The present invention involves methods and compositions for treating, preventing, and diagnosing amyloid-associated diseases and conditions, as well as methods and compositions for making antigens that elicit antibodies which selectively or specifically bind amyloid prefibrillar oligomers or protofibrillar aggregates over monomers or fibrils of the same amyloid.

Many biological functions come about, at least in part, due to the ability of proteins to adopt various sequence-dependent structures. However, particularly, although not exclusively, with regard to neural functions, certain proteins can sometimes form aberrant, misfolded, aggregates known as amyloid oligomers and amyloid fibrils following expression of the protein. These amyloid aggregates are associated with and thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of various amyloid diseases of genetic, infectious and/or spontaneous origin, including spongiform encephalopathies, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, type II diabetes, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Huntington's disease, possibly macular degeneration, various prion diseases and numerous others. In at least some of these amyloid diseases, the formation of amyloid oligomers precedes and appear to lead to the development of amyloid fibril plaques.
Amyloid peptides are the principal constituent of amyloid plaques. In the case of Alzheimer's disease ("AD"), the peptides are termed Aβ or β-amyloid peptide. Aβ peptide is an internal proteolytic fragment of 39 to 43 amino acids of amyloid precursor protein (APP). The normal function of full-length APP is not definitively known, but it is thought to be associated with neuronal development. Aβ monomers are soluble and appear to be harmless in solution, but undergo a major conformational change at sufficiently high concentration, and thereafter form amyloid oligomers or fibrils that deposit within neurons or outside the neurons.
Several mutations within the APP protein have been correlated with the presence of AD. See, for example, Goate et al., Nature, (1991) 349, 704 (valine to isoleucine); Chartier Harlan et al., Nature (1991)353, 844 (valine to glycine); Murrell et al. Science (1991) 254, 97 (valine to phenylalanine); Mullan et al., Nature Genet. (1992) 1, 345 (a double mutation changing lysine595-methionine596 to asparagine595-leucine596). Such mutations are thought to cause AD by producing an increased or altered processing of APP to Aβ. In particular, the processing of APP resulting in accumulation of the longer forms of Aβ, for example, A1-42 and A1-43 is thought to be important in the cause of AD. Mutations in other genes, such as the presenilin genes PS1 and PS2, are thought to indirectly affect processing of APP resulting in production of the long form of Aβ. See, for example, Hardy, TINS (1997) 20, 154.
European Patent Publication EP 526,511 (McMichael) and PCT International Patent Publication WO/9927944 (Schenk) have described the administration of Aβ to patients for the treatment or prevention of Alzheimer's. However, although active immunization of Aβ to transgenic mice produces apparent benefits, the extension of this approach to AD patients has resulted in undesirable inflammation of the central nervous system in some of the subjects. See Hardy, D. J. Selkoe (2002) Science 297, 353-356.
Soluble Aβ includes Aβ monomers as well as soluble aggregations of such monomers referred to as "oligomers" or "prefibrillar oligomers" or "protofibrillar aggregates". These oligomers or prefibrillar oligomers or protofibrillar aggregates may eventually lead to the development of amyloid fibrils. Soluble Aβ content of the human brain is better correlated with the severity of AD than is the accumulation of amyloid plaques. See, for example, Y. M. Kuo et al. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271, 4077-4081; C. A. McLean et al. (1999) Annals of Neurology 46, 860-6; L. F. Lue et al. (1999) American Journal of Pathology 155, 853-862. In addition, recent reports suggest that the toxicity of Aβ and other amyloidogenic proteins lies not in the soluble monomers or insoluble fibrils that accumulate, but rather in the oligomers or oligomer prefibrillar oligomer or protofibrillar aggregates. See, for example, Hartley et al. (1999), Journal of Neuroscience 19, 8876-8884; Lambert et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (1998) 95, 6448-53; and Bucciantini et al., Nature (2002) 416, 507-511; and Hartley et al. Nature (2002) 418, 291. Taken together, these results indicate that the appearance of oligomers or prefibrillar oligomers or protofibrillar aggregates may be considerably more pathologically significant than of other forms of the amyloid peptides and therefore may be a more desirable target in the prevention or curing of amyloid diseases such as AD.
There is therefore a need for the development of antigens capable of producing antibodies which selectively or specifically bind to and/or sequester the toxic form of amyloid, thereby inhibiting the pathogenesis, or slowing the progression of amyloid diseases. In addition, such antigens, may be useful in designing and purifying such antibodies. Further, therapeutic agents comprising at least one such antibody may be useful and a prophylactic against the development of the symptoms of AD, such as, without limitation, loss of memory (amnesia), language impairment (aphasia), impairment of skilled movements (apraxia), recognition (agnosia) and decision making and planning functions characteristic of the frontal lobe of the brain, and well as the symptoms of other amyloid diseases.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Methods and compositions for eliciting an amyloid-selective immune response

The Regents of the University of California


A mouse controller includes a platform mounted on a base for a range of movement in a plane relative to the base of at least ½ inch (12.5 mm) in each of two different directions (preferably mutually perpendicular directions). A pair of flat, elongated coils (Lorentz voice coils) are mounted on the platform with their longitudinal axes extending one in each of the two directions. Each of the coils cooperates with at least one magnet fixed to the base. The sizes of the magnets and of the coils and the relative positions of the cooperating coils and magnets are made or their operation controlled so that, in the range of relative movement between the platform and base, preselected forces between the coils and the magnets may be generated by a control computer. Preferably the projected area of the field from each of the permanent magnets onto the coil with which it cooperates will be substantially constant regardless of the position of the platform within the range so that the same current is required to generate the same force anywhere within the range. The control computer is programmed to activate the coils to controllably apply forces to the platform and thereby to facilitate movement of the platform and feed back tactile sensations to the operator.

The concept of applying force feedback to a manual controller has been advanced and in fact implemented.
An article entitled Computing with Feeling by Atkinson et al in Computers and Graphics, Volume II, 1977, pp. 97 to 103, describes providing a "touchy, feely" and "touchy, twisty" to the operator so that the operator has the feel of the actions taking place. These force feedback sensations were created for molecular designs and models, etc.
A paper entitled Artificial Reality with Force Feedback; Development of Desktop Virtual Space and Compact Master Manipulator in Siggraph, Dallas, Aug. 6-10, 1990. Iwata describes a force feedback system with a human interface for manipulation of mock ups of solid objects and a paper entitled Creating an Illusion of Feel; Control Issues and Force Display, Sep. 16, 1989 Ouh-Young et al. describes the use of force feedback to create an illusion of feel. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration in an Abstract publication NASA Technology Transfer Division-Force Feedback Control May 1990 describes the use of force feedback to repel the controller and create the illusion the cursor should not cross boundaries of images, or that the cursor is attracted toward a point and to guide the operators hand in following a straight line or even along a curve.
To advance further the feedback to the operator requires control of the element manipulated by the operator, e.g. the joystick.
U.S. PAT. NO. 3,919,691 issued Nov. 11, 1975 to Noel discloses gantry mounted platform movement which is controllable in two mutually perpendicular directions by electromagnetic motors and cable or belt drives to the gantry system to impede the movement of the control platform in the two mutually perpendicular directions.
U.S. PAT. NO. 4,868,549 issued Sep. 19, 1989 to Affinito et al applies brakes to a ball in two mutually perpendicular directions. The brakes are operated by a computer to provide force feedback means to resist motion of the mouse or cursor.


A self-healing polymer network containing a physical crosslinking agent, a composition therefor, and an optical element comprising the same is provided. The self-healing polymer network comprises a polymer derived from monomers including self-healing monomers each having a first polymerizable functional group and at least one of urethane, urea, or amide group chemically linked to the first polymerizable functional group, wherein the polymer has a backbone formed by polymerizing the first polymerizable functional groups of the self-healing monomers and a plurality of side groups each having at least one of urethane, urea, or amide group chemically linked to the backbone. In addition, the self-healing polymer network comprises a physical crosslinking agent which is an alcohol mixture having at least two of monool, diol, triol, and tetraol or the higher polyol and crosslinking the polymer by physically crosslinking the urethane, urea, or amide group of the side groups.

In general, a polymer product or a polymer composite product has a limit of use due to the expansion of damage initiated by a micro crack. Until recently, in the case of polymers or polymer composites used in aircraft or automobiles, mechanical strength loss caused by micro cracks can cause enormous human and property losses. In addition, in the field of flexible display, which is rapidly developing in recent years, there is much interest in polymers or polymer composites that can overcome or recover damage caused by repeated and continuously generated external force, and various research and development are in progress.
The first methodological proposal of self-healing for polymers is proposed by Professor S. R. White (White, Scott R., et al. "Autonomic healing of polymer composites" Nature 409.6822 (2001): 794-797). This was a method using a metathesis polymerization technique by adding an agent promoting the polymerization in a capsule form in the process of preparing a polymer. However, this is limited in the number of self-healing, and can cause a variety of problems, such as the healed portion is inhomogeneous because it is healed through additional polymerization.

