A golf swing trainer comprises a shaft having a grip end and a head end, and a weighted filling inside the shaft. The weighted filling comprises lead shot, tungsten powder, and polyurethane resin to give the trainer the feel of a regular golf club.

The present invention relates to golf swing practice equipment.
There are many golf swing trainers in the marketplace which claim to help golfers have a correct swing on a consistent basis. Exemplary of such golf swing trainers is that described in Sorenson U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,407.
Also, more than one year ago I invented and sold the golf swing trainer described in U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/384,502 filed May 29, 2002.
Existing golf swing trainers suffer from one or more disadvantages, including:                Inability to actually hit a golf ball with the trainer to provide feedback to the golfer as to the effectiveness of the golfer's swing.        Failure to meet USGA compliant requirements for on course use.        Lack of the "feel" of an actual golf club.The present invention is directed to a golf swing trainer that overcomes deficiencies of prior golf swing trainers.


To automatically hitch a trailer to a motor vehicle, a first hitch section is mounted on the motor vehicle and a second hitch section is mounted on the forwardly extending tongue of the trailer. The second hitch section comprises a hitch pin vertically mounted on the free end of the trailer's tongue and a guidable member formed of a ground-engaging lower portion and a pyramidal upper portion defining a vertex welded to the lower end of the hitch pin. The pyramidal upper portion is formed with a V-shaped recess that slides on a ramp of the first hitch section to guide the hitch pin toward a mechanism capable of detachably connecting the hitch pin to the first hitch section. The pyramidal configuration enables easy adjustment of the second hitch section to most of the trailer tongues. The ground-engaging portion may include two legs normally placed into a ground-engaging position but mounted on the guidable member for pivoting when they hit the ground while the vehicle is moving. An helicoidal spring is installed between a point of the legs distant from their pivotal connection and a point of the tongue distant from the tongue's free end to return the legs to their ground-engaging position following pivoting thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for hitching a trailing vehicle to a towing vehicle, in which a first hitch section is mounted on the towing vehicle and a second hitch section is mounted on the forwardly extending tongue of the trailing vehicle, and in which the second hitch section can be detachably coupled to the first hitch section.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 3,037,794 (Richman, Jr) granted on Jun. 5, 1962 describes and illustrates a hitch system of the above mentioned type. However, the hitch system of Richman, Jr has the two following drawbacks:
the second hitch section is mounted on a specially designed trailer tongue. Therefore, it does not adapt to different configurations of conventional trailer tongues; and PA1 the second hitch section comprises two ground-engaging legs that are fixedly secured to the free end of the trailer tongue. Accordingly, these legs can be damaged if they hit the ground while the towing vehicle and trailer are moving. PA1 a hitch pin to be mounted generally vertically on the tongue free end whereby the pin has a lower end; and PA1 a guidable means having a ground-engaging lower portion and a pyramidal upper portion defining a vertex secured to the lower end of the hitch pin. PA1 a hitch pin to be mounted generally vertically on the free end of the tongue whereby this pin has a lower end; and PA1 a guidable means having a ground-engaging lower portion and a pyramidal upper portion defining a vertex secured to the lower end of the hitch pin, the pyramidal upper portion being formed with a generally flared guide recess. PA1 a mechanism for detachably connecting the hitch pin to the first hitch section; and PA1 a ramp means which, upon moving the towing vehicle toward the trailing vehicle, engages the flared recess whereby this flared recess slides on the ramp means in order to guide the hitch pin toward the aforementioned mechanism. PA1 a hitch pin to be mounted generally vertically on the free end of the tongue whereby the pin has a lower end; PA1 a guidable means having (a) an upper portion secured to the lower end of the pin and formed with a generally flared guide recess, and (b) a lower portion including at least one ground-engaging leg normally placed into a ground-engaging position but mounted on the upper portion for pivoting when the leg hits the ground while the towing vehicle is moving; and PA1 means for returning the leg to its ground-engaging position after pivoting thereof from that position; PA1 a mechanism for detachably connecting the hitch pin to the first hitch section; and PA1 a ramp means which, upon moving the towing vehicle toward the trailing vehicle, engages the flared recess whereby this flared recess slides on the ramp means in order to guide the hitch pin toward the above mentioned mechanism.

Automatic coupling and decoupling hitch system


System and methods are provided for receiving selection, by a user, of a subset of message clusters in a plurality of message clusters. Each message cluster is associated with a corresponding set of clustering rules. Each respective electronic message, addressed to and/or from the user, in a plurality of electronic messages is assigned to one or more of the clusters in the subset of clusters in accordance with the sets of clustering rules associated with the subset of clusters. The set of clustering rules for a first cluster in the subset of clusters (i) prevents some messages in the plurality of messages from being assigned to the first cluster and (ii) assigns messages to the first cluster without regard to content relatedness between messages in the plurality of messages and messages already in the first cluster. Messages in the first cluster are formatted for display as a single cluster graphic.

A typical user of a messaging application often receives a large number of electronic messages, such as emails, social network posts, contact information, search queries and calendar entries every day. Such a large number of electronic messages can be cumbersome to navigate through. Messaging application users wish to navigate through a listing of such electronic messages quickly to identify relevant messages. However, the volume of electronic messages makes it difficult to do so. Categorization of such messages into clusters or conversations is useful. However, methods for maintaining user flexibility and control over such categorization are lacking.
The above identified technical problems are reduced or eliminated by the systems and methods disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for clustering electronic messages


Systems, methodologies, media, and other embodiments associated with selectively regulating power consumption by a computing system are described. One exemplary method embodiment includes receiving a signal that power regulation is desired for a computing system. The exemplary method embodiment may also include selectively causing a low power process to be executed in the computing system to cause the computing system to consume less power on average than would be consumed if the low power process was not executed.

Computers continue to consume more and more power. As power consumption increases, so do power management and heat management concerns. Some related sets of computers (e.g., rack mounted server systems) may be able to consume more power than is available to them. Similarly, some related sets of computers may be able to generate more heat than can be effectively removed. This may require data center designs having complicated and thus expensive power and cooling requirements. Additionally, this may lead to suboptimal use of data center space if fewer computers are deployed than could be supported by data center infrastructure other than the power and cooling.
Thus, various approaches to managing and selectively reducing power consumption have been taken. For example, some conventional software (e.g., operating system) based approaches use process schedulers to move power intense processes out of a hot system and into a cooler system. Similarly, process schedulers may simply remove a power intense process from a processor. However, such process schedulers may require additional processors to be available, may require power and heat data to be available for each processor in a system, and may not be configurable to address overall power and cooling issues for a set of related computers.
Another software based approach employs conventional ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) processing. ACPI is an open specification that establishes industry standard interfaces for operating system directed computer configuration and power management. ACPI incorporates conventional power management BIOS (Basic Input Output System) code, an Advanced Power Management (APM) application programming interface (API), a plug and play BIOS API, Multiprocessor Specification (MPS) tables, and so on, into a single power management and configuration interface specification. However, ACPI based systems may be unaware of actual physical temperature or power conditions or thresholds and thus an operating system relying on ACPI may not be able to react to certain conditions.
Some conventional hardware based techniques for power management use temperature and/or power monitoring equipment to trigger actions including frequency scaling and voltage scaling for example. However, newer, larger integrated circuits may get hot at different locations at different times under different conditions and thus may require multiple monitoring systems that may be too slow or too non-specific to provide real-time responses to changing conditions. Furthermore, like conventional software approaches, these hardware based techniques may not be configurable to address overall power or cooling capacity for a set of related systems.

Power management with low power processes

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


A signal processor and a tracking method of a signal search range are provided which can read out precisely a specific spectrum having frequency varied. A signal processor includes an FFT computation portion to compute spectrum data by fast-Fourier-transforming an input signal, a spectrum selection portion to select a specific spectrum, a spectrum search portion to search sequentially the specific spectrum selected by the spectrum selection portion from the spectrum data computed by the FFT computation portion, and a search range computation portion to compute the search range of the spectrum searched by the spectrum search portion based on the frequency of the specific spectrum, in which the search range computation portion computes the search range based on the varied frequency of the specific spectrum and makes it track the varied specific spectrum, when the frequency of the specific spectrum varies.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a signal processor and a tracking method of signal search range to process an externally input signal.
2. Related Art
The signal processor is provided with various functions (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. Hei 2-21266). The invention of the publication is a signal processor (revolution indicator) to measure the number of revolutions of a revolving motor, which detects a leakage flux as a phenomenon resulted by the revolution of a rotor, finds the spectrum data of the leakage flux by fast Fourier transformation, and finds the number of revolutions of the revolving motor based on the frequency showing the maximum value of the spectrum data.
However, the spectrum data FFT-computed by such a revolution indicator contains not only the main component spectrum (first order component), which becomes the number of revolutions of the revolving motor, but also many spectrums such as half order, second order, and third order. Generally, the spectrum showing the maximum value in the spectrum data becomes the main component of the revolution to be computed, but due to the influence by disturbances, etc. to the revolving motor, or depending on the kind of signals measured as a phenomenon resulting from the revolution used for the measurement, there has been a problem in that the above described spectrums such as half order, second order, and third order spectra becoming larger than the spectrum of the main component causing an incorrect read out that is a different spectrum as the main component spectrum.
Hence, a measure has been taken so that the search range to search the main component spectrum is set to exclude the above described frequency components such as half order, second order, and third order. For example, the lower limit of the search range is set to 0.6 times of the main component and the upper limit is set to 1.8 times of the main component, and on the frequency axis, the spectrums of half order and second order adjacent to the main spectrum (first order component) are excluded. However, with such a setting of the search range, when the number of revolutions of a revolving motor is varied, the spectrums such as half order, and second order other than the main component are included within the search rang to cause the wrong read out of those spectrum as the spectrums of the main component resulted resulting from the number of revolutions of the revolving motor.
To be more precise, when the main component of the revolving motor is 100 Hz and the search range of the main component is set to 60-180 Hz, 50 Hz of the half order component and 200 Hz of second order component are excluded from the search range. However, when the main component of the revolving motor varies from 100 Hz to 150 Hz, within the search range (60-180 HZ), 75 Hz, which is the half order component of the varied main component (150 Hz) is read out, and in the case that the spectrum of the main component (150 Hz) is smaller than that of the half order component (75 Hz), the spectrum of the half order has sometimes ended up to be read out as the main component. Moreover, there has been a problem in that, also when the main component deviated from the search range (60-180 Hz) (for example, 200 Hz), spectra such as half order other than the main component has ended up to be read out.

