Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed to improve computing system utilization. An example system includes a visual recognition controller to determine whether an infrared image of the device corresponds to a first utilization state of the device based on a machine-learning model, and generate a report including the first utilization state, and at least one processor to execute one or more actions to adjust operation of the device from the first utilization state to a second utilization state based on the report obtained from the visual recognition controller, the second utilization state corresponding to reduced utilization compared to the first utilization state.

Typical computing systems, such as Internet-of-things (IoT) devices, servers, etc., are developed to withstand high-utilization and processor overloading. To better understand utilization of computing resources of such devices, measuring system performance during runtime may be performed. However, the creation and execution of software tools to measure performance indicators typically mandates low-level changes in associated hardware and software, tight integration with the software tools, and may affect runtime execution.
The figures are not to scale. In general, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts. Connecting lines or connectors shown in the various figures presented are intended to represent example functional relationships and/or physical or logical couplings between the various elements.
Descriptors "first," "second," "third," etc. are used herein when identifying multiple elements or components which may be referred to separately. Unless otherwise specified or understood based on their context of use, such descriptors are not intended to impute any meaning of priority or ordering in time but merely as labels for referring to multiple elements or components separately for ease of understanding the disclosed examples. In some examples, the descriptor "first" may be used to refer to an element in the detailed description, while the same element may be referred to in a claim with a different descriptor such as "second" or "third." In such instances, it should be understood that such descriptors are used merely for ease of referencing multiple elements or components.

Systems, methods, and apparatus to improve computing system utilization


Provided herein are methods and compositions for sensitizing a cancer cell to a cancer treatment, for example to an anticancer drug by the inhibition of at least two cancer biomarkers. Further provided are methods of treating and/or preventing a cancer including reducing the size of a tumor. Also provided are compositions comprising nanopartides associated with inhibitory molecules, such as siRNA, and/or anti-cancer drugs.

In recent years, there have been large strides to understand drug efficacy post-treatment in cancer patients. Uramoto et al., Lung Cancer 2011; 73: 361-365. This heightened interest is primarily due to acquired drug resistance in patients. Brown et al., Nature Reviews Cancer 2014; 14: 747-753. The cause of these resistance cases is tied to poor understanding of post-treatment biochemistry. A major part of these biochemical issues partly tie with overexpressed oncogenes or mutations that compensate for the drug action in cancer cells. Frequently seen biomarkers in cancer patients include tyrosine kinase receptors families that are required for cell growth. Witton et al., J Pathol 2003; 200: 290-297. Predictably, the upregulation of these genes in cancer cells leads to uncontrolled growth of tumors. For example, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), KRAS, and HER-2 are few of these upregulated oncogenes. To complicate this situation, not all of these upregulations in cancer patients are common. Ludwig et al., Nature Reviews Cancer 2005; 5: 845-856. Additionally, these genes can also exist as genetic or acquired mutations that can further change the overall function. Therefore, a drug needs to target these wild-type biomarkers and be specific to mutations as well. Of all cancers, lung cancers are mostly affected due to the sheer number of mutations that vary from patient to patient. Within lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), accounts for almost 80% of the cases (Inoue et al., Cancer Chemother Pharmacol 2015; 76: 155-161) and almost 10% of NSCLC patients harbor EGFR mutations. In addition to EGFR, other dominant mutations such as KRAS or ALK are also prevalent. Hence, efforts have been made to slowly bring personalized medicine to target the specific mutations. Of most drugs, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) are used to target these mutations. Primarily the first line and second line treatments in lung cancer cases include FDA approved cocktail of immunotherapy PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors with TKIs such as erlotinib or gefitinib. Both these small molecule inhibitors bind to the intracellular domain of EGFR and specifically inhibits its downstream pathway. Additionally, these drugs can bind and inhibit other tyrosine kinase receptors as well albeit with low specificity. Xu Y et al., Cancer Biol Ther 2010; 9: 572-582. Both drugs target mutated EGFR that is very common in NSCLC patients. In recent years, there is a dramatic decrease in overall survival rate due to an increase in cases with treatment relapse. Much of the relapse has been tied to acquired drug resistance. Due to resistance, the drug action often fails before the end of the treatment duration. Therefore, several studies are now underway to recognize the cause of resistance in hopes to increase the drug efficacy. However, the underlying causes are still not well understood.

Compositions for the treatment of drug-resistant tumors and methods of use thereof

THE CURATORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI


The present invention discloses a frame tube recombination cover plate for a cast-in-situ wall core building block mold, including a bearing type cover plate and a partition type cover plate, wherein a plurality of flat plates on upper surfaces of model walls corresponding to the two types of cover plates for the cast-in-situ wall core building block mold are removed; more than three flat plates (2) perpendicularly connected with front and rear flat plates are equidistantly added between left and right outer edges of the front and rear flat plates (1) at intervals; then, the left and right outer edges of the front and rear flat plates (1) are connected with a plurality of lower convex semi-circular tubes (8) below; and hollow sections of semi-cylinders (9) of the lower convex semi-circular tubes (8) below the flat plates (2) added to one of the left and right sides are blocked.

Based on the technical solution of the existing cast-in-situ wall core building block mold, each of two types of three cast-in-situ wall core building blocks is adopted to build model walls, of which several rows and columns of parallel and merged left and right starting and ending wall tops are consistent; each cast-in-situ wall core building block mold with shapes and sizes of a layer of several rows and columns of building blocks are respectively designed according to the shape and size of each model wall; upper surfaces of each row of building blocks of each model wall are respectively connected in tandem to form the cover plate of each mold; a 30 cm long bevel cover plate is cut from the cover plate of each type of mold and is inclined upwards by 45°; a lower convex semi-circular arc surface is changed into a lower convex semi-elliptical arc surface which can be matched and intersected with the upper surface of respective model wall; and then, the bevel cover plate is fixed as a scraper of each type of mold to replace the cover plate, thereby making way for a feed port of each mold. Based on the technical solution of an existing method for manufacturing cast-in-situ wall core building blocks (that is a patent-pending method with the international application number of PCT/CN2015/077470), left and right baffle plates of the same type of mold are fixed at upper ends of left and right templates; foam concrete raw material slurry is injected into an empty mold from the feed port; the left and right baffle plates are removed after the raw material slurry is initially solidified and formed; front and rear steel balls of the same type of scraper are poured into front and rear concave steel grooves in outer surfaces of the front and rear templates from one of left and right sides and are horizontally moved to the other side, thereby scraping off excess semi-cylinder raw materials; and then, other subsequent operations are performed to obtain the cast-in-situ wall core building block. The mold is relatively complex in scraper and other related components, troublesome to operate, large in amount of raw materials to be scraped, large in waste, incapable of being overlapped up and down in multiple layers, large in occupied area, rough in upper surface of the obtained cast-in-situ wall core building block, and poor in sizing precision. Therefore, the technical solution for the scraper and other related components of the existing cast-in-situ wall core building block mold is not ideal enough. The part of the technical solution can be further improved and the corresponding operation method can be changed to reduce the cost and obtain a more ideal upper surface shape of the cast-in-situ wall core building block.

Frame tube recombination cover plate for cast-in-situ wall core building block mold


A method for controlling uniformity of applied film thickness of clear protective coatings by means of a color-dissipatable dye additive which dissipates within a reasonable timeframe, generally from hours to a few days, leaving the applied film with no evidence of its use during the application phase. The color additives temporarily impart color to an otherwise clear coating, and subsequently dissipate over a short period of time. An embodiment of this technology includes the addition of a compatibilizer carrier solution to increase the ease of measuring the dye for addition to the clear coating.

