The present disclosure relates to a device in particular, a sensor for determining a measurand correlated with a concentration of an analyte in a measuring medium, including a housing that has a region provided for contacting the measuring medium, a fluid line arranged in the housing, an interface that is arranged within the region provided for contacting the measuring medium and has a first side which is in contact with the fluid line and a second side which is in contact with an environment of the housing in particular, with the measuring medium in contact with the housing, a first reservoir that is arranged in the housing and fluidically connected to the fluid line and which contains a reagent intended for contacting and/or interacting with the analyte, and a transport mechanism that is designed to transport reagent from the first reservoir into the fluid line.

Sensors are regularly used in analytical measuring to determine measurands correlated with the concentration of an analyte in a measuring medium such as the concentration or activity of the analyte, the concentration or activity of one or more substances that are chemically or biochemically converted into the analyte, or cumulative parameters that depend upon the concentration of several different analytes. Such sensors can be designed as in-line sensors which can be integrated in a process vessel containing the measuring medium and brought into direct contact with the measuring medium for example, by immersion. In-line sensors can be based upon a variety of measuring principles; for example, there are optochemical sensors, biochemical sensors, biological sensors, or electrochemical sensors.
Optochemical sensors frequently comprise an indicator substance which, for example, can be immobilized in a membrane that is brought into contact with the measuring medium for measurement. The detection of measured values by means of optochemical sensors is based upon the influence upon an optical property of the sensor by the interaction of an analyte with the indicator substance. Such an interaction can, for example, consist of a reversible or irreversible chemical reaction, with the participation of the analyte and the indicator substance, in which a reaction product is formed with certain optical properties, such as a specific absorption behavior or luminescence behavior, that are detectable by means of the sensor. A change in the optical properties of the sensor can also serve to change the absorption and fluorescence properties of an indicator substance, due to an interaction with the analyte, e.g., due to molecular collisions. One example is the extinguishing or attenuation of the fluorescence used in familiar oxygen sensors to measure dissolved oxygen (also termed fluorescence quenching).
Many optical sensors manifest a drift over their lifespan, which is associated with the aging of the indicator substance or a loss of the indicator substance, such as by a bleeding out (technically termed leaching) or radiation-induced bleaching (so-called photobleaching) of the membrane containing the indicator substance. This can be compensated for, if necessary, by regularly adjusting the sensor; however, this is associated with corresponding labor and servicing costs. The end of an optochemical sensor's life is reached when an adjustment is no longer sufficient to return the aging sensor to a state in which it emits reliable measured values over the entire desired measuring range. It is therefore desirable to counteract the aging and loss of the indicator substance, both in terms of avoiding more frequent and involved adjustments, and in light of extending the overall lifespan of the sensor.
Electrochemical sensors can, for example, be amperometric or potentiometric sensors.
Potentiometric sensors can detect the concentration or activity of electrically-charged analytes in particular, ions. They typically comprise a measuring half-cell and a reference half-cell, as well as a measuring circuit. In contact with the measuring medium, the measuring half-cell forms a potential that is a function of the activity of the analyte in the measuring medium, whereas the reference half-cell provides a stable reference potential independent of the analyte concentration. The measuring circuit is connected in an electrically-conductive manner to a conducting element of the measuring half-cell and a reference element of the reference half-cell, and generates a measuring signal that represents the difference in potential between the measuring electrode and reference electrode. The measuring signal may, if needed, be output by the measuring circuit to a higher-level unit, such as a measuring transducer, which is connected to the sensor and further processes the measuring signal.
The measuring half-cell potentiometric sensors comprise a potential-forming element, which may comprise, for example, an analyte-sensitive layer or an ion-selective membrane, depending upon the nature of the potentiometric sensor. When the layer or membrane comes into contact with the measuring medium, a difference in potential, which depends upon the difference between the activity of the analyte in the measuring medium and in the membrane, forms at the boundary surface between the layer surface or the membrane surface and the measuring liquid from the exchange of the analyte between the phases (such as the membrane and a liquid measuring medium) lying against the boundary surface. This determines the measuring half-cell potential that can be detected by the measuring circuit using the conducting element connected to the layer or membrane in an electrically or electrolytically conductive manner.
The ion-selective membrane or layer can, for example, comprise an ion exchanger or an ionophore that complexes the analyte. Such ion-selective membranes change the composition over the service life for example, by chemical reactions or by the loss of ionophore, which can exit from the membrane into the measuring medium. This can cause a drift in the sensor signal. Frequently, the lifespan of ion-selective sensors is also determined by aging, or the leaching of ionophore from the membrane. Some ion-selective membranes are so unstable in contact with measuring media that their use in process analysis, which requires consistently high measuring quality over long periods, is not to be recommended.
The reference half-cell of potentiometric sensors is frequently designed as an electrode of the second type, whose potential only indirectly depends upon the composition of the measuring medium in particular, upon the activity of the analyte in the measuring medium. An example of such a reference electrode designed as an electrode of the second kind is the silver/silver chloride electrode. The aforementioned reference element, connected to the measuring circuit, of the reference half-cell is in contact with a reference electrolyte. The reference element is made of a metal, wherein at least part of the surface of the reference element has a coating consisting of a poorly-soluble salt of the metal. The reference electrolyte is generally a saturated solution of this poorly-soluble salt. In addition, the reference electrolyte contains a high concentration of the anion of the poorly-soluble salt generally, in the form of an alkali salt. The potential of an electrode of the second kind depends upon the concentration of the cation of the poorly-soluble salt in the reference electrolyte. Due to the very high anion concentration in the reference electrolyte, the concentration of the cation of the poorly-soluble salt, and thus the potential of the reference electrode, remains basically constant. The reference electrolyte is accommodated in a chamber formed in a housing of a reference half-cell. The reference electrolyte must be in electrolytic contact with the measuring medium in order to perform a potentiometric measurement. This contact is established by a junction which may consist of, e.g., a hole that passes through the entire housing wall, a porous diaphragm, or a gap.
Components of the reference electrolyte can pass through the electrochemical junction into the measuring medium. In particular, the reference electrolyte can experience a depletion of alkali salt, which causes a drift of the reference electrolyte potential. It is also possible for foreign materials so-called electrode poisons from the measuring medium to pass through the junction into the reference electrolyte and lead to damage of the reference element. This also impairs the quality of potentiometric measurement.
Amperometric sensors frequently have a sensor inner chamber that is separated from the measuring medium by a sensor membrane and contains an inner electrolyte, as well as at least two frequently, also three electrodes arranged within the probe inner chamber. The electrodes are connected in an electrically-conductive manner to the measuring circuit. One of the electrodes functions as the measuring or working electrode, and an additional one functions as a counter electrode. The sensor membrane generally includes at least one functional layer, functioning as a diffusion barrier, through which the analyte is diffused from the measuring medium into the electrolyte chamber. The measuring circuit creates the measurement signal that represents the measurand, e.g., the analyte concentration, on the basis of a current flowing through the electrolyte between the measuring electrode and the counter electrode. In many amperometric applications, the potential of the measuring electrode or the current flow between the measuring electrode and the counter electrode through the inner electrolyte is regulated by means of a third reference electrode, through which current does not flow. Due to the flow of current through the inner electrolyte, a material reaction occurs on the electrodes such that the inner electrolyte changes its chemical composition, i.e., is consumed, over the service life of the sensor. This can, on the one hand, cause a drift in the sensor signal; on the other hand, the speed at which the electrolyte composition changes determines the lifespan of the amperometric sensor.

Device for determining a measurand correlated with a concentration of an analyte in a measuring medium, and a method


A power transmission belt having a belt body with an inside surface and an outside surface, with the belt body having a compression section and a tension section, spaced outside of the compression section. At least a first part of the tension section is defined by a chlorosulfonated polyethylene rubber composition having a chlorine content of 15 to 30% by weight. At least a second part of the compression section is defined by a rubber composition that is different than the rubber composition of the first part.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to power transmission belts and, more particularly, to a belt having parts of the tension and compression sections thereof made from different rubber compositions to exhibit both a) resistance to wear in high and low temperature environments and b) resistance to oil penetration.
2. Background Art
In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for the toothed power transmission belt. The toothed power transmission belt has several advantages. First of all, it affords positive interaction with associated pulleys. The teeth provide slip-free driving, which cannot be accomplished with the conventional flat edge belt and V-belt. Toothed belts are also desirable in that they require no lubrication as is necessary with drives utilizing gears and/or chains.
The toothed belt has been particularly desirable in the automobile industry. It is commonly used in power transmission for overhead cam shafts (OHC) in automobiles. In the interest of conservation, the automobile industry has been designing smaller and more energy efficient automobiles. Designers strive to minimize the size of engines as well as engine compartments. These engines often operate at high speeds which results in substantial heat generation in the compartment therefor. Accordingly, belts for automobile engines must be constructed to withstand the high operating temperatures as well as the cold conditions that may be encountered at start-up.
It is conventional to construct such toothed belts primarily from chloroprene rubber. Chloroprene rubber, however, has a tendency to crack in high temperature environments. This is particularly a problem at the hardened belt tooth root. To overcome this problem, efforts have been made to improve the heat resistance of chloroprene rubber. While some improvement has been made, chloroprene rubber has certain inherent limitations at high temperatures. Consequently, satisfactory results with power transmissions have not been realized to date with chloroprene rubber.
As a result, there has been an increased effort to change from chloroprene rubber to rubbers with better heat resistance, and more particularly rubbers whose main chain has been highly or completely saturated. Exemplary of such rubbers are chlorosulfonated polyethylene rubber and hydrogenated nitrile rubber. Japanese Patent Laid Open Publication No. 1598227/1987 discloses a toothed belt utilizing hydrogenated nitrile rubber.
In using chlorosulfonated polyethylene rubber, designers of belts deal with two competing objectives; that of improving temperature resistance and oil resistance. Heat resistance, cold resistance and oil resistance are all affected by the chlorine content of the polymer. By controlling the chlorine content to improve the temperature resistance of the belt, the oil resistance is compromised, and vice versa.
Hydrogenated nitrile rubber also has some inherent drawbacks. First of all, it is very expensive. Secondly, it is a difficult composition to work with.