Signal processor and tracking method of signal search range


In contrast to the non-linear systems used in certain past infrared thermometers, the present invention uses an empirical data set to determine patient temperature. The empirical data set provided by the present invention represents actually measured thermometer sensor outputs over a substantial number of target and ambient temperature points within the thermometer's operating range. The empirical data set is collected during a testing process, and is stored in a non-volatile memory within the thermometer. At temperature measuring time, the thermometer accesses the appropriate cell in the non-volatile memory to determine temperature. The substantial size of the empirical data set eliminates guesswork and estimation--since the most accurate indication of how a thermometer will perform under certain conditions is a record of how it previously performed under those same conditions. To reduce total testing time while achieving nearly comparable accuracy, the present invention systematically collects empirical data in sufficient quantities to cover a range of reference target and ambient temperatures. To provide additional resolution, a simple linear function such as averaging (i.e., adding two collected data points and dividing by two) can be used to supply intermediate data points between the empirical points that were collected.

Temperature Taking is Important
Doctors, nurses, parents, and other care providers need to rapidly and accurately measure a person's body temperature. To find out whether a person is sick, the first thing a care provider usually does is take the person's temperature. Someone running a fever is likely to have an infection. A doctor or nurse can tell a lot about how a patient is doing by monitoring the patient's temperature over time and noting how it has changed.
Ear Thermometers Work by Taking the Temperature of Your Eardrum
Doctors and nurses can now measure temperature through the ear. Ear thermometers measure your temperature by detecting the amount of radiant heat ("infrared energy") emitted by your eardrum. Just as you can feel the heat when you hold your hands up in front of a warm fire, an ear thermometer can detect eardrum temperature without having to actually touch the eardrum. Because the eardrum is close to the body's master temperature control mechanism (the hypothalamus portion of the brain), measuring eardrum temperature is a non-invasive way to ascertain the patient's core body temperature.
Ear Thermometers Have Advantages Over Other Types of Thermometers
Ear thermometers are easy and quick to use. To use an ear thermometer, a nurse or other care provider places a disposable probe cover over the ear thermometer's heat sensing probe. The probe cover keeps the sensing probe clean and prevents the spread of disease from one patient to another. Once the disposable probe cover is in place, the nurse or other caregiver inserts the covered sensing probe into the patient's outer ear. Typically, a button is then pressed to command the instrument to make a measurement. The patient's temperature nearly instantly shows on the instrument's display.
Ear thermometry thus offers significant advantages over other types of thermometry in many clinical contexts. For example:
The measuring time is very rapid--usually less than two seconds. PA1 The eardrum is at or near the body's core temperature--providing the most accurate location for non-invasive temperature measurement. PA1 Because the ear is a dry orifice, cross-contamination is not much of an issue--and individual, disposable probe covers further reduce the already low cross-contamination risks. PA1 Because of the short measurement time and the use of either ear as the measuring point, it is possible to rapidly measure the temperature of children, invalids and sleeping patients--and in other situations where it is difficult to get a patient to sit still for thirty seconds with a probe under their tongue. PA1 The theoretical accuracy of the measurement is very high (for example, on the order of one tenth of one degree). PA1 .sigma. is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, PA1 .epsilon..sub.b is the emissivity of the subject, PA1 .epsilon..sub.s is the emissivity of the infrared sensor 10, PA1 T.sub.s is the surface temperature of infrared sensor 10 (measured by temperature sensor 12), PA1 .PHI..sub.b is the net infrared flux between infrared sensor 10 and the subject (as measured by infrared sensor 10), and PA1 T.sub.b represents the calculated target temperature. PA1 The relationships between all the inputs and the target temperature over a range of ambient temperatures are too complex to specify. Experiments have demonstrated that sufficient accuracy is not achievable by utilizing sensors to sense the temperature of the thermopile and waveguide and then processing the signals according to equations which subtract an amount from the measued temperature of the target which is attributable to temperature variations in the waveguide.
Accuracy is a Big Concern
Despite these many clear advantages, ear thermometry has not yet achieved wide success in the medical marketplace. The main reason is that even though the theoretical accuracy of ear thermometers is very high, this potential has not been realized in practice. Despite many years of hard work on the part of the major thermometer manufacturers, existing ear thermometers do not provide the high, repeatable accuracy required in a demanding hospital environment.
This failing of existing ear thermometers is widely known. Everyone agrees that the ultimate technical goal of an ear thermometer is to accurately assess the temperature of the patient's eardrum. But using existing ear thermometers, hospital nurses are often unable to duplicate successive readings. If you try to measure the same person's temperature twice with existing commercial ear thermometers, you may get two very different readings. Since accurate, repeatable temperature measurements are often critical to proper medical diagnosis and treatment (for example, to detect a 101.5.degree. F. hospital fever threshold or to establish a temperature pattern over time), it is crucial for temperature measurements to be as accurate and repeatable as possible.
Unfortunately, the reading given by an ear thermometer can depend on a variety of factors other than the patient's eardrum temperature. Some of these factors cannot be easily controlled, and some of them vary with operating conditions (and thus potentially from one temperature to the next).
The draft proposed "Standard Specification for Infrared Thermometers For Intermittent Determination of Patient Temperature" (American Society For Testing and Materials, EXXXX-97, May 9, 1997) notes that a signal detected by a tympanic thermometer's heat sensor depends not only on its own and the patient's true temperatures, but also on the size and shape of the probe; its field of view; ambient temperature; and operator technique. The Standard Specification sets forth a process for determining the "laboratory error" of an instrument--i.e., how much the instrument's internal noise, drifts, manufacturing tolerances, and other uncertainties in temperature measurement, affect how close the instrument's measured temperature is to actual temperature under various ambient temperature and humidity conditions.
The draft Standards Specification requires ear thermometers to exhibit, during lab testing with infrared radiation reference sources, an accuracy of 0.4.degree. F. (Fahrenheit) for a test temperature range of 96.8.degree. F. to 102.2.degree. F. over an ambient (air) temperature range of 60.8.degree. F. to 104.degree. F.; and a lab testing accuracy of 0.5.degree. F. over the remainder of a wider (94.degree. F. to 108.degree. F.) measurement range. Because of the reasons discussed above, many commercially available ear thermometers just barely meet this standard--even though an ear thermometer's theoretical accuracy is much higher and even though some health professionals consider a 0.4.degree. F. error to be excessive in certain critical care and other clinical settings.
A range of previously intractable technical issues have stood in the way of electronic ear thermometry achieving better accuracy. Some background about the way ear thermometers work is necessary for an appreciation of the accuracy problem.
Technical Discussion of How Ear Thermometers Work
As mentioned above, an ear thermometer works by sensing the net infrared (heat) flux between an ear thermometer heat sensor and the person's eardrum. Because the medical name for the eardrum is "tympanic membrane," ear thermometers are sometimes also called "tympanic thermometers." If the sensor's own temperature and other characteristics are accurately know, the sensed infrared flux can be used to precisely determine the temperature of the tympanic membrane and/or surrounding ear canal tissue.
A non-contact infrared thermometer generally includes the various components shown in prior art FIG. 1. An infrared sensor 10 measures the net thermal radiation flux (.PHI..sub.b) between the instrument and the subject's eardrum 11 and/or outer ear canal 13 and produces a signal S.sub..PHI.b representing this net thermal radiation flux. A reference contact sensor 12 thermally coupled (15) to sensor 10 measures the surface temperature (T.sub.s) of the infrared sensor 10 and produces a signal S.sub.Ts representing this surface temperature. An optical component 14 (often called a "waveguide") defines a field of view for sensor 10 and a corresponding optical coefficient (A) that describes how much of the heat emitted by a certain surface area of the eardrum reaches the infrared sensor 10. A computer or other computation means 16 determines the subject's temperature T.sub.b based on inputs from sensors 10 and 12. A display 18 displays the subject's temperature. A disposable probe cover 20 is used to prevent cross-contamination between patients.
Some Ear Thermometers Calculate Temperature Using a Mathematical Equation Describing a Law of Physics
The particular mathematical relationship that physicists use to describe the underlying operation of an ear thermometer is called the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. This equation, set forth below, is complex: ##EQU1## In this equation: A is the optical coefficient (determined by waveguide 14),
