The present invention provides an electric connection box capable of reducing cost and capable of constituting small-sized formation by devising a structure of engaging a cover. The electric connection box including an electronic device and connected to a wire harness so as to electrically connect the electronic device and the wire harness includes a synthetic resin member including a mold stripping hole used for molding the synthetic resin member, and a cover including a engaging portion engaged with the hole.

The present invention relates to an electric connection box (that is, electric junction block) of, for example, a relay box, a fuse box, an electronic control unit box or the like used as a power distribution apparatus mounted with an electric part and electrically connected to a battery and various electric loads by way of a wire harness on a vehicle of an automobile or the like.
An electric connection box mounted with an electric part and connected with a wire harness to be electrically conducted to the electric part is introduced in JP-A-2005-185031. Such an electric connection box includes a main body mainly formed from a synthetic resin part, and the synthetic resin part is obliged to be formed with a mold drawing hole in view of fabrication. Further, a technology of carrying out a countermeasure against invasion of water to an inner portion by such a mold drawing hole is introduced in JP-A-2001-169437.
Meanwhile, an electric connection box including a cover for covering an outer side other than the above-described synthetic resin part, and in order to attach such a cover, a special engaging structure portion is needed. The engaging structure portion exclusive for the cover constitutes a factor of increasing cost and large-sized formation.

Electric connection box with molded synthetic resin member with mold stripping holes used for engaging a cover


The present invention is directed towards systems and methods for trust propagation. The method according to one embodiment comprises calculating a first feature vector for a first user, calculating a second feature for a second user and comparing the first feature vector with the second feature vector to calculate a similarity value. A determination is made as to whether the similarity value falls within a threshold. If the similarity value falls within the threshold, a relationship is recorded between the first user and the second user in a first user profile and a second user profile.

Much of the information we use today is stored on computers or other devices such as PDAs that use computer technology. E-mail messages, word processing documents, and digital photographs are just of few common types of content items that are available to users. Because of the large sizes of these collections of content items, it can be difficult for users to find the information for which they are looking. A search engine is a software system used to facilitate the process of finding information in a collection of content items. Users express their information need in the form of a query (which typically comprises one or more query terms), and the search engine returns a list of content items that match the query in some manner.
Some search engines work by scanning each content item at the time that the user issues a given query, looking for the pattern of text described by the query. Many tools that search for files on a user's local machine use this type of search, often called a "direct file" or "stream" search. For example, the search utility in Microsoft Windows XP and the grep command that is part of the set of utilities provided with UNIX-based operating systems such as Linux both use direct file search. As the number of content items increases, however, directly searching through content items becomes too slow. Instead, many search engines actually search in a concise representation of the contents of one or more content items called an "inverted index," or simply an "index."
In order to create an inverted index, a given content item, such as an HTML document, is first broken into a list of words, a process known as tokenization. The complexity of the tokenization problem depends on the language in which the content item was written. For example, tokenizing Chinese text is more difficult than tokenizing English text, since word boundaries are not marked with spaces. After tokenization, words may be normalized to a standard form. For example, plural endings and other suffixes may be removed, a process known as "stemming" or "morphological analysis." Again, this process may be more complex for highly inflected languages. In addition, certain very common words known as "stop words" may be omitted. Finally, each occurrence of each word is recorded in the inverted index. The entire process of transforming the content item from its original form into a set of entries in an inverted index is known as "indexing."
The inverted index is a data structure consisting of a table of lists. Each entry in the table is accessed by a unique word, and each item in the list for a given word indicates a content item in which that word occurred. These items are called "postings," and the lists are called "posting lists." A posting contains an identifier for the content item containing the word, and may also include additional information about how often or where the word appeared in the content item.
When a user provides a query to a search engine that employs an inverted index, the system breaks the query into words in much the same way that the system processes content items. The system then looks in the table to find the posting list for each word. Each posting list represents the set of content items containing the word. If the user's query is interpreted as a Boolean AND, then the intersection of the sets for each word is computed. If it is interpreted as a Boolean OR, then the union of the sets is computed. In most search engines, a relevance score is computed for each candidate content item in the result set, and only the top-scoring candidates are retrieved. A variety of factors may determine the relevance score, including the frequency of occurrence of the query words, their statistical distinctiveness, and properties of the content item such as its modification date.
The Internet is a worldwide network of interconnected networks, which includes both public and private local and wide area networks of computers. One of the most commonly used Internet services is the World Wide Web ("WWW"), which consists of billions of content items, known as web pages, interconnected by hypertext links which allow users to navigate from a "source" page (the page containing the link) to a "target" page (the page pointed to by the link). Each page on the Web has a unique address known as a Uniform Resource Locator ("URL"). Hypertext links on the web contain two pieces of information: the URL of the target page, and a short piece of text, known as anchortext, that describes the target page.
Due to the large scale of the Web and the unique nature of the interlinked pages, web search engines typically employ more complex relevance ranking functions. In addition to the ranking features used in traditional search engines, web search engines also rely on information based on the connectivity of the page, such as the number of pages linking to it, in determining the relevance score of a search result.
Unfortunately, existing indexes used by search engines may not capture the precise verbiage that a user query comprises, raising issues of the relevance of content items in a result set. In addition to the foregoing, users are increasingly presented with disinformation when attempting to locate content items on the Internet. Due to the exploitation of shortcomings in existing search algorithms, users are confronted with issues of trust regarding content items that they locate on the Internet, including the content contained within such content items.
Therefore, new sources of information on which to base searches, as well as methods of using the same, are needed. Furthermore, new sources of information on which to base the ranking of content items in a result set are needed, as well as techniques of using the same, which may be used alone or in conjunction with existing searching and ranking techniques known in the art. Additional sources of information provide new ways to index and rank content items and the content contained therein, leading to more reliable search results for users. Furthermore, new techniques for indexing this information are needed.