The present invention relates to a system and method for determining the presence of objects in an image.

The field of computer vision often requires that classifiers are trained to detect faces, people, etc, with a view to enabling applications that interact with people and real-world objects.
A histogram of oriented gradients (HoG) is a feature descriptor used in a variety of computer vision and image processing applications, for the purposes of object detection. The use of HoG descriptors has been a particularly successful technique in detecting, among other things, humans, animals, faces, and text. For example, an object detection system can be configured to generate HoG descriptors that describe features of objects in an input image. The system can also be configured to compare the generated HoG descriptors against a database of HoG descriptors, corresponding to known objects, to determine whether any of the known objects is present in the input image.
The reasons that HoG is used in these applications are that it enables robust detection in the presence of local rotations, it is scaling and variations in terms of lighting conditions etc. and it allows a compact reference descriptor to be used to describe an object template for comparison with HoG descriptors computed from an incoming video-stream from a camera or other device.
When first introduced the use of HOG feature descriptors brought about a significant improvement in the state of the art in object detection. This improvement in accuracy was accompanied by a large increase in the computational burden, which was an impediment to its adoption in resource-constrained embedded solutions.
We have therefore appreciated the need for an improved technique for determining the presence of an object in an image, for example a technique that have a lower computational burden.

System and method for determining the presence of objects in an image

Abstract: The techniques used process pixel data within the image by a relatively small number of pixel rows at a time. The angle and magnitude date from the pixels within an image are redistributed into a plurality histogram of magnitude bins associated with groupings of pixels. Once enough groupings of pixels equivalent to the height of a Block worth of pixels have been made, partial Support Vector Machine (SVM) calculations are performed on that Block worth of pixels. This is repeated until there are sufficient partial results equivalent to the height of the feature window, and then a full SVM calculation is performed. This process then may be used to scan across the whole image to determine the presence of objects within it.


A boot strap driver including a fast differential level shifter are disclosed. The fast differential level shifter may include a first differential amplifier differentially amplifying a pulse width modulation signal and an inverted pulse width modulation signal and outputting a first differential amplification voltage and a second differential amplification voltage based on the amplified result. The fast differential level shifter may also include a second differential amplifier differentially amplifying the first differential amplification voltage and the second differential amplification voltage, and shifting the differential amplification voltages to voltages having an output range between a first voltage and a second voltage based on the amplified result.

A boot strap driver is one of the techniques used when a gate signal voltage of an upper switch is greater than an input power voltage in an output buffer having a push-pull type inverter structure including the upper switch and a lower switch. Since the boot strap driver uses a voltage higher than the input power voltage, a level shift circuit that boosts the input power voltage to a boot strap power voltage is required.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a related boot strap driver 100. Referring to FIG. 1, the boot strap driver 100 includes a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal generating circuit 1, a level shift circuit 2, a boot strap switching circuit 3, and a smoothing circuit 4.
The boot strap driver 100 has a single input structure where a single transistor, i.e., first transistor Q1 is used. Accordingly, switching of the boot strap driver 100 depends on a threshold voltage of the first transistor Q1, whereby switching speed is slow.
Also, in the boot strap driver 100, a third transistor Q3 and a fourth transistor Q4 are operated by a drain current of a second transistor Q2 and a voltage applied to a first resistor R1. Accordingly, characteristics of the first resistor R1 and a fifth transistor Q5 are varied by a temperature of a chip and frequency variation of an input voltage VDD. For this reason, an operational error of the third transistor Q3 and the fourth transistor Q4 occurs, and a defect ratio may increase during mass production of the chip.
Although a level shift circuit can be implemented in various ways, in the case of the boot strap driver, since a boot strap power source BOOT and SW is varied depending on a voltage that switches the third transistor Q3 and the fourth transistor Q4, a specific structure is required in view of inner pressure and efficiency.

Fast differential level shifter and boot strap driver including the same


It has now been discovered that GLP-1 treatment after acute stroke or hemorrhage, preferably intravenous administration, can be an ideal treatment because it provides a means for optimizing insulin secretion, increasing brain anabolism, enhancing insulin effectiveness by suppressing glucagon, and maintaining euglycemia or mild hypoglycemia with no risk of severe hypoglycemia.

Strokes, or cerebrovascular accidents, are the result of an acute obstruction of cerebral blood flow to a region of the brain. There are approximately 500,000 cases each year in the United States, of which 30% are fatal, and hence stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Approximately 80% of strokes are "ischemic" and result from an acute occlusion of a cerebral artery (usually a clot or thrombus), with resultant reduction in blood flow. The remainder are "hemorrhagic", which are due to rupture of a cerebral artery with hemorrhage into brain tissue and consequent obstruction of blood flow due to local tissue compression, creating ischemia.
Stroke commonly affects individuals older than 65 years, and the most powerful risk factor is hypertension. However, there are additional strong risk factors, of which the most important is diabetes mellitus, which confers a two to three-fold increased risk and is associated with increased mortality and morbidity after stroke. Moreover, there is strong evidence that hyperglycemia per se, whether associated with diabetes or not, correlates with increased stroke-related mortality and morbidity, although the causal relationship and underlying mechanisms remain controversial.
Until recently, there was no approved therapy for acute stroke, which was treated by general medical support only, followed by rehabilitation from the observed damage. In 1996, the FDA approved the use of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) as therapy for acute ischemic stroke, based on a limited number of controlled trials. Some, but not all, of the trials revealed a 30-55% improvement in clinical outcome, with an overall reduction in mortality and morbidity. This overall benefit was achieved despite a markedly enhanced risk of intracranial hemorrhage (6.4% of tPA-treated vs. 0.64% in placebo-treated groups), half of which were fatal. Because of concerns about safety and variable efficacy, thrombolytic therapy with tPA has not been universally adopted by clinicians treating acute ischemic stroke. At present, thrombolytic therapy is effectively restricted to major centers with specialized expertise in the management of acute stroke, and it is limited to patients who on CT scanning do not have evidence of major infarction, are less than 70 years old, and are free of major medical conditions including diabetes. As a result, only approximately 1.5% of patients who might be candidates for tPA therapy actually receive it. This situation is likely to improve as clinical experience with its use accumulates and the subset of patients most likely to benefit is more clearly defined. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that spontaneous reperfusion after ischemic stroke improves outcome, which supports the logic of implementing reperfusion therapy.
From these considerations it is evident that there is an enormous unmet need for new, effective therapies for acute stroke. This has stimulated intense research in identifying strategies that can provide neuroprotection during the period of ischemia (whether due to ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes), and therapies that block reperfusion injury following revascularization in ischemic strokes. The goal is to salvage neurons in the so-called ischemic penumbra that surrounds the infarcted core. Candidate agents fall into three major groups: excitotoxicity inhibitors; leukocyte adhesion inhibitors; and neurotrophic factors. In the first group, most efforts are aimed at blocking the action of the excitotoxic neurotransmitter glutamate, mostly by blocking the NMDA class of glutamate receptor. Other strategies include blocking Na+ and Ca2+ channels and scavenging nitrous oxide.
The second strategy, blocking leukocyte adhesion, is based on the premise that neutrophils and monocytes contribute significantly to reperfusion injury and infarct zone by administering inhibitors of relevant adhesion molecules and inflammatory cytokines (Jean et al., 1998. Reperfusion injury after focal cerebral ischemia: the role of inflammation and the therapeutic horizon. Neurosurgery 43, 1382-96.)
The third strategy involves the administration of neurotrophic factors that can protect neurons by providing general trophic support during both the ischemic and reperfusion periods. Included in this group of agents are basic fibroblast growth factor and insulin. Numerous studies have shown that insulin can exert potent neuroprotective effects in a variety of stroke models. However, the use of insulin is complicated by the uncertainty surrounding the neurotoxic effects of hyperglycemia, the potential benefits of mild-to-modest hypoglycemia, and the potentially lethal effects of severe hypoglycemia.
In accordance with this invention it can be seen that there is a real and continuing need for an effective treatment to improve the function of the ischemic and reperfused brain. This invention has as its primary object the fulfillment of this need.
Another object of the present invention is to treat the ischemic or reperfused brain with GLP-1 or its biologically active analogues after acute stroke or hemorrhage to optimize insulin secretion, to enhance insulin effectiveness by suppressing glucagon antagonism, and to maintain euglycemia or mild hypoglycemia with no risk of severe hypoglycemia.
Another objective of the present invention is to accomplish the above objectives with a composition that provides no risk of severe hypoglycemia, and can correct hyperglycemia.
A still further objective of the present invention is to provide a treatment with a biologically active compound that offers no side effect risk, whatsoever.
The means and manner of accomplishing each of the above objectives will become apparent from the detailed description of the invention which follows hereinafter.