One way to determine patient temperature is for the computer 16 of FIG. 1 to calculate the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Computer 16 can readily calculate this equation using floating-point arithmetic. However, to achieve accuracy, the calculation requires an accurate detection of two independent variables: the surface temperature Ts of the sensor 10, and the net infrared flux .PHI.b between the sensor 10 and the subject--plus accurate knowledge of the remaining equation parameters including optical coefficient A and emissivity .epsilon..sub.s. The problem is that various factors affecting these parameters are not constant across ambient and patient temperature ranges, can and typically do change from one instrument to the next, and can fluctuate based on a wide variety of environmental affects including component aging, ambient temperature and how long the thermometer has been placed in the ear. The practical accuracy of a thermometer that calculates temperature based on the Stefan-Boltzmann calculation suffers because of these various effects.
One approach to solving the accuracy problem is to correct the result of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation by using a correction factor(s) that attempts to take these various factors into account. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,436 to Pompeii et al., which corrects the Stefan-Boltzmann calculation based on a gain calibration factor that is in part empirically determined; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,017,018 to Iuchi et al., which applies an error correction factor based on room temperature.
These approaches improve accuracy but have the limitation that they are complex and cannot practically take into account all of the factors that can influence measurement accuracy. As recognized in U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,877 to O'Hara:
Another Approach Models the Thermometer Using a Non-Linear Mathematical System
Another approach does not use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, but instead defines a non-linear system model based on a complex, non-linear polynomial algorithm using an equation whose coefficients are analytically developed by multivariate linear regression analysis of data derived through calibration procedures. The O'Hara '877 patent uses this approach. O'Hara et al. make use of a technique they refer to as "calibration mapping" that they say they borrowed from the field of "complex systems modeling." O'Hara et al's "calibration mapping" involves the collection of the magnitudes of the inputs over a suitable range of target temperatures and over a suitable range of environmental (room) temperatures to describe a non-linear system with sufficient accuracy. O'Hara et al. say this is accomplished using multi-variate linear regression or other "curve fitting" (i.e., non-linear) analytical techniques.
The particular example O'Hara et al. disclose in their '877 patent specification is a thirteen term non-linear polynomial equation having thirteen coefficients and including squared and cubed terms based on four independent variables (IR sensor voltage V.sub.t, ambient temperature sensor voltage V.sub.a, waveguide temperature V.sub.w, and a null amplified voltage V.sub.n): ##EQU2## O'Hara et al. state that the values for these independent variables are collected through a calibration procedure in which each thermometer is controlled to sequentially measure four fixed-temperature "blackbody" temperature references (85.degree. F., 95.degree. F., 102.degree. F. and 110.degree. F.) over a range of ambient temperatures. O'Hara et al. use regression techniques to analyze the collected data to provide the coefficients of the equation, which are stored in the corresponding thermometer memory. O'Hara et al. add offsets to certain coefficients to reduce truncation errors.
At temperature taking time, O'Hara et al's microcomputer within the thermometer uses floating point arithmetic to calculate or look up the non-linear equation results based on these coefficients, and the result is displayed on the display. O'Hara et al. claim that in this way, all sensor input is "mapped" to yield a target temperature according to a supposed thirteen-dimensional surface map that was determined at calibration time. A similar approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,969 to Goldberg et al.
O'Hara et al and Goldberg et al each claim that their non-linear systems provide higher accuracy than is available using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. However, the problem with these approaches is that--despite their great complexity--they have not solved the accuracy problem.
The Present Invention Uses Empirical Data to Provide More Accurate Temperature Measurement
The present invention provides a radically different approach to determining temperature in a non-contact infrared thermometer. Rather than basing temperature determination on a complex equation describing a non-linear system, the present invention goes against the conventional wisdom by opting for a far more straighforward temperature determining technique that turns out to have substantially greater accuracy.
In contrast to the non-linear systems and techniques described above, the present invention uses an empirical data set to determine patient temperature. The empirical data set is collected during a testing process, and is explicitly stored in a non-volatile memory within the thermometer. At temperature measuring time, the thermometer accesses the appropriate cell in the non-volatile memory to determine temperature--thus directly outputting the same temperature output empirically collected for the same conditions at testing time.
To achieve a high degree of accuracy, the empirical data set provided by the present invention represents actually measured thermometer sensor outputs over a substantial number of target and ambient temperature points within the thermometer's operating range. In accordance with one example, on the order of ten to fifteen percent of the total operating range may be collected. This may typically result in collection of on the order of ten to fifteen thousand data points. The substantial size of the empirical data set eliminates guesswork and estimation--since the most accurate indication of how a thermometer will perform under certain conditions is a record of how it previously performed under those same conditions.
Although the highest possible accuracy can be achieved by exposing each thermometer unit to every possible target/ambient temperature combination within the thermometer's desired operating range and resolution (e.g., each 0.1.degree. F. target temperature increment for each 0.1.degree. F. ambient temperature increment over the target and ambient temperature ranges described above in connection with the ASTM standard), this may not be practical for certain applications (e.g., a relatively inexpensive, handheld tympanic thermometer). In particular, developing such a complete data set would require testing of each individual thermometer unit for many weeks in an environmental chamber.
To reduce total testing time while achieving nearly comparable accuracy, the present invention systematically collects the empirical data in sufficient quantities to adequately cover a range of reference target and ambient temperatures. The resulting empirical data set defines a large number of calculated data points. There is no need for complex non-linear polynomial calculation or other curve-fitting techniques or complex systems modeling. Simple linear functions such as averaging (i.e., adding two collected empirical data points and dividing by two) can be used to efficiently and rapidly supply any data points not actually collected.
Furthermore, in accordance with a further aspect provided by the present invention, the collected empirical data is used (e.g., in conjunction with manufacturer component specifications) to allow the thermopile cold junction temperature to be accurately ascertained. For example, a first step in a temperature determination process may be to ascertain cold junction temperature based on such empirical data. This is radically different to an approach in which the thermometer does not determine what the ambient temperature is.
The present invention also provides a unique thermometer testing and empirical data collection process for efficiently collecting the empirical data set. In accordance with this aspect provided by the present invention, empirical data is collected through the use of variable temperature reference targets and ambient temperature swept across a range. In more detail, each individual thermometer instrument is mated with a "black body" temperature reference target, and the pair are placed into an environmental chamber. An electrically controllable shutter is placed between the black body reference target and the thermometer. The opening and closing of the shutter may be controlled by the thermometer itself or any suitable process controller.
The temperature of the black body is set to a particular reference temperature, and the environmental chamber is controlled to sweep its temperature across the desired ambient temperature operating range of the thermometer (e.g., 60.8.degree. F. to 104.degree. F.). The thermometer controls the shutter to open for a short time duration each time the thermometer's cold junction or "ambient" temperature sensor senses the next incremental temperature in a sequence (e.g., each 0.1.degree. F. ambient temperature increment). The thermometer's infrared sensor measures the radiation flux .PHI.b each time the shutter is opened, and a data point consisting of the two thermometer sensor (10, 12) outputs T.sub.s, .PHI..sub.b and the blackbody reference temperature is stored. This ambient temperature "sweep" for a particular black body reference temperature preferably develops a "band" of data that spans the ambient temperature operating range of the thermometer.
Once the ambient temperature operating range has been covered for one target reference temperature, the blackbody temperature is incrementally changed to a new value and the process is repeated to collect a further "band" of data. Data collection continues in this way until a sufficient number of data "bands" corresponding to different blackbody reference temperatures have been collected to substantially cover the thermometer's desired target temperature range (94.degree. F. to 108.degree. F.) with a desired resolution (e.g., each 0.5.degree. F. target temperature increment).
The resulting empirical data set has a high degree of accuracy across the ambient and target temperature operating ranges of the thermometer. A linear function such as simple averaging may be used to derive data points not actually collected but which fall between the collected data "bands".

