An improved apparatus and technique are disclosed for illuminating the cornea with points of light for analysis of the specularly reflected return light in determining the shape of the cornea. In combination with an optical illumination system which forms real images of points of light inside or in the path of the objective lens, the system of the invention includes a plurality of real light source points optically peripheral to the real image points and physically outside to the objective lens. The sources of the point light sources may be optical fibers or LEDs arranged in an array which optically extends radially outward from the objective lens, although the external points may be forward or back from the objective lens. The two types of point light sources are generally registered in a pattern and together form an ordered geometric array for providing paraxial reflections off the cornea over a wide area of the cornea, including both central and peripheral areas of the cornea.

The invention is concerned with ocular diagnostics, and more particularly it relates to an improved system for profilometry of the cornea by detecting the apparent location of point sources of light as reflected paraxially from the cornea. The invention encompasses the profilometry system and also a subsystem which provides an array of point light sources to enable profiling of the cornea over a wide area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,907 disclosed a system for detecting the shape of the central portion of the cornea, including that region immediately around the optical axis (e.g. the central 2 mm.). That patent is incorporated herein by reference. The technique and system disclosed in the patent involved forming virtual point light sources inside the objective lens of a diagnostic system, or between the objective lens and the patient. The virtual point light sources were real images of point light sources. This brought an array of point light sources directly adjacent to the optical axis (the array may extend across the optical axis), thus enabling the profilometry of a central region of the cornea which was difficult to profile with previous equipment involving light sources strictly peripheral to the objective lens.
The patented system included use of the objective lens as a field lens for the paraxially reflected pattern image, in order to expand the region of coverage on the cornea. However, profiling widely enough to include outer regions of the cornea along with the central region would still be a problem unless a very "fast" objective lens (i.e. having high numerical aperture) were used, which may need to be objectionably large or positioned objectionably close to the eye.
An example of a previous perimeter device with peripheral light sources is shown in Wilms Patent No. 4,312,574. None of the perimeter devices was capable of efficiently providing point light sources useful to image all important regions of the cornea, including near the optical axis.
Achatz et al. Patent No. 4,159,867 is also somewhat pertinent to this invention. However, the apparatus shown in that patent used a different set of reflected rays, and also used, in a preferred embodiment, a cardoid-shaped surface. In addition, the disclosed device did not project a set of target spots through the refractive optics, which comprised a visual telescope rather than a system for delivery/collection of treatment, ranging, tracking or viewing channels. The system preferably used as small a telescope as possible, located in the plane of the cardoids, and the patent indicated it was preferred not to use a video camera for detection of the reflected rays.
A combination of peripheral, external point light sources with the patented system just described was disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 656,722, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,170,193, referenced above. The present invention includes variations and improvements on the system disclosed in the copending application.

Illumination of the cornea for profilometry


The method involves modifying an encryption key (Kc) in accordance with a given algorithm and in dependence on the ordinal number of a time slot to obtain a modified encryption key. A modified pseudo-random sequence is formed from the resultant modified encryption key. The modification is carried out in accordance with the aid of an encryption algorithm. A logical operation is performed on the modified pseudo-random sequence and for each block of the non-encrypted information. Preferably the operation is performed on the information block that belongs to the time slot whose ordinal number has been used to form the modified encryption key. As an additional option, the frame number can also be modified in accordance with a given algorithm and in dependence on the ordinal number of the relevant time slot. The method provides reliable encryption in TDMA mobile radio systems in which two or more time slots are used for one and the same transmission without requiring any substantial changes to signaling protocol and/or system equipment.

The GSM-network, common in Europe, is a mobile radio network that uses time division multiple access (TDMA). As with other mobile radio networks, the GSM network employs authorization checks and encryption of transmitted messages. With regard to the GSM network, this is specified in "GSM specification 03.20", May 1994, issued by ETSI (European Telecommunication Standard Institute) and hereinafter referred to as ETSI/GSM 03.20. The various algorithms used in authorization checks and encryption are described in this reference.
As described in ETSI/GSM 03.20, an algorithm A3 is used to effect actual authorization checks between network and subscriber apparatus. As further described, an algorithm A5 is used for encryption of the payload information to be transmitted, and an algorithm A8 is used to form, from the subscriber authorization key Ki, an encryption key Kc.
As a rule, only one time slot per frame for a given connection is used in TDMA-type time division mobile radio systems; see ETSI/GSM 05.02.
The use of two or more time slots, not necessarily consecutive time slots, in a transmission frame has been proposed, see ETSI/STC SMG3, T doc SMG3 WPA 95A dated Aug. 29, 1995 (Nokia Telecommunications), see particularly point 5 "HSCSD Architecture". This provides the advantage of enabling larger quantities of information to be transmitted per unit of time (applicable particularly to data transmissions), but has the drawback of increasing bandwidth.


A substrate aligning unit includes a first driving roll, a second driving roll, a web guider, an encoder roll, and a controller. The first driving roll transfers a substrate in a first direction. The second driving roll is disposed spaced apart from the first driving roll in the first direction and transfers the substrate in the first direction. The web guider controls a position of the substrate in a second direction substantially perpendicular to the first direction. The encoder roll senses the position of the substrate to generate a sensing signal. The controller controls the first driving roll, the second driving roll, and the web guider based on the sensing signal.

1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the invention relate to a substrate aligning unit capable of precisely controlling a position of a substrate being transferred, a substrate processing apparatus having the same, and a method of aligning a substrate using the same.
2. Discussion of the Background
A flexible display apparatus having a light weight, strong durability, and competitive pricing has been developed. A roll-to-roll process may be used in a manufacturing process of the flexible display apparatus. According to the roll-to-roll process, a thin substrate is continuously transported from a supplying roll to a receiving roll. However, several problems in the manufacturing process of a display panel of the flexible display apparatus still need to be addressed. For instance, issues related to alignment control, speed control, and position control of the substrate may lead to defects in the manufactured substrate or substrate slips during the manufacturing process. Thus, an improved manufacturing process is needed to provide better substrates with a greater efficiency.
To solve the above-mentioned problems, openings may be formed through a portion of the substrate, and protrusions may be formed on the surface of the driving roll. However, additional work is necessary for forming the openings and the protrusions. In addition, a usable area of the substrate is decreased due to the openings. Accordingly, other solutions are needed to address the above-noted problems.

Substrate aligning unit, substrate processing apparatus having the same, and method of aligning substrate using the same


An improved entity naming scheme employs the use of two sets of names: local names and global names. The local and global naming scheme may be applied to entities that are assigned to a number of different global compartments. Local entities are entities that are assigned to the same compartment, while non-local entities are entities that are assigned to different compartments. Each entity is assigned a local name that is unique among all local entities. Additionally, a number of global entities are identified. Global entities are entities that are referenced by one or more non-local entities. Each global entity is assigned a global name that is unique among all global entities.

In conventional computing applications, it is often necessary to assign names to a number of entities. The term "entity," as used herein, refers to anything to which a name can be assigned such as, for example, a page, a location, a document, a recipient, or an address. Names may be strictly numeric, or may include numbers, letter, symbols, other characters, or any combination thereof. Web page ranking is a common scenario in which it is necessary to assign names to entities. In particular, during web page ranking, a score is repeatedly propagated from a current page to the recipient pages that are pointed to by the current page. The current page may be considered to "point" to a recipient page if, for example, the current page has a uniform resource locator (URL) or another link that points to the recipient page. For example, if a current page has a score of 30, and the current page points to three recipient pages, then a score of 10 points each may be propagated from the current page to each of the three recipient pages to which it points. In such an iterative process, it is important to have immediate access to each of the recipient pages so that the score can be immediately propagated from the current page to the recipient pages. A common technique for providing this immediate access is to store a score in random access memory (RAM) for each of the recipient pages. To easily access these scores, each page is assigned a numeric name that describes where in RAM that score is located.
One of the challenges related to entity naming schemes is that, in conventional computing applications, the number of total entities to which names must be assigned is often quite large. For example, for web page ranking, it may currently be necessary to assign 20 billion or more names, with the number of existing web pages continuing to rapidly increase. Because a program may demand access to any of the named pages, the amount of memory required to be active is typically proportional to the number of named pages. Thus, for example, between 80 and 320 gigabytes or more of active memory may be required for 20 billion names. This greatly exceeds the capacity of any one computer and necessitates a complicated memory distribution implementation.


A network tap device may include a processor, a first network interface responsive to the processor a second network interface responsive to the processor, the second network interface configured to provide wireless network access, and memory accessible to the processor. The memory may include a network access rule. The processor may be operable to permit network traffic to flow between the first network interface and the second network interface based at least in part on network traffic in a network coupled to the first network interface in accordance with the network access rule.