Metabolic intervention with GLP-1 or its biologically active analogues to improve the function of the ischemic and reperfused brain


An improved goggle strap is provided. The strap allows for comfortable use through the employment materials such as high density polyester materials that can encase elastic materials. These straps may also contain traceability elements that allow for the easy association of the strap and goggles with user.

Protective eyewear is an important component of ensuring the safety of personnel who are involved in manufacturing, processing, research and development, and medicine. It is also used in recreational activities such as squash and snorkeling.
Protective eyewear minimizes the risk that an undesirable or noxious substance will come into contact with an individual's eyes. Typically, protective eyewear exists in the form of goggles, and in some instances protective eyewear may be referred to as "safety goggles."
One obvious limitation of protective eyewear is that it is only effective if it stays on a wearer's face. In order to keep goggles or other protective eyewear on one's face, straps may be used. Typically, a strap rests along the rear side of a wearer's head, and through the use of tension, facilitates keeping the goggles in place over the wearer's eyes.
Unfortunately, current goggle straps suffer from at least three problems. First, within a given laboratory, industrial site, sports facility or other location, many sets of goggles and straps look alike, and thus are difficult to clean on a large scale while retaining the identity of the previous wearer. Second, currently available strap materials are prone to particulation; they can shred, hold particulates, shed, etc. Third, current straps are often difficult to adjust for a person's head size while retaining the wearer's comfort; this is particular problematic for neoprene straps. The present invention addresses these issues by providing improved goggle straps.


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving audio data encoding an utterance and environmental data, obtaining a transcription of the utterance, identifying an entity using the environmental data, submitting a query to a natural language query processing engine, wherein the query includes at least a portion of the transcription and data that identifies the entity, and obtaining one or more results of the query.

In general a search query includes one or more terms that a user submits to a search engine when the user requests the search engine to execute a search. Among other approaches, a user may enter query terms of a search query by typing on a keyboard or, in the context of a voice query, by speaking the query terms into a microphone of a mobile device. Voice queries may be processed using speech recognition technology.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Answering questions using environmental context


An image forming system includes an image forming apparatus having a light emitter and an information terminal performing visible light communication and normal communication with the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus includes a visible light output unit outputting information stored in the image forming apparatus through visible light communication using the light emitter, and an output control unit controlling operation of the visible light output unit. The information terminal includes a light receiver, and an information acquisition unit acquiring visible light communication information based on information obtained by receiving visible light with the light receiver. The information acquisition unit gives a light emission communication start request to the output control unit through the normal communication with the image forming apparatus. When the light emission communication start request is received and the visible light output unit is stopping outputting information, the output control unit allows output of information.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system, and more particularly to an image forming system using visible light communication.
2. Description of the Background Art
Image fixating apparatuses include MFPs (Multi-Functional Peripherals) having scanner, facsimile, copy, printer, data communication, and server functions, facsimile machines, copiers, and printers.
Visible light communication is sometimes used in communication between devices. Document 1 below discloses a configuration of a portable terminal with a camera capable of receiving visible light communication.
Document 2 below discloses an illumination system that performs communication between an illumination device and a terminal, in which power consumption of the terminal is reduced by determining whether a position of the terminal is within a communicable area.
Document 3 discloses an example of a network printing system in which a print request from a client terminal to an image forming apparatus can be processed properly even when a relative positional relationship between the image forming apparatus and the terminal outputting a print request to the image forming apparatus is changed.    [Document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-218067    [Document 2] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-55481    [Document 3] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-28347
In recent years, the use of information terminals (for example, portable terminals including smart phones and tablet terminals) owned by users in workplace has developed as represented by adoption of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy. Augmented reality technology can be used as a solution to improve the convenience of image forming systems configured with such information terminals and image forming apparatuses installed in the same use environment. For example, the status information of the image forming apparatuses may be displayed as augmented reality associated with a camera image of the information terminal.
FIG. 26 is a screen view showing a usage example of an information terminal in an image forming system using augmented reality.
As shown in FIG. 26, in the image forming system as described above, image forming apparatuses 802, 803 and information 841a, 841b (in this case, also called air tags 841a, 841b) as augmented reality associated with image forming apparatuses 802, 803 are displayed together in an image (appearing on a display device 831 of an information terminal 801) captured by the camera of information terminal 801.
In the display involving augmented reality, air tags 841a, 841b on augmented reality may be associated with the actual positions of image forming apparatuses 802, 803, for example, by using positional information obtained by the GPS (Global Positioning System). For example, the positional information obtained by measuring the positions with the GPS and the positional information of image forming apparatuses 802, 803 obtained via an air tag server can be used. However, with such a method using the GPS, an error may be caused in position depending on the position recognition precision of the GPS. In particular, the error may be greater in the interior of a room. If the positional information to be used for association with air tags 841a, 841b has an error in this manner, air tags 841a, 841b fail to be displayed appropriately.
To address this problem, the display involving augmented reality may be provided by transmitting/receiving the positional information and the information of air tags 841a, 841b through visible light communication. To use visible light communication, an image of the light emitters such as LEDs (Light-Emitting Diode) provided in image forming apparatuses 802, 803 may be captured by the light receiver such as a camera of information terminal 801, and the captured image may be superimposed on air tags 841a, 841b obtained through visible light communication. In this case, when compared with the case where air tags 841a, 841b are displayed using the positional information obtained by measuring the positions with the GPS, the real objects can be accurately associated with air tags 841a, 841b on augmented reality and displayed on display device 831 of information terminal 801.
However, the display of air tags 841a, 841b using visible light communication as described above has some problems. Namely, when image forming apparatuses 802, 803 are in a low power mode, the light emitters of image forming apparatuses 802, 803 (light-emitting side) are turned off. As a result, information terminal 801 (light-receiving side) cannot receive information such as air tags 841a, 841b. Conversely, if information terminal 801 is set to be able to always receive information such as air tags 841a, 841b, it is necessary to keep the light emitters on even when image forming apparatuses 802, 803 operate in a low power mode, which consumes power accordingly.
The present invention is made to solve such problems. An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming system with low power consumption and with high convenience.

Image forming system performing communication through visible light communication and communication mode different from visible light communication


The invention discloses an apparatus for adjusting the brightness of the ith image of an inputted image sequence in a display system. The image sequence includes a plurality of images which each consists of a plurality of pixels. The apparatus includes a first calculating module for calculating a current brightness ratio, a second calculating module for calculating an averaged brightness ratio, a judging module for outputting one selected from the current brightness ratio or the averaged brightness ratio as an outputted brightness ratio, a determining module for storing a plurality of brightness ratios and the corresponding gains and for determining the gain corresponding to the outputted brightness ratio, and an adjusting module for multiplying the gray scale level of each pixel of the ith image by the gain corresponding to the outputted brightness ratio respectively, so as to adjust the brightness of the ith image.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus and the method thereof applied in a display system for adjusting the brightness of an inputted video sequence, and more particularly the apparatus of the invention is suitable for all kinds of color spaces.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Flat panel display will be the most popular display in the future, and more particularly people pay much more attention on liquid crystal display (LCD) due to the advantages including thinner thickness, lighter weight, lower radiation, higher resolution, higher brightness, and so on. Furthermore, LCD can be applied to various applications, e.g. personal computer (PC), commercial billboard, home theater, and so on.
The brightness of a conventional LCD is generated via a back light module, and the permeability of the back light module can be changed by the liquid crystal, so as to decide the brightness (luminance or gray scale level) of an image. When an 8 bit LCD is used to display images, an image has the highest brightness as the gray scale level of the image is 255, and another image has the lowest brightness as the gray scale level of the image is 0. Currently, the brightness of an LCD TV ranges between 400 cd/m2 and 600 cd/m2 as the gray scale level is 255 and between 0.7 cd/m2 and 1.4 cd/m2 as the gray scale level is 0. A pupil of the eye will automatically enlarge and shrink with the environmental brightness to control the amount of light getting into the eye. When a big area of an image is displayed with high gray levels (e.g. snow scene), the pupil will automatically shrink to reduce the amount of light getting into the eye. When a big area of an image is displayed with low gray levels (e.g. night scene), the pupil will automatically enlarge to increase the amount of light getting into the eye. In practical application, a TV program is always displayed with bright and dark image alternately, so the pupil will also enlarge and shrink at every moment when the displayed image is changed. Thus, when a user watches programs for a long time, he/she will feel tired easily due to the characteristic of high brightness of the LCD.
Referring to FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B, FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating the relation between the brightness and the brightness ratio based on a CRT TV and an LCD TV. FIG. 1B is a diagram illustrating the relation between the lumen and the brightness ratio based on the CRT TV and the LCD TV. As shown in FIG. 1A, the product of the brightness and the brightness ratio represents the lumen outputted by the TV. As shown in FIG. 1B, when the brightness ratio is higher than a specific value, the lumen of the CRT TV will approach a constant. Accordingly, compared to the LCD TV, when a user uses the CRT TV to watch programs, the pupil of the user will not enlarge and shrink excessively, so that the user will not feel tired easily.
Moreover, when a user uses the LCD TV to watch programs for a long time, it not only causes the eye of the user heavy load but also easily causes the image bad contrast. The reason is that the pupil needs a span of time to enlarge and shrink. When the amount of light getting into the eye cannot be controlled effectively, the contrast of the image will be worse.
Therefore, the objective of the invention is to provide an apparatus and the method thereof for adjusting the brightness of an inputted video sequence, so as to solve the above-mentioned problems.