Radiometric temperature measurement based on empirical measurements and linear functions


A prism sheet is bonded to the bottom faces of rectangular prisms constituting a polarization beam splitter array. In the front face of the prism sheet, a plurality of rectangular prism elements are arranged in parallel to each other and a phase difference compensation film is formed on the surface. The edge lines of the rectangular prism elements are inclined at 45 degrees relative to the edge lines of the rectangular prisms. Linear polarized light of S-polarization component reflected by a polarized light separation film is reflected twice sequentially in a phase difference compensation film formed in a pair of oblique faces of the rectangular prism elements, so that the polarization direction is rotated by 90 degrees and then the light reenters the rectangular prism. Then, the light is transmitted through the polarized light separation film and then extracted from the rectangular prism.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: a polarization conversion element for rotating by 90 degrees the polarization direction of linear polarized light having a fixed polarization direction; a polarized light illumination optical element for converting non-polarized illumination light into linear polarized light having a fixed polarization direction; and a liquid crystal projector whose illumination optical system employs these elements.
2. Description of Related Art
Various kinds of liquid crystal projectors are commercially available in which an image displayed on a liquid crystal display panel is illuminated by light from a light source lamp and then projected onto a screen. As known well, a liquid crystal display panel has: a liquid crystal layer of a thickness that encloses liquid crystal molecules; and a polarizer and an analyzer arranged on the incident surface side and the exit surface side, respectively. The polarizer and the analyzer are arranged in such a manner that their polarization directions are perpendicular or parallel to each other. Then, passage of linear polarized entering the liquid crystal layer is controlled in accordance with the orientation directions of the liquid crystal molecules, so that the amount of linear polarized light emitted through the analyzer is adjusted.
In the illumination optical system of such a liquid crystal projector, in general, a polarized light illumination optical element is employed that converts non-polarized light from a light source into linear polarized light having the same polarization direction as that of the polarizer of the liquid crystal display panel. As an example of this polarized light illumination optical element, as described in JP-A-2001-235624, a prism array is widely employed that is constructed from a combination of a polarization beam splitter and a ½-wavelength plate. Such a polarization beam splitter has a polarized light separation surface that transmits one of the two linear polarized light components whose polarization directions are perpendicular to each other, and that reflects the other component. Then, the polarization direction of one of the two linear polarized light components separated by this polarized light separation surface is rotated by 90 degrees through the ½-wavelength plate. After that, this linear polarized light component is mixed with the other linear polarized light component so that a linear polarized light component having an aligned polarization direction is obtained.
In a polarized light illumination optical element constructed from a combination of a polarization beam splitter and a ½-wavelength plate, when a glass prism or alternatively a heat resistive plastic material is employed for the polarization beam splitter while an inorganic dielectric multilayer film is employed for the polarized light separation surface, satisfactory heat resistance is ensured for these components. Nevertheless, since an organic sheet film is employed for the ½-wavelength plate, fading and a degradation in the polarization conversion efficiency are often arise when the optical element is used near a light source for a long time. For the purpose of heat resistance improvement, a crystalline material as such quartz having birefringence is proposed to be employed for the ½-wavelength plate. Nevertheless, the crystal itself is expensive. Further, the crystal need be machined under precise control of the crystalline optical axes. These situations cause an increase in the fabrication cost.

Polarization conversion element, polarized light illumination optical element, and liquid crystal projector


A technique for controlling engine starting while shifting a hybrid vehicle is provided that minimizes fuel consumption of the engine by determining an improved engine starting time and drivability when a current operating state of the hybrid vehicle requests a kick down shift required to start the engine and coupling of the engine clutch. In particular, the technique controls engine starting while shifting a hybrid vehicle by employing an information detector configured to detect a current operating state of the hybrid electric vehicle, and a controller configured to control an operation of a transmission, a motor, an engine, and an engine clutch based on output signals from the operating information detector.

(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a system and a method for controlling engine starting while shifting of a hybrid electric vehicle. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus, a system and a method for controlling engine starting while shifting of the hybrid electric vehicle that minimizes a fuel consumption amount of the engine by determining an engine starting time when a current operating state of the hybrid electric vehicle requests a kick down shift required to start the engine and coupling of the engine clutch.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Generally, a hybrid electric vehicle is driven by a combination of an engine which generates torque from fuel combustion and an electric motor which generates torque from an electric battery. Hybrid electric vehicles are typically provided with optimum output torque, depending on how the engine and the motor are operated while the vehicles are driven by the two power sources (i.e., engine and the motor).
In hybrid electric vehicles, a transmission mounted electric device (TMED) type of power train in which an engine clutch is disposed between the engine and the motor is generally used. Thus, the hybrid electric vehicle is driven in an EV mode or an HEV mode in accordance with connection of the engine clutch.
In the TMED type of the hybrid electric vehicle, when a demand torque of a driver is increased suddenly (e.g., a kick down shift is requested) in order to accelerate in the EV mode, the hybrid electric vehicle performs a kick down shift control that shifts the vehicle into a lower gear.
While kick down shift controlling, it is desirable that the engine clutch of the hybrid electric vehicle be coupled while simultaneously shifting. The engine clutch, to however, is coupled before shifting or after shifting because of control complexity. Do to this; drivers are often not satisfied with the acceleration output from hybrid electric vehicles.
The control for coupling the engine clutch of the TMED type of the hybrid electric vehicle in a real shifting region is essential for proper acceleration. Therefore, determination of the engine starting time for coupling the engine clutch is important to providing a responsive hybrid electric vehicle.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Apparatus, system and method for controlling engine starting while shifting of hybrid electric vehicle


It is an object of the present invention to provide an active material for lithium ion battery having an excellent discharge capacity in the potential flat part and a high-performance and long-life lithium ion battery, and particularly to provide a technology of improving voltage flatness. The present invention provides an active material for lithium ion battery represented by a composition formula: Li[Li(1-2x)/3MgxTi(5-x)/3]O4 (0<x<1/2) in which a part of the element of lithium titanate is substituted with Mg, and a lithium ion battery using this active material as a negative electrode active material.

Associated with recent small-sized high-performance mobile phones and electronic devices, nonaqueous electrolyte batteries such as lithium secondary batteries exhibiting high energy density with high voltage draw attention and are widely used as the power source thereof.
Conventionally, it is known to use lithium titanate as an active material for a negative electrode in such lithium secondary batteries and lithium ion batteries (see, Patent Document 1). Further, it is known to substitute a part of the element of the lithium titanate with Fe (see, Patent Document 2), with Cu (see, Patent Document 3) and with other transition metals and the like (see, Patent Documents 4 to 6).
Patent Document 1: JP 06-275263-A
Patent Document 2: JP 2001-185141-A
Patent Document 3: JP 2001-250554-A
Patent Document 4: JP 2004-235144-A
Patent Document 5: JP 10-251020-A
Patent Document 6: JP 2000-156229-A
Particularly, Patent Document 4 describes an invention of "a negative electrode active material for nonaqueous secondary battery having a lithium transition metal composite oxide having a spinel structure containing an alkali metal and/or alkali earth metal." (claim 1). However, "a contained alkali metal and/or alkali earth metal stabilizes a crystalline structure of the lithium transition metal composite oxide having a spinel structure, thereby possibly improving cycle characteristics." (paragraph [0022]). As there is described that "lithium titanate represented by a general formula LiaTibO4+c (where M denotes at least one element selected from the group comprising one or more transition metals except titanium, 2, 13 and 14 group elements of the periodic table, halogen elements and sulfur, a+b denotes a number satisfying 0.8≦a+d≦1.5, b denotes a number satisfying 1.5≦b≦2.2, and c denotes a number satisfying −0.5≦c.≦0.5) improves cycle characteristics, stability and reliability." (paragraph [0029]), the invention described in the Patent Document 4 has absolutely an object of improving cycle characteristics and the like by adding less than or equal to 0.1 mol of an alkali earth metal such as Mg or the like to lithium titanate and has no object of reducing voltage variations during discharge (of improving voltage flatness). Moreover, as lithium titanate satisfying the above-described general formula, there is described a negative electrode active material of Li1.26Ti1.72Mg0.02 in which Ti-content is high and Mg-content is low (when Li and Mg contain the above-described amounts, Ti becomes tetravalent (Ti4+) in an amount of 1.675 mols, and thus it becomes partially trivalent (Ti3+) in an amount of 1.72 mols) (see example 1). However, as described below, this Mg-containing lithium titanate is inferior in electrochemical capacity.
Patent Document 5 describes an invention of "metal-substituted lithium titanate represented by a general formula LixMyTizO4 (where M is a metal having a valence of two or more, and 0.5≦(X+Y)/Z≦2), in which a part of a lithium component of lithium titanate is substituted by a metal having a valence of two or more" (claim 1), and magnesium is described as a metal having a valence of two or more (claim 2). However, as it is described that "doping and dedoping of lithium ions are facilitated by substituting a part of a lithium component with a metal having a valence of two or more, thereby enabling characteristics such as battery capacity and the like to be improved when used as an electrode for a lithium battery" only a part of the lithium component is substituted with magnesium, and no titanium component is substituted therewith. Further, this invention has no object of reducing voltage variations during discharge (of improving voltage flatness).
Moreover, it is further known to use a spinel compound represented by a composition formula: Li4-xMgxTi5O12 (0≦x≦1) as a negative electrode of a lithium battery (see Non-Patent Document 1).
Non-Patent Document 1: Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 148(1) A102-A104 (2001)
The spinel compound in the Non-Patent Document 1 is one in which only a part of Ti of Li4Ti5O12 (lithium titanate) is substituted with Mg. Although it is described that conductivity and high rate discharge characteristic can be improved by using this Mg-containing lithium titanate, it is not described that voltage variations during discharge can be reduced (voltage flatness can be improved). Moreover, in the above-described composition formula, Mg is a divalent representative element (Mg2+), and since only a part of monovalent Li component (Li1+) is substituted with Mg having the same number of moles and no tetravalent Ti component (Ti4+) is substituted with Mg, a part of Ti becomes partially trivalent (Ti3+)
On the other hand, a spinel compound represented by a composition formula: Li[Li(1-x)/3CrxTi(5-2x)/3] is further known as a negative electrode active material of a lithium ion battery (see Non-Patent Document 2).
Non-Patent Document 2: Journal of Power Sources, 125 (2004) 242-245
The spinel compound in the Non-Patent Document 2 is one in which a part of Li— and Ti components of Li4/3Ti5/3O4 (lithium titanate) is substituted with Cr. Although it is described that diffusion coefficient and high rate discharge performance are improved by using this Cr-containing lithium titanate, it is not described that voltage variations during discharge can be reduced (voltage flatness can be improved). Moreover, in the above-described composition formula, Cr is trivalent (Cr3+) and Ti is tetravalent (Ti4+). However, since Cr is a transition metal, the valence number of Cr will vary due to electrochemical reduction of lithium titanate when such lithium titanate is used as a negative electrode active material of a battery. In order to provide a negative electrode containing lithium titanate with an excellent discharge capacity in the potential flat part, it is important that tetravalent Ti (Ti4+) and trivalent Ti (Ti3+) coexist in lithium titanate contained in the negative electrode which has been charged for the first time after the composition of the battery and it is further desired that trivalent Ti (Ti3+) exists more than tetravalent Ti (Ti4+). However, so the valence number of Cr varies due to electrochemical reduction of lithium titanate, trivalent Ti (Ti3+) is produced insufficiently, thereby making it difficult to make an above-described effect.