Businesses and consumers are increasingly establishing local area networks in places of business and residences. Typically, such local area networks connect to a wide area network or to a service provider that provides access to a global network, such as the Internet. Under typical network protocols, devices connected to a local area network intermittently access the local area network to send and receive data packets.
In addition to using traditional business and residential devices, users are turning to portable devices that access networks through wireless protocols. Exemplary user devices include personal digital assistants (PDA), mobile telephones, and laptops, each having a wireless data interface using wireless protocols, such as Bluetooth®, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, and IEEE 802.11g. Such devices may access wireless local area networks to provide, for example, email access, web browser functionality, and Internet access for applets.
In general, the networks are accessed on demand, leaving periods of time in which the networks have little or no traffic. As a result, a′particular portion of a local area or wide area network can be heavily utilized at specific instances of time, while a different portion of the local area or wide area network is lightly used.
A service provider may provide access to the Internet. In concentrated population centers, a service provider may provide network service to many businesses and residences. Depending upon the time of day and various functions associated with a business having network access, traffic on a particular local area network and on the service provider's network as a whole may vary. In addition, the type of access and demand for access at a particular time may vary by time of day or day of the week.
As such improved systems and methods for controlling network access and network traffic would be desirable.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.

System and method for controlling network access


There is disclosed a magnetic field generating device for use in a magnetooptical recording apparatus of a magnetic field modulation method. The device includes a planar spiral coil, of which coil pitch is smaller in the peripheral area than that in the central area thereof, thus realizing a relatively wide area of magnetic field of uniform intensity, with a low inductance. Because of the planar structure, the device can be positioned very close to the recording medium, and can achieve the high speed switching required in the magnetic field modulation method, without a large power source.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic field generating device for applying a bias magnetic field to a recording layer of a magnetooptical recording medium in the magnetooptical recording method.
2. Related Background Art
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional bias magnetic field generating device employed in the magnetooptical recording method of light modulation type. The bias magnetic field generating device 52 is provided on a magnetooptical recording medium, or a magnetooptical disk 50, so as to generate a substantially uniform magnetic field over the entire information recording area in which an optical head 51 is moved under tracking control. A bias field generating power source 53 supplies current to a coil wound on a core of the bias field generating device 52, and the magnetooptical disk 50 is rotated by a spindle motor 55.
In such magnetooptical recording of a light modulation method, record bits (portions of inverted magnetization) are formed by the intensity change of a light beam from the optical head, and the external field from the bias field generating device is used as a supplement. The recording, reproduction and erasure of information are achieved by intensity change of the light beam. Thus the light beam from the optical head is modulated according to the recording signal.
In such structure, the bias field generating device and the power source therefor are inevitably bulky and heavy since the bias magnetic field has to be generated for the entire information recording area 54. Also because of the difficulty of application of a uniform bias field over the entire information recording area 54, the record pits formed in the magnetooptical disk at recording become uneven in size and shape, eventually giving rise to errors in information reading. Furthermore, because of the significant electric power required for generating the bias magnetic field, the bias field generating device 52 causes temperature increase of the magnetooptical disk 50, thereby affecting the conditions of information recording and eventually leading to errors.
For this reason there is also proposed a bias field generating device for applying a bias field only to an area currently subjected to magnetooptical recording by the optical head, and this is called the magnetooptical recording of a magnetic field modulation method. FIG. 2 illustrates such recording, wherein a bias field generating device 62 is linked, by a support member 66, to an optical head 61 positioned across a magnetooptical disk 60, and said device 62 and optical head 61 are mutually so positioned that the light beam 67 for information recording and reproduction from the optical head 61 substantially coincides with the center of the bias field generated by the device 62. Consequently the bias field generating device 62 can follow the movement of the optical head 61 when it is moved in the information recording area 64 under tracking control.
In such magnetooptical recording of the magnetic field modulation method, the recording signal is introduced into the external magnetic field of the bias field generating device. At the information recording, the light beam from the optical head has a constant intensity and is used as a supplement. Thus the external field from the bias field generating device is modulated according to the recording signal.
In such magnetooptical recording, the support member 66 linking the bias field generating device 62 and the optical head 61 is provided, in a part A, with a spring of desired properties, and said bias field generating device 62 is made to float with a small spacing from the surface of the magnetooptical disk 60, utilizing the air flow generated by the rotation of the magnetooptical disk 60 on said surface.
Thus the bias field generating device shown in FIG. 2 can avoid the drawbacks of the bulk, weight and large power consumption associated with the device generating the magnetic field over the entire recording area as shown in FIG. 1, and can therefore eliminate the causes of errors.
However the bias field generating device shown in FIG. 2 is still associated with the following drawbacks. In such a device, since the generated bias field has only a narrow uniform area, so that the light beam 67 from the optical head 61 has to be exactly aligned with the center of the magnetic field generated by the device 62. For this reason there are required highly precise designing, manufacture and alignment, which lead to increased costs.
Also, the bias field generating device can follow the movement of the optical head through the support member 66, when said optical head is moved by a large amount under tracking control, but, in the course of scanning with the light beam, there is required correction control for the vibration of the light beam 67 resulting from vibration of an optical head actuator or for the aberration between the light beam 67 and the center of the bias field resulting from the vibration of the generating device 62. Particularly, in the tracking control of the light beam 67 by a fine tracking control actuator in the optical head 61, the correction control is indispensable for the positional aberration of said bias field generating device 62.
It is therefore conceivable to maintain the uniform area of the bias magnetic field of the generating device at a certain size, thereby enlarging the tolerance of said positional aberration and practically dispensing with said correction control. However, in the above-mentioned bias field generating device, the cylindrical coil employed therein requires a considerable number of turns for generating a required magnetic field, and the magnetic field is difficult to concentrate as the coil requires a certain distance in a direction perpendicular to the magnetooptical disk. Therefore if the magnetic pole is made larger for enlarging the uniform area of the necessary magnetic field, the high frequency drive becomes difficult due to the increase in inductance, and the bias field generating device inevitably becomes bulky and heavy.


Embodiments of the present invention include a method of performing speech recognition across a network. In one embodiment, the method includes providing, from a server to a first computer, sets of data to recognize spoken utterances from corresponding limited sets of candidate utterances, and supplying different sets of said data from the server to the first computer to recognize different spoken utterances from corresponding limited sets of candidate utterances at different times in response to different user interactions.

The present invention relates to speech recognition and more particularly to inexpensive and user friendly speech recognition techniques.
Speech recognition has been extensively studied for several decades because of its interest on intellectual grounds and because of its military and commercial applications. Some of the commercial applications involve speaker verification and improving the man-machine interface (e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,742,143; 4,049,913; 4,882,685; 5,281,143; and 5,297,183). As evidence of the extensive research on speech recognition, the U.S. Patent Office has granted more than 600 patents on speech recognition or related topics in the last three decades and as many as 10,000 articles have appeared in the scientific or engineering literature during that time.
Generally, a speech recognition device analyzes an unknown audio signal to generate a pattern that contains the acoustically significant information in the utterance. This information typically includes the audio signal power in several frequency bands and the important frequencies in the waveform, each as a function of time. The power may be obtained through the use of bandpass filters (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,552) or fast Fourier transforms (i.e., FFTs) (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,531). The frequency information maybe obtained from the FFTs or by counting zero crossings in the filtered input waveform (U.S. Pat. No. 4,388,495).
Speech recognition devices can be classified as "speaker dependent" or "speaker independent." Speaker dependent devices require that the user train the system by speaking all of the utterances in the entire recognition set several times. Speaker independent devices do not require such training because the acoustic cues obtained from many repetitions of the utterances in the recognition set, as spoken by many different speakers, are used to train the recognizer to recognize an unknown utterance by a speaker whose phrase was not part of the training set.
Commercial applications of both speaker independent and speaker dependent recognition are becoming prevalent for applications such as voice activated phone dialing, computer command and control, telephone inquiries, voice recorders, electronic learning aids, data entry, menu selection, and data base searching. The growth of the speech recognition marketplace results from the decreasing cost of computing power and recognition technology as well as the need for more friendly user interfaces.
In some applications, speaker dependent recognition is required because the user must input information that he/she later requests. An example is voice dialing, which is being test marketed by U.S. West among others, in which the user verbally enters a directory of names and phone numbers. This information is later solicited by using speaker dependent recognition when the user wishes to make a phone call. Except for applications such as voice dialing that require speaker dependent recognition, this technology has not achieved wide market acceptance because it is not user-friendly due to the required training.
Much of the interest in speaker independent recognition is because of the simpler user interface. An example of a speaker independent recognition software package running on personal computers is VOICE Release 2.0 from Kurzweil AI, which is able to recognize as many as 60,000 words without user training. Other examples of similar technologies are the IBM Voice Type 3.0, used in radiology, the Wild Card LawTALK, used in legal applications, and the Cortex Medical Management, used for anatomic pathology. More than two dozen speaker independent recognition computer products are available and they all require considerable computing power to perform the sophisticated natural language processing involving context, semantics, phonetics, prosody, etc., that is required to recognize very large sets of utterances without user training. Hence, large vocabulary, speaker independent recognition products require considerable computing power.
Small vocabulary, speaker independent recognition also appears in commercial applications where the number of utterances to be recognized is limited. Examples are the Sensory, Inc. speaker independent recognition LSI chip (U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,754) used in electronic learning aids such as the Fisher-Price Radar product, or in time setting applications such as the VoiceIt clock. This technology is accurate and inexpensive but, in the current art, it is limited to use with relatively small vocabularies because the LSI chip does not contain the computing power required for natural language processing or the memory required to store information about a very large inventory of recognition words.
The above described limitations of current recognition technology narrow the range of its applicability in consumer electronic products. For example, it would be desirable to select a particular song from a compact disk changer that holds many compact disks by telling it which disk and which song on that disk you wish to hear. This is not currently feasible because solving this problem with speaker dependent recognition requires that the user repeat the names of all recordings on every compact disk that he owns, while solving it with speaker independent technology would require that the recognizer be able to understand the name of every song on every compact disk in the world. Or, consider the use of speech recognition during the interaction of a surfer with an internet website. Most of this interaction is at a simple one-step-at-a-time level where the vocabulary to be recognized at each step is small but the total vocabulary associated with all of the steps may be large. For this application, speaker dependent recognition may not be feasible because of its inconvenience. Speaker independent recognition is feasible, but, in the current art, analyzing the speech by the web site's main processor creates conflicts between the recognition program and the application and may slow down the application to the point that use of recognition becomes unacceptable to the user. Also, adding additional processing power to handle the speaker independent recognition may not be feasible due to its cost.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Method of performing speech recognition across a network