Self-healing polymer network containing physical crosslinker, composition therefor, and optical element comprising the same

INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY COOPERATION FOUNDATION HANYANG UNIVERSITY


A common set of building block action modules perform specific tasks in the finite state machine and are strongly modular in structure. The set of building block action modules can be made up of modules for tasks generic to resource type and modules that are resource type independent. A finite state machine is created for each resource type to govern the steps of activation and deactivation of the resource. Each finite state machine, uniquely defines the new state and action processing for each resource type. To tie the building block action modules to each finite state machine, action vectors are created for each resource type. The action vector correlates a particular action selection by the finite state machine to the dispatching of one or more building block action modules. An action vector can contain a plurality of elements. Each of these elements identifies an action module to which control is passed and a function request pointer. The function pointer identifies the specific function to be performed by the designated action module. The building block action modules are invoked in the order of occurrence of the elements in the action vector.

1. Technical Field
The invention disclosed broadly relates to data processing systems and more particularly relates to a system and method for finite state machine processing in a multi-resource, multi-process environment.
2. Background Art
Finite state machines (FSM) are commonly used in the implementation of telecommunications protocols and of input/output processors because finite state machines define all possible conditions completely and unambiguously. Unfortunately, a finite state machine designed for complete coverage, defines a set of "actions" which, when implemented, result in a code set which is extensive and complex.
Furthermore, it is quite common that a system which employs a finite state machine will be required to support multiple finite state machines. Such a system may be implementing different protocols or different node types implementing these protocols. Each of these node types requires a separate finite state machine.
The process carried out by a finite state machine will have many component processes or actions. The actions may have slight functional differences, depending on the type of process performed or they may vary by their sequence of execution. The desirability of modular design becomes difficult to achieve under these conditions.
One particular problem occurs when a system must support multiple and various types of resources. Each resource type will require service by its own finite state machine. In addition, there may be a demand for concurrent access to the finite state machine by other system processes. In addition, since new resource types may be added in the future, the implementation of new action processes will yield an unmanageable mass of code for its implementation.
In order to solve this problem, an action process structure must be developed that provides for modularity of design, concurrent access to finite state machines, and ease of maintenance.
A particular instance of this problem can occur as follows. An application may require that resource types have various types of link connections in an advanced peer-to-peer network (APPN). Advanced peer-to-peer networking is an extension to system network architecture (SNA) featuring greater distributed network control that avoids critical hierarchical dependencies, thereby isolating the effects of single-point failures. APPN also features dynamic exchange of network topology information to foster ease of connection and reconfiguration, adaptive route selection, and simplified network definition. APPN also features automated resource registration and directory look-up. APPN extends the logical unit 6.2 (LU 6.2) peer orientation for end user services to network control. APPN also uses LU 6.2 protocols in its control point sessions that provide the network control.
The particular problem application may have a large set of link connections, each one of the link types requiring its own finite state machine processing. The problem application may also have multiple processes that may need to perform finite state machine processing, concurrently. The problem application may also operate in an environment where one process will access the finite state machine processor, only to be interrupted by another higher priority process. Still further, the application problem may have different link connection types where there is a common collection of tasks that could be executed as actions resulting from finite state machine processing.
In a complex problem application such as this, the amount of code necessary to define the variety of finite state machines needed to carry out the application, becomes prohibitively large.

System and method for finite state machine processing using action vectors

International Business Machines Corporation


The instant invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for determining a set of large sequences from an electronic data base comprising a set D={d1, . . . , dn} of transactions di (1≦i≦n) in a computer system with an implemented query module, each of the large sequences on the set D of transactions di having a support value greater than or equal to a given support value S, each of the transactions di of the set D being a sequence of items of a record E={e1, . . . , em} of items ej (1≦j≦m). A set Lk (k>2) of large sequences is determined from the set D of transactions, the large sequences of set Lk each comprising exactly k items of record E in a respective order RLK, and an associated support value SLK on the sequence D of transactions each being greater than or equal to the given support value S, and nothing but sequences comprising two of the large sequences of set Lk−1, as partly overlapping partial sequences, with the respective order RLK−1, being taken into account in determining set Lk.

In sequential analyses sequences of items are extracted from transactional electronic data. As more and more transactional data are acquired electronically sequential analysis becomes more important.
A practical example of a sequential analysis is the clickstream analysis for calculating typical user paths of Web site users. Further examples of sequential analyses are text analysis for extracting characteristic series of words in electronically memorized documents and the analysis of baskets of merchandise taking into account the order of products in trade to define typical product chain purchases. Moreover, sequential analyses are widely used in chemistry and genetics.
A great number of specialized methods of sequential analysis are known to date, especially in genetics. However, very few of them are universally applicable. In the simplest case, all variants of possible sequences are studied as regards their frequency. But for reasons of computer capacity that can be done only for small amounts of data. Sequential analysis algorithms based on search trees present an alternative, such as the algorithm "Capri" by Messrs. Lumio. Yet their speed, too, is insufficient for analyzing large transaction data. Methods based on the classical analysis of baskets of merchandise offer a quicker alternative and have already been used for sequential analysis of baskets of merchandise (Agrawal R., Srikant R., Mining Sequential Patterns. IBM Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose).

Method and apparatus for determining a set of large sequences from an electronic data base


A rubber-modified asphalt composition is provided. The asphalt composition includes asphalt, a rubber including at least high vinyl poly(conjugated diene), and at least one phenolic curing resin. The high vinyl poly(conjugated diene) has a vinyl content of at least 35%. The use of phenolic curing agents results in improvements to the softening point of the present asphalt composition while also improving toughness and tenacity.