Apparatus and method for adjusting brightness


An optical electrical module includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a bearing portion and at least one optical electrical element. The second substrate is combined with the first substrate and has a reflective surface facing the first substrate. The bearing portion is disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate to limit at least one light guide element. The optical electrical element is disposed on a surface of the first substrate facing the reflective surface and faces the reflective surface. The optical electrical element is configured for providing or receiving light signals. The reflective surface and the light guide element are disposed on an optical path of the light signals.

Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an optical electrical module. Particularly, the invention relates to an optical electrical module used for optical communication.
Description of Related Art
In a field of optical communication, a signal transmitter uses an optical electrical module that serves as a signal transmitting element to convert an electric signal into an optical signal, and a signal receiver uses the optical electrical module that serves as a signal receiving element to convert the received optical signal into the electric signal. Therefore, the optical electrical module is an indispensable device in the field of optical communication.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional optical electrical module. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional optical electrical module 100 is used to provide a light signal, and includes a circuit board 110, a base 120, a light-emitting element 130, an optical fiber 140 and a chip 150. The base 120 and the chip 150 are disposed on the circuit board 110, and the chip 150 is electrically connected to the circuit board 110 through a bonding wire 162. The base 120 has surfaces 122 and 123 parallel to a bottom surface 121 thereof. A reflective surface 124 of the base 120 is connected to the surfaces 122 and 123 and located between the surfaces 122 and 123, and tilts a predetermined angle relative to the surface 123. The light-emitting element 130 is disposed on a pad 125 on the surface 122, and is electrically connected to the chip 150 through the pad 125 and a bonding wire 164. A part of the light-emitting element 130 protrudes out of the pad 125 and faces the reflective surface 124. The optical fiber 140 is disposed on the surface 123 of the base 120.
The chip 150 is adapted to control the light-emitting element 130 to emit a corresponding light signal 132 according to information to be transmitted, and the reflective surface 124 reflects the light signal 132 into the optical fiber 140 for transmitting the light signal. 132 through the optical fiber 140. Moreover, a signal receiver can use another optical electrical module to receive the light signal 132 transmitted by the optical fiber 140. The optical electrical module used for receiving the light signal 132 is similar to the optical electrical module 100, and a difference there between is that the light-emitting element 130 is replaced by a light-receiving element.
In the conventional optical electrical module 100, since a part of the light-emitting element 130 protrudes out of the pad 125 to facilitate providing the light signal 132 to the reflective surface 124, a contact area between the light-emitting element 130 and the pad 125 is relatively small. Therefore, the light-emitting element 130 can easily fall off, which leads to poor reliability of the optical electrical module 100. Similarly, the conventional optical electrical module used for receiving the light signal also has the problem that the light-receiving element can easily fall off.
Packaging of the optical device is one of key techniques that influence a yield and a cost of the optical electrical element and the optical electrical module. Referring to FIG. 2, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a package structure of another optical electrical module according to the conventional technique. The optical electrical module 100A includes a circuit board 101, a light-emitting/receiving element 103, an optical fiber 104 (which is also referred to as waveguide), a substrate 102 and a cover plate 106. The substrate 102 is disposed on the circuit board 101. The light-emitting/receiving element 103 is disposed on the substrate 102. The optical fiber 104 used for transmitting a light signal 105 is disposed on the substrate 102. The light signal 105 can be transmitted to the light-emitting/receiving element 103 through a reflective surface 102a of the substrate 102.
Since the optical fiber 104, the reflective surface 102a and the light-emitting/receiving element 103 have to be accurately aligned, a microscope is used with assistance of a special tool to adjust a position of the cover plate 106, so as to fix the optical fiber 104 on the substrate 102, and then follow-up packaging steps are performed. Such practice requires a highly skilled worker, which not only has a high cost, but also has low process robustness. Therefore, an advanced fixing module is required to be provided to facilitate the packaging process of the optical device and ameliorate the process robustness and yield.
FIG. 3 is a partial cross-sectional view of an optical electrical module of a conventional technique that is used for sending a light signal, and FIG. 4 is a three-dimensional exploded view of a substrate and an optical fiber of FIG. 3. Referring to FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, the conventional optical electrical module 100B includes a substrate 110B, a plurality of light-emitting element 120B and a plurality of optical fibers 130B. The substrate 110B has a plurality of strip grooves 112B parallel to each other, and the strip grooves 112B, for example, extend along a straight-line direction D. Each of the optical fibers 130B is disposed in a corresponding strip groove 112B. Moreover, each of the light-emitting elements 120B is used for providing a light signal, and in FIG. 3, a referential number 122B is used to represent an optical axis of the light signal. The light signal enters the optical fiber 130B through a light-incident surface 132B of the optical fiber 130B, and the optical axis 122B of the light signal transmitted to the light-incident surface 132B is parallel to the strip grooves 112B and the straight-line direction D.
When the light signal is transmitted to the light-incident surface 132B of the optical fiber 130B, a part of the light signal is reflected by the light-incident surface 132B. In order to avoid a situation that the light signal is reflected back to the light-emitting element 120B to cause damage, in the conventional technique, the light-incident surface 132B of the optical fiber 130B is processed into a slope, and a normal vector N1 of the light-incident surface 132B is not parallel to the optical axis 122B. However, it is time-consuming to process the light-incident surface 132B of the optical fiber 130B into the slope, which leads to a poor production efficiency of the conventional optical electrical module 100B.

Optical electrical module used for optical communication


An electronic pen device includes a pen body housing, a pen tip unit is provided inside the pen body housing and pressed in any of a plurality of directions via an external force, a light emitting device is provided inside the pen tip unit, and a switch unit is engaged with the pen tip unit and electrically contacts the pen tip unit, thus activating the light emitting device when the pen tip unit is pressed in any of the plurality of directions.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic pen device, and more particularly, to an electronic pen device configured to make an electrical contact, when it is pressed in any direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an electronic blackboard projects an image of a projector onto a screen on which a user writes with an electronic pen device. The electronic blackboard is typically used during lectures or conferences.
The electronic pen device includes an electronic pen, a light emitting device within the electronic pen for emitting light, and an on/off switch for operating the light emitting device.
When the electronic pen is pressed against the screen for writing, the on/off switch is turned on and thus the light emitting device emits light. The screen detects the position of the electronic pen projecting the light during the writing mode.
If no pressure is applied to the electronic pen, the on/off switch maintains an off state and thus the light emitting device does not emit light. As a result, the position of the electronic pen is not detectable.
In the conventional electronic pen device, however, only when the electronic pen is pressed in a perpendicular direction to the screen, the on/off switch is turned on. On the other hand, if the electronic pen is pressed from any other direction on the screen, the on/off switch maintains the off state. As such, the light emitting device does not operate.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a device for operating a light emitting device and thus sensing emitted light even when an electronic pen is pressed on a screen from any direction irrespective of whether the direction is perpendicular to the screen or not.


A grain oriented electrical steel sheet has a total length of cracks in a film on a steel sheet surface, of 20 μm or less per 10000 μm2 of the film, wherein magnetic domain refinement interval in a rolling direction of the steel sheet, provided in magnetic domain refinement through substantially linear introduction of thermal strain from one side of the steel sheet corresponding to a winding outer peripheral side of a coiled steel sheet at a stage of final annealing in a direction intersecting the rolling direction; and deflection of 3 mm or less per unit length: 500 mm in the rolling direction of the steel sheet.