Active material for lithium ion battery having Mg-containing lithium titanate and lithium ion battery


Verticality of a space formed in the multilayered film can be improved while suppressing an opening of a mask from being clogged. The multilayered film includes a first film and a second film that have different permittivities and are alternately stacked on top of each other. An etching method of etching the multilayered film includes preparing, within a processing vessel of a plasma processing apparatus, a processing target object having the multilayered film and a mask provided on the multilayered film; and etching the multilayered film by exciting a processing gas containing a hydrogen gas, a hydrofluorocarbon gas, a fluorine-containing gas, a hydrocarbon gas, a boron trichloride gas and a nitrogen gas within the processing vessel.

As a kind of semiconductor device, there is known a NAND type flash memory device having a three-dimensional structure. In the manufacture of this NAND type flash memory device having the three-dimensional structure, a deep hole is formed in a multilayered film, which is composed of alternately stacked two layers having different permittivities, by performing an etching process. This etching process is described in Patent Document 1.
To elaborate, in Patent Document 1, there is described a method of etching a multilayered film by exposing a processing target object having a mask on the multilayered film to plasma of a processing gas containing a HBr gas, a C4F8 gas and a BCl3 gas. In the method described in Patent Document 1, a polycrystalline silicon film of the multilayered film is etched by an active species generated from the HBr gas; a silicon oxide film of the multilayered film is etched by active species generated from the C4F8 gas; and a protective film generated from the BCl3 gas is deposited on a sidewall surface formed by the etching of the multilayered film. The protective film suppresses the multilayered film from being etched in a direction (i.e., a horizontal direction) orthogonal to a stacking direction (i.e., a vertical direction) of the multilayered film. Therefore, verticality of a space such as a hole formed in the multilayered film can be improved.
Patent Document 1: International Publication No. 2014/010499
In the etching method described in Patent Document 1, however, the size of the opening of the mask may become smaller, and, occasionally, the opening may be completely clogged. Further, it is still required to further improve the verticality of the space formed in the multilayered film by forming a stronger protective film.
Thus, in the present technical field, the clogging of the opening of the mask needs to be suppressed, and the verticality of the space formed in the multilayered film needs to be improved.


An Ethernet switching and forwarding method, and at least one Ethernet forwarding mode of standard Ethernet forwarding, multiplex Ethernet forwarding, layer-3 routing and forwarding, across-VLAN multicast forwarding plane, point-to-point VLAN forwarding, or point-to-point double VLAN forwarding. The method includes: an Ethernet message entering a user side port or a network side port; processing, by the port, the message to provide the message with a VLAN tag allocated uniformly by the port; determining, by the port, a forwarding mode for the message and sending the message to a corresponding forwarding plane; determining, by the forwarding plane, an egress port of the message and processing the specific Ethernet control message in accordance with a control message capturing policy table; and forwarding the message to the egress port and encapsulating the message in accordance with an attribute table of the egress port.

The transition of a telecommunication operation network toward an IP-oriented network has been predominant along with development and applications of IP technologies, and the Ethernet, which acts as an optimal bearer mechanism for IP, has also been increasingly popular in the telecommunication operation network. Particularly, an access and aggregation network of the telecommunication operation network is typically based on information forwarding over a link layer, and therefore the Ethernet has been a dominant technology for an access and aggregation layer of the telecommunication operation network.
The Ethernet is widely applied in traditional enterprise networks due to its low bandwidth cost, simple management, and easy usage. These advantages are primarily based on the following basic Ethernet technical framework.
1. A Media Access Control (MAC) address: The MAC address is used to identify a terminal and is a forwarding and addressing mode based on flooding and MAC address auto-learning, and can be implemented without specific management and configuration.
2. Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN): The VLAN is a domain identifier for management, used to obtain a finer granularity management domain by reducing a broadcast domain, to implement inter-domain traffic isolation and control.
3. Topology and reliability: A tree-like topology is required to be logically maintained for flooding forwarding, and the tree-like topology is maintained and protected by the Spanning Tree Protocol/Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (STP/RSTP).
4. Good support for multicast and broadcast.
The above basic technical framework is implemented primarily based on an Ethernet switching chip which is a core device for building an Ethernet apparatus.
FIG. 1 illustrates an Ethernet based Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) access and aggregation network system as defined by the DSL Forum. Likewise, the fiber based Fiber-to-the-X point (FTTx) and the World Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) have similar access systems except that the Access Node (AN) in FIG. 1 corresponds to an Optical Line Termination (OLT) of the FTTx and a Base Station (BS) of the WiMAX respectively. Their network systems are similar regardless of their different access technologies, and an access device is required to map an access bearer to an Ethernet bearer and traffic aggregation and forwarding is implemented based on Ethernet.
The AN and the Ethernet Aggregation of the access network constitute jointly a telecommunication access and aggregation network. Presently, these devices in the industry comply with the above-mentioned basic Ethernet technical framework and mostly are implemented with the existing Ethernet switching chip.
However, a telecommunication operation network, particularly the access and aggregation networks and telecommunication services, have their own inherent features as follows:
1. The access and aggregation networks are logically of a tree-like topology, instead of an all-switching structure, in a forwarding plane.
2. Logical connections isolated from each other from a user to a Broadband Network Gateway (BBNG) needs to be established.
3. Much attention is paid to management and control, and the management and control of users and data forwarding need to be implemented under the control of a service policy.
4. Much attention is paid to network security to prohibit MAC/IP address spoofing.
5. A Transparent LAN Service (TLS) for Ethernet message forwarding needs to be provided for a dedicated line access.
6. Scalability of the access and aggregation networks (MAC/VLAN) needs to be considered.
7. Efficient multicast from the BBNG to the users needs to be supported.
8. A higher QoS is required.
9. Capabilities of locating and identifying a user and a service needs to be provided.
10. Efficient management and capabilities of detecting and locating a failure needs to be provided for management and maintenance.
These requirements are in conflict with the basic Ethernet technical framework. Therefore, the Ethernet technical framework has to be improved in a telecommunication network context. The existing Ethernet technologies are described as follows.
A first prior art solution: a basic Ethernet forwarding and addressing mode is a solution based on flooding and auto-learning, and the solution includes that an Ethernet switching and forwarding engine creates a MAC address based forwarding table entry through flooding of an unknown/multicast/broadcast MAC address and auto-learning of the MAC address and ensures real time updating of a forwarding table and efficient usage of a forwarding table entry space through a MAC address aging mechanism. The solution with such a mechanism is disadvantageous in that: the MAC address belongs to a user terminal and thus is not trustworthy because numerous network attacks are made through MAC address spoofing, such as a Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) address spoofing, message redirecting, which may interfere greatly with a service of a normal user; the learning of the MAC address may consume a MAC address space table, which may result in a scalability problem of an aggregation layer device, for example, currently the aggregation layer device is required to be provided with a MAC address table entry space of at least 32K; and the MAC address table is vulnerable due to a Deny of Service (DoS) attack of the MAC address. Furthermore, the incredibility of the MAC address may also result in disability of identifying or locating a user according to the MAC address.
A second prior art solution: The Ethernet is based on the VLAN, thus obtaining a solution in which a finer granularity management domain is provided by reducing the broadcast domain and inter-domain traffic isolation and control are implemented. Particularly in the solution, since the Ethernet flooding mechanism may cause potential broadcast flooding and service traffic intercommunication between different users, the traditional Ethernet VLAN provides a finer granularity management domain through reducing the broadcast domain using a VLAN identifier and implements inter-domain traffic isolation and control for management and security; and due to the feature of the VLAN traffic isolation, and a field of 802.1p in a VLAN header identifier may be used to identify the priority of a message, the VLAN is typically used as an identifier of a service type in a telecommunication network. However this solution has the following drawbacks: the network security and service isolation cannot be achieved ideally with the existing VLAN technology, because the service intercommunication between users in a VLAN, which is typically prohibited in a telecommunication network, may be implemented with the flooding and MAC address auto-learning mechanism; furthermore, the MAC/IP spoofing still may be present in the VLAN; in addition, the problem of extendibility may occur in the case where the VLAN identifier is used as a service connection identifier between the AN and the BBNG primarily in that a service connection between the AN the BBNG is expected to carry physical location information of a user access port and the AN in addition to identifying a service type but the VLAN is provided with only a space of 4K.
A third prior art solution: a solution to maintaining and protecting a tree-like topology of Ethernet forwarding paths by means of the STP/RSTP is provided. Particularly in the solution, a tree-like topology has to be maintained logically for Ethernet forwarding mode of flooding, and the tree-like topology is maintained and protected by the STP/RSTP in the basic Ethernet technical framework; and a topology of service traffic between the AN and the BBNG in the access and aggregation network primarily includes a topology of point-to-point and point-to-multi-point from the BBNG to the AN, which is actually also a tree-like topology. This solution has the following drawbacks: the convergence of the link topology maintained by the STP/RSTP may be slow, even more in a network having an larger scale; in addition, according to a principle of protection switch, a mechanism at a lower layer has to be provided with more rapid protection switch, to ensure transparency to an upper-layer service; furthermore, the STP/RSTP provides protection according to a physical port or VLAN, but it is commonly required to a telecommunication service to implement end-to-end connection protection for a service connection, thus, the STP/RSTP is not applicable in a large telecommunication network.
A fourth prior art solution: a solution to implementing an Ethernet dedicated line service using Ethernet based on VLAN is provided. Particularly in the solution, a TLS is an important service type in a telecommunication network, and two Ethernet service modes of E-Line (point-to-point) and E-LAN (multi-point-to-multi-point) are further defined in the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). An important feature of the Ethernet dedicated line service is to enable user service transport transparency, and according to the traditional Ethernet VLAN technology, the Ethernet dedicated line service is typically identified by a VLAN identifier between the AN and the BBNG and is terminated at the BBNG. The Ethernet dedicated line service is identified and isolated from other services using the VLAN. This solution has the following drawbacks: a problem of transparency occurs in identifying the Ethernet dedicated line service based on a VLAN identifier, because the Ethernet dedicated line service requires all user messages to be transported transparently, but a layer-2 control message of the user, for example, a Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) message is based on specific multicast MAC encapsulation and cannot be encapsulated with the VLAN, and such message can not be forwarded through a network bridge in the standard Ethernet mechanism. However, such control message has to be forwarded transparently in order to provide the Ethernet dedicated line service in the telecommunication network.
Accordingly, problems occur in applying the existing basic Ethernet technical framework in the telecommunication operation network, particularly in the access and aggregation networks, and thus there is a need to improve the existing basic Ethernet technical framework.