This invention relates to asphalt compositions. More specifically, this invention relates to rubber-modified asphalt compositions with improved softening points.
Asphalt has become an important material for building and repairing roads. It is also used in applications such as roofing and weather sealing. The estimated annual use of asphalt in the United States alone is more than 13 million kilograms.
The addition of rubber to asphalt can improve properties such as crack resistance, softening points, viscosity, tensile strength, elongation, toughness, and tenacity. It has also been shown that curing agents can be used to further improve asphalt properties. Sulfur is a commonly used curing agent for rubber-modified asphalt compositions. However, large amounts of sulfur are needed to fully cure the compositions and sulfur demonstrates a tendency to form gels.
Phenolic resins recently have been used as curing agents for rubber-modified asphalt compositions. Phenolic resins are inexpensive and easily made and have been employed in a variety of applications including coatings, dispersions, adhesives, molding compounds, and laminates.
It would be desirable to develop a better phenolic-cured rubber system for use in asphalt compositions to improve the softening point of the asphalt as well as the toughness and tenacity.
A rubber-modified asphalt composition is provided. The asphalt composition includes asphalt, a rubber including at least high vinyl poly(conjugated diene), and at least one phenolic curing resin. The high vinyl poly(conjugated diene) has a vinyl content of at least 35%. In another embodiment, a method for forming the aforementioned asphalt composition is provided.
Asphalt compositions containing high vinyl rubbers cured with phenolic curing resins exhibit desirable properties. The use of phenolic curing agents results in improvements to the softening point of the present asphalt composition while also improving toughness and tenacity. As known to the skilled artisan, tenacity levels represent the strength and durability of the asphalt compositions. Specifically, tenacity is a measurement of the resilience of an asphalt composition at room temperature. The softening point of the present asphalt compositions is preferably between about 40 and 100xc2x0 C., more preferably between about 60 and 80xc2x0 C. The tenacity of the present compositions is preferably between about 35 and 150 cm-kg, more preferably greater than about 40 cm-kg. The toughness of the present compositions is preferably greater than about 90 cm-kg, more preferably greater than about 100 cm-kg.
The asphalt composition includes asphalt, a rubber including at least high vinyl poly(conjugated diene), and at least one phenolic curing resin. The high vinyl poly(conjugated diene) has a vinyl content of at least 35%.
Asphalts, as used herein, include cementitious materials in which the predominating constituents are bitumens that occur in nature or are obtained in petroleum processing. Bitumen is a term which encompasses cementitious substances, natural or manufactured, composed principally of high molecular weight hydrocarbons, of which asphalts, tars, pitches, and asphalitites are typical. Asphalts are often classified as solids, semisolids, or liquids. They are often defined as the manufactured materials that are produced during petroleum processing. Asphalts characteristically contain very high molecular weight molecular polar species, called asphaltenes, which are soluble in carbon disulfide, pyridine, aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, and tetrahydrofuran (THF). Asphalts produced from the refining of petroleum have been used primarily in paving and roofing applications.
A preferred rubber is at least a poly(conjugated diene). Exemplary conjugated diene contributed monomer units include 1,3-butadiene, isoprene, 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene, and 1,3-pentadiene. Preferred conjugated diene contributed monomer units are 1,3-butadiene and isoprene. The rubber may include more than one conjugated diene contributed monomer unit, such as, for example, the rubber may be a poly(1,3-butadiene-co-isoprene).
In addition, the rubber may also contain additional monomer contributed units. Exemplary monomer contributed units include vinyl-substituted aromatic hydrocarbons. Suitable vinyl-substituted aromatic hydrocarbons include styrene, xcex1-methylstyrene, 1-vinylnaphthalene, 2-vinylnaphthalene, 1-xcex1-methyl vinylnaphthalene, 2-xcex1-methyl vinylnaphthalene, as well as alkyl, cycloalkyl, aryl, alkaryl, and aralkyl derivatives thereof, and di-or tri-vinyl aromatic hydrocarbons. A preferred vinyl-substituted aromatic hydrocarbon is styrene. The rubber is preferably any of poly(1,3-butadiene), styrene-butadiene diblock polymers, as well as any styrene-butadiene block or random polymers, and mixtures thereof.
The rubber compositions can be vinyl-modified to create high vinyl conjugated diene monomer units. A 1,2-microstructure controlling agent or randomizing modifier may be used to control the vinyl content in the conjugated diene contributed monomer units. To achieve the high vinyl structure, the microstructure can be adjusted through the use of standard 1,2-microstructure controlling agents such as ethers, tertiary amines, chelating ethers or amines, and sodium or potassium alkoxides or alkyls to increase the 1,2-addition reaction of the conjugated diene monomers. Moreover, as used herein, the vinyl content of the conjugated diene means the percentage of conjugated diene monomer units which have undergone 1,2-addition reactions in the polymerization resulting in pendant vinyl groups along the backbone of the polymer chain.
Suitable modifying agents are known in the art and are chosen from hexamethylphosphoric acid triamide, N,N,Nxe2x80x2,Nxe2x80x2-tetramethylethylene diamine, ethylene glyclol dimethyl ethyer, diethylene glycol dimethyl ether, triethylene gylcol dimethyl ether, tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether, THF, 1,4-diazabicyclo [2.2.2] octane, diethyl ethyer, triethylamine, tri-n-butylphosphine, p-dioxane, 1,2-dimethyoxy ethane, dimethyl ether, methyl ethyl ether, ethyl propyl ether, di-n-propyl ether, di-n-octyl ether, anisole, dibenzyl ether, diphenyl ether, dimethylethylamine, bis-oxalanyl propane, tri-n-propyl amine, trimethyl amine, triethyl amine, N,N-dimethyl aniline, N-ethylpiperidine, N-methyl-N-ethyl aniline, N-methylmorpholine, tetramethylenediamine, oligomeric oxolanyl propanes, 2,2-bis-(4-methyl dioxane), bistetrahydrofuryl propane, and mixtures thereof These modifying agents may be employed in amounts generally ranging from about 1:100 to 100:1 molar ratio of modifier to anionic initiator.
The 1,2-addition product can be increased from about the 5-15% range, common in non-modified polymers, to as high as about 90% of the conjugated diene monomer units being incorporated into the conjugated diene segments of the rubber. The rubber preferably has a vinyl content greater than 35%, more preferably between about 40 and 90%, most preferably between about 50 and 90%.
The rubber compositions may also be further functionalized to contain different organic functional groups useful in the formation of the asphalt compositions. Suitable functional groups include carboxy, hydroxy, formyl, amino, halo, and alkyl.
The rubber composition is cured with at least one phenolic curing resin. Phenolic resins are the reaction product of phenols, or substituted phenols, and aldehydes in the presence of an acidic or basic catalyst. Suitable phenols are one or more of phenol, m-cresol, p-cresol, o-cresol, p-t-butylphenol, p-octylphenol, p-nonylphenol, p-phenylphenol, bisphenol A, resorcinol, cashew nutshell liquid, and mixtures thereof. Suitable aldehydes for phenolic resin formation include formaldehyde, gaseous formalin, paraformaldehyde, trioxane, hexamethylenetetramine, acetaldehyde, paraldehyde, glyoxal, fural, and mixtures thereof. These phenols and aldehydes may be used interchangeably, with the primary requirement being the use of any one phenol and any one aldehyde to produce the desired phenolic resin.
The formation of phenolic resins may be catalyzed by acidic, neutral, or basic catalysts. Exemplary strong-acid catalysts include hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, sulfonic acid, oxalic acid, and phosphoric acid. Suitable neutral catalysts include divalent metal catalysts containing Zn, Mg, Mn, Cd, Co, Pb, Cu, Ni, and mixtures thereof Aluminum salts are also effective catalysts. Neutral catalysts are used in conjunction with anions, preferably with organic carboxylates. Basic catalysts suitable for the formation of phenolic resins include NaOH, Ca(OH)2, Ba(OH)2, and mixtures thereof. Suitable phenolic resins for use in the present invention include halomethylated alkyl phenolic resins, methylol phenolformaldehyde resins, and related species.
When asphalt polymer blends are prepared for use, given portions of polymer are blended into the molten asphalt at a specified temperature in conjunction with, or prior to, the addition of a curing agent. The final asphalt composition preferably contains between about 85-99.9 wt % asphalt, between about 1-15 wt % rubber, and between about 0.05-5 wt % phenolic resin. More preferably, the final asphalt composition contains between about 90-99.9 wt % asphalt, between about 5-15 wt % rubber, and between about 0.05-2 wt % phenolic resin.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the rubber compositions are dissolved in molten asphalt at temperatures greater than about 120xc2x0 C. After the rubber has fully dissolved, at least one phenolic resin is added to the composition. Alternatively, the curing agent(s) may be added to the molten asphalt simultaneously with the rubber compositions. The asphalt composition thus formed is a homogeneous mixture after mixing. The mixing temperature is preferably between about 145 and 205xc2x0 C., most preferably between about 160 and 180xc2x0 C. The mixing times are usually between about 30 and 450 minutes, preferably between about 45 and 210 minutes.


A bone anchoring device includes an anchoring element having a shank to be anchored in a bone or a vertebra and a head, a connection element for connecting at least two anchoring elements, a receiving part having a first end receiving the head, wherein the head is pivotable in the receiving part, and a second end comprising a recess for receiving the connection element, a first pressure element which exerts pressure on the head to lock the head in the receiving part, and a second pressure element which exerts pressure on the connection element to press the connection element against the first pressure element. The contour of the surface of at least the first pressure element or the second pressure element facing the connection element deviates from the contour of the surface of the connection element.

A polyaxial bone screw to be connected with a stiff rod, usually made of metal, is known from DE 43 07 576 C1. When using a flexible rod made of an elastic material with such a bone screw, the pressure exerted by the inner fixation screw onto the rod would cause a deformation of the elastic material which could result in loosening of the fixation.
Bone anchoring devices comprising a bone screw and a flexible rod which is made of an elastic material are known from EP 1 364 622 A2 and EP 1 527 742 A1. The rod and the receiving part of the bone screw as well as the closure element comprise geometrically corresponding ribs and grooves in the surface to achieve a form-fit connection. Before fixation, the geometrically corresponding shapes of the rod and the bone screw have to be aligned. This makes the adjustment difficult and time consuming. Furthermore, the receiving part and the shaft of the bone screw are monoaxially connected which further limits the possibility of adjustment of the position of the shaft relative to the rod.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a bone anchoring device which can be used with a flexible connection element made of an elastic material and which allows a polyaxial adjustment of the position of the bone anchoring element relative to the rod while simultaneously providing a safe locking.


In this speech recognition system, the size of the language model is reduced by discarding those n-grams that the acoustic part of the system can recognize most accurately without support from a language model. The n-grams can be discarded dynamically during the running of the system or during the build or setup-time of the system. Trigrams occurring infrequently in the text corpora are substituted for the discarded n-grams to increase the accuracy of the word recognitions.