A grain oriented electrical steel sheet is mainly utilized as an iron core of a transformer and required to exhibit excellent magnetization characteristics, e.g. low iron loss in particular. In this regard, it is important to highly accord secondary recrystallized grains of a steel sheet with (110)[001] orientation, i.e. what is called "Goss orientation", and reduce impurities in a product steel sheet. However, there are limits on controlling crystal grain orientations and reducing impurities in view of production cost. Accordingly, there have been developed techniques for iron loss reduction, which is to apply non-uniformity (strain) to a surface of a steel sheet physically to subdivide magnetic domain width, i.e. magnetic domain refinement techniques.
For example, Japanese Patent No. 57-002252 proposes a technique of irradiating a steel sheet after final annealing with a laser to introduce high-dislocation density regions into a surface layer of the steel sheet, thereby narrowing magnetic domain widths and reducing iron loss of the steel sheet. Further, Japanese Patent No. 06-072266 proposes a technique of controlling magnetic domain widths by irradiating a steel sheet with an electron beam.

Grain oriented electrical steel sheet and method for manufacturing the same


A method is provided for use in distributing access to a data item. The method includes allowing multiple transfers between computers of a single instance of permission to gain access to the data item, the transfers occurring across data connections and including a first transfer between a first computer and a second computer and a subsequent transfer between the second computer and a third computer, wherein at any one time only one computer retains the instance of permission and is able to use the instance of permission to gain access to the data item.

A computer data item such as a file that contains the text of a book or an arrangement of data that represents an audio or video rendering or recording may be copied and distributed via removable media such as a floppy diskette or a CD-ROM or over a computer network such as the Internet. In some cases, a data item is intended to be copied and distributed freely, with little or no control over access to the data item. In other cases, control over access is attempted by physical means, such as by exercising some control over the number of pieces of removable media that are produced, or by copy protection methods that impede the ability of a computer to produce a copy of the data item.
As shown in FIG. 1, in existing electronic book distribution systems, a data item that represents the contents of a book ("book data") is copied (e.g., across a network connection) from a central source to book reading devices (i.e., book viewing devices) in a hub-and-spoke arrangement.


A user-programmable FPGA architecture includes a plurality of logic function circuits including inputs and outputs disposed on an integrated circuit. A plurality of input/output (I/O) modules are also disposed on the integrated circuit and each include an input buffer having an input connected to I/O pad on the integrated circuit and an output connected to an output node, and an output buffer having an input connected to an input node, an output connected to the I/O pad, and a control input connected to a control node. A general interconnect structure disposed on the integrated circuit includes a plurality of interconnect conductors which may be connected to one another, to the inputs and outputs of the logic function circuits, and to the I/O modules by programming user-programmable interconnect elements. Direct interconnections are made between the inputs of selected ones of the logic function circuits and the output nodes of selected ones of the I/O modules. Direct interconnections are made between the outputs of selected ones of the logic function circuits and the input nodes of selected ones of the I/O modules. Direct interconnections are made between the outputs of selected ones of the logic function circuits and the control nodes of selected ones of the I/O modules.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to user-programmable interconnect architectures. More particularly, the present invention relates to FPGA architectures including direct interconnections between internal logic function circuits and I/O modules on the integrated circuit.
2. The Prior Art
User-programmable interconnect architectures are known in the art. A particular species of user-programmable interconnect architecture is known as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and includes a plurality of logic function circuits disposed in an array on the integrated circuit. The logic function circuits have inputs and at least one output and are usually programmable, allowing them to be defined to perform one of several combinatorial or sequential logic functions. A plurality of I/O modules is disposed on the integrated circuit, usually at or near the periphery of the array. The I/O modules comprise input and output buffers connected to I/O pads of the integrated circuit and act as an interface for routing signals onto and off of the integrated circuit. The output buffers are usually equipped with control inputs which may be used to place their outputs in a high impedance state when the I/O pad to which they are connected is used as an input pad.
A matrix of general interconnect conductors is superimposed on the array of logic function circuits and the I/O modules. Individual ones of the general interconnect conductors are connectable to the I/O module interface and to the inputs and outputs of the logic function modules using user-programmable interconnect elements, which may be, for example, transistors, non-volatile transistor elements, antifuses, or the like. By programming selected ones of the user-programmable interconnect elements, the FPGA integrated circuit can be customized to perform a user-specified function.
While the existing FPGA architectures have proved to be useful and have gained wide acceptance, they suffer from several drawbacks. First, the connections between the I/O modules and the logic function circuits must be made using programmable elements, which add a delay to the signal path. In addition, the I/O module adds another level of logic beyond the logic function circuits.

FPGA architecture including direct logic function circuit to I/O interconnections


A chip package structure can include: a lead frame having a plurality of pins, a first die pad, and a second die pad; a first die and a second die, where a first surface of the first die is installed on the first die pad, and a first surface of the second die is installed on the second die pad; a plurality of pads installed on a second surface of the first die and a second surface of the second die; and bonding wires including a first set of bonding wires with each having one terminal connected to pads of the first die, and a second set of bonding wires with each having one terminal connected to pads of the second die for connectivity between the first die and the second die, and between the plurality of pins and the first die and the second die.

Wire bonding technology has been widely used in various chip package structures. Such chip package structures may include a lead frame and one or more dies on the lead frame. Wire bonding can be utilized in order to realize electrical connectivity between dies, as well as between the die and the lead frame inside of the chip package structure.

Chip package structure and method for manufacturing the same

Silergy Semiconductor Technology (Hangzhou) LTD


A system including a solar panel device; an electric conducting plate implement that is configured to submerge within a water expanse containing at least salt to produce at least one of, a sodium hypo-chloride and chlorine; a power transformer coupled to the solar panel device and said electric conducting plate implement, wherein the power transformer is configured to regulate the electricity produced by the solar panel device and provide the regulated power to the electric conducting plate implement; an electronic timer device that is configured to switch a flow of current through the electric conducting plate implement at a predetermined interval; a sealed aluminum air tight frame for housing the solar panel device to substantially prevent water from leaking into the solar panel device; and a buoyant implement for receiving the sealed aluminum air tight frame and configured to keep the solar panel device above water.

One or more embodiments of the invention generally relate to water treatment systems. More particularly, certain embodiments of the invention relate to water treatment by generating natural chlorine using pool salt in the water expanse as a buoyant semi-submerged device above the water expanse powered by a solar panel.
The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
The following is an example of a specific aspect in the prior art that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon. By way of educational background, another aspect of the prior art generally useful to be aware of is that natural chlorine generation may prevent algae and bacteria from developing. Natural chlorine may not contain chloroform/chloramines which is teratogenic that may cause malfunction of a fetus, and carcinogenic a possible substance that produces cancer. Natural chlorine may not cause skin irritations/dryness, hair discolorations and red eyes even when spending long hours in the pool. A typical salt-water chlorine generator may eliminate any chloramines as the pool water passes through ruthenium/platinum/palladium coated plates. Typical generators may sanitize and oxidize the water, producing chloroform/chloramines free water. And in which many people who suffered from allergies from "pool chlorine" may now be able to swim without discomfort with water that may have a taste of a teardrop (not sea salty). Salt is present in most water supplies. If no salt is present, only a small amount of salt is required because the reaction produces salt as a byproduct. The natural chlorine is being generated at a slow natural pace, not by bulk or shock treatment, thereby eliminating the need to purchase and transport hazardous chemicals. Besides all of the above benefits, the cost of these devices out-weighs the costs of an in-line chemical filtration system including minimal maintenance.
In view of the foregoing, it is clear that these traditional techniques are not perfect and leave room for more optimal approaches.
Unless otherwise indicated illustrations in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.