Ethernet switching and forwarding method, system and apparatus


A freestanding micrometer and method for determining the diameter of a cylindrical body, including measuring variations in diameter along a longitudinal length thereof, such as a roll used in the production of metal and paper sheet products. The micrometer comprises a housing supported on a circumferential surface of the cylindrical body. A first sensing element is movably supported by the housing and adapted for sensing a first surface point of the cylindrical body laterally spaced apart from the housing and disposed in a cross-sectional plane of the cylindrical body. A second sensing element is mounted to the housing for contact with a second surface point of the cylindrical body disposed in the cross-sectional plane of the cylindrical body. The first and second surface points locate, respectively, a terminal and midpoint of a chord lying in the cross-section plane of the cylindrical body, from which the diameter of the cylindrical body is determined.

The present invention generally relates to devices for measuring dimensions of a body. More particularly, this invention relates to devices for measuring the profile and/or diameter of a cylindrical body, such as a roll used in the production of sheet products.
Cylindrical rolls used to roll sheet products, such as aluminum and paper, are required to have a particular profile in order to obtain a flat rolled product. For this reason, the contours or profiles of such rolls must be accurately measured and variations in diameters along their lengths recorded. Freestanding saddle-type micrometers have been widely used for this purpose.
As represented in U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,207 to Betsill et al., a freestanding saddle micrometer generally includes a saddle supported on wheels for rolling ("skating") along the longitudinal length of a roll. As used herein, the term "freestanding" is used in reference to a saddle-type micrometer in that such micrometers are not mounted to a grinder or other permanent apparatus, but instead are portable and placed on the roll being evaluated. The Betsill et al. saddle micrometer is a caliper-type unit, in that the micrometer has oppositely-disposed arms that extend outward and downward from the saddle so as to be located on opposite sides of a roll when the micrometer is placed on top of a roll. The arms are supported by a rocking crossbar. One of the arms supports a counterweight or follower probe, while the second arm carries an indicator probe, such as a dial indicator or an LVDT (linear variable differential transducer). By locating the follower and indicator probes on their respective arms to be diametrically opposite each other relative to the roll, variations in the diameter of the roll can be detected by skating the saddle along the length of the roll. If a dial indicator is used as the indicator probe, the saddle must make stops along the length of the roll to allow manual recording of the dial indicator reading. If an LVDT or other electronic transducer is used, variations in the roll diameter can be continuously recorded electronically. The saddle is preferably equipped with an encoder to measure the distance skated along the length of the roll, and a minicomputer is mounted on the frame to read, record, and present input data from the LVDT and the encoder.
Existing saddle micrometers have several shortcomings that involve compromises in weight, rigidity, balance and operation. In terms of weight and rigidity, existing saddle micrometers have taken two approaches: either ignore weight for the sake of rigidity, which results in a unit that operators find difficult to handle but will provide accurate readings; or reduce weight to provide a unit that can be more easily handled, sacrificing rigidity to the extent that imprecise readings may occur. This problem is exacerbated if electronic probes are used, since the unit is constantily in motion as readings are taken. Nonetheless, lighter-weight units have generally been more widely accepted because of the difficulty in handling the heavier, more rigid units. Existing saddle micrometers are also generally top heavy, with the result that the units are more prone to slip off the top of a roll. In the event of slipping off a roll, if a heavier unit is used the unit will probably not be damaged but the operator is at risk of injury. On the other hand, if a lightweight unit slides off a roll, the unit is much more likely to be damaged.
Finally, from an operational standpoint, existing caliper-type micrometers do not actually measure roll diameter, but instead are limited to determining the profile of a roll, i.e., variations in diameter along the length of a roll. Furthermore, micrometers have relied on an onboard minicomputer to acquire and process the collected data. Because of the limited computing power of these minicomputers, many electronic saddle micrometers are a simple unit that is easy to learn and operate, but provides only basic profile information. More advanced units are available that require extensive training to learn and skill to operate. While providing more detailed profile information, roll history and hard copy printout, in practice such enhanced capabilities were rarely used because of the difficulty in learning how to operate the onboard minicomputer.
From the above, it can be seen that it would be desirable if a saddle micrometer were available that overcame the shortcomings of the prior art, including improved rigidity, balance and operational features without incurring excessive weight.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Electric micrometer for sensing the diameter of a cylindrical body


A coupler (A) defines a bell (C) having a cylindrical wall (40) of substantially the same inner diameter as an outer diameter of peaks (22) of a length of corrugated tubing (B). The corrugated tubing includes a gasket (30) received in a valley (24) near one end thereof. The gasket includes a flange portion (32) which is compressed into the valley by the side wall (40) as the end of the tubing is slid into the coupler (A). The coupler includes an annular groove (44) which is in alignment with the gasket when the inner end of the tubing engages a stop (10). The flange is resiliently biased outward into groove (44) where an outward facing groove engaging surface (46) of the gasket engages an inward facing gasket engaging surface (48) of the groove. The gasket may include a stiffer higher durometer rubber portion (52) for biasing the flange more stiffly into the groove and to transfer axial load to the bell more stiffly.

The present invention relates to the art of connecting tubing, pipes, and conduit. It finds particular application in conjunction with the interconnection of large diameter, smooth interior wall corrugated plastic tubing and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated, that the invention will also find application in conjunction with smooth-walled, corrugated, and other types of pipe and tubing.
Large diameter plastic pipe, e.g. 24 inch (60 cm) plastic pipe, is commonly shipped and handled in sections, e.g. 20 foot (6.5 m) sections. Each length has a stiff, self-supporting outer wall which includes alternating peaks and valleys that define a series of corrugations. Optionally, a lighter-weight continuous tubular liner extends along and is connected with the valleys to define a smooth interior diameter. Tubing with a smooth interior diameter has a substantially higher fluid carrying capacity than tubing with a corrugated interior of the same diameter.
To connect the lengths of tubing, external, sleeve-type couplers are commonly utilized. These couplers include a plastic sleeve or bell whose inner diameter substantially matches the outer diameter of the corrugation peaks of the tubing lengths to be connected. Typically, a corrugation or groove is defined in the center of the coupler to mark the center and to provide an abutment for the ends of the connected tubing lengths. To provide a fluid tight seal, an annular gasket is disposed in one of the corrugation valleys which will be received within the coupler. Generally, the tighter the gasket presses against the cylindrical interior surface of the coupler, the more pressure the joint will hold. To this end, the gasket is commonly defined such that it substantially fills the corrugation valley and has an outwardly cammed flap or projection. As the end of the tubing length is inserted into the coupler (or the coupler inserted around the end of the tubing length), the gasket is compressed into the valley and firmly against the interior cylindrical surface of the bell.
In the past, attempts to improve the seal and raise the failure pressure have focused on the gasket. In particular, the gaskets are now compressed sufficiently that water does not flow between the gasket and bell. To facilitate insertion with this high compression of the gasket, the interior surface of the coupler bell is commonly coated with a lubricant. This facilitates pressing the coupling and the end of the pipe together, typically with axial pressure from a backhoe. Although the gasket/bell interface withstands well over 10 psi, the couplings still fail at about 10 psi.
The inventors herein have discovered an unexpected failure mode. With reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B, the internal pressure in the pipe feeds back around the end of the pipe to the gasket. The gasket acts like a piston in the coupler sleeve. The pressure tried to push the piston or gasket out of the coupler sleeve in a direction which tries to compress the pipe axially. This first axial compressive force is combined with a second force which also urges the pipe to compress axially. The annular chambers defined between the smooth inner liner and the corrugation peaks typically have a very small weep hole to allow the pressure within these annular regions to equalize with the external environment. As the pressure in the interior of the pipe increases, there is an increasing pressure differential between the interior of the pipe and the annular regions below the corrugation peaks. This pressure differential causes the inner liner to arc into the annular regions and the corrugation peaks in the coupler bell to draw together axially or fold in an accordion-type style. Backfill around corrugations outside the coupler tend to fill the corrugation valleys and resist this accordion-type contraction. The corrugations on the high pressure side of the gasket are not subject to the first axial compressive force and are only subject to the second compressive force until the pressure equalizes through the weep hole.
As these two axial pressures cause the corrugations to contract in an accordion-like manner, the length of tubing section becomes shorter. Because the central region of the tubing section is well anchored by the backfill, the gasket and the end of the tubing move toward the central portion of the section and are withdrawn from the coupler. In a double bell connector, the end of the tubing connected to the other bell is withdrawn analogously, but in the opposite direction. This axial compression or shortening of the pipe continues until the gasket is pulled from the bell or until the pipe compresses further on one side than the other. Such uneven compression or crushing of the pipe causes a rotation of the gasket out of the vertical plane (when the longitudinal axis of the pipe is horizontal) which pulls the gasket away from the bell. The lubrication which was used to allow the gasket to seal more completely to the interior surface of the bell actually facilitates the movement of the gasket and failure of the joint. In this manner, the solution dictated by the conventional wisdom discussed above, i.e. compressing the gasket so hard that a lubricant is required for its insertion, is actually promoting the failure.
The present invention contemplates a new and improved coupling arrangement which overcomes the above-referenced problems.