This invention relates to protective coatings on decorative compositions and, more specifically, for formulas that facilitate the application thereof. For convenience, the words xe2x80x9cclear coating(s)xe2x80x9d will be frequently used herein as a generic term for components that are essentially water-white. This invention is particularly concerned with colorants that may temporarily impart color to these otherwise clear coatings, the color dissipating over a relatively short period of time. A further aspect of the invention is a method of designing the concentration of colorant such that the opacity is minimal, thus making it possible to utilize the translucent feature to judge the film thickness.
The function of a clear coating is that, when uniformly applied, it improves the service life and protection afforded by the coating system. Modern high performance coatings are often chosen based upon their ability to maintain their color and gloss over long periods. It has been an aim of manufacturers to achieve more permanency and fastness of color to resist fading for as long as possible. Clear coatings, especially those that are resistant to UV light deterioration, have been found to be highly effective in providing a means to this goal. Clear coatings can be formulated such that they improve the color stability and gloss retention of a base coat and reduce the tendency of color pigments, associated with these base coats, to fade in sunlight. However, to be effective, they must be applied uniformly.
In the past, applying a clear coat at a uniform film thickness over a previously coated surface, especially one that has a high gloss, has been a problem. The applicator has difficulty with the control of the uniformity of wet film thickness since it is difficult to observe the amount of coating that has been applied. Such a limitation is a serious problem, since the amount of protection which the clear coating provides to the underlying base coat (a pigmented coating) is affected by the thickness of the clear coat. If the clear coat is applied at a film thickness that is less than the designed minimum, the resistance to ultra-violet (UV) light transmission through the clear coat is compromised, and the coating""s function is compromised. The result is an undesirable variation in color uniformity observed after a period of time.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a paint additive that allows an applicator to judge the thickness of a clear coating film that is being applied to a substrate.
Protective clear coatings can be applied over colored base coats in order to protect the pigmented base coats from deterioration by UV light. It is important that film thickness be uniform. The present invention is directed to a chemical composition that satisfies the need for a paint additive that aids the applicator in determining that the coating film is being applied at the correct film thickness and uniformity.
This discovery involves a chemical composition comprising a color-dissipatable dye that is unstable when exposed to UV light. The exposure to sunlight (either direct or diffuse) of this novel combination of clear coating and color-dissipatable dye results in the color being dissipated by photo chemical or thermal, oxidation and/or reduction. When mixed with the coating at the proper concentration, the result is a coating that provides a translucent color that has limited opacity and thus reveals thin versus thick film build. Because the colorant dissipates, the return to the xe2x80x9cclear coatingxe2x80x9d appearance takes place within a reasonable timeframe, preferably from hours to a few days in a typical formula composition.
An embodiment of this invention is a composition comprising a color-dissipatable dye preferably one selected from a group of dyes including basonyl green, basonyl blue, pylam blue, trialmethanes; flexo yellow, diarylmethane; FDandC #2 indigotene; FDandC #2 lake; FDandC #1, FDandC #3 green, triphenylmethanes; FDandC #1 lake; FDandC #5 yellow, erythrosine lake; and FDandC #5 yellow lake.
The preferred application of this technology is realized in the form of a dissipating colorant being introduced into an otherwise clear coating, where the polymeric composition of the clear coating is selected from a group including acrylic, urethane, epoxy, or polyester. In all of these polymeric options, the product can be delivered in either waterborne, solvent, or 100% solids (i.e. solvent-free) form.
Another embodiment of this technology involves a color-dissipating coating composition that incorporates a compatibilizer carrier solution selected to increase the ease of measuring the dye for addition to the clear coating composition, to which is added a light-unstable dye. The dye mixture is further selected to facilitate the tolerance of the dye when mixed into the clear coating composition. The dye carrier is selected from a group including water, glycerin, propylene glycol, sodium benzoate, hydroxyl propyl methylcellulose, aromatic, aliphatic and oxygenated solvents.
An objective of this invention is to provide a method of making an xe2x80x9capplicator-friendlyxe2x80x9d clear coating that exhibits a translucent coloring, said color permitting the visual detection of uniform application, said color dissipating over a relatively short period of time when exposed to one or more of the dissipation-promoting conditions of photochemical or thermal, oxidation and/or reduction, depending on the chemical composition of the dye. A second objective is to provide a practical and highly reliable mechanism for delivering a uniform protective film, which will subsequently protect a substrate from deterioration caused by weathering. A third objective is to describe the techniques to be used to obtain a composition having color sufficient to obtain the desired color contrast, such that the coating provides the performance objectives. A fourth objective is to describe techniques for incorporating the colorants into clear coating formulae that are routinely used in this service.
Another objective of this disclosure is to define the method of applying a protective coating having enough color strength that an applicator is provided with a means for easily determining where said coating has been applied, which encompasses the lifetime requirements for the color-dissipating dye component incorporated in said composition previously described, whereupon color of the light-unstable dye will have proceeded to disappear.
Another objective of this invention is to provide a method which provides a means for avoiding skips and thin spots (holidays) in a freshly applied clear coating and which also provides a means for accenting sags and runs in an applied clear coat by means of the color contrast which exists between the desired film thickness and a high film thickness associated with such sags and runs.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims.

Method for controlling wet film thickness of clear coatings by means of color-dissipating dye


A compound selected from those of formula (I):