Trust propagation through both explicit and implicit social networks


A honeycomb-structured catalyst for decomposing an organic substance, which includes a catalyst particle. The catalyst particle contains a perovskite-type composite oxide represented by AxByMzOw, where the A contains at least of Ba and Sr, the B contains Zr, the M is at least one of Mn, Co, Ni, and Fe, y+z=1, 1.001≤x≤1.05, 0.05≤z≤0.2, and w is a positive value that satisfies electrical neutrality. The toluene decomposition rate is greater than 90% when toluene is decomposed using the honeycomb-structured catalyst subjected to a heat treatment at 1200° C. for 48 hours and a gas that contains 50 ppm toluene, 80% nitrogen, and 20% oxygen as a volume concentration as a target at a space velocity of 30,000/h and a catalyst temperature of 400° C.

Conventionally, catalysts for decomposing organic substances have been known. It is preferable that such catalysts for decomposing organic substances have not only a high organic substance decomposition rate but also are less deteriorated after a heat treatment at a high temperature.
Patent Document 1 describes a catalyst in which an active component containing one or more elements and/or compounds selected from Group VIII metal elements or Group VIII metal oxides or an active component containing a rare earth oxide and one or more elements and/or compounds selected from Group VIII metal elements or Group VIII metal oxides is supported on a honeycomb-structured carrier obtained by extrusion molding.
However, when a noble metal is used as a highly active component as in the catalyst described in Patent Document 1, deterioration often occurs during the use of catalyst at high temperatures.
In contrast, Patent Document 2 describes a catalyst for decomposing an organic substance which does not contain a noble metal and is less deteriorated even when being subjected to a heat treatment at 800° C. for 100 hours.
Patent Document 3 describes a catalyst for exhaust gas purification in which a three-way catalyst for exhaust gas purification is supported on a heat resistant carrier.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-231280
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent No. 6303834
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent No. 3406001

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Honeycomb-structured catalyst for organic substance decomposition and organic substance decomposing apparatus


A method for data privacy management is disclosed. The method includes: predefining, at an electronic device, an action for visualizing hidden data, wherein the hidden data is stored in the electronic device; selecting, at the electronic device, at least one data to be hidden; hiding, at the electronic device, the at least one selected data; detecting, at the electronic device, whether the action is being performed; and visualizing, at the electronic device, the hidden data if the action is detected.