High pressure coupling for plastic pipe and conduit


Provided are a mash-up service generation apparatus and method based on a voice command. The mash-up service generation apparatus includes a voice recognizer configured to convert a voice command into a character string, a mash-up natural language processor configured to extract a word corresponding to a mash-up module based on the character string, and convert the word into at least one of metadata of the mash-up module and metadata of a mash-up sequence in which a plurality of mash-up modules are combined, and a mash-up sequence processor configured to search for and select a target mash-up sequence corresponding to the metadata of the mash-up sequence, and newly generate the target mash-up sequence. Accordingly, a customized mash-up service can be provided to a user.

1. Technical Field
Example embodiments of the present invention relate in general to a mash-up service generation apparatus and method and more specifically to a mash-up service generation apparatus and method based on a voice command.
2. Related Art
Generally, mash-up denotes combining and applying various types of contents or services to generate new contents or services. Here, the various types of contents or services may be configured with a program module called a block. The mash-up denotes a web-based data integration application, and may be generated using a mash-up authoring tool that connects or combines a plurality of the above-described blocks. As a detailed example of the mash-up, there is an application in which a map service of Daum is combined with a photograph service of Naver. When a user clicks a specific position of a map with a mouse, the above-described mash-up allows photographs associated with the clicked position to be displayed on the map.
Here, in a general mash-up working process, a mash-up developer designs a kind of mash-up to produce, and searches for and selects a plurality of open application interfaces (APIs) to be used to produce the designed mash-up. The mash-up developer analyzes a map open API of Daum and an open API of Naver, and checks characteristics of the respective open API services, namely, blocks. Here, the characteristics of the blocks may be, for example, a communication protocol (a code), a data format, and a type of input/output data.
That is, a mash-up authoring apparatus places or arranges open APIs, namely, blocks, and connects inputs and outputs of the respective blocks using a data format of the input and output of each of the blocks. Also, the mash-up authoring apparatus specifies scripts or codes.
Recently, demand and supply for lots of smartphones, tablet personal computers (PCs), etc. are increasing, and a manipulation scheme of mobile equipment is becoming diversified in proportion to the demand and supply. Also, recently, due to the spread of smart devices and the generalization of open services (open APIs), users require various additional services.
However, a current service merely provides simple voice recognition and a unilateral response, namely, a secretary-type response, and cannot use a multimedia service function that is a characteristic of smart equipment. For this reason, the current service cannot be customized and provided to a user. Such a problem occurs because there are no method and apparatus that combine open APIs to automatically generate a new mash-up service.
In other words, a general mash-up service generation apparatus generates a mash-up service using a difficult programming that requires the use of a keyboard and a mouse, without using the newest function such as voice recognition.
The general mash-up service generation apparatus is difficult to be implemented in an environment in which a resource is limited, and has a problem that general users lacking programming knowledge cannot conveniently generate a general mash-up service.

Mash-up service generation apparatus and method based on voice command

ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE


Corrosion resistance of metallic components such as stainless steel components of vehicles, and especially aluminum-based components of aircraft, is enhanced by application of an e-coat paint or primer which is enhanced by incorporation of cerium ions into the e-coat electrolytic bath. The resulting overall coating includes a cerium-based layer under a cerium-enhanced e-coat paint or primer layer.

This invention relates to a method for enhancing the corrosion resistance of metallic components, especially steel, galvanized steel, aluminum, and aluminum alloys, by deposition of a cerium-based coating thereon. The invention has particular application for aerospace structural components such as aircraft skin, wing skin and other sheet components manufactured from aluminum or aluminum alloys, especially sheet and bulk structural pieces, or in other applications where long-term corrosion resistance is desired.
Many aerospace components are constructed from aluminum or aluminum alloys due to their superior strength to weight ratio. Aluminum and aluminum alloys, however, are subject to corrosion upon exposure to water condensed from humid air and contaminated from other sources with salt, rain, snow, ocean salt, salt applied to runways, and other environmental conditions, which can lead to catastrophic failure. Many steel and galvanized steel components used in the aircraft, automobile, and other industries are also exposed to such conditions. Aluminum corrosion is an electrochemical process involving dissolution of metal at anodic sites according to the reaction Al→Al3++3e−. At cathodic sites the reduction of oxygen and evolution of hydrogen occur according to the reactions O2+2H2O+4e−→4OH− and 2H−+2e−→H2. Corrosion inhibition is accomplished by reducing the rates at which these reactions occur.
Heretofore the corrosion resistance of aluminum and aluminum alloys has been enhanced by the use of chromate conversion coatings. A conversion coating is a coating consisting of metallic salts, such as chromate, which form during and after dissolution of a metallic element, such as chromium or aluminum, or are precipitated from salts onto a substrate. A disadvantage of chromate coatings, however, is their toxicity, as ingestion or inhalation of chromates has been determined to cause kidney failure, liver damage, blood disorders, lung cancer and eventually death. Chromium is among the Environmental Protection Agency's leading toxic substances since in its hexavalent form it is a known carcinogen and is environmentally hazardous as a waste product. Many of the major environmental laws which are in force today unfavorably impact the use of chromate materials and processes. OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) requirements permit only 1 μg/m3 of insoluable chromate in the air space per 10 hour day. The chromating processes generate large volumes of hazardous wastes. Due to the health risks and inevitable government regulation associated with the application of chromate materials and their disposal, there has been a worldwide research effort to develop alternative coatings which are technically equivalent but do not pose an environmental risk.
Corrosion resistance has also been enhanced by anodizing. However, anodizing is known to cause fatigue problems leading to failure of aluminum components.
The effectiveness of cerium salts (along with other rare-earth salts) as a potential replacement to chromates for aluminum alloys was demonstrated in 1984 by Hinton et al. at the Aeronautical Research Laboratory of Australia. Hinton et al. found that after immersing an aluminum alloy in a solution containing cerium chloride for several days, a yellowish film was formed which provided significant corrosion protection for the alloy upon subsequent exposure to NaCl solution. Over the decade, cerium salts have attracted attention as an effective corrosion inhibitor because they are not toxic and are relatively inexpensive.
The degree of protection provided to the aluminum strongly depended on the time of immersion in the CeCl3 solution. To achieve significant protection, an immersion time of at least 100 hours was generally required, which makes this process commercially unattractive. Further studies by Hinton et al. have shown that the cerium-containing films could be produced cathodically by polarizing an aluminum alloy specimen in 1000 ppm CeCl3 aqueous solution for 30 minutes. However, this cathodic coating was inhomogeneous, had poor adhesion and provided much less protection than the film formed by immersion. Hinton attributed these problems to the presence of small holes formed in the coating by evolving hydrogen, which was overcome by electrodeposition from an organic butylcellosolve solution containing 10,000 ppm Ce(NO3)3. This cathodic film with a network of cracks exhibited a five-fold improvement in corrosion resistance over that of the uncoated alloy, but was inferior to those coatings formed by the immersion process.
The possibility of obtaining a suitable cerium dip coating more quickly by utilizing an oxidizing agent has been explored. Wilson and Hinton developed a patented process to produce Ce(IV) coatings using hydrogen peroxide. This technique involved a simple addition of 1˜5% H2O2 into a solution of 10,000 ppm CeCl3 at 50° C. A yellowish coating was readily formed on aluminum alloys between 2 and 10 minutes. The main advantage of this process was that it did not require a cathodic potential to form a coating in a reasonable time. The coating exhibits good adhesion to the substrate and to paint films. Regarding its corrosion protection, however, this coating did not perform as well as the films made by the long-term immersion process. Scanning electron microscope characterizations revealed the existence of heavily cracked regions which are considerably greater than the average thickness of the film.
Another dip process involving cerium compounds was developed by Mansfeld et al. Aluminum alloy coupons were first boiled in Ce(NO3)3 for 2 hours, then boiled in CeCl3 for another 2 hours. In the last step, an electrochemical treatment was applied by which the samples were polarized in deaerated 0.1 M Na2MoO4 at a potential of +500 mV vs. SCE for 2 hours. This process was successfully applied to the corrosion protection of aluminum alloy 6013-T6, which showed no signs of localized corrosion after 60 days′ exposure to 0.5 M NaCl solution.
When this process was applied to aluminum alloys with higher alloy contents such as 7075-T6 and-2024-T3, less satisfactory results were obtained. Al 2024 alloys showed pitting after 1 day of exposure to the NaCl solution. Mansfeld et al. reported an improved process based on a pretreatment step. Prior to the cerium dip process, aluminum alloy 2024 or 7075 was polarized at −55mV (vs. SCE) in a solution containing 0.5 M NaNO3 acidified to a pH of 1 using HCl, or dip in an acidic chromate solution following a 20 vol % HNO3 solution immersion for 1 minute. The modified process was reported to improve the pitting resistance of both 2024 and 7075 aluminum alloys.
Stoffer et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,923,083) disclosed a process for the electrodeposition of Ce-based corrosion resistant coatings on Al and Al alloy substrates.
E-coating, or electrocoating, is typically a barrier-type coating process involving an electrolyte containing paint which is deposited on a substrate upon application of current. It has the advantage that it coats irregularly shaped objects. A disadvantage of existing e-coating processes is that once the coating is broken, chipped, or otherwise compromised, there are no corrosion inhibitors in the paint to leach out and protect metal exposed by the compromise.