Compounds characterised by the combination of an indole ring system and a 2,3-dihydro-1,4-benzodioxin ring system have been described for their serotonin-reuptake inhibiting properties (WO 9717343). Indoles substituted on the aromatic moiety have also been claimed in Patent Application EP 814 084 for their action at the level of the serotonin-reuptake sites. Other compounds having related properties have been claimed in Patent Application WO 9633710 and have a benzopyran structure.
Serotonin-reuptake inhibitors constitute a heterogeneous group of therapeutic agents. They are used in the treatment of pathologies associated with a serotonin deficit at the level of the central neurone synapses. The inhibition of serotonin reuptake by binding to transporters or presynaptic receptors is a means of restoring nerve transmission.
The use of compounds having those inhibitory properties may constitute an alternative to the use of tricyclic antidepressants or of monoamine oxidase inhibitors in the treatment of depression and associated disorders (Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 1994, 28, 1359), panic attacks and obsessive-compulsive disorders (Human Psychopharmacology, 1995, 10, 5199). The efficacy of compounds having such pharmacological properties (Journal of Psychopharmacology, 1994, 8, 238) is reinforced by the fact that they are better tolerated (International Clinical Psychopharmacology, 1995, 9 suppl. 4, 33) and are safer to use (Annals of Pharmacology, reference cited).
The compounds of the present invention are characterised by an indole ring system substituted on the benzene moiety by a cyano group and in the 3-position by an N-substituted 3-pyrrolylalkyl group. That novel structure confers upon them a powerful serotonin-reuptake inhibiting character. They will therefore be useful therapeutically in the treatment of depression, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias, impulsive disorders associated with drug abuse, bulimia nervosa and anxiety.
The present invention relates to compounds of formula (I):
wherein:
R1 and R2 each independently of the other represents a hydrogen atom or a linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl group,
T1 and T2 each independently of the other represents a linear or branched (C1-C6)-alkylene group,
G represents a heterocyclic group of formula (xcex1) or (xcex2):
xe2x80x83wherein:
W1 to W5 and X1 to X4 are so selected as to form a chemically stable group and are defined as follows:
W1, W2 and W3 each independently of the others represents a nitrogen atom or a group CR5, NR4 or CO,
W4 represents a nitrogen atom or a group CR3, NR4 or CO,
W5 represents a carbon atom or a nitrogen atom,
X1 represents a bond, a nitrogen atom or a group CR3 or NR4,
X2 to X4 each independently of the others represents a group CR3, NR4, CO, SR4 or SO2 or an oxygen, sulphur or nitrogen atom,
R3 represents a hydrogen or halogen atom or a linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl group, hydroxy group, linear or branched (C1-C6)perhaloalkyl group, nitro group, or amino group (optionally substituted by one or two groups selected from linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl and benzyl),
R4 represents a hydrogen atom or a linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl group, optionally substituted aryl group or optionally substituted arylalkyl group,
R5 represents a group R3, or two adjacent groups R5 form, together with the carbon atoms carrying them, a saturated, partially unsaturated or unsaturated mono- or bi-cyclic group optionally containing from 1 to 5 hetero atoms selected from nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur, the said group being optionally substituted by one or more groups selected from R3 and oxo,
xe2x80x83it being understood that, in formulae (xcex1) and (xcex2), at least one heteroatom is present, the dotted lines indicate that the groups in question may contain an unsaturated bond or a plurality of conjugated or unconjugated unsaturated bonds and that, if there is no unsaturated bond, the remaining valences are occupied by hydrogen atoms, the groups (xcex1) and (xcex2) being linked to T2 by any one of their ring junctions,
their enantiomers and diastereoisomers, and addition salts thereof with a pharmaceutically acceptable acid or base.
Among the pharmaceutically acceptable acids there may be mentioned, by way of non-limiting examples, hydrochloric acid, hydrobromic acid, sulphuric acid, phosphonic acid, acetic acid, trifluoroacetic acid, lactic acid, pyruvic acid, malonic acid, succinic acid, glutaric acid, fumaric acid, tartaric acid, maleic acid, citric acid, ascorbic acid, methanesulphonic acid, camphoric acid etc.
Among the pharmaceutically acceptable bases there may be mentioned, by way of non-limiting examples, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, triethylamine, tert-butylamine etc.
An aryl group is understood to mean a phenyl or naphthyl group.
The expression xe2x80x9coptionally substitutedxe2x80x9d applied to aryl or arylalkyl groups means that the groups in question are optionally substituted by one or more groups selected from halogen atoms, linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl groups, hydroxy groups, linear or branched (C1-C6)perhaloalkyl groups, nitro groups, and amino groups (optionally substituted by one or two groups selected from linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl and benzyl).
Advantageously, the invention relates to compounds of formula (I) wherein the cyano group is attached in the 5-position of the indole ring system.
Another advantageous aspect of the invention relates to compounds of formula (I) wherein the cyano group is attached in the 6-position of the indole ring system.
Preferably, in the compounds of formula (I) R1 and R2 each represents a hydrogen atom.
Preferred compounds of the invention are those wherein T1 represents a methylene group.
The preferred aryl group of the invention is the phenyl group. In preferred groups G of the invention, R3, R4 and R5 are advantageously selected from linear or branched (C1-C6)alkyl groups, hydrogen atoms and halogen atoms.
Among preferred groups G of the invention there may be mentioned, without implying any limitation, the groups:
2-furyl; 2,4-dioxo-1,4-dihydro-3(2H)-quinazolinyl; 3-oxo-[1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-a]pyridin-2(3H)-yl; 1-oxo-2(1H)-phthalazinyl; 7-methyl-5-oxo-5H-[1,3]thiazolo[3,2-a]pyridin-6-yl; 6-chloro-2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indol-5-yl; 2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indol-5-yl; 2-oxo-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-6-quinolinyl; 3-benzyl-5-methyl-2,6-dioxo-3,6-dihydro-1(2H)-pyrimidinyl; 1,3-dioxo-1,3-dihydro-2H-isoindol-2-yl; 1,1,3-trioxo-1,3-dihydro-2H-1,2-benzisothiazol-2-yl; 1,3-dioxo-3,6-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]carbazol-2(1H)-yl; 1,3-dioxo-1,3-dihydro-2H-benzo[c]isoindol-2-yl; 3,5-dimethyl-2,6-dioxo-3,6-dihydro-1(2H)-pyrimidinyl.
An especially advantageous aspect of the invention relates to compounds of formula (I) wherein R1 and R2 each represents a hydrogen atom, T1 represents a methylene group, T2 represents an alkylene group (for example methylene or ethylene) and G is selected from the groups 2-furyl; 2,4-dioxo-1,4-dihydro-3(2H)-quinazolinyl; 3-oxo-[1,2,4]triazolo-[4,3-a]pyridin-2(3H)-yl; 1-oxo-2(1H)-phthalazinyl; 7-methyl-5-oxo-5H-[1,3]thiazolo-[3,2-a]pyrimidin-6-yl; 6-chloro-2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indol-5-yl; 2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H- indol-5-yl; 2-oxo-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-6-quinolinyl; 3-benzyl-5-methyl-2,6-dioxo-3,6-dihydro-1(2H)-pyrimidinyl; 1,3-dioxo-1,3-dihydro-2H-isoindol-2-yl; 1,1,3-trioxo-1,3-dihydro-2H-1,2-benzisothiazol-2-yl; 1,3-dioxo-3,6-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]carbazol-2(1H)-yl; 1,3-dioxo-1,3-dihydro-2H-benzo[c]isoindol-2-yl; 3,5-dimethyl-2,6-dioxo-3,6-dihydro-1(2H)-pyrimidinyl.
Among those compounds preference will be given to those wherein the cyano group is attached in the 5- or 6-position of the indole ring system, more especially those wherein the cyano group is attached in the 5-position.
Among the preferred compounds of the invention, there may be mentioned more especially:
3-({1-[2-(7-methyl-5-oxo-5H)-[1,3]thiazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-6-yl)ethyl]-3-pyrrolidinyl}methyl)-1H-indole-5-carbonitrile hydrochloride
3-({1-[2-(6-chloro-2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indol-5-yl)ethyl]-3-pyrrolidinyl}methyl)-1H-indole-5-carbonitrile hydrochloride.
The invention relates also to a process for the preparation of compounds of formula (I), which process is characterised in that there is used as starting material a compound of formula (II):
wherein R1, R2 and T1 are as defined for formula (I),
which is subjected:
either to the action, in a reducing medium, of an aldehyde of formula (III):
OHCxe2x80x94Txe2x80x22xe2x80x94Gxe2x80x83xe2x80x83(III)
wherein G is as defined for formula (I) and Txe2x80x22 represents a bond or a linear or branched (C1-C5)alkylene group,
or to the action, in a basic medium, of a halogenated compound of formula (IV):
Halxe2x80x94T2xe2x80x94Gxe2x80x83xe2x80x83(IV)
wherein T2 is as defined for formula (I) and Hal represents a halogen atom,
to yield a compound of formula (I),
or which is subjected to the action, in a basic medium, of a compound of formula (V):
Halxe2x80x94T2xe2x80x94NHxe2x80x94Pxe2x80x2xe2x80x83xe2x80x83(V)
wherein T2 is as defined for formula (I), Hal represents a halogen atom and Pxe2x80x2 is a protecting group for the amine,
to yield a compound of formula (VI),
wherein R1, R2, T1, T2 and Pxe2x80x2 are as defined hereinbefore,
which compound of formula (VI), after deprotection of the primary amine group, is condensed with a cyclic group that is a precursor of group G defined for formula (I) to yield a compound of formula (I/a):
a particular case of the compounds of formula (I) wherein R1, R2, T1 and T2 are as defined hereinbefore and Gxe2x80x2 represents a group as defined for G in formula (I), it being understood that Gxe2x80x2 is attached to T2 by a nitrogen atom,
which compounds of formulae (I/a) and (I),
may be purified, if necessary, according to a conventional purification technique,
are separated, where appropriate, into their isomers according to a conventional separation technique,
are converted, if desired, into addition salts thereof with a pharmaceutically acceptable acid or base.
The present invention relates also to pharmaceutical compositions comprising as active ingredient at least one compound of formula (I), alone or in combination with one or more inert, non-toxic pharmaceutically acceptable excipients or carriers.
Among the pharmaceutical compositions according to the invention there may be mentioned more especially those that are suitable for oral, parenteral or nasal administration, tablets or dragees, sublingual tablets, gelatin capsules, lozenges, suppositories, creams, ointments, dermal gels etc.
The useful dosage varies according to the age and weight of the patient, the nature and severity of the disorder and the route of administration, which may be oral, nasal, rectal or parenteral. The unit dose generally ranges from 0.1 to 500 mg for a treatment in from 1 to 3 administrations per 24 hours.

Cyano-indole serotonin-reuptake inhibitor compound

Abstract: wherein:

Abstract: R1 and R2 each independently represent hydrogen or, alkyl,

Abstract: T1 and T2 each independently represent alkylene,

Abstract: G represents a heterocyclic group selected of formula (xcex1):

Abstract: W1 to W5 and X1 to X4 are so defined in the description.

Abstract: Medicinal products containing the same are useful as serotonin-reuptake inhibitors.


A bicycle fork includes a pair of fork leg assemblies, each of the leg assemblies having an upper leg telescopingly engaged with a lower leg. A damping assembly is provided in at least one of the legs. The damping assembly includes lock-out and blow-off compression circuits. These compression circuits are externally adjustable without tools. Furthermore, these two compression circuits may be adjusted independently of each other.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to vehicle suspension assemblies. More particularly, the present invention is related to a front suspension fork for use on an off-road bicycle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Suspension fork assemblies are often utilized on off-road bicycles, or mountain bikes, to absorb energy imparted to the front wheel by the terrain on which the bicycle is being ridden. The use of a suspension fork allows a rider to traverse rougher terrain, at a greater speed and with less fatigue in comparison to riding a bicycle equipped with a rigid fork. Due to the fact that bicycle riders vary greatly in both weight and riding ability, it is highly desirable that certain performance aspects of the suspension fork, such as compression and rebound damping characteristics, be capable of adjustment to suit a particular individual.
To avoid the need to disassemble the fork in order to adjust the suspension settings, it is preferable to locate the adjustment controls such that they are externally accessible. Furthermore, an individual rider is likely to ride in wide variety of terrain conditions, often during the course of a single ride or race. Accordingly, adjustment of the damping characteristics while riding is greatly facilitated by locating the adjustment controls on an upper portion of the suspension fork.
Ideally, the adjustment controls would be disposed on a damper cap assembly at the top of one of the fork legs and include a compression lock-out for substantially preventing compression of the fork. The compression lock-out feature is desirable so that the suspension fork may selectively behave substantially as a rigid fork while riding on smooth terrain, to enhance both handling and power transfer to the rear wheel of the bicycle. However, prior art mountain bike suspension forks have failed to provide both a compression lock-out feature and external damping adjustment controls that are easily accessible while riding. Further, existing mechanisms for providing external damping adjustment and compression lock-out require undue complexity. Thus, an improved mountain bike suspension fork is desirable.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Bicycle fork having lock-out, blow-off, and adjustable blow-off threshold


A system and method for processing solid waste disposal includes a hydrolyzer (80) and an injection assembly (30) for transferring waste to the hydrolyzer (80). The injection assembly (30) includes a sleeve (40), in which waste is compressed with a ram (37), and a movable gate (52), which opens to allow the compressed waste (68) to exit the sleeve (40) and enter the hydrolyzer (80). The hydrolyzer (80) includes a pressure vessel (84), a rotating shaft (108) contained within the vessel (84), and agitates attached to the shaft for moving and processing the material through the hydrolyzer (80).