Electronic devices, for example, smart phones, portable PCs, tablet PCs, have been used with increasing popularity worldwide for a variety of personal and business uses. Users often have some personal data stored in the electronic devices and don't want others to see the personal data. However, when the electronic devices are lent to others for temporary use, the others could see the personal data.

Device and method for data privacy management


The present disclosure discloses a speaker, including a holder, a magnetic circuit unit and a vibration unit arranged in the holder, the vibration unit comprises a suspension fixed at the holder, a dome fixed at a center of the suspension and a voice coil connected to the dome, the dome is provided with recesses formed by recessing from the dome towards the magnetic circuit unit, a spacing is formed between at least two of the recesses, and the voice coil abuts against bottom walls of the recesses and forms a leakage passage with the dome at the spacing. The leakage passage enables a difference of internal and external air pressures of the voice coil to be effectively reduced after an amplitude of the vibration unit is increased; the voice coil becomes short and thick, and thus a magnetic flux is increased and structural strength of the dome itself is improved.

With the continuous increase of market demands, electronic devices such as mobile phones are gradually developing towards a thin type, and requiring better and better sound quality, which requires that acoustic devices in mobile phones develop towards a direction of miniaturization, thinning and high sound quality. A diaphragm is a core component of the acoustic devices such as a speaker, and thus also has an improved requirement on its acoustic performance.
The speaker in the related art includes a holder, and a magnetic circuit unit and a vibration unit that are provided in the holder. The vibration unit includes a diaphragm fixed to the holder and a voice coil connected to the diaphragm. The voice coil is inserted into a magnetic gap of the magnetic circuit unit and directly abuts against the diaphragm. In this speaker, since the voice coil directly abuts against the diaphragm and the two completely fits to each other at an abutting position, in order to ensure sufficient space between a yoke and a dome in a process of thinning of the speaker, the voice coil needs to be elongated to ensure a magnetic flux, whereas more space is required when an amplitude of the diaphragm becomes larger, and air flow in the voice coil cannot be circulated in time. Moreover, strength of a conventional alloy dome is insufficient, which affects and degrades the performance of the speaker.
Therefore, it is necessary to provide a new technical solution to overcome the above technical problems.


An air actuated apparatus and method for lubricating conveyors such as chains and belts is disclosed, comprising a device including air actuated valves which are alternately opened and closed by a drive system powered from the conveyor movement. The drive system is connected to a delay valve which controls a fluid valve that enables lubricating solution to be applied to the conveyor. The apparatus and method are particularly suited for conveyors operating at high speed, and may also be used to control a plurality of lubricating applicators for different conveyors in a plant.