In speech recognition systems being based on a statistical language model approach instead of being knowledge based, for example the English speech recognition system TANGORA developed by F. Jelinek et al. at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, USA, and published in Proceedings of IEEE 73(1985)11, pp.1616-24), entitled "The development of an experimental discrete dictation recognizer", the recognition process can be subdivided into several steps. The tasks of these steps depicted in FIG. 1 (from article by K. Wothke, U. Bandara, J. Kempf, E. Keppel, K. Mohr, G. Walch (IBM Scientific Center Heidelberg), entitled "The SPRING Speech Recognition System for German", in Proceedings of Eurospeech 89, Paris 26.-28.IX.1989), are
extraction of a sequence of so-called acoustic labels from the speech signal by a signal processor; PA1 fast and detailed acoustic match to find those words which are most likely to produce the observed label sequence; PA1 computation for a sequence of words the probability of their occurrence in the language by means of a statistical language model. PA1 1. The required disk capacity is large and thus the hardware costs of the recognizer unit is expensive; PA1 2. the speed performance of the recognizer becomes increasingly poor due to the long retrieval delay for searching in a large file; PA1 3. it is difficult to port the speech recognizer software to smaller and cheaper computers with relatively slow processor power, e.g. Laptops.
The whole system can be either implemented on a digital computer, for example a personal computer (PC), or implemented on a portable dictaphone or a telephone device. The speech signal is amplified and digitized, and the digitized data are then read into a buffer memory contained for example in the signal processor. From the resulting frequency spectrum a vector of a number of elements is taken and the spectrum is adjusted to account for an ear model.
Each vector is compared with a number of (say 200) speaker dependent prototype vectors. The identification number which is called an acoustic label, of the most similar prototype vector, is taken and sent to the subsequent processing stages. The speaker dependent prototype vectors are generated from language specific prototype vectors during a training phase for the system with a speech sample.
The fast acoustic match determines for every word of a reference vocabulary the probability with which it would have produced the sequence of acoustic labels observed from the speech signal. The probability of a word is calculated until either the end of the word is reached or the probability drops below a pre-specified level. The fast match uses as reference units for the determination of this probability a so-called phonetic transcription for each word in the reference vocabulary, including relevant pronunciation variants, and a hidden Markov model for each allophone used in the phonetic transcription. The phonetic transcriptions are generated by use of a set of phoneticization rules (l.c.)
The hidden Markov model of an allophone describes the probability with which a substring of the sequence of acoustic labels corresponds to the allophone. The Markov models are language specific and the output and transition probabilities are trained to individual speakers. The Markov model of the phonetic transcription of a word is the chain of the Markov models of its allophones.
The statistical language model is one of the most essential parts of a speech recognizer. It is complementary to the acoustic model in that it supplies additional language-based information to the system in order to resolve the uncertainty associated with the word hypothesis proposed by the acoustic side. In practice, the acoustic side proposes a set of possible word candidates with the probabilities being attached to each candidate. The language model, on the other hand, predicts the possible candidates with corresponding probabilities. The system applies maximum likelihood techniques to find the most probable candidate out of these two sets of candidates.
For the purpose of supplying this language-based information, the language model uses a priori computed relative frequencies for word sequences, for practical reasons usually consisting of three words, i.e. trigrams, that are word triplets `w.sub.1 w.sub.2 w.sub.3 `. It is hereby assumed that the probability for `w.sub.3 ` to occur depends on the relative frequencies for `w.sub.3 ` (unigrams), `w.sub.2 w.sub.3 ` (bigrams), and `w.sub.1 w.sub.2 w.sub.3 ` (trigrams) in a given text corpus. For the computation of those frequencies a very large authentic text corpus from the application domain, e.g. real radiological reports or business correspondences, is needed.
The language model receives from the fast acoustic match a set of word candidates. For each of these candidates it determines the probability with which it follows the words which have already been recognized. For this purpose the language model uses probabilities of single words, word pairs, and word triples. These probabilities are estimated for all words in the vocabulary using large text corpora. The word candidates with the highest combined probabilities supplied by the fast match and the language model are selected and passed to the detailed match.
The detailed acoustic match computes for each word received from the language model the probability with which it would produce the acoustic label sequence observed. In contrast to the fast acoustic match, the detailed match does not perform this process for all words of the reference vocabulary but only for those received from the language model, and that it does not use phonetic transcriptions and hidden Markov models of allophones as reference units. Instead, the detailed match uses hidden Markov models of so-called fenemic phones which are artificial sound units which usually correspond to one acoustic label.
The three probabilities of the fast match, of the language model, and of the detailed match are then combined for the most likely sequences. At the end of each hypothesis the fast match, the language model, and the detailed match are started again.
In the field, the foregoing approaches use about 20.000 words to cover at least 95% of words uttered. A large text corpus from the domain is analyzed to get the relative frequencies for all of the occurring unigrams, bigrams and trigrams. The number of theoretically possible trigrams for a vocabulary of 20.000 words is 20.000.sup.3 =9.times.10.sup.12. Only a small fraction of this amount is actually observed. Even then about 170 MB disk capacity is required by the speech recognizer to store a language model file which contains all the trigrams and the corresponding frequencies. This file is used during run time.
There are three adverse effects due to the large size of the language model file:
For the above reasons, the size of the language model used in these prior art speech recognition technology is a trade-off between the retrieval delay and the recognition accuracy. According to this kind of approaches the language model file is compressed by discarding trigrams which have occurred only at a frequency less than a given threshold, e.g. three times less. Thereby the assumption is made that if a certain trigram occurs very seldom in the corpus, then this trigram will most likely not be uttered by the speaker. This approach results in squeezing the size of the language model to achieve high processing speeds, but at a potential loss of recognition accuracy.
During real field applications it is observed that the above assumption is not realistic. In many cases, some trigrams were observed only once not because they are seldom, but the size of the evaluated text corpus was very limited. However, the speakers do utter those socalled singleton trigrams.
There are further prior art techniques, for example a method for compressing a fast match table to save memory space as described in an article by M. Nishimura, in IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin (TDB), No. 1, June 1991, pp.427-29 and entitled "Method for Compressing a Fast Match Table". A further approach relates to a method for compressing a library containing a large number of model utterances for a speech recognition system, which was published by H. Crepy, in IBM TDB, No. 2, February 1988, pp.388-89. The first article discloses a solution by use of a binary tree coding algorithm, the second article by use of common data compression techniques. Particularly, both approaches concern squeezing of the acoustic part of a speech recognizer, and not of the language model size.
The above approaches for compression of language model files have led to compact models in the past, but the resulting recognition error rate was considerably high, because the users have uttered the discarded trigrams, while they were not being supported by the language model. Those systems had to depend solely on the acoustic side. This immediately led to recognition errors for acoustically identical or similar words, e.g. `right`-`write` or `da.beta.`-`das`.
The problem underlying the present invention, therefore, is to provide a mechanism for speech recognizers of the above characteristics which allows a strong reduction of the size of the language model, but avoids the beforehand discussed disadvantages.

Method and apparatus for adapting the language model's size in a speech recognition system


A hydrogen storage and release material is provided in the form of a supportive host component that carries or contains a hydrogen absorbing guest material. Metal compounds, such as oxides, carbides, nitrides, or the like, are prepared to carry polyaromatic molecules that absorb hydrogen in conjugated double bonds. Examples of suitable guest-host materials include layers of vanadium oxide with interacted layers of polyaniline or polythiophene. Dopant elements, like nickel, in the host oxide can enhance hydrogen absorption and de-sorption in the host material.

Hydrogen can serve as a fuel in combustion or electrochemical power-delivering systems, but the storage of hydrogen fuel at moderate pressures and close-to-ambient temperatures is a challenge. For vehicle applications it is necessary to carry sufficient hydrogen on-board for power plant operation over a suitable travel distance before refueling. This requires storing hydrogen in a compact and safe storage vessel from which hydrogen gas can be delivered on demand from an engine, fuel cell, or the like.
Liquefaction of hydrogen would provide a dense storage medium, but it requires very low temperatures that are not practically maintained in most vehicle applications. Progress has been made in temporarily fixing hydrogen in metal hydride compounds but hydrogen storage capacity is low and high temperatures are required for hydrogen release. There remains a need for ways and materials capable of temporarily storing hydrogen for delivery to a vehicle powering device.


An air separation plant producing pressurized gaseous oxygen includes at least one column having a bottom reboiler. The column is fed with a stream of air. The bottom reboiler is warmed by a nitrogen-enriched gas compressed in a cold compressor and pumped liquid oxygen is withdrawn from the bottom of the column, pumped and vaporized. The refrigeration for the process is produced by air expansion in a turbine.