The present invention relates to solid waste disposal, and, more particularly, to apparatuses, systems, and methods for transforming solid waste into useful products, including a reusable, treatable, or readily degradable material.
Solid waste disposal can generally be defined as the disposal of normally solid or semi-solid materials, resulting from human and animal activities, which are useless, unwanted, or hazardous. "Solid waste" generally comprises "garbage," including decomposable wastes from food; "rubbish" including combustible decomposable wastes, such as paper, wood, and cloth, or non-combustible decomposable wastes, such as metal, glass, and ceramics; "ashes" including the residue of the combustion of solid fuels; "large wastes" including demolition and construction debris and trees; dead animals; "sewage treatment solids" including the material retained on sewage-treatment screens, settled solids, and biomass sludge; "industrial wastes" including chemicals, paints, and sand; "mining wastes" including slag heaps and coal refuse piles; and "agricultural wastes" including farm animal manure and crop residues.
Modern management of waste disposal began in the late 1800's and by the 1890's more than half of America's cities utilized some system of collection and disposal of refuse. Such refuse often included ashes, food and dry rubbish, which each had a specific secondary use. Food scraps were fed to animals on the farms, the ashes filled potholes in roads and "unhealthy" swamps, and the dry rubbish was sorted for valuables. Rags, paper and the like, made more paper, and metals went back into production as reusable goods. The secondary use of much early refuse made such disposal systems as modem day landfills unnecessary.
By the 1930's food scraps, rags and paper were mixed together and carted to an incinerator. Incineration was cheaper and easier than sorting the refuse for secondary use because the mixture of materials could be collected at one time and burned together, and incineration continues to be used today.
Incinerators of conventional design burn refuse on moving grates in refractory-lined chambers. The combustible gases and the solids they carry are burned in secondary chambers. In addition to heat, the products of incineration include the normal primary products of combustion including carbon dioxide and water, as well as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen and other gaseous pollutants. The nongaseous products are fly ash and unburned solid residue.
In the 1940's, sanitary landfills proliferated. A sanitary landfill is generally considered the cheapest satisfactory means of waste disposal, but only if suitable land is within economic range of the source of the wastes. Typically, collection and transportation costs account for seventy-five percent of the total cost of solid waste management. In modern landfills, refuse is spread in thin layers, each of which is compacted by heavy industrial equipment such as bulldozers before the next layer is spread. When about 3 meters of refuse has been laid down, it is covered by a thin layer of clean earth which also is compacted.
In any event, by the 1950's, with the explosion of consumer products focusing on disposability, the amount of refuse generated increased dramatically. In fact, some reports suggest that by the 1970's five pounds of garbage per capita were discarded daily as compared to 2.7 pounds in the 1920's. In the 1980's, the public began to appreciate that congested landfills were polluting drinking water. At this time, recycling and composting began a resurgence and, today, they are at the forefront of community living.
Recycling and composting is recognized as an efficient way to handle organic solid waste and to reintroduce nutrients into nutrient depleted soil. In addition, recycling has transformed discarded materials, such as cellulose, wood, grass, leaves, cardboard, pallets, tree limbs, etc., plastics (polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC, etc.), glass, and ceramics into reusable materials.
Although the benefits of recycling are recognized, by far the most common method of disposing of solid wastes in the United States is the deposition of such wastes on land or in "landfills," which may account for more than ninety percent of the nation's municipal refuse. Incineration accounts for most of the remainder, whereas composting of solid wastes accounts for only an insignificant amount.
With regard to landfills, although pollution of surface and groundwater is believed to be minimized by taking such precautions as: lining and contouring the fill; compacting and planting the cover; selecting proper soil; diverting upland drainage; and placing wastes in sites not subject to flooding or high groundwater levels, such pollution remains a concern. Gases are generated in landfills through anaerobic decomposition of organic solid waste. If a significant amount of methane is present, it may be explosive; therefore, proper venting and burning of the methane gases are often necessary to eliminate or alleviate these dangerous conditions.
With regard to incineration, the process introduces harmful by-products and pollutants into the atmosphere and incineration methods are known to destroy the useful hemicellulose component of woody cellulose materials contained in solid waste (see the explanation set forth below).
Because landfill and incineration methods of disposal are known to pose significant environmental problems and concerns for the municipality, government, private industry, and individuals, recycling has become an attractive alternative. The treatment and handling of solid waste for reuse is particularly attractive. Such treatment and handling of solid waste is referred to herein as "resource recovery."
Hammer mills incorporate rotating drums with free-floating hammers. They are designed to spin at a relatively high speed, such that material placed in front of the rotating drum is impacted by the hammers. Thus, hammer mills do not cut, shred or tear the material, but rely on impact forces to pulverize the material.
Grinders also incorporate rotating drums; however, grinder drums generally have a flat abrasive surface or include integral cutters, such that material placed in contact with the rotating drum is cut, torn, and shredded.
Shredders typically incorporate a pair of rotatable parallel shafts, having spaced apart cutters, which pull the material downward between the parallel shafts, causing the material to be shredded. In an overload condition, the rotation of the shafts may be momentarily reversed before resuming the shredding rotations, however, when a typical shredder becomes clogged with debris, it must be shut down for a lengthy de-clogging process.
Pressure vessel apparatuses, such as hydrolyzers, may be used for processing organic material, for example, animal carcasses or parts thereof, including organic wastes generated during meat and poultry production for human consumption. Such processing may be termed "metamorphic," in that a change of physical form, structure, or substance to the components of the waste is effected. Known hydrolyzer apparatuses have various shortcomings. For example, these conventional vessels are prone to repeated and continuous clogging when trying to process certain waste material and thus require repeated down time intervals and disassembly to empty the interior of the vessel.
Turning now, from the machines, to the methods of resource recovery systems, certain resource recovery methods can be considered thermal processes, generally, but more specifically, combustion processes or pyrolysis processes. Pyrolysis, also called destructive distillation, is the process of chemically decomposing solid wastes by the introduction of heat in an oxygen-reduced atmosphere. This results in a gas stream containing primarily hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and various other gases and inert ash, depending on the organic characteristics of the material being pyrolyzed.
Another approach to the treatment of waste is known as a "wet pulping process." In a wet pulping process the incoming refuse is mixed with water and ground into a slurry in an apparatus referred to as a wet pulper—a machine that is similar to a large kitchen disposal unit. Large pieces of metal and other non-pulpable materials are separated by a magnetic separator, and the residue is used as landfill. The slurry from the pulper goes into a centrifugal device called a liquid cyclone, which separates heavier non-combustibles such as glass, metals, and ceramics. The heavy fraction goes to a glass and metal recovery system; the light fraction goes to a paper and fiber recovery system. Combustible residues are mixed with sewage sludge, mechanically dewatered, and incinerated. Noncombustible residues are used as landfill.
These aforementioned processes are among those which have been used in an attempt to transform solid waste into a more manageable form, however, the resulting end-product of these processes is not always useful.
The useful components of solid waste and. the problems associated with extracting such components using known resource recovery systems will now be discussed. "Woody" cellulose materials, found in most solid waste, includes cellulose, a carbohydrate of unknown molecular structure, but which may be represented by the empirical formula (C6H10O5); lignin, an organic substance closely allied to cellulose and forming the essential part of woody fibers; and hemicellulose, which serves as the binding agent for the constituent elements of the wood-like cellulose molecule and is useful in applications such as papermaking.
The hemicellulose is composed of two general classes of substances: (1) those collectively called xylons whose molecules are formed by polymerization of certain forms of pentose sugars; and (2) glucomannans, whose molecules are formed by polymerization of certain forms of hexose sugars, primarily glucose and mannose. These substances cannot be readily disassociated from cellulose-containing material without being destroyed. For example, combustion and pyrolysis processes are known to destroy the hemicellulose and prevent its use as a bonding agent to form other molecules of cellulose. In this regard, many techniques used in resource recovery systems, including, oxidation, hydrogenation, alkaline hydrolysis, pyrolysis and use of powerful solvents, have limited utility because of their harsh and destructive nature.
To summarize, the existing waste disposal systems have a variety of problems. Use of landfills and incinerators ignore the useful components of solid waste and pose significant environmental problems
Existing apparatuses of resource recovery systems are inefficient in that they must be shut down for significant periods of time when becoming clogged with debris.
Additionally, existing methods of resource recovery systems incorporate harsh techniques, which not only destroy useful components of solid waste, such as hemicellulose, but also, in the case of certain solvents and oxidants, pose environmental concerns.
Furthermore, in all known methods of resource recovery systems, the resultant product may include microbes or microorganisms that require further consideration prior to disposal. In such cases the resultant products are believed to remain waste materials not suitable for use or transformation into useful articles.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for apparatuses and methods of resource recovery which satisfactorily addresses the problems set forth above.

Apparatus and method for transforming solid waste into useful products


A recording-medium controlling apparatus that performs a read-access and a write-access of a recording medium in response to access request from a higher-level apparatus, detects a read error that occurs at a time of the read access, and performs a replacement processing, includes an error detecting unit that tries a plurality of the read accesses to an error location on the recording medium to detect whether the read error recurs a plurality of times; and a replacement processing unit that performs, when the error detecting unit detects that the read error recurs a plurality of times, a replacement processing for the error location.