Disclosure is a locking mechanism for connectors which are engaged with each other, which prevents the connectors from being insufficiently engaged by inertial locking, and allows the connectors to be engaged or disengaged with ease. The locking mechanism for male and female electrical connectors which are engaged with each others, a guide frame mounted on the upper wall of a male connector housing includes a slide piece which is slidably provided between the upper wall and the guide frame, and a locking spring. One end portion of the locking spring is fixedly secured to the guide frame, and the other end portion is positioned above the front end portion of the slide piece when the latter is at the forward position, and in front of the front end portion when the slide piece is at the backward position. The locking section of the male connector housing and the engaging section of the slide piece hold the slide piece in position. The female connector housing has a connector receiving section. When the two connector housings are engaged with each other, the locking spring is brought in slide contact with the protrusion formed at the connector receiving section.

1. Field of the Industrial Application
This invention relates to the locking mechanism of a connector assembly through which electrical wires, for instance, in an automobile are connected.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 7 (A) is a longitudinal sectional view showing a conventional connector housing locking mechanism, and FIG. 7 (B) is a perspective view of a locking spring employed in the locking mechanism.
As shown in FIGS. 7 (A) and (B), the locking spring d has a locking hole a at the middle, and both end portions are bent in the opposite directions, thus providing a pair of bent portions b and c. That is, the locking spring is substantially S-shaped in section. The bend portion c is fitted in a locking groove f formed in the outer side wall of a male housing g. An engaging protrusion h is extended inwardly from the outer edge of the side wall of a female connector housing g. The engaging protrusion h and the locking hole a of the locking spring d form engaging means (cf. Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Application No. 184677/1987).
The conventional connector housing locking mechanism is designed as described above. Therefore, when the male connector housing e is inserted into the female housing g, the locking spring d of the male connector housing is pushed downwardly sliding on the slope h' of the above-described engaging protrusion h, and finally when the male connector housing e has been fully inserted into the female connector housing g, the locking hole a of the locking spring d, being moved upwardly by the elastic force of the locking spring d, is engaged with the engaging protrusion h. Thus, the male connector housing e has been fixedly engaged with the female connector housing g.
The male connector housing e can be disengaged from the female connector housing g as follows: While the bent portion b of the locking spring d is being pushed downwardly to disengage the engaging protrusion h from the locking hole a, the male connector housing e is pulled out of the female connector housing g.
That is, in the conventional connector housing locking mechanism, the locking spring made of metal is employed as a component to provide a great housing locking force. That is, the conventional connector housing locking mechanism is advantageous in that it has such a great housing locking force; however, this means that it needs a great force to disengage the male connector housing from the female connector housing (by depressing the bent portion b of the locking spring d).
In general, in engagement of a male connector and a female connector, the relationships between the terminal engaging force and the connector engaging stroke are as indicated in FIG. 8 (A), in which the Y-axis represents housing locking forces, while the X-axis represents connector engaging strokes. As is apparent from the graphical representation, the housing locking force p reaches its peak with a connector engaging stroke x.sub.1, and the terminal engaging force q reaches its peak with a connector engaging stroke x.sub.2.
Therefore, an inertial locking force r, which is formed by combining the housing locking force p and the terminal engaging force q, first reaches a large peak with the connector engaging stroke x.sub.1, and next a small peak with the connector engaging stroke x.sub.2 as shown in FIG. 8 (B), in which the X'-axis represents connector strokes, and the Y'-axis represent housing locking forces.
As is apparent from the graphical representation of FIG. 8 (B), the inertial locking force must be greater than the terminal engaging force. As the number of terminals in the connector is increased, this tendency is strengthened, so that the connector engaging force is increased accordingly, and at the same time, the connector disengaging force is also increased. Thus, it gets increasingly difficult to perform a connector engaging or disengaging operation.


An apparatus for storing a substrate on which a pattern is formed includes a main body storing the substrate, a first pad located at the bottom of the main body and including a first groove supporting one edge of the substrate, a second pad neighboring the first pad and including a second groove supporting the center of the substrate, and a third pad spaced from the first pad, the second pad being disposed between the first and third pads, the third pad including a third groove supporting the other edge of the substrate.

1. Field
Embodiments relate to an apparatus for storing substrates.
2. Description of the Related Art
A substrate storage apparatus may store a plurality of substrates spacing the substrates from one another by holding edges of the substrates with a groove.
The above information disclosed in this background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the described technology and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.


A great relative aperture telephoto zoom lens of four-unit construction has, in succession from the object side, a first lens unit having positive refractive power, a second lens unit having negative refractive power, a third lens unit having positive refractive power, and a fourth lens unit having positive refractive power. The fourth lens unit has, in succession from the object side, a front group having positive refractive power and a rear group having positive refractive power. The front group has, in succession from the object side, two positive lens components and a negative lens component. The rear group has, in succession from the object side, a positive lens component and a negative lens component, and is designed to satisfy predetermined conditions.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a zoom lens of four-unit construction.
2. Related Background Art
A telephoto zoom lens of four-unit construction comprising, in succession from the object side, a focusing lens unit having positive refractive power, a variably power lens unit having negative refractive power, a correcting lens unit having positive refractive power and a relay lens unit having positive refractive power has heretofore been put into practical use.
So, in conventional telephoto zoom lenses of four-unit construction as described above, when attention is paid to the fourth lens unit as the relay lens unit, many such zoom lenses have a structure in which the exit pupil is located beyond the image plane.
Therefore, when the principal ray of a maximum angle of view passes through that lens surface in the fourth lens unit which is most adjacent to the image plane, the emergence height of the principal ray has become great, and to secure the quantity of marginal light, it has been necessary to make the effective diameter of the lens surface which is most adjacent to the image plane great.
Also, in a zoom lens of the internal focusing type based on the conventional zoom lens of four-unit construction as described above, the full length has become great to secure the movable portion of the focusing lens unit and the height at which the principal ray of a maximum angle of view passes through the lens has become small and therefore, it has been impossible to secure the quantity of marginal light sufficiently. As a result, it has been necessary to make the effective diameter of that lens in the first lens unit which is located most adjacent to the object side great.

Great relative aperture telephoto zoom lens


A coater for dispersed slurry capable of coating coated dispersed slurry on a nonwoven cloth-like base material while bringing the slurry into contact with the material, comprising a net conveyor for transferring the nonwoven cloth-like base material, a supply means for supplying the dispersed slurry onto the net conveyor, and a coating roll for forming a coating layer of a specified thickness by pressing, from the upper side thereof, the dispersed slurry supplied onto the nonwoven cloth-like base material, wherein this coating roll is allowed to come into direct contact with the dispersed slurry on the peripheral surface of the nonwoven cloth-like base material or allowed to come into contact with the dispersed slurry through a film provided therethrough.