The present invention relates to a process and a plant for separating air by cryogenic distillation, and in particular a process for producing pressurized gaseous oxygen, and possibly gaseous nitrogen, using a single column.
Since the beginning of the century, air distillation has been carried out in a double column comprising a medium-pressure column and a low-pressure column connected by a heat exchanger.
Several solutions have been proposed in various patents to reduce the number of columns from two to one.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,649 describes a solution in which air is compressed before being at least partially introduced into a single column. Such a solution is applicable only if it is desired to produce nitrogen at a pressure substantially higher than atmospheric pressure, especially in the case of integration with a gas turbine. On the other hand, if the pressure of the air delivered by the gas turbine compressor is very high, it is hardly recommendable to use this process since the distillation at high pressure (a pressure above 15 bar) is very difficult and poses not insignificant technological problems when the pressure approaches the supercritical pressure of nitrogen (33 bar). The other drawback of the cycle described in that patent is that the gaseous oxygen is produced at the same pressure as the air sent into the single column.
EP-A-0 584 420 relates to a single column which produces oxygen and nitrogen using a top condenser and two reboilers operating at between 5 and 20 bar. One of the reboilers is warmed with compressed nitrogen at ambient temperature and then cooled.
Patent EP-B-0 606 027 also describes a single-column process for producing pressurized oxygen and/or nitrogen, together with at least one liquid product. Such a process is not beneficial if it is not desired to produce liquid products since the air pressure depends eminently on the amount of liquid produced. When producing no or little liquid, the air pressure is less than 3 bar abs, which poses problems in the design of the top purification, which requires an enormous amount of absorbent, making this process uneconomic. U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,458 also describes an air distillation process using a single column. The main criticism that can be levelled at such an arrangement is that it includes a cold compressor which compresses a fluid very rich in oxygen. Moreover, the compression of the air is conventionally carried out in one or more compressors operating at ambient temperature.
DE-A-1 199 293 describes an air distillation process in which a stream of air is separated in a single column and a stream of liquid oxygen is withdrawn from the bottom of the column and vaporized by heat exchange with a stream of cycle nitrogen compressed in a cold compressor. A portion of the nitrogen compressed in the cold compressor to between 30 and 40 atma serves to reboil the single column. In this case, it is necessary to warm the nitrogen in order to compress it before cooling it and liquefying it against the oxygen which vaporizes. This is expensive in terms of energy and complicates the construction of the exchangers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,980 describes a double-column air distillation process which, in a novel manner, proposes to compress a portion of the air needed for the distillation in a cold compressor. The drawback of such a solution is the complexity of the exchange line from which the cold fluid to be compressed is withdrawn before reintroducing it therein.
In the air distillation processes according to the invention using a single column, a cold compressor compresses a fluid whose oxygen content does not exceed 30 mol % . Another advantage of such an arrangement is that it is better in terms of energy than the arrangement described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,458 since the turbine of the invention, working on a fluid entering the cold box and not a fluid leaving the cold box, the amount of heat exchanged in the main exchanger is markedly less, and hence there are fewer irreversibilities. Another aspect of the invention is that it produces oxygen at a pressure greater than the pressure of the single column by compressing an oxygen-rich liquid (either by pump or by net positive suction head) at a pressure greater than that of the single column and by vaporizing it either by indirect heat exchange in a main exchanger or an external vaporizer, or by direct contact in a mixing column. Finally, the coproduction of liquid products in addition to the gas products is not necessary in order to make this process attractive, even though it is possible.
The ambient temperature is defined by the temperature at the intake of the main air compressor for feeding the separation unit.
According to the invention, a process for separating air by cryogenic distillation is provided, comprising the steps of:
compressing the air, purifying it and sending at least one portion thereof to a first (or the) column;
separating air in the column at cryogenic temperature;
compressing at least one portion of a fraction containing at most 30 mol % of oxygen extracted from the column in a compressor, the intake temperature of which is below room temperature;
at least partially cooling the said compressed fraction and condensing it by vaporizing an internal fluid of the first column or a fluid extracted therefrom, and possibly after having enriched it with nitrogen; and
extracting an oxygen-rich liquid fraction from the first column, pressurizing it to a pressure above that of the column and vaporizing it by direct or indirect heat exchange with a portion of the feed air in order to form an oxygen-rich pressurized gas product.
According to other aspects of the invention:
a nitrogen-rich gas product is withdrawn from the top of the first (or the) column;
a fraction containing at most 30 mol % of oxygen extracted from the column is compressed in a compressor whose intake temperature is below the ambient temperature to a pressure of less than 30 bar abs;
the pressure in the first (or the) column is between 1.3 and 20 bar abs, preferably between 3 and 10 bar abs;
the compressed fraction contains at most 19 mol % of oxygen and at least 81 mol % of nitrogen, preferably at least 90 mol % of nitrogen;
at least one portion of the air is expanded in a turbine before being sent to the first (or the) column;
the production of work by the expansion of at least one portion of the air is at least partially used to compress the fraction containing at most 30% oxygen in one or more compression stages;
at least one portion of the air is compressed to a high pressure, condensed and sent to the first (or the) column;
an unexpanded portion of the air is condensed by vaporizing an internal fluid of the first column or a fluid withdrawn therefrom (FIG. 2);
the oxygen-rich liquid fraction is vaporized by direct contact in an auxiliary column called a mixing column (FIG. 3);
an auxiliary column intended for argon production is fed from the first column (FIG. 4);
an oxygen-enriched liquid withdrawn from the single column is distilled in an auxiliary column in order to produce a fraction richer in oxygen and a fraction depleted in oxygen, both fractions being reintroduced into the first column (FIG. 5);
at least one portion of the air intended for a column of the apparatus comes from the compressor of a gas turbine and/or a nitrogen-enriched gas coming from the first (or the) column is sent back to the gas turbine system;
the inlet pressure of the gas turbine is greater than 15 bar abs;
the purity of the gaseous oxygen produced is at least 80 mol %, preferably at least 90 mol %;
the intake temperature of the cold compressor is below xe2x88x92100xc2x0 C. or preferably below xe2x88x92150xc2x0 C.;
liquid may or may not be produced as final product;
the compressed fraction at least partially condenses in the bottom reboiler of the first (or the) column;
the stream of air which is used to vaporize the oxygen-rich liquid at least partially condenses and is sent to the first column;
the compressed fraction is enriched with nitrogen in a distillation column thermally coupled to the first column.
According to another aspect of the invention, a plant for separating air by distillation in at least a first column is provided, this column having a bottom reboiler, comprising means for sending compressed and purified air to the column, a compressor for compressing a gas containing at most 30 mol % of oxygen coming from the column having an inlet temperature of at most 5xc2x0 C. warmer than a temperature of the column, optionally means for enriching the compressed gas with nitrogen upstream of the reboiler, means for sending the compressed gas to the bottom reboiler, means for sending the at least partially compressed gas condensed in the bottom reboiler back to the column, means for withdrawing an oxygen-enriched liquid from the bottom of the first column, means for pressurizing it and means for vaporizing the pressurized liquid by heat exchange, in order to form an oxygen-rich pressurized gas product, characterized in that it includes means for vaporizing the pressurized liquid by direct or indirect heat exchange and, if the exchange is indirect, the heat exchange takes place with air intended for the first column.
According to other inventive aspects:
the apparatus comprises a turbine fed with air and the outlet of the turbine is connected to the first column;
the pressurized liquid vaporizes in a mixing column;
the apparatus comprises an argon production column fed from the first column having a bottom reboiler;
the column having a bottom reboiler has at least one intermediate condenser;
the column having a bottom reboiler does not have a top condenser;
there is a second column thermally coupled to the first column, which optionally includes means for sending the overhead gas from the second column to the bottom reboiler;
there are means for sending the gas compressed in the compressor into the bottom of the second column.

Process and plant for separating air by cryogenic distillation

L""Air Liquide, Societe Anonyme a Directoire et Conseil de Surveillance pour l""Etude et l""Exploitation des Procedes George Claude


There is provided a piezoelectric vibrator 1 that includes a base substrate 2, a lid substrate 3, a piezoelectric vibrating reed 4, a pair of external electrodes 38 and 39, a pair of through electrodes 32 and 33, and routing electrodes 36 and 37. The lid substrate 3 includes a recess 3a for a cavity and is bonded to the base substrate so that the recess faces the base substrate. The piezoelectric vibrating reed 4 is bonded to the upper surface of the base substrate so as to be received in a cavity that is formed between both the substrates. The pair of external electrodes 38 and 39 is formed on the lower surface of the base substrate. The pair of through electrodes 32 and 33 is formed by hardening paste P, which contains a plurality of metal fine particles and a plurality of metal beads P1, so as to pass through the base substrate, maintains airtightness in the cavity, and is electrically connected to the pair of external electrodes, respectively. The routing electrodes 36 and 37 are formed on the upper surface of the base substrate and electrically connect the pair of through electrodes to the piezoelectric vibrating reed. The melting point of the metal bead is higher than the firing temperature of the paste.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface mounted (SMD) piezoelectric vibrator where a piezoelectric vibrating reed is sealed in a cavity formed between two bonded substrates, a method of manufacturing the piezoelectric vibrator, and an oscillator, an electronic device, and a radio clock that each include the piezoelectric vibrator.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a piezoelectric vibrator, which employs crystal or the like as a time source, a timing source of a control signal or the like, a reference signal source or the like, has been used in a cell phone or a portable information terminal device. Various piezoelectric vibrators have been known as this kind of piezoelectric vibrator, but a surface mounted piezoelectric vibrator has been known as one of the piezoelectric vibrators. As this kind of piezoelectric vibrator, there is generally known a piezoelectric vibrator having a three-layer structure where a piezoelectric substrate including a piezoelectric vibrating reed is bonded to a base substrate and a lid substrate so as to be interposed between the base substrate and the lid substrate in a vertical direction. In this case, the piezoelectric vibrator is received in a cavity (closed chamber) that is formed between the base substrate and the lid substrate. Further, in recent years, there has been developed a piezoelectric vibrator having not a three-layer structure but a two-layer structure.
This type of piezoelectric vibrator has a two-layer structure where a base substrate and a lid substrate are directly bonded to each other and a piezoelectric vibrating reed is received in a cavity formed between both the substrates. The two-layer structure type piezoelectric vibrators are superior to three-layer structure type piezoelectric vibrators in terms of the reduction in thickness. Accordingly, the two-layer structure type piezoelectric vibrators are preferably used. As one of the two-layer structure type piezoelectric vibrators, there is known a piezoelectric vibrator where a piezoelectric vibrating reed and external electrodes formed on a base substrate are electrically connected to each other by using conductive members that are formed to pass through the base substrate (see Patent Citations 1 and 2).
As shown in FIGS. 22 and 23, a piezoelectric vibrator 200 includes a base substrate 201 and a lid substrate 202 that are anodically bonded to each other with a bonding film 207 interposed therebetween, and a piezoelectric vibrating reed 203 that is sealed in a cavity C formed between both the substrates 201 and 202. The piezoelectric vibrating reed 203 is, for example, a tuning-fork type vibrating reed, and is mounted on the upper surface of the base substrate 201 in the cavity C by a conductive adhesive E.
Each of the base substrate 201 and the lid substrate 202 is an insulating substrate that is made of, for example, ceramic or glass. Through holes 204, which pass through the substrate 201, are formed at the base substrate 201 of both the substrates 201 and 202. Further, a conductive member 205 is fitted to the through hole 204 so as to close the through hole 204. The conductive member 205 is electrically connected to an external electrode 206 formed on the lower surface of the base substrate 201, and is electrically connected to a piezoelectric vibrating reed 203 mounted in the cavity C.
Patent Citation 1: JP-A-2002-124845
Patent Citation 2: JP-A-2006-279872
Meanwhile, in the above-mentioned two-layer structure type piezoelectric vibrator, the conductive member 205 has two functions, that is, a function to close the through hole 204 so as to maintain airtightness in the cavity C and a function to connect electrically the piezoelectric vibrating reed 203 to the external electrode 206. In particular, if the conductive member insufficiently comes into close contact with the through hole 204, there is a concern that the airtightness in the cavity C is impaired. Further, if the conductive member insufficiently comes into close contact with the conductive adhesive E or the external electrode 206, the malfunction of the piezoelectric vibrating reed 203 is caused. Accordingly, even to eliminate these troubles in the related art, it is necessary to form the conductive member 205 so that the conductive member completely closes the through hole 204 while being solidly fixed to the inner surface of the through hole 204 and recesses are not formed on the surfaces of the conductive member.
However, Patent Citations 1 and 2 disclose that the conductive member 205 is formed by conductive paste (Ag paste, Au—Sn paste, or the like), but do not disclose a specific method of manufacturing the conductive member, that is, how to actually form the conductive member.
When conductive paste is used, it is generally necessary to harden the conductive paste by firing the conductive paste. That is, it is necessary to harden the conductive paste by performing firing after the through hole 204 is filled with the conductive paste. Meanwhile, if firing is performed, organic materials contained in the conductive paste are evaporated and disappear. For this reason, the volume of the fired conductive paste is generally decreased in comparison with the volume of the unfired conductive paste (for example, when Ag paste is used as the conductive paste, the volume of the conductive paste is decreased by about 20%). For this reason, even though the conductive member 205 is formed using the conductive paste, there is a concern that recesses are formed on the surfaces of the conductive paste or a through hole is formed at the center of the conductive paste in an extreme case.
As a result, there has been a possibility that the airtightness in the cavity C is impaired or electric conductivity between the piezoelectric vibrating reed 203 and the external electrode 206 is impaired.