A process for coating powders with ultrafine particles of silicon, silicon oxide, silicon nitride or alloys thereof, entailing:. a) introducing a reactant gas into a bed of core powders, thereby uniformly suspending the core powders in the reactant gas, PA1 b) entraining the uniformly suspended core powders into a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor, PA1 c) selectively forming ultrafine particles of silicon, silicon oxide, silicon nitride or alloys thereof in the gas phase by homogeneous deposition of the reactant gas, while minimizing core powder growth by CVD at surfaces of suspended core powders, and PA1 d) coating the core powders with the ultrafine particles of silicon, silicon oxide, silicon nitride or alloys thereof, by introducing hot inert gas into the uniformly suspended core powders in the reactant gas.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for elaboration of powders uniformly coated with ultrafine silicon-base particles.
2. Description of the Background
Elaboration of ultrafine particles of silicon, silicon oxide or silicon nitride or their alloys by gas phase chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using various means of energy supply, such as thermal, plasma or optical, is well documented. The particles produced thereby are significantly finer than those formed from other processes, i.e., having a typical average diameter of 0.01 .mu.m to 1 .mu.m as compared to 0.5 to 5 .mu.m, respectively. See P. Ho et al, J. Mater. Research, 4, 873 (1989) and L. M. Sheppard, Adv. Mater. Processes, 4, 53 (1987).
Such a gas phase process is advantageous because high purity and control stoichiometry is achieved. Generally, product purities can be obtained which correspond to the purities of the gas phase precursor, i.e., SiH.sub.4, SiH.sub.2 Cl.sub.2 and SiCl.sub.4, for example.
However, despite the advantages obtained using gas phase CVD to form particles of silicon, silicon oxide or silicon nitride, it remains very difficult to produce monosized particles thereby. Moreover, in using this method, it is difficult to avoid agglomeration of such ultrafine powders. Unfortunately, such drawbacks render difficult the application of the gas phase process to the synthesis of monodisperse and non-agglomerated powders.
Heterogeneous CVD growth of suspended particles is also rather well known, for example, EP 258027 discloses a process for producing polysilicon which entails contacting silicon particles in a fluidized bed with a silicon precursor gas at a decomposition temperature resulting in the deposition of silicon on the particles by CVD and deposition of silicon dust on the particle surfaces, and modifying the conditions so that a thin layer of silicon is deposited on the particle surfaces to bind the silicon dust.
Also, it is known that powders can be suspended in a fluidized bed. Further, suspension and growth of seed powders by gas phase CVD in a fluidized bed reactor is known for fabrication of ultra-pure silicon from silane (SiH.sub.4, Si.sub.2 H.sub.6), for example, for further processing into a silicon wafer.
For example, DE 3,910,328-A describes a fluidized bed reactor having heatable inside and outside walls, wherein the space between these walls is the reaction zone for the fluidized bed. The walls of the reactor are concentric cylinders with the diameter of the inner cylinder preferably being 10-95% of the diameter of the outer cylinder. Further, the walls are heated by induction or resistance heating or by conduction and the heatable area of the inner wall is 10-95% of the heatable area of the outer wall.
As another example, DE 3,910,343-A discloses a fluidized bed reactor consisting of a reaction vessel with an inner zone for the fluidized bed and a peripheral annular heating zone there around. The heating zone has a passage for transferring particles from the reaction zone to the heating zone at the top and a passage for transferring particles from the heating zone to the reaction zone at the bottom.

Process for the elaboration of powders uniformly coated with ultrafine silicon-base particles using chemical vapor decomposition in the presence of core powders

L'Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme pour l'Etude et l'Exploitation des Procedes Georges Claude


A data processing system suitable for transmitting and receiving data packets via a network including a first processing entity and a second processing entity both having access to system memory data subject to transmission over the network after being formatted according to a network communication protocol. The first processing entity performs a first portion of the network communication protocol, such as a flow control portion, while the second processing entity performs a second portion of the protocol, such as acknowledgement handling or data retrieval. The first processing entity is typically a central processing unit of a network server while the second processing entity is typically a network communication device. The first and second processing entities may reside on a single physical system or on physically distinct systems connected via a switched bus I/O architecture. The acknowledgement handling portion of the protocol may include reclamation of memory corresponding to an acknowledged packet where the memory resides on a system memory or on memory local to the second processing entity.

1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of data processing networks and more particularly to a system and method in which network protocol processing is distributed between multiple processing entities to improve efficiency.
2. History of Related Art
In the field of data processing networks, network overhead is consuming an increasingly large percentage of system resources. Network overhead includes, among other items, the overhead associated with the construction of network packets. More specifically, data processing networks almost universally employ some form of multi-layered network protocol to facilitate communication among unlike systems and platforms. Perhaps the most widely implemented of such network protocols includes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet protocol (IP), which provide the backbone for a large number of data processing networks including the Internet.
When coupled with high-bandwidth network connections, network protocol processing imposes a significant overhead on a host system. The problem is frequently aggravated by the need for data originating from the server. In many cases, the data required to fulfill a network request resides in the system memory of the server. In a conventional server environment, the protocol processing is tightly bound to the server's central processing unit such that, in addition to determining the appropriate headers, the CPU is also responsible for retrieving the required data from memory and "assembling" the header and data into a properly formatted packet. By imposing the entire network communication overhead on a single processing entity such as the system's CPU, the conventional network data processing system requires an undesirably disproportionate amount of time just to maintain the network connection. It would be desirable to implement a system and method in which protocol processing is distributed among various processing entities in the system to achieve greater efficiency and performance without substantially altering the hardware.

Distributed protocol processing in a data processing system

International Business Machines Corporation


A nozzle is stored in a nozzle storage hole of a waiting pod. In this state, a cleaning liquid is discharged to an outer peripheral surface of the nozzle from a plurality of discharge ports. Thus, a coating liquid and its solidified matter adhering to the nozzle are dissolved and removed from the nozzle. Subsequently, a metal removal liquid is discharged from a plurality of discharge ports to the outer peripheral surface of the nozzle. Thus, a metallic component remaining on the nozzle is dissolved and removed from the nozzle. Further, pure water is discharged to the outer peripheral surface of the nozzle from the plurality of discharge ports, and the metal removal liquid adhering to the nozzle is cleaned away.

In a lithography process in the manufacture of a semiconductor device or the like, a coating liquid such as a resist liquid is supplied onto a substrate, so that a coating film is formed. For example, the substrate is horizontally held and rotated by a spin chuck. In this state, the resist liquid is discharged to a substantially center portion of an upper surface of the substrate from a nozzle, whereby a resist film is formed on the entire upper surface of the substrate as a coating film.
The resist liquid is discharged from the nozzle, and then the resist liquid adheres to a tip of the nozzle. When the resist liquid adhering to the nozzle solidifies, the solidified matter may become particles. Therefore, after the resist liquid is discharged, the nozzle is cleaned with use of a solvent (see Patent Document 1, for example).
[Patent Document 1] JP 2003-178965 A

Film processing unit and substrate processing apparatus


A method for analyzing a sample in a liquid is provided, which is suitable for easily and reliably preventing a liquid for analysis from being evaporated. When the sample in the liquid is observed by using a scanning probe microscope (SPM), a sealing liquid (17) immiscible with a liquid for analysis (16) is filled around the liquid for analysis (16), in which a sample (13) and a probe (15) are immersed, so as to form a sealing state, in which the liquid for analysis (16) is isolated from an external gas. The SPM enables the probe (15) disposed on a front end of a cantilever (14) to approach a surface of the sample (13) immersed in the liquid, scans the surface of the sample, and detects an interaction between the sample (13) and the probe (15), thereby generating an image.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method for analyzing a sample in a liquid through using a scanning probe microscope (SPM) or a cantilever sensor.
2. Description of Related Art
SPM is a type of microscope for scanning a surface of a sample through a tiny probe and meanwhile detecting an interaction between the probe and the sample, so as to detect a shape or physical quantity of the surface of the sample, thereby generating an image. The SPM includes a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) using a current flowing between the probe and the sample to represent the interaction there-between, or an atomic force microscope (AFM) using an atomic force between the probe and the sample to represent the interaction therebetween.
As described above, the SPM turns the interaction between the probe and the surface of the sample into an image, so as to have the following characteristics. That is, not only a sample disposed in vacuum or in the atmosphere can be observed, a sample disposed in a liquid can also be observed. To observe the sample in a liquid is implemented by using a structure, called a liquid cell, as shown in FIG. 6(a).
A sample 33 is placed in a sample holder 31, which has an opened upper surface and is capable of being fully filled up with a liquid, and a cantilever 34 with a probe 35 on a front end thereof is fixed on a base 32 and is installed on a main body of the microscope. When conducting observations in a liquid, a liquid 36 is fed into the sample holder 31 to a level that both the sample 33 and the probe 35 close to the sample 33 are immersed in the liquid 36. At this time, the liquid 36 in the sample holder 31 contacts with an external gas; as time elapses, the liquid 36 is evaporated, such that the liquid volume is reduced. During the observation, if the temperature of the liquid 36 is changed due to the evaporation, the sample 33 and the probe 35 may be thermally expanded (or shrunk); accordingly, an observation visual field may change, as the time elapses. The phenomenon is called a thermal drift, which is the reason why the distortion of the observed image occurs in SPM.
In addition, the following problems may also occur. As the temperature of the liquid change due to the evaporation of the liquid 36, the state on the surface of the sample changes accordingly, or the substance dissolved in the liquid 36 may be precipitated to contaminate the surfaces of the sample 33, the cantilever 34, and the probe 35. In addition, as for the AFM with a mechanism for detecting upper and lower displacements of the cantilever 34 by using a laser beam, as shown in FIG. 6(b), if a liquid level is lowered due to evaporation and a space is formed in an optical path of the laser, it is necessary to adjust a position of a laser source and a position of an optical detector once again. In view of the above reasons, in order to stably observe the surface of the sample for a long time, it is necessary to restrain the evaporation of the liquid in which the sample is immersed therein (hereafter referred to as "liquid for analysis").    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication NO. 2002-286614 (see [0016], FIG. 2)
As one of the solutions for preventing the evaporation of the liquid for analysis, in the conventional art, a known method using a packing to surround the sample and the liquid for analysis, so as to form a sealing space. In the above method, as shown in FIG. 7, the packing 41 formed by an O ring is clamped between the base 32, which secures s the cantilever 34, and the planar sample holder 31, such that the sample 33 and the liquid for analysis 36 are sealed within a sealing space surrounded by the sample holder 31, the base 32, and the packing 41, thereby preventing the evaporation of the liquid for analysis 36. However, when using such a method, the packing 41 is usually in the form of solid, and it is difficult to further deform after the packing 41 is collapsed to a certain extent, so it must enable a distance between the probe 35 and the surface of the sample to approach an observable distance (smaller than or equal to 1 nm) within a collapsing amount d of the packing 41. Therefore, the thickness of the sample 33 must be accurately determined with the consideration of the collapsing amount d. However, during the actual observation, it is quite difficult to accurately determine the thickness of the sample 33 for processing. Furthermore, the relative movement between the base 32 and the sample holder 31 is limited by the packing 41; thus when the observation position changes, the sample 33 or the probe 35 cannot be moved along a horizontal direction and a vertical direction to a large extent. In addition, the packing 41 usually adopts O rings made of rubber; but when an organic solvent is used as the liquid for analysis 36, the packing 41 may be dissolved by the organic solvent.
On the other hand, when it is difficult to seal the liquid for analysis, a relatively large amount of liquid for analysis is used in consideration of the evaporation. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the variation of the entire liquid for analysis with respect to the evaporated amount. However, as for the structure of the SPM, the amount of liquid for analysis that can be fed into the sample holder is limited, and when an organic solvent with a high evaporation speed is used, it is difficult to observe the sample for a long time. In addition, the following situation also exists, that is, some types of liquids for analysis may generate toxic gases during evaporation, so that the above process cannot be performed. Furthermore, if the liquid for analysis is an aqueous solution, the concentration may change due to the evaporation of the moisture.
In addition, in the method for preventing the volatilization of the liquid for analysis disclosed in the Patent Document 1, a liquid layer is disposed on the surface of the liquid used for the analysis for preventing the volatilization, wherein the liquid layer is formed by a liquid immiscible with the liquid for analysis. However, when the liquid layer for preventing the volatilization is formed on the liquid for analysis in this manner, a liquid with a specific weight smaller than that of the liquid for analysis is required to be used for forming the liquid layer. Furthermore, it is necessary to fill the liquid for analysis into the sample holder to such a level that both the sample and the probe are immersed therein, and a liquid level is formed within the sample holder; hence, a large amount of liquid for analysis is required. In addition, if a gas-liquid interface exists in the optical path of the laser for detecting the displacement of the cantilever, the sloshing of the liquid level may interfere with the optical path. Therefore, in the Patent Document 1, a method for eliminating the above problem is described, wherein a laser source and an optical detector are disposed in the liquid, or an optical fiber is disposed in the liquid for guiding the laser beam and capturing the reflected light. However, the above method has a problem that the adjustment of positions of the laser source and the optical detector, or the optical fiber is rather complicated.