With absorbent products being made super thin, such technologies as making SAP into a sheet form have become very important. Among such technologies, as a promising process, an attempt has been made to prepare a slurry by dispersing SAP in water, an organic solvent or an organic solvent/water mixed solvent using a viscosity adjusting agent such as CMC, MFC and PEO for coating a support. For example, in Patent Application Laid-open Hei 10-168230, an example where a coater and a kiss coater of a grid form, in Patent Application Laid-open Hei 11-34200, an example where coating is conducted from a nozzle of a tube type, in Patent Application Laid-open Hei 11-128825, an example where a die coater, a curtain coater, a knife coater or a spray coater is used, in Patent Application Laid open Hei 11-226467, an example where a slurry is guided from a buffer tank through to an overflow nozzle and in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open 2000-5674, an example where a pattern coating is conducted using a contact head are disclosed respectively.
In coating various types of substrate surfaces, the dispersion slurry in which solid particles are dispersed in a dispersion medium, unlike the case where a liquid to be applied for coating is a uniform solvent, is apt to have some partial variation in concentration due to phase separation, settling down, agglomeration and the like. In case the dispersion slurry is applied for coating, it is preferable to utilize a low cost roll coater of a relatively simple structure among various coaters available, but with such roll coater dispersed solid particles are apt to settle down in the dispersion slurry or to adhere to the surface of a coating roll. If such settling down or adhesion takes place, the coated surface may be uneven or clogging may take place during operation so that it becomes difficult to run a uniform and stable coating operation.
In order to diminish the settling down and adhesion of the dispersed solid particles, such actions for establishing making a condition where slurry may be made easier to be detached have been taken like treating of the surface of a coating roll with a material such as silicone and Teflon (registered trademark), scraping by means of a scraper, and rotating of a roll in a positive direction or a reverse direction.
Compared with such solid containing dispersion slurry, since the slurry in which SAP is dispersed is less fluid and thus apt to get of sludge like, it becomes more difficult to obtain stable and uniform coating with such SAP dispersion slurry and so far no commercial process therefor has been developed yet.


Systems and methods for implementing an acknowledgement mechanism for transmission of a real-time data stream from a sending system to a receiving system are disclosed. An exemplary method implemented in a sending system involves establishing a connection with a receiving system for transmitting a real-time data stream to the receiving system. The method also involves transmitting a current segment of the real-time data stream to the receiving system. If an acknowledgement of the current segment is not received from the receiving system during a predetermined time period, the method also involves discontinuing any retransmission attempts for the current segment and transmitting a next segment to the receiving system.

Computer and communication technologies continue to advance at a rapid pace. Indeed, computer and communication technologies are involved in many aspects of a person's day. For example, many devices being used today have a small computer inside of the device. These small computers come in varying sizes and degrees of sophistication. Computers commonly used include everything from hand-held computing devices to large multi-processor computer systems.
Computers are used in almost all aspects of business, industry and academic endeavors. More and more homes are using computers as well. The pervasiveness of computers has been accelerated by the increased use of computer networks, including the Internet. Most companies have one or more computer networks and also make extensive use of the Internet. The productivity of employees often requires human and computer interaction. Improvements in computers and software have been a force for bringing about great increases in business and industrial productivity.
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is widely used in the Internet, serving as the transport mechanism for web browsing (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), e-mail (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), file downloading (File Transfer Protocol), and so forth.
In traditional TCP, "reliability" is defined strictly in terms of data, and not at all in terms of time. This is an appropriate definition for those applications which are not time-sensitive, or are not time-sensitive beyond the ability of the network to perform at all times and in all places. Thus, the goal of TCP is to create an exact duplicate of the sender's byte stream on the receiver's system, regardless of how long it takes. TCP incorporates a positive acknowledgement strategy in which every segment of a transfer stream is retransmitted repetitively until it is either acknowledged or the connection is broken.
For real-time applications, the timeliness of data is in many cases more important than precise accuracy. For example, in typical video streaming applications, video frames are replaced 30 times a second, and none is more important than another. The techniques employed in known TCP implementations may be inappropriate for data streams originating in real-time, because TCP segments corresponding to elements of the data stream become stale after a certain period of time (generally measured in tens of milliseconds). Current practice does not solve this problem directly, but requires various means in an audio/video rendering station to cope with starvation for data, including breakdown of the connection and a complete restart.
In view of the foregoing, benefits may be realized by means for addressing some or all of the foregoing issues. More specifically, benefits may be realized by systems and methods for implementing an acknowledgement mechanism for transmission of a real-time data stream from a sending system to a receiving system.


A bore honing device comprising a support assembly including first and second end support elements connected by a base support which supports an axial guide track. A trolley engaging with the guide track and the trolley being movable along the guide track for guide movement of a bore honing tool supported by the trolley. At least one adjustable guide is provided for limiting travel of the trolley along the guide track. A weight compensation mechanism is connected between the trolley and a desired end wall of the support assembly for exerting a force on the support assembly when a bore honing device is vertically oriented to compensate for the weight of the drive motor, the trolley and the honing tool.

The boring or re-boring of holes to tight tolerances in various metals, as when initially forming a cylinder bore or repairing a cylinder bore which has been damaged for some reason, is a common machining problem in the art and can be difficult.
A typical method for boring a hole to a set of required dimensions is to first bore or ream out an opening to an initial diameter which is close to but slightly smaller than the final bore diameter, and to lesser tolerances, with the initial opening then being honed and finished to a final bore diameter with the desired tolerances by use of a honing tool. Such finishing hones for bores are well known in the art and typically include, for example, a number of finishing or grinding surfaces or stones supported on a frame which permits adjustment, in the radial direction, of the diameter of the grinding stones so that the grinding stones can be located against and grind bores having different diameters.
In the case of repairing a damaged bore, for example, the typical repair process will first comprising filling the damaged portion of the bore with a sufficient amount of a desired weld material such that the portion of the bore filled with the weld material has a diameter which is somewhat less than the diameter of the original, undamaged bore. This filling step of the process is typically performed by a conventional bore repair welding device, which is well known in the art, wherein a radially adjustable welding tip is inserted into the damaged area of the bore and rotated to deposit the weld material circumferentially along the damaged inner surface of the bore. Once a sufficient amount of the weld material is deposited, the conventional bore repair welding device is removed and a boring finishing device, such as a cutter mounted on a drill, is inserted within the bore and rotated to order to shave, cut and/or remove excess weld material and eventually achieve a desired bore diameter. In certain instances, the dimensional and alignment accuracies that can be obtained with the cutter are sufficient to meet necessary requirements, and the process is completed solely by use of the rotating cutter.
Many other instances, however, require greater dimensional and alignment accuracies for the bore. In such cases, the cutter merely cuts the bore so that the interior diameter of the bore is sufficiently close to but slightly less than the desired final diameter for the bore. Thereafter, a honing tool is used to hone the diameter and alignment of the bore to the desired final dimensions and tolerances, such as to finish the bore to a desired diameter having a tolerance, for example, of ±0.0005 of an inch or less.
The above processes present a number of problems such as boring tool deflection, bearing play, tool wear, variable hardness in the material, and adjusting the boring tool to a proper radial alignment and dimensions. Further, manual physical manipulation of a conventional bore honing tool, during use, is often cumbersome. These problems tend to be somewhat lessened if the bore being finished has a relative small diameter and length, and such bores are often finished with a stationary hone. That is, a hone which may be clamped or held in a completely stationary position.
The above noted problems, however, become much more significant if the bore is relatively large or relatively long or if the workpiece being finished is relatively large or bulky because such situations typically require a relatively large and heavy boring tool and a corresponding heavy duty motor, such as a large portable drill, to adequately drive the boring tool at a desired rotational speed and with sufficient torque. The honing tools are often designed to be portable because they are often necessary, or at least preferable, when repairing a bore on site. As a result, the honing tool and the motor are typically supported and manipulated directly by the operator, as is conventional in the art. However, because of the weight, the size and the power requirements of the honing tool and the associated drive motor, it is often difficult for an operator to support and manipulate the honing tool and drive motor. These factors result in difficulties in meeting the required bore dimensional and alignment tolerances, significantly increase the time required to complete a honing process, lead to operator fatigue and may possibly create a safety issue which could lead to damage to the honing tool or injury to the operator.
For example, the concentration and physical effort required of the operator just to support and manipulate the honing tool and the drive motor makes it difficult for the operator to notice relatively small changes in the rotational speed and/or the axial position of the honing tool, even though such changes are often indicative of the axial force required to feed or withdraw the tool, such as in compensating for variations in the material hardness or thickness. In addition, portable hones often require a significant amount of axial movement and thus the honing tool is often connected to the drive motor via a drive shaft and a universal joint. This, in turn, leads to an increased risk that the tool can be pulled out of or otherwise be inadvertently removed from the bore during the honing process due to operator error from fatigue or the physical effort required to manipulate the tool, resulting in the hone deflecting radially and swinging around in an uncontrolled fashion.
It will be appreciated that these problems are increased significantly when honing a vertically extending bore since the operator is also then required not only to support the weight of the tool and the motor but also to apply force to the tool and the motor in an upward and downward manner, often in a cramped position.
The present invention addresses these and other related problems associated with the prior art devices and techniques for repairing and finishing a damaged bore.