Method of manufacturing piezoelectric vibrator, piezoelectric vibrator, oscillator, electronic device, and radio clock


A dead plate arrangement for a glass forming machine is characterized by a housing (33) which is bordered on the upper side by a dead plate (1) which is divided into fields (16, 16′, 16″) intended for putting hollow glass articles to be cooled thereon, wherein to each field, a dynamic pressure chamber (3) is allocated which is connected to a supply air chamber (4) via a valve (9), and wherein the supply air chamber (4) is connected to a cooling air supply via a valve (5). The valves (5, 9) are continuously controllable between an opening position and a closed position so that the pressure can be set for each of the dynamic pressure chambers (3), and therefore the cooling capacity of each of the fields (16, 16′, 16″) can be set individually depending on the properties of the hollow glass article to be cooled. In connection with database-supported setpoint values for article-specific dimensioning of the cooling air flows of each field, an individual cooling capacity according to demand can be implemented which is adapted to the respective hollow glass article.

The invention relates to a dead plate arrangement for a glass forming machine with a dead plate which includes a plurality of fields, each of the fields is intended for receiving a hollow glass article to be cooled thereon and is provided with openings for the passage of cooling air.
When determining the cooling capacity to be provided for the hollow glass articles arriving on the dead plate of an I.S. (individual section) glass forming machine, it must be considered that the articles to be cooled are not yet mechanically stable in terms of temperature and that measures have to be taken to achieve a safe standing position on the dead plate. In particular, cooling air that may form an air cushion underneath the articles and causes the articles to migrate or to fall over, etc., must be avoided. Thus, dimensioning the cooling capacity to be provided has to be regarded article-specifically as an optimization process which considers these sometimes countervailing influences.
This object is made difficult due to the fact that in the case of a plurality of articles produced in one station, the temperature of the articles and therefore their mechanical condition varies significantly and, accordingly, the cooling capacity used has to be readjusted repeatedly. This is a process which, in accordance with the frequency of the required adjusting measures, in particular in the case of articles to be changed frequently, can result in downtimes and, subsequent to an adjustment, in damage to the articles in the form of hot cracks which, in certain circumstances, are detected only after many hours, namely at the end of the production process after the articles have cooled down. This problem always occurs when a plurality of hollow glass articles are removed from the station (double gob, triple gob, quad gob operation), the respective temperatures of which articles vary, so that readjustments of the cooling capacity in terms of the time of standing on the dead plate are required.
Known from DE 100 39 343 B4 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,557 B are dead plate arrangements in which a plate table intended for standing up hollow glass articles is provided with bores for feeding cooling air. The available cooling capacity is the same for all articles. Individual treatment of an individual article is not provided. The same applies to the dead plate arrangements known from DE 101 01 296 B4 and EP 131 81 16 B1.
The dead plate arrangement known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,510,288 B is characterized by two zones which can be subjected to different amounts of cooling air and/or cooling air pressures. The dead plate arrangement known from U.S. Pat. No. 2,677,919 B is configured in a similar manner. The dead plate arrangements known from these two documents enable implementing a zone-dependent cooling capacity; however, all hollow glass articles standing in one zone are subjected to an equally identical cooling capacity.
Finally, it is known from the document DE 100 06 130 B4 to establish the controller settings for the compressed air supply during the different phases of the blow process in a glass forming machine in an article-specific manner and centralized assisted by a database so that for forming a certain hollow glass article, this data can be used. However, this control does not refer to the setting of the cooling capacity for the articles standing on a dead plate.
The cooling capacity provided according to this prior art for treating the articles standing on a dead plate therefore always acts in an averaged and uniform manner on a plurality of articles. A potential individually differentiated demand of cooling capacity cannot be implemented in this manner.


Described herein are instance mapping techniques that facilitate the rewrite of queries to access materialized views that have multiple instances of the same table. Instance mapping techniques are processes for determining a mapping between equivalent instances in a query and materialized view definition. An instance in a query that is equivalent to an instance in a materialized view definition (or another query) is treated as if they are identical labels for the same table for the purposes of rewriting a query. To determine the mapping between instances of a table in a query and a materialized view definition, join predicates in the query and materialized view definition that involve instances of the table are compared.

In a database management system (DBMS), data is stored in one or more data containers, each container contains records, and the data within each record is organized into one or more fields. In relational DBMSs, the data containers are referred to as tables, the records are referred to as rows, and the fields are referred to as columns. In object oriented databases, the data containers are referred to as object classes, the records are referred to as objects, and the fields are referred to as attributes. Other database architectures may use other terminology.
The present invention is not limited to any particular type of data container or database architecture. However, for the purpose of explanation, the examples and the terminology used herein shall be that typically associated with relational databases. Thus, the terms "table", "row" and "column" shall be used herein to refer respectively to the data container, record, and field.
It is common for identical or closely related queries to be issued frequently. For example, a business may periodically generate reports that summarize business facts stored in the database, such as: "What have been the best selling brands of soft drinks in each of our sales regions, during the past six months?".
To respond to such queries, the database server typically has to perform numerous join operations because the database records contain the information that is required to respond to the queries. When a DBMS contains very large amounts of data, certain queries against the database can take an unacceptably long time to execute. The cost of executing a query may be particularly significant when the query (which takes the form of a "SELECT" statement in the SQL database language) requires join operations among a large number of database tables.
A join is an operation that combines rows from two or more tables that meet a join condition. A join may be specified by a query by including the tables to be joined in the FROM list and including join predicates in the WHERE clause. Join predicates are expressions specifying join conditions. The following query QZ is provided as an example of a query that specifies a join operation.SELECT*FROM Y,Z WHERE Y.a=Z.a
The expression of "Y.a=Z.a" is an example of join predicate that defines a join condition. Query QZ specifies that a row in table Z is joined with a row table Y if the value of column Y.a of the row in table Y equals the value of the column Z.a for the row in table Z. The join specified by query QZ is referred to as an "equijoin" because the condition is based on the equality of values in columns.
In addition to join conditions, the WHERE clause of a join query can also contain other predicates that refer to a column of only one table. These conditions can further restrict the rows returned by the join query.

Linear instance mapping for query rewrite


According to one embodiment, a display device includes a first submodule having a display panel, a second submodule having a cover member located on the display panel, and a first decoupling layer located between the first submodule and the second submodule, and each of the first submodule and the second submodule has a single neutral plane.

Recently, flexible modules such as a display, a light and the like which can be folded and unfolded have been developed. The flexible module is formed by, for example, disposing a light-emitting element, an electrode or the like on a flexible plastic film or the like. To prevent breaking of a member and peeling between members caused by a bend stress when the flexible module is bent, a technology of forming a stress buffer layer between members is known. On the other hand, if a resilience does not act in the stress buffer layer, the relative positional relationship in a planar direction between the members does not return to its original state when returning from a bent state to a flat slate. In this case, for example, the coordinates of a display panel and the coordinates of a display are misaligned, and a position different from a position which the user intended may be detected. In addition to the combination of the touch panel and the display, the unintended misalignment between the members at the time of returning to a flat state also causes degradation in performance including product reliability.
The present embodiment aims to provide a display device which can suppress degradation in performance.


The connection device (20) for adjustable connection of a first with a second structural element (12, 13), particularly tubes or rods, for a setting device has an external component (21) with a cylindrical hole and two internal components (22) inserted into the hole so that they can be slid axially and rotatably, each of which said internal components (22) has through openings (24, 25) crossways to the axial direction of the components to hold a structural element (12, 13). By means of loading means (23, 29), designed as a nut/screw connection, the internal component (2) is pushed axially to the external component (21) and thereby grips the inserted structural elements (12, 13). A recess (26) in the internal component (22) effectuates a flexible radial deformation of the internal against the external component (22, 21), said deformation being created through the inserted structural element (12, 13), and an additional bonding of the connection device (20) is thereby achieved, which considerably improves the setting.

A known connection device for use in osteosynthetic external fixation systems comprises on the one hand two gripping jaws and a screw that goes through them, and on the other hand a loop connected with said screw, a U-shaped counterpart that envelops the loop, and a screw that goes through this counterpart and is attached to the loop. Advantageously, this connection device is attached to, for example, a Schanze entrenchment screw, by means of the gripping jaws, while a rod, for example a carbon filament rod, can be secured to the opposing segment of the connection device. The carbon filament rod is positioned approximately parallel to the broken bone to be treated and is connected via several of said connection devices with Schanze screws screwed into the bone on both sides at the fracture; the desired external setting of the bone is thereby achieved. It is very important that the connection device be very easy to handle and that a very rigid setting be achieved without excessive expenditure of force, so that in case of shocks or other outside influences the bone parts will not shift in relation to each other and so that even after the passage of time the setting will retain its rigidity. In the known connection device described, experience has shown that over an extended period of time the tension in the setting device can slacken somewhat, and leading to conditions not always optimum.