A method of treating cancer includes administering a dose of a chemotherapy agent in combination with a dose of a composition consisting essentially of attenuated Salmonella typhimurium. The dose of the chemotherapy agent is lower than a maximum effective dose of the chemotherapy agent. The combination provides a synergistic reduction in tumor burden when compared to the reduction in tumor burden provided by administration of an equivalent dose of the chemotherapy agent without the composition consisting essentially of attenuated Salmonella typhimurium.

Despite continuing efforts of fighting cancer, nearly 600,000 cancer-related deaths still occur in the United States each year, and over 8 million cancer-related deaths occur worldwide. Thus, according to the World Health Organization, cancer continues to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In addition, it is expected that annual cancer cases will rise from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million within the next two decades. The mainstay of cancer treatment is chemotherapy with the aim of curing or controlling this disease with the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) or the highest dose of a drug with tolerable side effects. Strategies employed to decrease the side effects include, for example, varying the combination of anti-neoplastic agents, metronomic dosing, and delivery of the chemotherapeutic agent directly to the affected organ. In the last several years, advancements have been made with immunotherapy for cancer treatment and many immunologic agents have demonstrated promise in this field. However, significant toxicities and tumor resistance limit this treatment strategy.

Methods of synergistic treatment of cancer


A toothbrush having a handle at one end thereof and a bristle bearing head, the head having a skeleton, a resilient member mounted on at least one side of the skeleton, tuft mounts in the skeleton and/or resilient member for receiving bristles, the resilient member bristle tufts being capable of toggling movement, the resilient member tuft mounts having an array of rigid receptacles or wells attached to the skeleton by a bridge hinge, characterised in that the bridge hinges are broken.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a toothbrush having flexibly mounted bristles on the toothbrush head, and in particular to brushes having an elastomeric component and a non-elastomeric component.
2. The Related Art
Man has developed means of controlling microbially related diseases such as caries and periodontal disease by means of brushing. Whilst the main aim of toothbrushing is to remove plaque, excessive force or brushing frequency can lead to damage of the teeth or surrounding soft tissue. To remove plaque effectively, toothbrush filaments need to penetrate into the "v" shaped interproximal areas between the teeth to remove plaque with the minimum amount of force.
Conventional toothbrushes comprise bristles mounted in rigid head materials. The rigid head material provides support for the bristles.
The bristles are generally mounted on the toothbrush in a substantially upward orientation. Following use over a prolonged period the bristles tend to splay permanently outwards from the upward orientation whereupon the toothbrush is discarded and replaced.
However, it has been found that an improved cleaning operation can be performed with a toothbrush in which the bristles are splayed or adapted to splay in a controllable and repeatable manner. Accordingly, toothbrushes have been developed in which the toothbrush head is flexible to facilitate movement of the bristles in use. The flexible head is usually made up of jointed portions or segments which facilitate articulation of groups of bristles. Generally tufts can only flex in one direction/plane i.e. parallel to the plane defined by the longitudinal axis of the handle transverse to the aforementioned plane. However, a disadvantage of such segments is that unwanted foreign matter can accumulate in spaces between the segments and that individual tufts cannot articulate independently of one another, thereby reducing cleaning and plaque removal efficiency.
Bristles, particularly fine bristles, clean more efficiently when they penetrate effectively into the interproximal spaces between teeth and gums. Fine bristles can exhibit and enhance a splaying effect. In addition, we have found that fine bristles produce a more effective cleaning effect as they penetrate further into the interproximal spaces between the teeth and gums. However, it has been found that fine bristle tufts are particularly susceptible to excessive permanent splaying in use thereby reducing cleaning efficacy. Accordingly, rapid deterioration of the toothbrush results.
An object of the invention is to provide a toothbrush having a head with bristles mounted thereon in which the bristles mounted on the toothbrush head can repeatably and resiliently splay and move in a multidirectional manner to provide more effective cleaning.

Toothbrush with flexibly mounted bristles


Automated site scans are often seen as precursors to a cyber attack, from URI enumeration and version mapping to timing scans used to identify the most valuable DDoS targets. Disclosed are methods and apparatuses for detecting automated site scans and identifying the source of cyber attacks. Honeypot links are provided on a web page via a server. If multiple honeypot links are selected by a visitor of the web page, the server may identify the visitor as an automated system and generate a session ID. The server induces an artificial delay prior to displaying the data associated with the selected honeypot link. After a subsequent attack, the server is able to identify the attacker by association with the stored session ID of an automated site scan.

Automated site scans are often seen as precursors to the attack, from URI enumeration and version mapping to timing scans to identify the best Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) targets. Detecting site scans in a heavy traffic customer-facing website is extremely challenging, and prone to both false negatives (missing actual scans) and false positives (tagging legitimate traffic). Moreover, detecting the origin of an attack when the origin of the prior site scan is unknown is often nearly impossible, particularly when the attack comes from thousands of various sources. Thus, there is a need for a method for detecting automated site scans and linking the origin of such scan (which often can be more easily discernible than the origin of massively distributed attack) to the subsequent attack.


In order to improve a refrigerating plant, comprising a refrigerant circuit, with a high-side refrigerant-cooling heat exchanger, with an expansion cooling device, with a reservoir for the main mass flow, with at least one normal cooling stage, with an intense cooling stage, which removes an overall intense cooling mass flow from the reservoir, and with at least one refrigerant compressor unit, which is disposed in the refrigerant circuit, in such a way that it has a better efficiency, it is proposed that the intense cooling stage has for further cooling of the overall intense cooling mass flow an intense cooling expansion cooling device, which in the active state cools the overall intense cooling mass flow and thereby produces a main intense cooling mass flow, which is fed to the intense cooling expansion element, and an additional intense cooling mass flow.