1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for controlling a recording medium and a computer product for performing a read-access or a write-access of a recording medium in response to an access request from a higher-level apparatus, detecting a read error that occurs during the read-access, and performing a replacement processing.
2) Description of the Related Art
A conventional disk controlling apparatus, known as a disk array or a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID), uses a plurality of disks to obtain high performance and high reliability when executing. parallel operations. In this type of disk controlling apparatus, when a read error has occurred in response to a read access of the disk, the data to be extracted is reconstructed from data stored in another disk. In addition, the disk controlling apparatus determines whether the read error is caused by a fundamental medium failure, and performs replacement processing accordingly.
More specifically, when a read error occurs, the disk controlling apparatus retries to read-access a sector where the error occurred. When data is successfully extracted in the retry, the apparatus determines the error to be a sporadic read error, and transfers the extracted data in the usual manner to the higher-level apparatus (host computer). On the other hand, when the retry results in another read error, the apparatus determines that the read error is caused by a fundamental medium failure, reconstructs the data to be extracted from another disk, allocates a new sector to replace the one where the error occurred, and writes the reconstructed data in the replacement sector (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H10-247133).
However, the conventional technology described above cannot accurately determine what caused the read error. When replacement processing is not carried out where it is needed, the result is poor performance and double malfunctions, and when replacement processing is carried out in locations where it is not needed, the replacement region is wasted.
Namely, in the conventional technology described above, the decision of whether replacement processing is required is made based on whether another read error is generated in response to a retry at the location where the first error occurred. However, when the read error is the result of a minor medium failure rather than a serious one, a retry may not always produce another read error, so that the apparatus determines that the read error is sporadic and does not perform replacement processing. In this case, even when the medium failure is a minor one, frequent read errors will subsequently occur in the same location. Retrying every time there is a read error will reduce the performance of the disk controlling apparatus, and ignoring this type of medium failure by not performing replacement processing may lead to double malfunctions.
On the other hand, a read error sometimes occurs sporadically in response to a retry, even when there is no failure whatsoever in the medium. The conventional technology described above performs replacement processing even for these read errors. In this case, since there is no medium failure where the read error occurred, and therefore no need for replacement, the replacement region is wastefully consumed.
Data is sometimes lost due to thermal demagnetization caused by the impact when the head of the disk contacts the medium. In the conventional technology described above, when a read error is caused by thermal demagnetization, retries will always result in read errors, so that the apparatus determines that there is a fundamental medium failure and performs replacement processing. In this case, since there is no medium failure where the read error occurred, it being possible to extract the data normally by rewriting it, the replacement region is wastefully consumed.

Method and apparatus for replacement processing


Lignin and alkali are efficiently sorted out of alkaline black liquor discharged from the paper manufacturing/pulp and paper manufacturing industries and the treated water is made as purified water.

The black liquor is discharged from a pulping (removal of lignin) process of wood substances. The origin of the black liquor is pulping liquor, and since the pulping liquor uses sodium hydroxide to dissolve lignin in water and further uses sodium sulfide to promote removal of lignin, the black liquor is a harmful alkaline liquid substance containing hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, and dimethyl disulfide generated by hydrolysis of sodium sulfide as well as carbohydrates, organic acids and resins other than lignin.
In a conventional black liquor treatment method, this liquid substance is concentrated using a large-scale multi-effect vacuum evaporator method to increase the concentration of a solid portion, and the concentration is further increased by oxidization by air, sodium sulfide and an effluent of sulfate salt are added to this black liquor and then burned. After that, sodium carbonate, sodium sulfide, which are inorganic chemicals, are recovered from the ash, and burning energy is used for water feed heating of a boiler, but much of it is discharged to the air.
And the sodium carbonate is dissolved in water, calcium hydroxide is converted to sodium hydroxide, and the sodium hydroxide is used as the pulping liquor again to promote recycling.
However, the equipment cost of the measures in the conventional art is large, malodorous substances leak to the outside of the facilities, and a large quantity of water is used. And since most of lignin is burned and discharged to the air as an exhaust gas, required treatment costs are extremely large.
The unique odor felt in the vicinity of plants for paper manufacturing/pulp and paper manufacturing in our country is caused by sulfur compounds such as dimethyl sulfide. Since a large quantity of water is used, it is discharged after use and emission of exhaust gas is extremely large, there is a demand for black liquor treatment in a method friendly to the environment.

Abstract: Acid is added to the black liquor and its pH is adjusted to 2.5 to 3.5. An aggregating agent is added to have lignin contained in the black liquor settled and the black liquor is separated into lignin and clean water. Ozone gas, preferably in the micro bubble state, is given to the clean water for contact reaction.


We provide a sensor array device for the measurement of mixtures of organic compounds comprising an assembly of sensor half elements which have been functionalized through sensor compounds before the assembly. Each individual sensor of the array contains two sensor compounds which are bound at opposite sensor half elements. The molecular recognition is bi-functional. While the amount of sensor compounds increases linearly, the individual sensors increase with the second power.