There is provided a voice Interactive system for inputting user's voice information, conducting voice recognition with respect to the voice information, analyzing the contents of the voice information, controlling a transmission path of the voice information in accordance with the contents of the voice information, outputting a synthesized voice, extracting the contents of a response corresponding to the voice information by referring to a knowledge database, and creating the synthesized voice in accordance with the contents of a response, wherein in the case where it is monitored at all times whether or not use's interaction is being smoothly conducted, and when it is determined that the user's interaction is not being smoothly conducted, a third-party user is allowed to participate,as a helper, in the users interaction.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voice interactive system and a voice interactive method for allowing a voice interactive system to smoothly function, in which a user realizes various functions by interaction with synthesized voice generated by the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, due to the enhancement of a computer processing speed, the enlargement of an information capacity that can be used, and the rapid advancement of a voice recognition technique, voice recognition at a word level can be put into practical use without any problem. Therefore, a voice recognition technique is also becoming one of important techniques for configuring a system. The use of such a voice recognition technique enables various problems to be solved by using a voice interactive interface utilizing only a voice without a high-level graphical interface.
As described above, a voice interactive system is being developed in various fields, which allows a user to solve problems in the user's intended order by the use of a voice interactive interface, and which allows the ability of oral communication owned by a human to be fully taken advantage of.
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a conventional voice interactive system. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a voice input part through which a user inputs voice information. As an input medium, file transfer for a web file and the like, as well as a microphone, can be contemplated. The input voice information is sent to a voice recognition part 2 through a network 7 or the like. As the network 7, various connection forms such as the Internet and WAN/LAN can be contemplated.
Reference numeral 2 denotes a voice recognition part that analyzes the contents of the input voice information. It is also considered that the voice recognition part 2 has a noise reduction function for the purpose of preventing problems in the case where the input voice contains noise.
Reference numeral 6 denotes a voice output part that outputs a response to the voice input from the voice input part 1 as a synthesized voice. An output method is not limited to an output based on a voice, and the contents of a response may be displayed on a display apparatus.
Reference numeral 3 denotes a voice information mediation part, which controls a response timing among the voice input part 1, the voice output part 6, and an interaction engine 4. Reference numeral 4 denotes an interaction engine, which refers to a knowledge database 5 in accordance with the contents of the input voice to extract the most suitable contents of a response. Therefore, the performance of the interaction engine 4 directly influences the performance of the voice interactive system.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional voice interactive system, a current voice recognition technique has not reached a level with a 100% recognition precision. Therefore, the intention of user's uttered voice may not be sufficiently recognized. Furthermore, even with the interaction engine 4 having high performance, it is impossible to completely handle human daily conversation, and it is easily expected that conversation with the contents that cannot be handled by such an interaction engine is conducted.
In the above-mentioned case, it is considered that the conversation that cannot be handled only by the interaction engine 4 may be handled by allowing a third-party user or an operator who is familiar with the contents of the conversation to participate therein as a helper.
For example, JP 7(1995)-19239 B discloses a system that allows a user to interact with an operator (i.e., a third-party user) when detecting that a particular word is contained in an input voice.
Furthermore, JP 8(1996)-76965 A discloses a voice recognition system in which a user can request mediation of an operator when the user is at a loss how to use the system. JP 10(1998)-124086 A discloses a voice interactive system that allows a system supporter to directly respond to an input voice in the case where an expert system alone cannot respond thereto.
However, according to the invention disclosed, for example, in JP 7(1995)-19239 B, the case is also assumed where operator's help is required even if a particular word is not contained in an input voice. Furthermore, it is practically difficult to extract words on the assumption of various cases. Therefore, it is actually difficult to configure such a system.
According to the invention disclosed in JP 8(1996)-76965 A, a user cannot get operator's help without the user's intention. Therefore, regarding interactive contents that would be easily determined to be useless under the supervision of a third-party user, operator's help can be provided only after a considerable period of time.
According to the invention disclosed in JP 10(1998)-124086 A, only in the case of interaction that is not contained in a rule database in an expert system, help of a system supporter can be provided. If a knowledge level of a user is not matched with a knowledge level of a rule database, even interaction contained in the rule database cannot be conducted smoothly, which makes it difficult for a user to understand the interaction.

Voice interactive system and voice interactive method


A particular application is invoked in a cellular phone (an arbitrary one of a plurality of cellular phones if they exist) of a person who is riding in an automobile prior to the passage of a gate at an entry/exit of a toll road. The cellular phone in which the application is invoked transmits a particular signal (a signal including the information expressing the intention to use the turnpike) different from a normal cellular phone signal when passing through a gate. Data of the particular signal is transferred to a server via the gate. Information about the user, information about the gate at the entry/exit, etc. are recorded, and a turnpike (toll road) toll is charged based on these information. The turnpike toll can be split and paid by a plurality of persons. A user and a split toll payer must be persons who are pre-registered to the server.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toll road toll paying method (and apparatus) using a portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, systems such as an ETC (Electronic Toll Collection System), which can collect a toll at a tollbooth on a toll road such as a turnpike, etc., nonstop and cashless, have been introduced to relieve traffic jam.
With the ETC, a dedicated terminal (ETC equipment) is mounted on each automobile, and a toll is automatically charged according to a road-car radio communication between an antenna installed at an ETC gate in each tollbooth and the mounted ETC equipment when the automobile passes through the tollbooth.
As described above, the ETC can possibly be of some help for relieving traffic jam. However, the load of purchasing and installing ETC equipment is imposed on a user.
In contrast, conventionally, for example, the invention recited by Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-7562 is proposed. This invention proposes a technique which eliminates the need for arranging the above described dedicated terminal (ETC equipment), and implements a toll collection with a cellular phone whose ownership rate is high.
The ownership rate of a cellular phone is very high at present, and a plurality of cellular phones exist within an automobile in many cases if a plurality of persons are riding in the automobile.
If a plurality of cellular phones exist within an automobile as described above, the above invention recited by Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-7562 has a problem of being unable to cope with the case where a position registration signal is returned from each of a plurality of cellular phones in response to an annunciation signal when the automobile passes through a tollbooth.
Furthermore, if a plurality of persons are riding, for example, a toll is sometimes desired to be shared or split at a desired ratio (for example, 50 to 30 to 20 percent for 3 persons).

Toll road toll paying method and apparatus using a portable terminal, and a storage medium thereof


A bicycle electrical wiring support apparatus comprises an axially elongated rigid first cover member structured to substantially cover a portion of electrical wiring, and a resilient second cover member that couples to the first cover member for covering a portion of electrical wiring not covered by the first cover member.

The present invention is directed to bicycles and, more particularly, to a bicycle electrical wiring apparatus.
Bicycles sometimes are equipped with various electrical devices that are distributed along the bicycle frame and are interconnected through appropriate wiring. Such a bicycle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,835,069. It is preferable to secure the wiring to the frame so that the wiring does not hang loose and pose a hazard. One method of securing the wiring to the frame is to pass the wiring through the inside of the frame tubes. Such a method makes it possible to obtain a clean external appearance. However, not only is a special structure required to pass the electrical wiring through the inside of the frame tubes, but passing the electrical wiring through the inside of the frame tubes is time-consuming. The special frame structure and the labor intensive nature of passing the wiring through the frame tubes undesirably increases the cost of the bicycle.
Another method of securing the wiring to the frame is simply to attach the wiring to the bicycle frame with a wiring band. Such a method is easy, thus making it possible to reduce the cost of the wiring operations. However, the wiring still tends to sag in an exposed manner between the wiring bands, so it is impossible to obtain a desirable clean appearance. Furthermore, because the sagging wiring is exposed to the outside, the wiring may become caught with other objects. For example, wiring at the lower part of the bicycle may become snagged with objects on the ground during travel and braking.

Bicycle electrical wiring support apparatus


Systems and methods are provided herein for autonomously determining and resolving a customer's perceived discrepancy during a customer service interaction. The method can include receiving an incoming communication from a customer; extracting, by a Natural Language Processing (NLP) device, a perceived state and an expected state of a product or service based on the incoming communication; determining by a discrepancy determination device, a discrepancy between the perceived and expected state of the product or service; verifying, by a rule-based platform, the discrepancy; generating a response based on the discrepancy, the response comprising one or more of: a fact pattern response related to the perceived discrepancy and a confirmation or correction of a verified discrepancy; and outputting, for presentation to the customer, the response.

Customer service agents, whether human or artificial intelligence (AI), often receive requests for explanations regarding products and services. For example, the following request for an explanation related to a shipping charge discrepancy may be received from a customer: "Why was I charged for shipping? I spent more than $100!" Such a request may be an expression of perceived discrepancies between a state that was expected by the customer (the expected state) and a state that the customer says or implies they observed (the perceived state). For example, the utterance: "Why was I charged $5 for shipping? I thought shipping would be free!" expresses a discrepancy between (1) the perceived state that the customer was charged $5 for shipping on an order, and (2) the expected state that shipping would be free on that order. In these customer service situations, the expected state is generally more desirable to the customer than the perceived state, creating friction.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved, automated customer-service systems that can autonomously determine and resolve a customer's perceived discrepancy during an automated customer service interaction. Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to this and other considerations.