The invention relates to a refrigerating plant, comprising a refrigerant circuit, in which an overall mass flow of a refrigerant is circulated, a high-side refrigerant-cooling heat exchanger, which is disposed in the refrigerant circuit, an expansion cooling device, which is disposed in the refrigerant circuit and in the active state cools the overall mass flow of the refrigerant and thereby produces a main mass flow of liquid refrigerant and an additional mass flow of gaseous refrigerant, a reservoir for the main mass flow, at least one normal cooling stage, which removes a normal cooling mass flow from the reservoir and has a normal cooling expansion element and a low-side normal cooling heat exchanger, provided downstream of said expansion element and providing refrigerating capacity for the normal cooling, an intense cooling stage, which removes an overall intense cooling mass flow from the reservoir and has an intense cooling expansion element and a downstream intense cooling heat exchanger providing refrigerating capacity, and also with an intense cooling compressor unit downstream of this intense cooling heat exchanger, and at least one refrigerant compressor unit, which is disposed in the refrigerant circuit and compresses the refrigerant of the main mass flow and of the additional mass flow to high pressure.
Such a refrigerating plant, which is suitable in particular for carbon dioxide as the refrigerant, is known from DE 10 2004 038 640 A1, the efficiency in this refrigerating plant not being optimal, in particular in connection with the intense cooling stage that is operated.
It is therefore an object of the invention to improve a refrigerating plant of the type described at the beginning to the extent that it has a better efficiency.


A method and apparatus for coating high temperature resistant, electrically-conductive, ceramic compounds, such as titanium carbides and diborides, onto an organic substrate, which may be an organic resin matrix composite. The apparatus basically comprises a vacuum arc plasma generator, a high-voltage insulated substrate holding table and a plasma channel. The plasma generator includes a vacuum chamber having a cylindrical cathode of the material to be deposited, surrounded by a ceramic insulator which is in turn surrounded by a metal trigger ring in contact with a trigger electrode. When a vacuum arc discharge is initiated, a plasma flows outwardly from the cathode through a hole in an adjacent anode and into a drift tube. The drift tube has a plurality of magnets around the tube exterior to push the plasma away from the tube, maintain a uniform plasma density and guide the plasma towards a substrate on a movable high voltage insulated substrate support. The cathode material is nearly 100% ionized, giving the ions impinging on the organic substrate sufficient kinetic energy to react with and adhere tightly to the target substrate without additional heating. The amount of kinetic energy is controllable to provide the selected degree of substrate surface ion mixing with the coating elements.

This invention relates in general to the formation of electrically-conductive ceramic compound coatings on substrates and, more particularly, to the direct ion mixed plasma deposition of such compounds onto organic substrates such as organic matrix composites.
A number of different methods have been developed for depositing materials, generally metals, in the form of particles or ions onto a substrate surface to form an adherent, uniform coating. Among these are thermal deposition, cathode sputtering and chemical vapor deposition. While useful in particular applications, these methods suffer from several problems, including a tendency to coat other system surfaces than the substrate with the material being deposited, requiring frequent cleaning, contamination problems when the coating material is changed and a waste of often expensive coating material. Generally, these processes require that the substrate surface be heated to a very high temperature which often damages the substrate material, especially when the substrate is an organic material or an organic matrix composite material. The high deposition temperatures also lead to thermal stresses that may cause coating delamination.
Vacuum arc deposition has a number of advantages for coating difficult materials, such as refractory metals, onto substrate. Vacuum arc deposition involves establishing of an arc, in a vacuum, between a cathode formed from the coating material and an anode, which results in the production of a plasma of the cathode material suitable for coating. The process does not involve gases, making control of deposition rate easier and simplifies changing coating materials. Typical vacuum arc deposition systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,566,185, 3,836,451 and 4,714,860. Vacuum arc deposition, sometimes referred to as cathodic arc deposition, is used commercially, typically to produce titanium nitride coatings on tooling.
A number of problems remain, however, which limit the use of vacuum arc deposition. Coatings often suffer from adherence and low density problems, particularly when an organic matrix composite material is used as the substrate. Difficulties are often encountered in obtaining a desired coating composition where ceramic materials, such as electrically-conductive ceramic compounds (e.g., borides, nitrides or carbides) are being applied.
Thus, there is a continuing need for improved methods and apparatus for forming uniform, adherent coatings from metal compounds, in particular on organic matrix composite substrates.

Method and apparatus for direct ARC plasma deposition of ceramic coatings


A scalable earthing switch that incorporates a torsion spring to effect rapid closure of the switch. The torsion spring is supported coaxially about a rotatable shaft on which contact blades are mounted resulting in compact design. The blade contacts are separated axially along the length of the shaft by one or more spacers. By using difference size spacers the distance between adjacent blade contacts can be changed and, thus, the earthing switch can be easily scaled for different applications. A latching (detent) mechanism is provided for latching the switch in an open position.

The present exemplary embodiment relates to electrical switching mechanisms. It finds particular application in conjunction with medium voltage earthing switches, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present exemplary embodiment is also amenable to other like applications.
It is common to provide protection to technicians servicing an electrical component enclosure through the provision of an earthing switch. A typical earthing switch includes one or more blade contacts mounted on a rotatable shaft. An actuating mechanism rotates the shaft to move the blade contacts between an open position and a closed position in contact with a grounding electrode. The earthing switch is typically installed between a distribution bus and a circuit breaker connecting the distribution bus to a main line. The earthing switch, when closed, grounds the distribution bus.
Prior to earthing the line or bus terminals, it is typical to disconnect the upstream source of electrical power. In certain situations, however, the circuit may inadvertently be live during grounding. In other situations, the upstream source of electrical power may be inadvertently reenergized before performing closing of the switch. In still other situations, there could be back feed of electricity to the distribution bus such as, for example, in the case of a spinning electric motor producing current that back feeds to the distribution bus. Thus, even when the circuit breaker connecting the distribution bus to the main bus is open, current may exist in the distribution bus. In each of the foregoing situations, a properly operating earthing switch can protect technicians and equipment from harm.
Arcing can occur when an earthing switch is closed on a fault. The arcing, in turn, can cause melting of the contact material which can result in welding of the contacts. If the contacts are not opened while the metal is still fluid, a rough surface is produced. The voltage concentrations caused by the spikes on the now rough surface result in an even earlier striking of the arc the next time and can lead to permanent welding of the contacts.
To minimize arcing, many conventional earthing switches include coil springs configured to rapidly close the switch when actuated. Such coil springs are often supported adjacent to the rotatable shaft and operatively coupled to the shaft by a crank arm or other mechanism. When the switch is actuated to close, the spring is configured to act on the crank arm to rapidly rotate the shaft and thereby quickly close the switch.
Current earthing switch designs relying on coil springs are generally bulky since the coil springs and associated mechanisms are supported adjacent the rotating shaft and blade contacts. Further, such prior art earthing switches are not easily scalable to various applications, since most often the blade contacts are welded or otherwise permanently secured to the rotatable shaft. Thus, separate shaft/blade assemblies typically need to be manufactured for different applications.

Scalable medium voltage latching earthing switch


In an image forming apparatus such as a color laser printer wherein a toner image is transferred onto a continuous paper, one or more of a exposure timing of each exposure device, a rotation speed of each image carrier device, a transfer bias voltage applied to each transfer device, and a wrap amount of each wrap device are controlled based on a coverage of a toner image formed on each image carrier device, thereby preventing a color-to-color registration state which tends to be caused due to a variation in the transport speed of the continuous paper in a transfer process.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus using a continuous paper transported as a recording medium and which is designed so as to prevent a color-to-color misregistration state which tends to be caused due to a variation in the transport speed of the continuous paper when respective color toner images are transferred onto the continuous paper.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a tandem type color laser printer, photoreceptor drums carrying toner images of respective colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and so forth) are provided along a transport path for a recording medium. Each of the photoreceptor drums is arranged such that after a surface thereof is charged by a charger, a surface potential is decreased by means of an exposure device so that a latent image is formed thereon. The latent image is developed into a toner image by means of a development device. Then, the toner image carried by each photoreceptor drum is transferred onto the recording medium by means of a transfer device.
Among such tandem type color laser printers is one which uses a continuous paper as a recording medium.
As will be understood, it is required that toner images on respective photoreceptor drums be sequentially transferred in precise registration onto the continuous paper, thereby preventing a color-to-color misregistration state of the toner images. In order to satisfy such a requirement, in a tandem type color laser printer using a continuous paper, it has so far been proposed to apply a tension to the continuous paper so that the continuous paper is tensioned before and after the transfer, thereby preventing a color-to-color misregistration state of toner images from being caused because of the continuous paper going slack or getting wrinkled (for example, refer to JP-A No. 6-64244).
However, it has sometimes happened that a color-to-color misregistration state is caused despite application of a tension to the continuous paper The inventor has conducted an analysis of color-to-color misregstration states, and found out causes for such states as mentioned below.
When a toner image on a photoreceptor drum is transferred onto a continuous paper, since that portion of the photoreceptor drum's surface where no toner image is formed is charged, the continuous paper is electrostatically attracted to the photoreceptor drum. Furthermore, since a coverage of the toner image (a proportion of area occupied by the toner image) differs from one photoreceptor drum to another, the electrostatic force of attraction of the continuous paper also differs from one photoreceptor drum to another.
For this reason, a tension applied to the continuous paper between adjacent ones of the photoreceptor drums is varied so that tensions applied to the continuous paper between the respective photoreceptor drums become nonuniform. Consequently, the transport speed of the continuous paper is varied, and the variation in the transport speed of the continuous paper causes a color-to-color misregistration state in a transfer process.