A new concept of computer system is provided to relax stresses such as fatigue, VDT syndrome, occupational diseases or psychogenic possibly gained from long hours of computer usage. This new computer system is able to divert the negative effects of conventional computer to affirmative effects by introducing the aroma therapy. The new computer system provides not only the data programs of establishing, playing execution and controlling, but also the stress relief program comprising acoustic therapy, color therapy, fragrance therapy and tactual therapy and a stress perception program. The stress relief program is operated by an emission device through a converter. The equipment of the stress relief is installed on a peripheral device of computer such as a speaker, keyboard or monitor. The new concept of computer system for stress relaxation originates a combination of the computer system and the natural therapies applied the human senses like sight, hearing, feeling and smelling senses. With this new computer system, the computer user has a merit of stress relief during the computer operating.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer system for stress relaxation and an operating method of the computer system; more particularly, relates to a computer system and operating method providing stress relief means comprising acoustic therapy, color therapy, fragrance therapy or tactual therapy to relax stress, fatigue or psychological disorder possibly gained from the long hour operation of computer.
2. Description of Prior Art
Recently, as increasing the operation of computers, many computer users are commonly suffering the symptoms of stress or VDT syndrome caused from the long hour operation of computer, and this fact turns out a serious social problem. Therefore, a new computer system is required to resolve this sort of problem as well as maximize the working efficiency. To do this, the new computer system adopted a stress relaxation devise is appeared to divert a negative effect of computer operation to an affirmative effect. It is one of the best desirable and efficient methods to apply the human sensibility for a stress relief.
Some conventional computers have equipped with a sensibility function such as an audio-visual effect, some fragrance spraying kits along with IC chips have been used. But, these sorts of fragrance spraying kits are simply purifying or ventilating the air, or removing odors by spraying fragrance. Meanwhile, the conventional computer systems are furnished a screen saver mode, but the screen saver mode is a monotonous function and simply displays a picture on a monitor screen.
Furthermore, the conventional emitting device is controlled only the spraying quantity or spraying time of fragrance according to the pre-fixed emission program within an internal circuit of an IC chip or transistors.
Other conventional computer systems are provided a music function during the screen saver mode, but the playing music is not matched to the displayed picture on the monitor screen. If an olfactory function were combined to the conventional audio-visual function, the stress relief function would be more effectively increased. If the combined sensibility function were connected to the computer system, the effect of stress relief would be more affirmatively increased than one expected with great synergic effect.
With regard to the prior references, the Korean Unexamined Patent Publication No. 98-83351 discloses a picture image and fragrance emitting system in multimedia apparatus, such as television, video player, personal computer or electronic game player. This kind of apparatus provides the fragrance emitting system installed in the multimedia apparatus like a television set, and emits the pre-fixed amount of fragrance simultaneously matched to a suitable visual condition. The conventional technology of the fragrance emitting system combines an audio-visual signal with an olfactory signal by using a VCR signal mixer and encoding a suitable odor information to a pictorial information data during the photographing, manufacturing or editing multimedia. For reproducing the combined signal, an olfactory signal is generated through decoding of olfactory signal separated from a VCR signal by a separator. However, the conventional technology of the fragrance emitting system is inconvenient for daily usage because the operation of the device is complicate and required additional appendent.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a computer system for stress relaxation and an operating method of the computer system. More specifically, the objective of the present invention is to provide a computer system and operating method which possibly make the computer user relax the stress or VDT syndrome by stimulating the user""s nerve organs such as the sense of sight, hearing, feeling or smelling.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a computer system adopting a naturopathy concept being combined an audio-visual stimulation program applied to a personal computer, a notebook computer, a server and other sorts of computers with a nasal-tactual stimulation program applied to a newly developed converter. One of the peripheral devices of computer system perceives computer user""s physical conditions, and the user""s physical conditions are recorded and compared with the preset data in the program.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a computer system outputting a signal generated from the software program which is simply modified to the existing computer system, transmitting the signal to an interface, emitting fragrance matched with a picture on a monitor screen and a playing music, and stimulating the computer user""s nerve organs for stress relief. The computer system provides various aroma environments depending on the emitting program which is combined according to the input signals during reproducing and controlling the program.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a computer system for offering the best pleasant environment to a computer user depending on computer user""s physical condition, such as a blood pressure or a quantity of blood circulation.
Another further objective of the present invention is to provide a fragrance emitting system which a computer user can control intensity or spraying time of fragrance.
Another further objective of the present invention is to provide a stress relaxation system being able to upgrade or modify the programs via a computer network such as internet. And the system being able to immediately respond the unexpected changes informed from the outside of the system, such as the worse exterior environment or weather change, so as to upgrade or modify the program on time.
In order to achieve the above objectives, the computer system for stress relaxation, displaying a preset picture on a monitor screen according to a pictorial information data, and emitting a predetermined amount of fragrance through an emitting device according to a emission information data, comprises:
data storage means for storing said pictorial information data and said emission information data;
a microprocessor for searching and outputting a desired pictorial information data and a desired emission information data corresponding to said desired pictorial information data from said data storage means in response to an input signal, and having a capability of searching and retrieving said desired pictorial information data and emission information data from random positions of said data storage means;
a monitor for displaying said picture on the monitor screen according to said pictorial information data retrieved from said microprocessor in response to said input signal;
a converter for converting said emission information data corresponding to said pictorial information data retrieved from said microprocessor to an output signal, and outputting said output signal; and
a fragrance emission device for emitting fragrance in response to said output signal from said converter.
It is desirable to generate the input signal when a predetermined time is lapsed and no input information data is issued from inputting devices including a keyboard or a mouse.
It is desirable that the data storage means further stores acoustic information data, the microprocessor simultaneously outputs the pictorial information data, and the emission information data and the acoustic information data corresponding to the pictorial information data from the data storage means in response to the input signal, and wherein a sound is output through a speaker in response to the acoustic information data.
It is desirable that the data storage means further stores tactual information data, wherein the microprocessor simultaneously outputs the pictorial information data, and the emission information data and the tactual information data corresponding to the pictorial information data from the data storage means in response to the input signal, and wherein a tactual stimulation device stimulates the tactual sense of computer user through an output signal generated in response to said tactual information data.
It is desirable that the computer system further comprising:
means for issuing a physical information signal according to perception of a computer user""s physical information,
a microprocessor for searching a proper pictorial information data and a proper emission information data corresponding to the perceived user""s physical information and outputting the proper pictorial information data and emission information data from the data storage means in response to the physical information signal;
a converter for converting the proper emission information data corresponding to the proper pictorial information data retrieved from the microprocessor to an output signal, and outputting the output signal; and
a fragrance emission device for emitting fragrance in response to said output signal from said converter.
The means for generating the physical information signal may include a stress perception sensor attached to input devices, such as a keyboard or a mouse, and a sensor converter for converting perceived signal from the stress perception sensor to the physical information signal.
The physical information may be the physical information including user""s body temperature, blood pressure, pulse and a quantity of blood circulation.
It is desirable that a frequency, amount, interval or cycle of the information data stored in said data storage means is adjustable and selectable by the user.
It is desirable that the information data stored in the data storage means is modifiable at imminent through a computer network or an internet.
The fragrance emission device is possibly installed interior of a main computer frame, and used a same power source of the computer. Alternately, the fragrance emission device is possibly attachable to the exterior of a main computer frame, and used a different power source of the computer. Especially, the fragrance emission device is possibly attachable to a peripheral device of the computer such as a monitor, keyboard or speaker. Preferably, the fragrance emission device includes a container and an electric on-off spray switch with a solenoid valve.
Another further objective of the present invention is to provide an operating method of a computer system for stress relaxation for displaying a preset picture on a monitor screen according to a pictorial information data and emitting a preset amount of fragrance through an emission device according to an emission information data, the operating method comprising the steps of:
issuing a physical information signal according to perception of a computer user""s physical information;
receiving the physical information signal;
searching a proper pictorial information data and a proper emission information data corresponding to the perceived computer user""s physical information;
outputting the proper pictorial information data from the data storage means in response to the physical information signal;
displaying a proper picture in response to the proper pictorial information data from the microprocessor;
outputting the emission information data to an interface;
converting the proper emission information data corresponding to the proper pictorial information data retrieved from the microprocessor to an output signal, and outputting the output signal; and
operating a fragrance emission device in response to the output signal to emitting a proper fragrance.
It is desirable that the method further includes the steps for searching a desirable information data from the data storage means of optional information data, and outputting the information data selected by the user for the pictorial information data and the emission information data.
The computer system for stress relaxation of the present invention is provided to systematically connect the whole or main part of programs to an interface, emitting device, stress perception device and the home page.
For the computer programs, the system is preferably provided that the computer user is able to install and implement the reproduction programs modified the various data programs furnished by home page. The computer program is also provided to combine a picture file which is suitable data program for implementing the concept of color therapy to a music file. Moreover, the computer program is provided to automatically operate the reproduction program according to a signal being sent from a peripheral device such as a mouse or a keyboard capable to perceive user""s stress.
The computer program is also provided that a program signal is transformed to an electric signal when the data program is operated in a reproduction program, and at the same time the interface section operates the emitting device. Especially, it is provided that the program can be automatically operated when the program receives the signal sent from the peripheral device such as a mouse or a keyboard capable to perceive the user""s stress.
The computer program is also provided that an emitting device is able to emit fragrance according to the program transmitted from interface section. Consequently, the picture based on the concept of color therapy displayed on monitor screen, the suitable music based on the concept of acoustic therapy corresponding to the displayed picture on monitor screen, and the fragrance based on concept of fragrance therapy which is in harmony with the displayed picture and playing music.
As described above, the present invention system is provided an effective system for relaxing the stress, fatigue or VDT syndrome possibly gained during the computer works. It should be realized that the synergic effect of each program is obtainable based on concept of the music, color, aroma and tactual therapy. These effects are obtained from the audio-visual stimulation modified the existing computer system, and nasal-tactual stimulation combined with the emitting device and the tactual recognition device. Because this system can relax the stress depending on the computer user""s condition by automatically detecting the user""s stress, this present invention offers the extensive usage of computer.
All of objectives and advantages of this present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments with the drawings.