Detection of Biomolecules
The detection of organic molecules in extremely tiny amounts is challenging. Optical and electromagnetic properties describe the ability of the compound under investigation to absorb and alter a steady or alternating energy flux. Each compound does absorb light energy, absorbance. Some dissipate this energy as heat while others emit it partly in form of light of lower frequency, fluorescence. Light can be applied and collected by scanners with lateral resolutions down to micrometer range.
Molecular electromagnetic and electronic properties are in the limelight for sensor applications. To detect magnetic properties of electron or nucleus spins substantial amounts of material are needed. Electrochemical properties, reduction potentials, can be utilized to identify redox-active centers in hosts, but only a limited number of compounds carry such centers. Measurements of molecular conductivities are difficult through the challenges of establishing proper working connections.
Therefore, different methods have been developed to increase the conductivity of both, electrode-molecule connections and molecules themselves, e.g. through the metallization of polynucleic acids by adsorption and subsequent reduction of silver ions [Braun, 1998]. The utilization of conductivities as measurand in sensor array networks is cumbersome because each measurement cell needs to be contacted by two electrodes. Such setups require a potentially high number of electrodes and contacts respectively. In networks of interconnecting electrodes, where at each intersection or junction the conductivity can change due to analyte interaction, it is not possible to distinguish between the electrical current passage through one particular junction and alternative pathways thru other junctions. It is not possible to achieve matrix field or lateral resolution of m×n measurement cells with m×n electrodes when measuring resistances.
Without the need of a net direct current, DC, it is possible to probe a sample volume through a changing electric field, e.g. caused by an alternating current, AC. Electrical readouts provide in general the potential to use capacitive electric field, inductive magnetic field, resistive sensing and combinations thereof. Capacitive biosensors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,128, US 2004/0110277 or WO 2009/003208. The general principle is the change of the dielectric hence capacitance in the sensor element through the presence of target molecules.
Capacitive or impedimetric biosensors are based on impedance spectroscopy, IS, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, EIS, or charge based capacitance measurements, CBCM. An in-depth explanation of the mathematical derivation of the physico-chemical and electrochemical parameters concerning IS has been written by A. Lasia [Lasia, 1999]. An overview by Lisdat and Schäfer [Lisdat, 2008] focuses on the use of EIS in biosensing.
EIS is a complex method which measures simultaneously all elements of a circuitry including charge transfer processes at the interfaces and conductivity of the electrolyte. Impedimetric biosensors were tested for immunosensing, enzyme studies, cell based assays and nucleic acid determination. Focusing at the interfacial reactions, experiments with nucleic acids have shown that EIS is capable to discriminate between single stranded ssDNA, and double stranded dsDNA [Haso{hacek over (n)}, 2002; Strasák, 2002], to monitor hybridization [Drummond, 2003; Kelley, 1999; Fojta, 2003; Hashimoto, 1994; Pänke, 2007], melting of hybrids [Scuor, 2007] and intercalation [Xu, 2006]. Furthermore, EIS could detect single base pair mismatches [Cho, 2006; Pänke, 2008, Vermeeren, 2007], differentiate between DNA structures such as B- or M-DNA, probe DNA-analyte interactions, e.g. DNA with the cross-linking agent cis-platin [Yan, 2001] or with specific DNA binding proteins [Li, 2004].
Besides the monitoring of interfacial reactions it is also of great interest to detect materials like nucleic acids in the volume phase. The dielectric behaviour of DNA has been investigated over a wide frequency range from ultra low to microwave frequencies of 70 GHz. In contrast to water with a dielectric constant, ∈r, between 88 and 55.3 at 0 and 100° C., respectively, does a diluted solution of DNA display larger ∈r-values with approximately 120 at 20° and 100 kHz for 1% DNA solution in water [Takashima, 1984]. However, many pure organic polymers have smaller ∈r-value ranging typically between 2 and 10 at 20° C. Some polymers with widely extended electron orbitals can show ∈r-values as large as 105 as it has been measured for 2-chloroanthraquinone/tetra-chlorophthalic anhydride at 1 kHz [Pohl, 1985].
Because signal differences are usually small, increasing the signal to noise ratio is important. The classic approach uses large working electrodes which provide the significant capacitance in the system. Dendrimers [Li, 2007] and polymer structures are used to further maximize the surface areas [Maupas, 1997]. Peroxidase coupled reactions have been exploited as transducer [Ma, 2006] as much as nanoparticles [Peng, 2006; Li, 2005; Cai, 2003] or liposomes [Patolsky, 2003; Patolsky, 2001].
Alternatively, signal intensity can be enhanced through the alignment of the electrodes [Van Gerwen, 1998; Laureyn, 2000; Gheorghe, 2003; Dharuman, 2005] where the strength of the electric fields can be maximized by keeping electrodes in very close proximity [Montelius, 1995]. The signal increases linearly with length which can be realized through the winding structure of interdigitated electrodes, IDE. So far, distances depend on the manufacturing process and range from 10 to 1 μm [Brewood, 2008] with electrode widths as small as 500 to 200 nm [Van Gerwen, 1998]. Such IDE's have been used for investigating DNA hybridizations [Gheorghe, 2003; Dharuman, 2005; Van Gerwen, 1998; Hang, 2004; Berdat, 2006] and for the measurement of DNA concentrations. 200 pF responses have been obtained for 1 pM 2.961 bp phagemid pBluescript DNA solutions, which corresponds to approximately 1,1 DNA molecules per μm3 only [Henning, 2008]. The extrapolation to smaller electrode sizes hence smaller volumes and signals indicate the possibility to detect very few DNA molecules with signal differences in the order of 10 fF.
Further advancements can be envisaged through the use of nanogap-impedance sensors which promise high sensitivities due to their large surface-to-volume ratio and because electrode polarization effects become negligible. For minimizing shielding through buffer-ions, a microwave frequency, 1.28 GHz, has been used to sense antibody-thrombin binding in a 75 nm gap of an electrode area of 96 μm2 [Schlecht, 2006]. Nanocapacitors based on pore structures and gaps are discussed and modeled with the aim to use the method for polynucleotide sequencing [Sigalov, 2008; Lu, 2008]. These publications highlight the influence of the electric double layer, EDL, impedance which generates interfering noise levels at low frequencies kHz range. When the gap sizes become comparable or smaller as the EDL thickness, ddl, the nanogap capacitance will become independent of ionic strength, I. So is ddl 960 nm for I of 10−7 M but only 9.6 nm for 10−3 M solutions. In addition, the electric field distribution changes with gap size. Smaller gap sizes lead to potential increases in the centre and potential decreases at the electrode surfaces. The electric field becomes more homogeneous [Yi, 2005]. Eventually, for gaps, tubes, wires and other devices in the range of 10 nm and below quantum effects become important for the accurate description of reactions at electrode surfaces. So far, numerous techniques like electron beam lithography [Hwang, 2002], electrodeposition, electromigration [Iqbal, 2005] or other electrochemical methods, composite layer build-up combined with etching [Steinmüller-Nethyl, 2009] and fracture techniques [Reed, 1997; Reichert, 2002] have been employed to separate two electrodes by a tiny nanometer sized gap.
Segregation of Biomolecules and Sensor Arrays
In contrast to sequential measurements the quasi instantaneous measurement of molecules in complex mixtures requires segregation of the sample. This segregation reduces the degree of entropy in the system and facilitates efficient parallel measurements. Different classes of molecules are segregated into separated locations, e.g. spots. The predetermined position characterizes the class of molecules whereas the signal intensity at this position determines the amount which translates into concentrations of the compound in the sample. Microarrays are typical examples where single probes, sensor compounds or sequences, have been immobilized at a solid surface in specified regions [Southern, 1997]. For example, after a complex mixture of different sequences has been applied to a DNA microarray, only molecules with complementary sequences will hybridize to predetermined spots and generate a certain signal pattern. Disadvantages of such single probe designs are that many different classes of molecules might contain the same sequence, e.g. in the case of cognate genes or their splice variants, and each molecule might contain sequences which match to numerous different probes. The data analysis becomes very challenging and remains ambiguous.
Longer sequences also allow using of dual probes. Here, two single probes act like molecular brackets which are specific towards two distinct sites. The design allows more flexibility as one single bracket and can be chosen to target conserved regions, e.g. certain core exons of genes, while the other bracket is reaching to a region of flexibility, e.g. to exons which are characteristic for certain splice variants. Signal amplifications are possible, when the probes are designed as primers for polymerase chain reactions, PCR, which can be carried out in volume phase and at solid supported phase like sensor surfaces. Here, two primers are applied to a single sensor surface either sequentially or as a mixture to form a rather ideal 2D mixture of molecules at such surface. If a target molecule binds to such surface it can initiate an origin or seed for amplification and in succession a surface supported PCR reaction. Here, one difficulty is that different sites of the target molecule react with the very same surface. The target molecule and its copy, the amplicon, firstly, do not stick to the surface to enable the efficient enzyme catalyzed polymerization at the surface, but secondly, "bends" towards this surface in order to react with the second probe. Such amplification has been named "bridge amplification" because the molecules from a bridge from one probe to another probe [Boles, 2002]. The bridges develop along a single 2D surface where seeds can only grow geometrically to form small product islands which extend predominantly along their edges only. The resulting PCR efficiency, E, can start of high, with E being close to one. E will drop after several cycles [Mercier, 2003; Adessi, 2000].
The combination of impedimetric sensors and dual probes makes it visible to employ two differently functionalized electrodes in close proximity. The individual modification of electrodes is already difficult and becomes extremely challenging in nanometer range. The making and addressing or functionalizing of such electrode structures would require the use of e.g. very expensive electron-beam lithography techniques. In WO 2009/003208 Steinmüller-Nethyl et al. have proposed to use different materials for each electrode while the electrodes are separated trough an insulating layer with a thickness of only several nm. Here, different electrode materials enable the successive and selective binding of the molecular probes. However, the number of electrically conducting but different materials together with a specific and effective binding chemistry is limited and not practical for large arrays. The geometrical alignment in a set of crossing rows and columns is not possible. Importance of the publication is the description of the principle where analyte molecules with two selective binding sites bridge two electrodes containing one corresponding binding site respectively, and where subsequently the bridging molecules are detected not through DC but AC analytical methods. In US 2002/0022223 and US 2006/0019273 Connolly et al. have already described electrode couples where each electrode has to be modified with one type oligonucleotides. Analytes which contain corresponding sequences to both electrodes can hybridize, bridge and electrically connect electrodes. Such reactions can be recorded through DC signal changes. However, the selective modification of pre-manufactured electrode assemblies is very challenging, time consuming and expensive. Furthermore, all DC sensors are aligned in parallel. Because the number of electrodes and in particular their contacts increases linearly with the number of sensor pads such devices approach fast their technical limitations regarding integration density.
An identical approach has been followed in WO 2010/104479 using electrode arrays where the sensor action occurs at electrode crossings between electrode edges. The electrodes are just nanometers apart from each other and separated by an insulating layer. Here, the problem of selectively immobilizing capture probes on one of two corresponding electrodes across a separating step in the order of few nanometers, experimentally realized were 5-20 nm, has been recognized to be impossible by means of robotic spotters. The chosen method involves the binding of thiol-functionalized probes to all gold-electrodes, the selective removal by electrochemical stripping and repeated binding of thiol-functionalized probes to the second gold-electrode and so forth. Each functionalizing requires 2 hours for the binding step alone plus the time which is required for additional stripping and washing steps. Not only the production method is unsuitable to build complex sensor arrays, also the method of conductance measurements is preventing to utilize truly combinatorial approaches of the capture probes as described above. WO 2010/104479 presents a sensor array as the combination of different capture probes which are immobilized at parallel electrodes, e.g. rows, and bind to specific sequence in mRNA molecules, with explicitly one annealing probe at all columns. The chosen 21 nucleotide long capture probes are so long to serve the purpose to be specific for one particular mRNA only. This markedly high specificity has been chosen to detect per row only one target mRNA each. Therefore, the opposite annealing probe contains one single universal polyT-sequence which binds to all polyA-ends of the mRNA in the sample. Such array presents the complexity of just m×1. The additional columns only increase the effective sensor area by multiplying the number of identical sensors. The presented system is consistent with the chosen measurement method which only allows to distinguishing signals which arise from one entire line, here for example from one entire row.
The smallest dielectric gap concepts are not only aiming to quantify but also to sequence nucleic acids [Lee, 2005]. The proposed structures measure only a few nanometers. Those gaps can be described as tiny plate capacitors which record nucleotide specific changes of the dielectric as polynucleic acids pass through such gaps. The dielectrics properties of the nucleotides are one contribution, the other are the effects that the dielectric constant of bound and semi-bound water is significantly smaller than the one of free water. The estimates for the reading speed are based on using MHz frequencies and would therefore range in the order of 1 Mio reads per second.
The integration of individual sensors is essential for detecting different compounds simultaneously in one sample. Early attempts dealt with difficult sensor arrays where each field had been connected though a separate pair of electrodes [Albers, 1999]. In WO 2004/001405 Frey et al. describe a design and operation of a biosensor array where multiple biosensor fields are arranged matrix-like on a substrate. Each field is addressed through one actuator and one detector line, and each line is able to address several fields. At the time of probing one particular field all other lines are set to a fixed potential e.g. floating ground, unless fields were grouped before. Although it is not explicitly stated, the description contains interdigitated electrodes IDE in each sensor field. The design solved the problem of addressing many fields with minimal connections, however the degree of integration is limited and the manufacturing technologies of said structures are expensive. The issue of modifying said structures differently in each sensor field remains challenging when it comes to tiny dimensions. Along the same line are proposals made by Maeda [2004], Maracas G. [2000] and Li [Li C., 2005], who are separating individual sensor test cells. A similar approach has been followed in CN 101046458 by Liu [2007] who describes an array of crossing electrodes on a substrate which have been insulated from their neighbours through separated micro flow ponds.
Further, from the state of the art the publications WO 2010/1204479 and EP 2088430 are known. WO 2010/1204479 is directed to a sensor for detecting a nucleic acid molecule comprising an electrode arrangement with two electrodes and nucleic acid probes immobilized at the surface of the electrodes. The present invention also refers to a kit and a method of using the sensor or a sensor array. The present invention is further directed to a process of manufacturing a sensor and sensor array.
EP 2088430 provides a bio-sensor including nanochannel-integrated 3-dimensional metallic nanowire gap electrodes, a manufacturing method thereof, and a bio-disk system comprising the bio-sensor. The bio-sensor includes an upper substrate block having a plurality of metallic nanowires formed on a lower surface thereof and including an injection port through which a biomaterial-containing sample is injected, a lower substrate block having a plurality of metallic nanowires formed on an upper surface thereof, and a supporting unit supporting the upper and lower substrate blocks so that the upper and lower substrate blocks can be disposed spaced apart at a predetermined distance to form a nanochannel, wherein the metallic nanowires formed on the upper and lower substrate blocks are combined to form three-dimensional metallic nanowire gap electrodes.