Additive-assisted, cerium-based, corrosion-resistant e-coating


A recognizer is provided with a priori probability values (e.g., from some previous recognition) indicating how likely the various words of the recognizer's vocabulary are to occur in the particular context, and recognition "scores" are weighted by these values before a result (or results) is chosen. The recognizer also employs "pruning" whereby low-scoring partial results are discarded, so as to speed the recognition process. To avoid premature pruning of the more likely words, probability values are applied before the pruning decisions are made. A method of applying these probability values is described.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to apparatus and method for use in speech recognition.
2. Related Art
The speech recogniser to be described finds application in situations where a recognition process is to be undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining which one of a vocabulary of words (or, more generally, utterances) an input voice signal most clearly resembles, and information is available as to the a priori probabilities associated with the words of the vocabulary. One example of such a situation is the automatic telephone directory enquiry system described in our co-pending International patent application No. WO95/02524. In that system,
(i) the user speaks the name of a town; PA1 (ii) a speech recogniser, by reference to stored town data identifies several towns as having the closest matches to the spoken town name, and produces a "score" or probability indicating the closeness of the match; PA1 (iii) a list is compiled of all road names occurring in the identified towns; PA1 (iv) the user speaks the name of a road; PA1 (v) the speech recogniser identifies several road names, of the ones in the list, having the closest matches to the spoken road name, again with scores; PA1 (vi) the road scores are each weighted accordingly to the score obtained for the town the road is located in, and the most likely "road" result considered to be the one with the best weighted score. PA1 repetitively comparing portions of an unknown utterance with reference models to generate, for each of a plurality of allowable sequences of reference utterances defined by stored data defining such sequences, accumulated measures of similarity including contributions from previously generated measures obtained from comparison of one or more earlier portions of the utterance with a reference model or models corresponding to an earlier utterance or utterances in the respective allowable sequence, excluding from further repetitive comparison any sequence for which the accumulated measure is, to a degree defined by a predetermined pruning criterion, less indicative of similarity than the measures for other such sequences, and weighting the accumulated measures in accordance with weighting factors for each of the allowed sequences wherein the weighting is performed by weighting each computation of a measure or accumulated measure for a partial sequence by combined values of the weighting factors for each of the allowable sequences which commence with that partial sequence, less any such weighting factors applied to a measure generated in respect of an utterance or shorter sequence with which that partial sequence commences. PA1 storage means for storing data relating to reference models representing utterances and data defining allowable sequences of reference utterances; PA1 comparing means to repetitively compare portions of an unknown utterance with reference models to generate, for each of a plurality of allowable sequences of reference utterances defined by stored data defining such sequences, accumulated measures of similarity including contributions from previously generated measures obtained from comparison of one or more earlier portions of the utterance with a reference model or models corresponding to an earlier utterance or utterances in the respective allowable sequence; PA1 and means operable to weight the accumulated measures in accordance with weighting factors for each of the allowed sequences wherein the weighting means is operable to weight a measure or accumulated measure for a partial sequence by combined values of the weighting factors for each of the allowable sequences which commence with that partial sequence, less any such weighting factors applied to a measure generated in respect of an utterance or shorter sequence with which that partial sequence commences. PA1 combining, for each node, the values of the weighting factor(s) for each of the allowable sequence(s) which commence with a partial sequence incorporating the node less any weighting factors applied to an utterance or shorter sequence with which that partial sequence commences.
The a priori probabilities do not necessarily have to originate from a preceding speech recognition process; for example another directory enquiry system, also described in the above-noted patent application, uses signals identifying the origin of a call to access statistical information as to the most likely towns to be wanted by an enquirer from that area to weight the results of a town name recognition process.
This process has the advantage of reliability--the retention of, for example, the second choice towns does not result in the selection of a road in that town unless that road scores markedly better in the road name recognition step than the first choice town. A disadvantage of this process however is that because the recogniser, when performing the road-name recognition step, produces only a limited number of candidate road names, it is possible that this short-list of road names may contain only the names of roads located in the more poorly-scoring towns--i.e. poorly-scoring road names, of roads located in high-scoring towns, have already been "pruned out" by the recogniser before the weighting process can be applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,803 describes a speech recognition apparatus in which the a priori probabilities relate to the given context of one or more patterns that have previously been recognised. A language score indicative of the probability of a certain word occurring after another certain word is combined with the score obtained for a sequence containing those words.

Speech recognition incorporating a priori probability weighting factors

British Telecommunications public Limited Company


Systems and methods for managing deployment of an update to computing devices, and for diagnosing issues with such deployment, are provided. An update deployment manager determines one or more initial computing devices to receive and execute an update. The update deployment manager further monitors a set of performance metrics with respect to the initial computing devices or a collection of computing devices. If a deployment issue is detected based on the monitored metrics, the update deployment manager may attempt to diagnosis the deployment issue. For example, the update deployment manager may determine that a specific characteristic of computing devices is associated with the deployment issue. Thereafter, the update deployment manager may modify future deployment based on the diagnosis (e.g., to exclude computing devices likely to experience the deployment issue).

Generally described, computing devices utilize a communication network, or a series of communication networks, to exchange data. Companies and organizations operate computer networks that interconnect a number of computing devices to support operations or provide services to third parties. The computing systems can be located in a single geographic location or located in multiple, distinct geographic locations (e.g., interconnected via private or public communication networks). Specifically, data centers or data processing centers, herein generally referred to as a "data center," may include a number of interconnected computing systems to provide computing resources to users of the data center. The data centers may be private data centers operated on behalf of an organization or public data centers operated on behalf, or for the benefit of, the general public.
To facilitate increased utilization of data center resources, individual computing devices within a data center may be configured to provide specific functionality according to the requirements of the data center. For example, various computing devices may be associated with different operating systems or operating system configurations to enable a computing device to provide different desired functionalities, or to provide similar functionalities more efficiently. Moreover, virtualization technologies may allow a single physical computing device to host one or more instances of a virtual machine (e.g., a virtual computing device), which virtual computing device instance appears to a user of a data center as an independent computing device. With virtualization, the host computing device can create, maintain, delete, or otherwise manage virtual computing device instances in a dynamic manner. In turn, users can request computing resources from the data center, including single computing devices or a configuration of networked computing devices, and be provided with virtual computing device instances that provide the requested computing resources.
An individual computing device or instance of a virtual computing device may be configured to provide specific functionality. For example, a computing device (e.g., physical or virtual) may be associated with different combinations of software applications and operating systems or operating system configurations to enable the computing device to provide different desired functionalities, or to provide similar functionalities more efficiently. Software and software configurations (e.g., operating systems, applications, drivers, modules, etc., and configurations thereof) are often contained within updates or update packages which a computing device may execute in order to implement a desired specific functionality corresponding to the contents of the update.
Due to various configurations of computing devices (e.g., physical or virtual), updates may cause differing effects across computing devices. For example, in some instances, updates may be associated with unintended consequences such as increased processing power utilization, decreased response time or failures. These unintended consequences may result from errors within the update, errors within the computing device, incompatibilities between the update and computing device, etc. In other instances, updates may fail to be implemented by a computing device, or may result in errors. The failure of updates to be implemented, or the causing of negative consequences by implementation of an update, may negatively impact the ability of the computing device to provide desired services.