Computer system for stress relaxation and operating method of the same

507-401, 5th Pyunghwa Jookong Apt., Pyunghwa-Dong


A hairstyling implement with detachable decorative piece includes a hairstyling body for substantially binding, tying or holding a user's hair, a hairstyling base firmly connected to the hairstyling body, at least a fastening device each comprising a first fastener and a second fastener integrally affixed to the hairstyling base for detachably connecting with the first fastener, at least a decorative piece having a decorative front side and a connecting back side to which the first fastener is integrally affixed thereon. Therefore, the decorative piece can be firmly attached to the hairstyling base by connecting the first and second fasteners together. Besides, the decorative piece may also be detached from the hairstyling base by separating the first and second fasteners. Whereby, the user is able to selectively mount various decorative pieces on a hairstyling base in order to increase the variety of hairstyling implement.

Conventional hairstyling implement, such as hair clip, hair fixer, hair clasp, and hair band, generally merely includes a hair styling means to tie, bind, hold, or clip a user hair to desired style. In order to provide a decorative feature, some hairstyling implements further include a decorative piece of various shape and color connected to the hair styling means.
As shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, a conventional hair clasp 11 and hair band 12 for holding and binding hair together are illustrated respectively. FIG. 1C illustrates a hair fixer 13 for holding bangs rearwards. The only way to make such hair clasp 11, hair band 12 or hair fixer 13 become more attractive and decorative is its color and size. Similarly, as shown in FIG. 1D, a hair clip 14 further contains a decorative piece 141 which is a shaped plate affixed to a hair clipper 142, so that the hair clip 14 may increase its stylish variety by changing the shape and color of the decorative piece 141. Moreover, the decorative piece 141 of the hair clip 14 may also designed as a cartoon figure or other decorative figures.
From aged lady to little girl, all female hanker after hairstyling. In order to enhance the decorating effect, even though a woman usually wear just one hairstyling implement at one time, she may spend a lot of money to purchase numerous of hair clips, hair clasps, or hair fixers of different models but having the same function. For example, a woman may like to wear a model of hair clip in the day time and another model of hair clip during a dinner party, so that she needs to entirely release the day wearing hair clip and re-bind her hair with another one. Also, a girl may ask her parents to buy a lot of hairstyling implements decorated with cartoon figures simply because she has a hobby of collecting a series of popular cartoons.
It is understandable for a lady to own many hairstyling implements in view of beauty or collection, but it is unreasonable to buy a lot of hairstyling implements having the identical function. In fact, every hair clip, for example, has an identical function, wherein the only difference for each hair clip is the shape or color of the decorative piece thereof. Therefore, although the purchaser may only be attached to buy a new hair clip due to its newly designed decorative piece, but she is also forced to buy the hair clipper too because it is integrally and rigidly glued to the decorative piece.
Moreover, the decorative piece of the conventional hairstyling implement is simply glued to the hairstyling body. Such glued decorative piece bears a common drawback of easily falling off from the hairstyling body due to the defective of the adhesive material used or the changes of weather temperature.

Hairstyling implement with detachable decorative piece


An apparatus comprising a housing. A rechargeable battery source for providing a first source of direct current, a hand-crank dynamo configured to replenish the rechargeable battery source, and a direct current input receptacle configured for receiving a second source of direct current are disposed and held in the housing. An electric circuit is disposed and held in the housing and is in electrical communication with the rechargeable battery source and the direct current input receptacle to receive direct current from the first source of direct current or the second source of direct current. A cell phone charger output jack, in electrical communication with the electric circuit, is disposed and held in the housing. A radio receiver, disposed and held in the housing and in electrical communication with the electric circuit, is adapted to receive a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration or Environment Canada weather station.

It is well recognized that hand held portable radios are an indispensable tool in emergency situations such as blackouts or natural disasters. Such radios can be used to obtain emergency information. Perhaps the best source of such information in the United States is the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio (NWR). NWR is a nationwide network of stations broadcasting continuous weather information direct from a nearby National Weather Service office. NWR broadcasts National Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information twenty four hours a day. Working with the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) Emergency Alert System, NWR is an "all hazards" radio network, making it a single source for weather and emergency information. NWR also broadcasts warning and post-event information for all types of hazards including natural (e.g., earthquakes, volcano activity, etc.) and environmental (e.g., chemical releases or oil spills). NWR is provided as a public service by NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce. NWR includes more than 900 transmitters, covering all 50 states, adjacent coastal waters, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the U.S. Pacific Territories. NWR requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the signal. Broadcasts are found in the public service band at seven specific frequencies 162.40 MHz, 162.42 MHz, 162.45 MHz, 162.47 MHz, 162.50 MHz, 162.52 MHz, and 162.55 MHz. The same channels are used in Canada by Environment Canada. Secondary sources of emergency information include AM stations, FM stations, and television bands.
Another indispensable tool in blackouts is a cell phone. Cell phones can be used to contact emergency assistance. Furthermore, cell phone usage can be tracked by cell phone operators to determine whether the phone has been used after a natural disaster. Such cell phone usage indicates that the cell phone account holder survived the natural disaster. However, cell phones are operated by batteries that require recharging. Newer cell phones, equipped with color screens and digital cameras, provide enhanced features at the expense of battery life. Thus, while cell phones are an indispensable tool in emergency situations, they have the shortcoming of needing frequent recharge—a resource that is simply not available in many emergency situations.
A number of devices have provided some emergency features. While many of these devices are useful in a variety of situations, each has certain drawbacks. For example, Innovative Solutions and Technologies, LLC (Bozeman, Mont.) markets a portable cell phone recharger, termed the Sidewinder, which includes a hand crank dynamo. Turning the crank handle at a speed of about two revolutions per second generates power that is used to recharge a cell-phone battery. One doesn't need to turn the crank at exactly two revolutions per second. Somewhat faster or slower is acceptable because the Sidewinder is voltage regulated to keep the voltage reasonably stable even if the generator speed varies. This Sidewinder also includes a miniature flashlight capability. There is a white LED on the top of the unit, and when the hand crank is turned, the generated power can either be used to recharge a cell phone or to turn on the light. A built in capacitor stores some charge so the light will continue to glow for a couple of minutes after a thirty second charge. While the Sidewinder provides useful functionality, it suffers from the drawback of having no radio receiver. Of course, such functionality could be obtained from a supplemental device, such as a portable weather radio. But this is undesirable because it requires one to carry multiple electronic devices in an emergency including a radio, a cell phone charger, and a cell phone. A more desirable emergency device would incorporate more essential features than those found in the Sidewinder into one single device in order to provide more effective emergency response assistance.
The Preparedness Center (Ukiah, Calif.) markets a solar powered, hand crank powered flashlight and AM/FM radio. Safety Buddy, Inc. (Irvine, Calif.) markets a hand crank AM/FM dynamo radio with a lantern light. However, each of these devices has the drawback that they are not equipped to receive NWR or television bands, and they do not have cell phone chargers.
Picou Builders Supply Company (Gonzales, La.) markets a solar and dynamo powered radio, termed the Info-Mate, that provides solar and dynamo powered FM, AM, shortwave, and NWR (WX) channels. However, this device has the drawback that it is not equipped to receive television bands, does not have a cell phone charger, and does not include a hand crank dynamo.
Giftique, Inc. (Lawrence, N.Y.) and The Johnson Smith Company (Bradenton, Fla.) each market a dynamo hand powered radio clock that includes FM and AM radio reception and a cell phone charger. The marketed device further includes an emergency alarm and flashlight. However, the device has the drawback that it does not receive NWR or television bands.
Stacks and Stacks (Richmond, Calif.) and CrystalBay (Fair Oaks, Calif.) each market a dynamo hand powered radio clock that includes FM, AM, NWR, and television band reception. The device further includes an emergency alarm and a flashlight. However, the device has the drawback that it does not have a cell phone charger.
China National Electronics Import and Export Shenzhen Company (Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province. China) manufactures the Kaito KA-006 and KA-007. The KA-007 is a dynamo hand powered radio clock that includes FM, AM, NWR, and television band reception. The KA-006 is a dynamo hand powered radio clock that includes FM and AM band radio reception. However, like the Stacks and Stacks device, the KA-006 and KA-007 have the drawback that they do not have cell phone chargers. The KA-006 has the further drawback that it does not include NWR or television band reception. The KA-006 and KA-007 each have the further drawback that they do not include a flashlight or alarm (e.g., a siren).
Green Home, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.) markets a dynamo hand powered radio clock that includes FM and AM band reception. However, the device has the drawback that it does not have a cell phone charger. Preparedness Industries, Inc. (Ukiah, Calif.) markets a dynamo hand powered radio clock that includes FM, AM and NWR band reception. The device further includes an emergency alarm and a flashlight. However, the device has the drawback that it does not have a cell phone charger and it does not have television band reception.
In 2003, Eton (Palo Alto, Calif.) announced the availability of the FR200 emergency radio. The FR200 is dynamo hand powered radio that includes AM, FM, and shortwave radio band reception. The FR200 includes a flashlight that operates on power from the dynamo or three AA batteries. While the FR200 represents a significant advancement in the art of emergency devices, it has the drawback of not being able to receive television bands or the ability to recharge cell phones.
In addition to products currently present on the market, a number of efforts to provide emergency equipment have been described in various patents. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,055,986, entitled "Combination Light, Radio and Clock," to Johnson provides a device having a small incandescent light, a radio and clock, all housed within the same cabinet or housing. The light, clock and radio can be used during emergencies when energized by replaceable, rechargeable or non-rechargeable batteries. The Johnson device, while functional, is unsatisfactory. The device includes a power cord. Thus, although the radio will work on battery power, the presence of the power cord makes use of the radio as a portable emergency radio awkward. Furthermore, the light is on the front of the device. Given the flat design of the Johnson device, the positioning of the light on the front panel of the device makes operation of the Johnson device as a flashlight awkward. The Johnson device further has the drawback in that it is not adopted to receive television band or NWR band signals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,198, entitled "Combination Clock Radio, Night Light and Power Receptacle," to Kellogg describes a combination appliance that includes the features of a radio, a clock and a light fixture and an electrical receptacle operated by alternating current. However, the Kellogg appliance is entirely reliant on household current and, as such, is wholly inadequate for emergency situations where device portability is needed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,238,061 B1, entitled "Combination Lighting System, Alarm Clock, Radio and Television Having Secondary Power Supply," to McKenzie et al. describes a self-contained, portable, remote controlled combination television receiver, FM/AM radio receiver, clock and electric lamp. Alternative embodiments provide the lamp alone, the lamp and the radio receiver alone, or the lamp and the television receiver alone. Regardless, the McKenzie et al. device as described is bulky and has a power cord, making its use as an emergency device awkward in many emergency situations. For instance, the McKenzie device comes with a remote controlled device in order to control the lamp, radio, and television receiver suggesting the immobility of the device. And one suggested power source is a car battery. The McKenzie et al. device also provides no cell phone charger and no capability to receive NWR band signals.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,536,917 B1, entitled "Combination Flashlight and Two-way Radio," to Aperocho et al. describes a combination flashlight and two-way radio. The Aperocho et al. device includes a recharging control base that plugs into a conventional AC current source. While useful in its own right, the Aperocho et al. device fails to provide a cell phone charger or the ability to receive NWR or television band signals.
Given the above background, what is needed beyond the prior art are improved portable emergency devices that are useful in a broad array of emergency situations.