Systems and methods for automated discrepancy determination, explanation, and resolution


A method is used for inspecting at least one copy of a printed product. At least one element, which is spatially constant with respect to a fixed reference point and at least one element which is spatially variant with respect to the same fixed reference point are reliably inspected by reference image data being used for a desired-actual value comparison of the at least one spatially variant element. The reference image data takes account of the variable position of the at least one element; i.e. the spatial variance thereof.

DE 10 2004 021 047 B3 discloses a method for comparing an image with at least one reference image using a system which comprises at least one image capturing unit and an image processing system, equipped with a logic unit, for evaluating image data from the image capturing unit. An image captured by the image capturing unit is compared with the at least one reference image, with the logic unit carrying out the image comparison. The image comparison evaluates the quality of printed matter produced by a printing machine. The logic unit evaluates the quality of the printed matter with respect to a multiplicity of criteria while a production process is running on the printing machine, with the evaluation of the quality of the printed matter produced by the printing machine being divided into at least two process units. The image capturing unit transmits the image data, captured by its image sensor, as digital data to the logic circuit.
DE 43 21 177 A1 discloses a method for inspecting an image on at least one printed product produced in a printing machine. All relevant digital image data for the printed product are compared in a computer device through a desired value/actual value comparison with desired data for an o.k. image. A method of this type will necessarily result in an error message if, at the time the image data are recorded, the printed product is itself spatially variant or has at least one element which is spatially variant with regard to a reference point which is fixed in relation to said printed product.
EP 2017 082 is directed to a method involving detecting a periodic status signal of a marking element and optically detecting a portion of a continuous web, such as a printing web, and converting into data. The data is stored to synchronize a respective origin of an exact repeating pattern with subsequent repeating pattern and/or similarly formed printing web. A grey vector and/or a color vector are estimated by the optical detection of the printing web.
In security printing in particular, but also in premium quality package printing, printed products are produced, e.g. banknotes or security documents or folding boxes, which have at least one element which is spatially variant with regard to a fixed reference point, with said reference point being designed as fixed, i.e. spatially fixed, in relation to the printed product or the copy of said printed product in question. A spatially variant element of this type may be a shiny strip, in particular a pearlescent strip or Iriodin strip, for example, incorporated into the printed product in question and/or into a copy of said printed product. When the printed product in question or the copy of said printed product is tilted against a light source, an Iriodin strip will appear as a shiny strip, the color of which changes, e.g. from bright yellow to golden yellow, and then disappears. Shiny strips are used on banknotes in particular as a security feature. In a series comprising multiple copies of printed products that are each provided with a shiny strip, e.g. when a multiplicity of banknotes are produced as copies in security printing, a shiny strip of this type can be spatially variant with regard to a fixed reference point, e.g. an edge of the copy of the printed product in question or the center thereof, from one copy to the next copy of the printed product in question, depending on the production process. This means that, in an inspection of this series of copies of said printed product, the position of the shiny strip may change at least slightly from one copy of the printed product to another copy in the same series of the printed product, and may deviate from an anticipated position, wherein this deviation may be irregular and without a preferred direction. In an inspection using a spatially fixed image capturing device and a conventional desired value/actual value comparison, in which current image data are compared with previously established statistical reference image data, e.g. taken from a prepress, this variability in the alignment and/or positioning of the spatially variant element, designed, e.g. as a shiny strip, will result in an error message.

Method for inspecting at least one copy of a printed product


According to the invention, a method to process heart motion image data into a portable display medium is provided. An image sequence of heart motion is provided. Image sequences are incorporated in angularly multiplexed holograms so that the parallax, i.e. the relative position of observer and holographic medium, encodes heart motion. This way, a change in the viewing angle of the printed hologram leads to the perception of the complete heart cycle. Using this technique, it is possible to incorporate a complete temporal image sequence of the beating human heart to a single printable image which can be used for display, storage, documentation and reporting.

Since prehistoric times, man has been able to capture and depict objects only in the form of static two-dimensional images. Only a century ago did it become possible to capture the motion of an object in the form of a series of single frames and to play them back as an animation. In echocardiography, motion was first represented in M-mode images, in which one axis of the display showed the echoes of a single scanline while a second axis coded time. The advent of two-dimensional echocardiographic imaging led to the current method of representing real time myocardial motion as video sequences. This development improved the understanding of cardiac structure in vivo and added new insights into cardiac function. However, viewing cardiac motion in a compact display becomes more cumbersome with 2D- compared to M-mode echocardiography.
Currently, echocardiograms are stored primarily on videotapes, but digital storage media are being used more frequently for echocardiograms as well as for magnetic resonance and other medical imaging techniques. However, the search and review of studies on videotapes is time consuming and impractical, and both video and digital storage media require expensive and heavy equipment. Simple printing of single echocardiographic frames (similar to what is routinely done in radiology) is not practical because motion, a principal information content of heart imaging, is lost if a frame is printed. No methods exist to display, in a printable format, a moving heart in two-dimensional or three-dimensional images. At the current time, echocardiography machine manufacturers are developing hardware and software that allow both the digital image acquisition and the presentation of echocardiographic studies on portable computers. Holography has been used to display static 3-dimensional images of the pelvis, the spine and the brain, by using computer tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and sonographic techniques to acquire image information. One description of holographic imaging of the heart was likewise limited to the representation of static images of a explanted animal heart.
In contrast to the above described applications in biomedicine, dynamic datasets containing object motion, mainly of the heart, as acquired by ultrasound, computer tomography or magnetic resonance tomography, contain a significantly higher amount of data, posing additional problems for representation in an understandable manner; application of holography to dynamic datasets of the beating heart has not been reported.


A control device for a linear motor is disclosed which is provided with a current limiter and a driver. The current limiter outputs either a target current value or a limiting current command value. When the target current value is output as the current command value, the driver applies a voltage to the linear motor based of the value obtained by multiplying a first proportional gain by the difference between the current value of the current flowing to the linear motor and the current command value. When the limiting current command value is output as the current command value, the driver applies a voltage to the linear motor based of the value obtained by multiplying a second proportional gain, which is greater than the first proportional gain, by the difference between the current value of the current flowing to the linear motor and the limiting current command value.

In a mounting apparatus for mounting work such as an electronic part on a substrate and a machine apparatus for processing a work to be processed, a servo-controlled linear motor is used as a means for vertically moving a head portion which is in contact with or adjacent to the work. In such a mounting apparatus or a machine apparatus, in order to reduce a force applied to the work, a balancing balancer corresponding to a weight of the head part may be used (Patent Document 1). In addition, in order to reduce the force applied to the work due to contact with the head portion, a constitution in which the linear motor is driven while reducing a thrust when the head portion is moved toward the work may be adopted. In a case where the thrust generated by the linear motor is small, a movement of the head portion may be hindered by a sliding resistance or the like of a movable portion in the mounting apparatus or the machine apparatus, the head portion may stop, or time may be required for moving the head portion. Therefore, there is a possibility that an operation will not be stable.

Control device and control method for linear motor


An offset type active antenna having two reflectors in a periscopic configuration. A radio lens is provided at the focii of the two reflectors. It comprises a collector and a primary array that is considerably larger in size than the collector. The "small" sources of the collector are in a geographically identical one-to-one correspondence with the "big" sources of the primary array, and they are respectively connected together via devices for providing fine phase adjustment.

By way of example, highly diagrammatic accompanying FIG. 1 recalls the known configuration of a two-reflector active antenna of the offset type, i.e. an antenna of the kind to which the present invention applies.
That antenna uses the optical periscope principle and comprises an active array 1 of small size relative to the direct radiation active array that would be required for radiating a beam of diameter D identical to that which is finally radiated by the offset configuration two-reflector antenna.
The active array 1 is associated in a manner that is conventional for this kind of array with phase adjusting devices 2, and also with amplifiers and filters (not shown), which devices are referred below as "controls" in order to comply with the terminology used in the art.
The beam of diameter d radiated by the active array 1 is initially reflected by a first parabolic reflector 3 which concentrates the beam at its focus F, after which the beam continues to propagate from said focus F to illuminate a second parabolic reflector 4 facing the reflector 3 via the focus F with which it is confocal, thereby finally radiating a beam of parallel rays having a width D.
It should be observed that in such a configuration, the emitting source 1 is offset relative to the beam of width D that is finally radiated, and thus that the antenna is indeed an "offset" antenna.
This periscope type configuration having two reflectors 3 and 4 is used to reduce the dimensions of the active source 1, and, a priori, it is more advantageous than the simple configuration which could be provided by having an active source of size D equal to the size of the beam which would than be emitted directly.
It turns out, in practice, that the constraints applicable to the elements of the small-sized active source 1 are different from those that would apply to an equivalent large-sized active source used for directly radiating the beam of size D. Thus, in reality, in order to obtain the same performance, it is necessary to reduce the size of the elements of the source 1, and as a result to increase the number of adjustment or "control" devices associated with said source.
As a result the economic balance and the size characteristics of a conventional antenna as shown in FIG. 1 turn out, in contrast to what might have been expected a priori, not to produce any significant advantage over a simple active array antenna used for direct radiation.

Offset active antenna having two reflectors