Biosensor array formed by junctions of functionalized electrodes


The enhanced feature of this invention is the direction of a pen input on an electronic device to a separate canvas where it can be separately manipulated and processed for use. Temporal and spatial analysis can ensure that each canvas contain pen strokes that spatially belong together such as an individual word composed of multiple strokes for easy manipulation of the word on the screen. Another related enhanced feature of the invention for erasing portions of the inputted writing is the process of generating a new curve with different points than the original curve.

In numerous electronic touch sensitive devices, a pen or stylus can be used to input writing and display the writing on the screen. In some devices, the method of implementing this includes processing co-ordinate streams from the user's manipulation of a pen near or touching a sensing apparatus attached to a display, and directly drawing on the device's graphics surface lines or curves that approximate the pen's motion. Other devices convert the co-ordinates produced by the motion of a pen to letters or words and then display these letters and words as typewritten text. In other devices, the strokes are interpreted and categorized as simple geometric shapes, and some processing is done to 'clean up' those shapes (e.g. 'straightening' a line, recognizing and adjusting circles and ovals, adjusting lines with an appropriate spatial relationship to form a triangle, rectangle, square, etc.) and these predefined shapes are displayed. Numerous methods also exist to erase writing on the screen.
The need still exists, however, for a better way to capture, display and edit writing on the screen. Manipulation of writing on the display and in storage could be more streamlined and efficient.

Utilization of temporal and spatial parameters to enhance the writing capability of an electronic device


Methods and apparatus are provided in which a collapsible rocking chair has legs that translate towards and away from each other to configure the chair between open and collapsed dispositions, and at least one leg that slidably articulates with a rocker. Preferred embodiments have four legs. The left back leg slidably articulates with a left rocker, and the right back leg slidably articulates with a right rocker. The front legs are pivotally coupled to the respective rockers at fixed points. The back frame is preferably coupled to the left and right legs at pivots, allowing the back to approximate the seat during folding. Both back and seat are preferably formed from a fabric material, and more preferably from a single continuous piece of fabric. Preferred rocking chairs also include left and right armrests, supported at least in part by the back frame.

Folding chairs have been known for many years, if not centuries. The distinguishing feature is that the chair can be manipulated between a folded disposition in which the back is pivoted to approximate the seat, and an open disposition in which the back is disposed more or less perpendicular to the seat.
Many different types of folding chairs are known, including rocking chairs. U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,926 to Brunn (February 1989), for example, depicts a folding rocking chair in which the back legs are pivoted against the rockers, and the front legs slide along the rockers towards the back leg/rocker pivots to approximate the seat and legs to the rockers. The folding rockers of U.S. Pat. No. 5,702,152 (December 1997) and Des 380633 (July 1997), both to Shaw, provide legs that are releasably engaged with the respective rockers, and that mate with channels to provide a sliding relationship among the legs. U.S. Pat. No. 3,114,572 to Hopkins (December 1963) depicts a folding rocking chair in which the back legs are fixed in position with respect to the rockers, and front legs that are pivotally disposed with respect to the rockers.
More recently collapsible chairs have gained widespread attention. Collapsible chairs are different from folding chairs in that the legs can be manipulated to approximate each other in close parallel or substantially parallel relationship. The back may optionally fold against the seat, but such motion is not necessarily included in collapsible chairs. U.S. Pat. No. 3,124,387 to Maclaren (March 1964) depicts an early collapsible chair in which the seat and back are formed from a continuous piece of fabric. These are so-called sling type chairs. There have been many other designs over the years, including hinged lawn chairs such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,650 to Berman et al. (December 1987), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,950 to Mann (October 1991).
Approximating the legs, seat frame, and back is a relatively complicated business, primarily because in the open disposition, the seat must be more or less perpendicular to both the legs and the back. Rocking chairs add rockers as yet additional perpendicular elements, which increase the complexity still further. This may be why rocking chairs are widely known to fold, but only rarely known to be collapsible. One reference that does describe a collapsible rocking chair is U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,725 to Helfrich (August 1987). Helfrich collapses his rocking chair by pivoting the rockers B, B′ against all four legs of the chair, (see specification at col. 10, lines 55–60, and FIGS. 16, 50, 51). Unfortunately, that solution yields a very bulky product because much of the length of the rockers necessarily extends out beyond the legs in the collapsed disposition.
Thus, there is a continuing need to provide novel methods and apparatus for collapsible rocking chairs.


The invention pertains to a process and a device for cost-oriented monitoring and/or display of the operating state of a replaceable or regenerable, fluid (7) traversed conditioning device (1), particularly a filter (4), in an overall system. According to the invention sensors (9; 10; 11) are used to measure continuously or at intervals at least one measurement value from which of the exhaustion state of the conditioning device is derived according to the following steps: the measurement value is supplied to an evaluation electronic unit (16); the exhaustion state of the conditioning device (1) is determined from the measurement values; by means of the functional dependencies and/or data stored in the evaluation electronic unit (16), the effects of the exhaustion state of the conditioning device (1) on the operating costs of the overall system are at least approximated; by means of the functional dependencies and/or data stored in the evaluation electronic unit (16) the cost of replacing or regenerating the conditioning device (1) is determined and compared with the effects of the exhaustion state on the operating costs; a display instrument (24), in particular a display instrument associated with the conditioning device (1), signals the point in time at which replacement or regeneration is overall more cost-effective than continued operation to the point of complete technical exhaustion of the conditioning device (1).