Hand crank weather channel receiver with cell phone charger


Blends of very low density polyethylene produced using metallocene catalysts (mVLDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) are disclosed. The polymer blends include a metallocene-catalyzed VLDPE polymer having a density of less than 0.916 g/cm3, the VLDPE polymer preferably being linear and without long chain branching, and a LLDPE polymer having a density of from 0.916 to 0.940 g/cm3. The polymer blends are particularly suitable in blown and cast film applications.

Various types of polyethylenes are known in the art. Low density polyethylene ("LDPE") can be prepared at high pressure using free radical initiators, or in gas phase processes using Ziegler-Natta or vanadium catalysts, and typically has a density in the range of 0.916–0.940 g/cm3. LDPE is also known as "branched" or "heterogeneously branched" polyethylene because of the relatively large number of long chain branches extending from the main polymer backbone. Polyethylene in the same density range, i.e., 0.916 to 0.940 g/cm3, which is linear and does not contain long chain branching is also known; this "linear low density polyethylene" ("LLDPE") can be produced with conventional Ziegler-Natta catalysts or with metallocene catalysts. Relatively higher density LDPE, typically in the range of 0.928 to 0.940 g/cm3, is sometimes referred to as medium density polyethylene ("MDPE"). Polyethylenes having still greater density are the high density polyethylenes ("HDPEs"), i.e., polyethylenes having densities greater than 0.940 g/cm3, and are generally prepared with Ziegler-Natta catalysts. Very low density polyethylene ("VLDPE") is also known. VLDPEs can be produced by a number of different processes yielding polymers with different properties, but can be generally described as polyethylenes having a density less than 0.916 g/cm3, typically 0.890 to 0.915 g/cm3 or 0.900 to 0.915 g/cm3.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,272,236 and 5,278,272 disclose polyethylenes termed "substantially linear ethylene polymers" ("SLEPs"). These SLEPs are characterized as having a polymer backbone substituted with about 0.01 long chain branches/1000 carbons to about 3 long chain branches/1000 carbons, more preferably from about 0.01 long chain branches/1000 carbons to about 1 long chain branches/1000 carbons, and especially from about 0.05 long chain branches/1000 carbons to about 1 long chain branches/1000 carbons. As used in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,272,236 and 5,278,272, "long chain branching" is defined as a chain length of at least about 6 carbons, above which the length cannot be distinguished using 13C NMR spectroscopy. It is further disclosed that the long chain branch can be as long as about the same length as the length of the polymer backbone.
As used in the present disclosure, the term "linear" is applied to a polymer that has a linear backbone and does not have long chain branching; i.e., a "linear" polymer is one that does not have the long chain branches characteristic of a SLEP polymer.
Blends of polyethylenes are also known. Blending has been used to form polymer compositions having altered properties, such as melt index and various processability characteristics. Blending has also been used to form polymer compositions having properties enhanced for particular end uses. For example, polymer blends have been used to form cast or extruded films with altered film properties, such as toughness, tear resistance, shrink properties, and other desired film characteristics.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,972,444 discloses a polyolefin shrink film made from a polymer mixture which includes a first ethylene polymer component having a single differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) melting peak or a single Analytical Temperature Rising Elution Fractionation (ATREF) peak and a second ethylene polymer component having one or more DSC melting peaks, wherein the density differential between the two component polymers about 0 to about 0.03 g/cm3. Preferably, the first ethylene polymer component is a substantially linear ethylene polymer (SLEP) and the second component polymer is a heterogeneously branched linear ethylene polymer. Commonly assigned PCT publication WO 98/21276 discloses similar films.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,751 discloses shrink film compositions comprising precise combinations of "narrow, substantially singular" melting point polyethylene with a higher melting point (by at least about 10° C.) polyethylene.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,631 discloses polymer blends and single or multilayer films made from the blends. The blends are made from components having a narrow molecular weight distribution (e.g., Mw/Mn 3) and a narrow composition distribution (e.g., CDBI>50%). The blend components of the blend can all have the same molecular weight but different comonomer contents, the same comonomer content but different molecular weights, or comonomer contents which increase with molecular weight. The blends have either Mw/Mn>3 and/or CDBI<50%, and combinations of each, and can be bimodal with respect to either or both molecular weight and/or comonomer content. The blends are generally free of blend components having both a higher average molecular weight and a lower average comonomer content than another blend component.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,907,943 and 5,922,441 disclose a thermoplastic stretch wrap film containing at least three layers, the inner layer of which comprises a blend of a "low dispersity polymer" and either a high pressure low density polyethylene resin, a very low density polyethylene resin or a combination thereof. The low dispersity polymer has a density of from about 0.88 to 0.94 g/cm3.


Embodiments control submission of crowdsourced data from a computing device to a cloud service. The cloud service receives a packet from the computing device having collected data and a single-use data tag associated therewith. The single-use data tag represents one of a threshold quantity of single-use data tags issued to the computing device. The cloud service validates the single-use data tag in the received packet by, for example, searching for the single-use data tag in a tag store maintained by the cloud service. The collected data from the received packet is stored by the cloud service based on the validation. After validation, the tag store is updated to prevent re-use of the single-use data tag. In some embodiments, the cloud service is a location service receiving crowdsourced beacon fingerprint data from a plurality of mobile computing devices.

