatisfactory; at least not until the output image product is produced, at which time the output media is wasted and the user is dissatisfied with the service. Nor does the unsatisfactory appearance of the output image product give any indication to the user that an alternative image parameter setting can produce a satisfactory output image product.
It is known that images which reside on negatives of known formats require known magnifications to produce standard size photographic prints. U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,397 (Cloutier et al.) discloses an apparatus and method for providing to a user an assessment of hardcopy output image quality by establishing a boundary level of acceptable hardcopy print quality level based on selected image print size and printing magnification. While this apparatus and method has achieved certain degrees of success in particular applications, the apparatus and method is based on a grain and sharpness model of photographic negatives of a known input format, such as 110 and 35 mm.
In addition, content specific user preferences need to be accounted for. That is, while an image may appear unacceptable to a disinterested third party, the same image may be more than satisfactory to a user of the image due to the content of the image.
With digital images, the digital image data may or may not be available in a known or standard format. For example, an enlargement from a mega-pixel digital camera will most likely differ in quality than an enlargement from a low resolution digital camera at VGA quality.
In addition, the digital image processing history may not be known. That is, the digital image may have been previously digitally manipulated, for example, by limiting the color palette or by compressing the file in a manner that is not visually lossless. Artifacts may be incorporated into the image as a byproduct of the compression technique. Accordingly, it may be difficult to provide a numerical evaluation of "quality" as the system may not be able to assess/comprehend the extent of the manipulations previously made as compared to the original image.
Still further, the resolution of the output device can affect the perceived quality of the output image product. The output device may also limit the output size without replicating or modifying the original image, for example, by pixel replication, padding, enhancement, or interpolation.
Yet further, another factor is the subject matter of the digital image. For example, in certain circumstances, a poor quality reproduction may be preferred to none at all. For example, when the user has strong emotional ties with an image because of the subject matter of the image. In addition, a poor quality reproduction may be the wish of the user if the desire is to convey comedic effect.
Accordingly, a need continues to exist for a system and method of processing a digital image for user assessment of an output image product which recognizes that the appreciation of image quality may differ between users. Such a system and method should be suitable for images scanned from a film negative, images captured digitally, and images which may have been previously digitally manipulated. The system and method needs to recognize that the selected output format has an effect on image quality. The system and method should be suitable for an imaging device (such as a Kodak Picture Maker manufactured by Eastman Kodak Company) as well as a digital image capture device such as a digital camera.

System and method of processing a digital image for user assessment of an output image product


A bicycle saddle lifter is provided which is safe and simple in structure and which can raise the saddle of a bicycle while a bicycle driver is sitting on the saddle. The biasing force of a stroke spring 10 which biases the saddle upwardly is determined such that when the weight of a bicycle driver directly acts on the saddle, the saddle lowers, and when the driver applies force to pedals of the bicycle while sitting on the saddle, and the load on the saddle decreases, the saddle rises. While the driver is not sitting on the saddle, resistance resulting from the biasing force of the stroke spring prevents a ratchet pawl 13b for checking the ascent of the saddle from being disengaged from the corresponding ratchet gear 14 even by switchover operation. While the driver is sitting on the saddle, the biasing force of the stroke spring 10 is canceled by the load applied to the saddle and the resistance decreases, thereby allowing the ratchet pawl 13b for checking the ascent of the saddle to be disengaged from the ratchet gear 14 by switchover operation.

Ordinarily, a bicycle saddle is mounted on the top end of a saddle post slidably inserted in a vertical pipe of the frame of a bicycle. By fixing the saddle post to the vertical pipe with a clamp, the saddle can be locked in position at a desired height.
During traveling, the saddle is preferably at a higher position so that the rider can more easily apply force to the pedals. When the bicycle comes to a stop, the saddle is preferably at a lower position so that the rider can more easily and safely put a foot on the ground. But conventional height adjustment mechanisms as described above do not allow height adjustment of the saddle during traveling.
Many devices have therefore been proposed which can raise and lower the saddle during traveling. A typical such device includes a spring that biases the saddle upwardly, and a shock absorber for curbing a sharp rise and lowering of the saddle. By operating a switchover member on the handlebar, the saddle can be selectively locked at any height and moved.
The present applicant also proposed a bicycle saddle lifter in Patent document 1, which comprises a shock absorber having a cylinder as a fixed pipe inserted in a vertical pipe of a bicycle, and a piston as a lifting rod carrying a saddle on top thereof, a link coupling the fixed pipe to the lifting rod, and a stroke spring that biases the saddle upwardly.
In one embodiment, this device further includes ratchet pawls for checking descent and ascent of the saddle, respectively, and corresponding ratchet gears, wherein the ratchet pawls and the ratchet gears are mounted at a portion where upper and lower link pieces forming the link are coupled together.
In this device, when the switchover member on the handlebar is operated, the respective ratchet pawls are selectively brought into or out of engagement with the corresponding ratchet gears for switchover between a state where the saddle is allowed only to ascend and prevented from descending from a locked position at a predetermined height and a state where the saddle is allowed only to descend and prevented from ascending from a locked position at a predetermined height.
In order to ensure reliable switchover between the above two states and reliable engagement, the tips of the respective ratchet pawls and the valleys of the respective ratchet gears both have an angle of 90°.
Patent document 1: JP Patent Publication 2006-27497A


A men's undergarment is disclosed. The undergarment includes a brief having front and rear sections, a crotch section interconnecting the front and rear sections and a pair of leg openings on respective sides of the crotch section. The front section and the crotch section include a relatively non-elastic region formed therein. An absorbent liner is provided for temporarily engaging inside surfaces of the front section and the crotch section. A pocket element is formed on the inside surface of the front section for releasably holding the liner generally in place when the front section is raised and lowered.

With aging, many men experience relatively minor bladder leakage and urinary flow following urination. Although this problem does not rise to the level of incontinence, it is still very unpleasant and annoying. In particular, urinary leakage tends to stain and soil clothing and causes unpleasant odors and discomfort. To date, no undergarments or protective devices adequately address this difficulty. A variety of "adult diapers" and similar products are employed to battle incontinence. However, such devices are usually inappropriate for minor urinary leakage problems. They are typically fairly bulky and may be uncomfortable and/or unsightly. Moreover, the material used in large diaper-like devices is far more than is necessary to address the problem of minor urinary flow.

Men's undergarment and disposable liner for same