The present invention relates to a method for cost-orientated monitoring and/or display of the operating condition of a replaceable or regenerable conditioning device, flowed through by a fluid, in a whole installation, in particular of a filter, wherein by means of at least one sensor at least one value from which the state of wear of the conditioning device can be deduced is measured continuously or at intervals.
Installations of this type have been known for a long time. For example, in [1] "H. G. Heitmann: Praxis der Kraftwerk-Chemie, Vulcan-Verlag, Essen (1986)" several installations of the known type are described: It deals, for example, with cartridge filters (see [1], page 166 ff.) with filter elements configured as filter cartridges for the mechanical cleansing of liquids which, for example, can be wrapped with metal cladding of different mesh sizes or with plastics threads. So-called pre-coated filters are also used (see [1], page 148 ff.) in which the filter element is covered with an auxiliary filter layer. After reaching a certain loss of pressure, filters of this type are regenerated by flushing in the opposite direction with clean liquid or with a regenerating medium.
Installations of the known type are also described in [2] "Grundlagen fur Industrielle Wasserbehandlung, Drew Chemical Corporation, Boonton, N.J. U.S.A. (1980)": These are containers filled, for example, with gravel, sand or anthracite (see [2], page 24 ff.), which are flowed through by the liquid to be cleansed and after reaching a certain decrease in pressure are back-washed with liquid or compressed air.
Filters with cartridge-type filter elements with very fine pores are also used in compressed air installations, which, after reaching a certain decrease in pressure, have to be replaced with replacement filter elements.
In motor vehicle technology also, filters have the task of protecting the engines from solid contaminants. In [3] "P. Gerigk et al: Kraftfahrzeugtechnik. Westermann-Verlag, Braunschweig (1994)" on page 162 ff. filters are described with very different filter elements for the filtering of air, fuel and oil. The filter elements of these filters are also replaced with new ones when worn out.
Further conditioning devices of the known type are described in [1] on page 149 ff.: Magnetic filters, in particular electromagnetic filters, cleanse liquids of ferro-magnetic pollutants. In this case metallic spheres, for example, form the filter element, and are contained in a filter container surrounded by an electric coil and flowed through by the liquid to be cleansed. The exhaustion of the filter can be recognized by measurement of the pressure differential.
Other conditioning devices of the known type are, for example, desalination plants in which salty water flows through filter elements equipped with filter membranes and is separated according to the principle of reverse osmosis (see [1], page 229 ff.) into lowsalt permeate and salt-rich concentrate. With these installations the state of wear of the filter elements is checked by pressure measurement, and when a certain pressure is reached regeneration is carried out. Ion exchangers are also used as conditioning devices for desalination (see [1], page 135 ff.).
A conditioning device for fluids, to which the invention relates, generally means all devices and installations which condition fluids, that is to say, for example, cleanse them of mechanical or chemical contaminants or remove dissolved contents or alter the temperature or the state of aggregation of the fluid. To that extent, the examples set out above do not fully describe the wide range of conditioning devices to which the invention relates. Air filters are used in air conditioning installations, drinking water is deodorized with activated charcoal filters. Common to all these installations described and all further known installations to which the invention relates is that they are conditioning devices for fluids, and these conditioning devices are subject to wear and have to be regenerated or replaced after complete technical exhaustion. The state of wear is determined in that at least one value from which the state of wear can be deduced is measured continuously or at intervals.
For renewal of the conditioning devices, they must in many cases be taken partially or completely out of service. Depending on the particular device, the conditioning device is renewed by regenerating or replacing the fouled filter. For this, from several parallel conditioning devices, one device is isolated from the fluid flow by closing shut-off means, so that the operation of the whole installation does not have to be interrupted.
Devices are also known in which some areas of the conditioning device, in particular several component filter elements arranged in a single housing can be isolated from the fluid flow one after another on the inlet side or the inlet and outlet sides, and then a renewal can be carried out without the fluid flow through the housing having to be interrupted. Such a device is, for example, described in German patent DE 41 07 432.
Conditioning devices are also known in which although the renewal, which includes regeneration or replacement, is associated with expenditures and costs, it can, however, be carried out without any interruption to service at all.
As a whole, for the renewal of the conditioning devices, there is expenditure on regenerating medium and/or energy for cleaning and/or expenditure on personnel and/or costs for down-time and/or costs for the replacement elements and for the disposal of the worn-out elements. Normally, therefore, renewal is determined by a state of wear of the conditioning device which is close to complete technical exhaustion, at which, so to speak, a technological limit is reached.
Naturally, there are also diverse plans for optimizing the operation of the installation taking into account the costs of the conditioning device. This is done, typically, by determining certain dependencies of the parameters specific to the installation when installations are set up. This has the disadvantage that once-optimized conditioning strategies do not react to different conditioning needs occurring, changed costs of conditioning media and/or varying energy costs. In the case of production facilities, for example, the product output is taken with respect to the critical working condition, wherein production times and down-time periods are weighted with different cost factors.
The disadvantage of this manner of proceeding is in that the effects of the state of wear of the conditioning device upon the operating costs of the whole installation are insufficiently taken account of. With increasing wear the technological characteristics of the conditioning device change, as a rule, such that there are higher operating costs for the whole installation. For example, the loss of pressure significantly increases in a filter flowed through by a constant amount of fluid flow, for cleansing pollutants from fluids, with a constant total amount of fluid flow, which causes increased pump output to maintain the amount of fluid flow and thereby higher energy consumption. The capacity of conditioning devices is mainly explained by their suppliers in terms of long "useful life" wherein, for example, for filter cartridges in compressed air installations the limit value of loss of pressure indicating the necessity of a replacement is stated as being very high. This is, for example, approximately 500 mbar for a filter cartridge which in clean condition with a nominal through-flow has a pressure loss of 35 mbar. In this example, the operator waits to replace the filter cartridge with a new one at least until the limit value for the pressure loss described has been reached. In many cases the operator will further delay replacement still further in order to have the lowest possible expenditure for the provision of new filter cartridges and for replacement without, in very many cases, considering at all the increase in operating costs of the whole installation. It is also disadvantageous that in many cases the conditioning devices have periodically varying operating conditions, for example, having a periodically differing amount of fluid flow. For example, the pressure loss of a filter cartridge changes significantly when there is the same state of wear, which very much limits the capacity for meaningful normal indication of wear by means of the pressure loss.
This prior art is not only disadvantageous for the individual operator, as the increased operating costs of the whole installation can be significantly higher than the expense of renewal of the conditioning device. The prior art described is also disadvantageous economically and with respect to the environment, as costs and environmental damage through avoidable energy consumption rise constantly. In this sense it is also significant that in most cases the technical and business management expertise necessary for evaluating the operating costs of the whole installation cannot be taken for granted for the individual operator.
Methods and devices are also known which relate the indication of pressure differential to a certain value of the amount of fluid flow, and thereby eliminate the contingencies of the measurement of pressure differential from it (DE 42 24 721 A1), or even make possible an display of the remaining life-time to be expected until technological exhaustion (EP 0 527 136 A1). All this, however, does not overcome the disadvantages of the prior art described above.
Also the DE 31 16 610 does not overcome the disadvantages known from prior art. This document discloses a method for controlling a filter wherein the controlling is made due to characterizing criteria. To this reason, an efficiency of a filtration operation is defined which depends on a maximum filter performance and on so-called self-costs of filter operating during a term of operating cycle of the filter. One operating cycle encloses on one hand the operating time but on the other hand also the replacement time for a filter. The source force of one filtration operation, which is defined as P in the above mentioned document, is adjusted in dependance to the maximum efficiency of the filtration operation and to a pressure lost over the filter. So-called auxiliary work and interruptions of filter operation are adjusted in dependance to the filtration time, the amount of filtration operating cycle, respectively. An optimized controlling of the filter shell be achieved when first the efficiency criteria of a filtration operation is calculated, then the determining of an extreme value of the efficiency criteria is followed depending to the time, the source force and the number of filtration cycle. Correspondent to the gained values, a stop of the filter for taking through the auxiliary work, a predicting of a value as a start value for the source force of the filtration operation and the interruption of the filtration for the replacement of the filter are also done. For rating the times among one the other in the formula of the efficiency criteria, the period of filtration work, the period of auxiliary work and the period of complete renewal of the filter have cost-factored time measures. These time measures weight every time wherein these weights in case of realization the filtration operating in respect to a maximum performance have the value 1.

Method and device for cost-orientated operation of a conditioning device particularly a filter


Disclosed are a lubricant composition including a lubricating base oil, fine particles and a calcium sulfonate-based thickener, a speed reduction gear filled with the lubricant composition, and an electric power steering apparatus including the speed reduction gear. The invention reduces operating noise of the speed reduction gear, regardless of the amount of backlash that occurs on combining a small gear and a large gear and without a more complicated structure for the speed reduction gear, by action of the fine particles. Further, separation of oil is prevented, by action of the calcium sulfonate-based thickener of the lubricant composition, so that electric power steering apparatus noise within the inside of a car is reduced at a low cost.

An electric power steering apparatus of an automobile uses a speed reduction gear. A column type EPS, for example, reduces the speed of rotation of an electric motor and increases output power in the course of transmitting power from a small gear such as a worm gear to a large gear such as a worm wheel in a speed reduction gear, and imparts the increased output power to the column thereby assisting the steering operation with amplified torque.
It is necessary to allow an appropriate amount of backlash in the engaging of a small gear and a large gear to function as a speed reducing mechanism. However, when the direction of rotation of a gear is reversed or when the reaction force of the road to the tire is transmitted to the gear during travel on a rough road such as stone-paved road, backlash may cause a sound of striking gear teeth which, when transmitted into the cabin as a noise, may cause the driver to feel uneasy.
For this reason, the speed reduction gear has been conventionally built by so-called by-layer assembly in which a small gear and a large gear are selected to form such a combination that has optimum backlash. However, such a method of assembly leads to a significantly low productivity. In addition, when the by-layer assembly is used, there remains another problem that the steering torque fluctuates due to eccentricity in the alignment of worm wheel shaft. Such problems as described above are not limited to the speed reduction gear of an electric power steering apparatus, and are encountered in speed reduction gears in general that comprise small gears and large gears.
Accordingly, it has been proposed for the speed reduction gear of an electric power steering apparatus, to enable the worm shaft to be shifted toward the worm wheel and provide urging means such as a spring for urging the worm shaft in the shifted direction, thereby to eliminate backlash (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-43739).
However, the speed reduction gear described above has very complicated structure, which leads to increasing manufacturing cost.

Lubricant composition, speed reduction gear using the lubricant composition, and electric power steering apparatus using the speed reduction gear