Some existing data services rely on data collected by a plurality of computing devices to adjust output. The data services process such "crowdsourced" data to produce output for distribution to and consumption by various devices. For example, some existing location services rely on crowdsourced beacon fingerprint data to determine a location of a requesting device. The beacon fingerprint data includes a set of beacons observed at a particular location.
To help ensure the integrity of the crowdsourced data, some existing data services provide authentication to confirm the identity of the computing device submitting the data and encryption to prevent tampering with the submitted data. Authentication and encryption, however, cannot validate or vet the data contained within the submission to prevent the introduction of erroneous or malicious data into the data maintained by the data services. For example, a malicious device may associate the same set of observed beacons with multiple different locations. Crowdsourced data from this malicious device will pass authentication and encryption tests at the location service, yet will contaminate the data maintained by the location service reducing the location determination accuracy of the location service.

Trusting crowdsourced data with issued tags


In one embodiment, a method for authenticating that a test polymer is an authenticatable polymer is disclosed wherein the authenticatable polymer comprises a substrate polymer and a thermochromic compound, the thermochromic compound having a first signal at a first temperature and at an authenticating wavelength, and a second signal at an authenticating temperature and the authenticating wavelength, the first and second signals being different, and the authenticating temperature being greater than the first temperature, the method comprising subjecting the test polymer to a stimulus sufficient to raise a portion of the test polymer to the authenticating temperature to create a heated portion, determining a test signal of the heated portion of the test polymer at the authenticating wavelength, and authenticating that the test polymer is an authenticatable polymer if the test signal is the same as an authenticating signal of the authenticatable polymer.

The inventions relate to authentication technology for polymer based articles, particularly to methods of authenticating polymer based articles, methods of facilitating such authentication, and methods of making articles capable of authentication. The invention particularly relates to nondestructive authentication technology for use in data storage media made of polycarbonate such as compact disks (CDs) and digital versatile disks (DVDs).
Data storage media or optical storage media such as CDs and DVDs traditionally contain information such as machine-readable code, audio, video, text, and/or graphics. Data storage media often include one or more substrates made of polymers such as polycarbonate.
A major problem confronting the various makers and users of data storage media is the unauthorized reproduction or copying of information by unauthorized manufacturers, sellers and/or users. Such unauthorized reproduction or duplication of data storage media is often referred to as piracy and can occur in a variety of ways, including consumer level piracy at the point of end use as well as whole sale duplication of data, substrate and anti-piracy information at the commercial level. Regardless of the manner, piracy of data storage media deprives legitimate software and entertainment content providers and original electronic equipment manufacturers significant revenue and profit.
Attempts to stop piracy at the consumer level have included the placement of electronic anti-piracy signals on information carrying substrates along with the information sought to be protected. The machine readers and players of such data storage media are configured to require the identification of such anti-piracy signals prior to allowing access to the desired information. Theoretically, consumer level duplications are unable to reproduce these electronic anti-piracy signals on unauthorized copies and hence result in duplicates and copies that are unusable.
However, numerous technologies to thwart such consumer level anti-piracy technologies have been and continue to be developed. Moreover, commercial level duplications have evolved to the point that unauthorized duplicates now contain the original electronic anti-piracy circuit, code, etc. For example, commercial level duplication methods include pit copying, radio frequency (RF) copying, "bit to bit" copying and other mirror image copying techniques which result in the placement of the anti-piracy signal on the information carrying substrate of the duplicate along with the information sought to be protected. Other technologies commonly used by hackers include the modification of the computer code in order to remove anti-piracy (also referred to as copy-protection or copy-proofing) features and enable unlimited access to the data.
One anti-piracy technology aimed at combating these more sophisticated consumer and commercial level reproduction and copying practices involves the placement of 'tags' or authentication markers in substrates used in the construction of data storage media. Such tags or authentication markers can be detected at one or more points along the data storage media manufacturing or distribution chain or by the end use reader or player used to access the data on a particular CD or DVD.
For example, in Cyr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,930, tagging materials are placed in materials such as digital compact discs. A near-infrared fluorophore is incorporated into the compact disc via coating, admixing, blending or copolymerization. Fluorescence is detectable when the fluorophore is exposed to electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength ranging from 670 to 1100 nanometers.
Hubbard et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,514,617 discloses a polymer comprising a tagging material wherein the tagging material comprises a organic fluorophore dye, an inorganic fluorophore, an organometallic fluorophore, a semi-conducting luminescent nanoparticle, or combination thereof, wherein the tagging material has a temperature stability of at least about 350 degrees C. and is present in a sufficient quantity such that the tagging material is detectable via a spectrofluorometer at an excitation wavelength from about 100 nanometers to about 1100 nanometers.
WO 00/14736 relies on one or more intrinsic physical or chemical characteristics of the substrate materials to distinguish unauthorized duplications of information-carrying substrates. Such anti-piracy characteristics may be based on performance characteristics such as (for example in the case of an optical disc) the weight and/or density of the disc; the spin rate of the disc; the acceleration and deceleration of the disc; the inertia of the disc; the spectral characteristics such as reflectance of the disc; the optical characteristics such as light transmittance of the disc; the water absorption and dimensional stability of the disc; the data transfer rate of the disc; and the degree of wobble of the disc, or combinations of such characteristics.
Catarineu Guillén, U.S. Pat. No. 6,296,911 discloses a method for obtaining the chromatic variation of objects in response to external stimuli, the method comprising the incorporation in the desired objects of various pigments having combined effects comprising a luminescent pigment, a thermochromic pigment permitting the change in the color according to the temperature and/or a hygroscopic pigment that will provoke a variation in the chromatic characteristics according to humidity.
Lucht et al., U.S. Patent application No. 2002/0149003A1 discloses a thermochromic polymer-based temperature indicator composition that comprises a polythiophene and a carrier medium. The composition is characterized in that the polythiophene is present in the medium in an amount of about 0.05 to about 5.0% by weight based on the weight of the composition. The structure of the compound is designed such that when the composition is placed in a heat exchange relationship with an article, the composition will exhibit a color change when a design temperature or a temperature beyond the design temperature is reached in the article.
However, the ability of unauthorized manufacturers, sellers, and/or users of data storage media to circumvent such practices continues to grow with increasingly sophisticated practices. For example, unauthorized manufacturers of data storage media are known to illegally obtain legitimately manufactured-tagged substrates for the purposes of making unauthorized reproductions. Moreover, the high profitability of piracy has enabled some unauthorized manufacturers and their suppliers to reverse engineer tagged substrate materials for the purpose of identifying previously unknown tags and producing similarly tagged data media storage substrate.
There is therefore a need to find methods of tagging and authenticating data storage media substrates that are currently unknown and/or unavailable to unauthorized manufacturers, sellers, and/or users of data storage media. In particular, it would be desirable to find authentication markers or combinations of authentication markers for use in data storage media substrates that are difficult to obtain, reproduce, use, and/or find for the purposes of authenticating data storage media substrates and data storage media.

Method of authenticating polymers, authenticatable polymers, methods of making authenticatable polymers and authenticatable articles, and articles made there from


A method in one example comprises the steps of receiving a call intended for a designated cellular subscriber unit at a serving MSC, determining that the designated cellular subscriber unit, during a recent prior use of the serving MSC, responded to an Intersystem Page (ISPAGE) message from a border MSC, and transmitting an initial paging message to the designated cellular subscriber unit via an ISPAGE message directed toward said border MSC.

This application is directed generally to a telecommunications system and in particular to a wireless telecommunications system comprised of multiple mobile switching centers (MSCs), and is more particularly directed toward conservation of paging resources and reduction of call delivery times.
In a wireline telecommunications system, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), the process of delivering a telephone call from a calling party to a call recipient is relatively straightforward. Since the directory number (DN) of the call recipient is provisioned to a pair of wires coupled to a central office (CO), it is simply necessary for the CO to establish a connection to the call recipient's telephone set and activate a ringing signal.
Call delivery in a wireless system, such as a cellular telephone system, is necessarily more complex. Since the specific location of a call recipient may not be well known at the time when a call is to be delivered, a cellular system attempts to locate the call recipient through a process known as paging. Since the paging process necessarily precedes every call delivery, a number of dedicated paging channels are generally reserved for this purpose.
When the cellular subscriber unit that is the designated call recipient receives a page message from a mobile switching center, the subscriber unit transmits an acknowledgement message back to the MSC, the MSC designates a voice channel for the call, and directs the subscriber unit to activate an alert signal (simulating the well-known ring of a wireline telephone set) so that call delivery can proceed.
Of course, the MSC may not know precisely where to begin its search for the call recipient. Because of this uncertainty, protocols have been established for multiple page attempts in an effort to locate the call recipient. These multiple pages occupy valuable paging channel bandwidth and extend the time required for call set-up.

Conservation of paging resources in a mobile switching center