This invention relates to a new and improved lubricant applicator for conveyor systems, especially in large facilities used in food processing, packaging plants, and the like. Typically, conveyors contemplated by this invention are used in food canning and soft drink manufacturing facilities, breweries, packaging facilities, dairies, etc. Moreover, this invention can be employed in industrial operations in general.
Conveyors employed in some of the large facilities noted
above are generally very long, and some can extend for as much as several hundred feet; the conveyor components themselves are also very heavy. If they are not lubricated, the conveyors will become excessively worn and ultimately break. If this occurs, and because conveyors can operate with heavy loading and under high tension, chain breakage is extremely dangerous. As a result, the industry practice is to over-lubricate these conveyors, which is not only expensive, but in addition, excessive lubricant causes a slippery condition that is dangerous to personnel.
It would be preferable to eliminate the need to lubricate a conveyor when a particular section of a conveyor system is shut down, either temporarily during a run, or for periods of time, say during a shift change, or for repairs, and during routine maintenance, etc. This would result in lubricant savings and also reduce sewage charges due to excessive use.
In Applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 5,129,481 issued Jul. 14, 1992, there is described a conveyor driven system which connects through a bladder accumulator which feeds lubricant through nozzle applicators and onto the conveyor, the application times being controlled by the conveyor movement.
The patented system is adapted t replace conventional electrical actuated devices which are expensive, and subject to electrical breakdowns due to moisture accumulation which causes maintenance problems and slows down plant operations.
One problem arising with bladder accumulators is that the response time of the accumulator is not sufficiently rapid to feed the lubricant in a pulsating manner to a very rapidly moving conveyor system. Instead, the bladder accumulator applies lubricant continuously to the rapidly moving conveyor rather than on an intermittent or pulsating basis, and this type of operation precludes an effective control of lubricant application.
In addition, each station where lubricant is applied requires a bladder accumulator and associated equipment. However, it would be preferred to use a single lubricant applicator system to service, say, multiple lubrication stations instead of only a single station.
Also, it would be preferred to control the application of lubricant, not only to a rapidly moving conveyor, and to control multiple lubrication stations, but also to avoid the use of an electrically controlled applicator system.

Apparatus and method for lubricating conveyors


There is provided an appliance management apparatus including a connection state acquiring unit acquiring information generated due to an appliance terminal of an electronic appliance being positioned close to or connected to a power supplying terminal that supplies power, and a connection state management unit managing a connection state of the appliance terminal to the power supplying terminal using the information acquired by the connection state acquiring unit.

The present disclosure relates to an appliance management apparatus and an appliance management method.
In response to growing environmental concerns in recent years, a number of management apparatuses, such as so-called "intelligent power strips" and "smart power strips", that control the supplying of power to electronic apparatuses connected by power lines have been introduced. Such control may include the selective stopping of supply to apparatuses that do not have to be provided with power. As one example, such management apparatuses use a technology called PLC (Power Line Communication) that uses power lines as communication lines. One example of a technology that carries out communication via power lines using PLC is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-110471. Other technologies for carrying out wired communication with electronic apparatuses connected using power lines are also being developed.

Appliance management apparatus and appliance management method


Certain ensembles of metapletic anyons allow for topologically protected encoding and processing of quantum information. Such processing is done by sequences of gates (circuits) drawn from a certain basis of unitary metaplectic gates. A subject unitary operator required for the desired processing can be approximated to any desired precision by a circuit that has to be effectively and efficiently synthesized on a classical computer. Synthesis methods use unitary reflection operators that can be represented either exactly or by ancilla-assisted approximation over the basis of metaplectic gates based on cost-optimizing determinations made by the synthesis algorithm.

Quantum computation provides an alternative approach that may permit solutions to problems that are computationally difficult (or impossible) using classical approaches. Quantum computation has unique requirements, and quantum circuit designs for a particular computation can be difficult to determine. In addition, it is generally convenient to implement quantum circuits using a basis gate set. Such basis gate sets are generally referred to as "universal," i.e., it can be shown that any circuit can be implemented using one or more elements of the gate set. In some cases, one or more additional gates are provided to simplify circuit design and implementation. Although a gate set may be known to be universal, it is often unclear how to realize a particular circuit, or, even if circuit synthesis methods are known, to provide a compact circuit specification using practical classical computational resources.
One powerful topologically protected quantum gate basis is related to a species of quasiparticles called metaplectic anyons. This gate set is referred to as a metaplectic basis. Effective synthesis of optimal circuits in this basis is an important engineering problem. Accordingly, methods and apparatus are needed for quantum circuit design using this basis.

Efficient topological compilation for metaplectic anyon model


A pressure washer frame is modified to include a hose reel and a gunvalve rack so that those items can be transported to a job site with the pressure washer. The hose reel is created by connecting a stop member to the conventional handle with a pair of brackets so that a hose can be coiled about the handle and held against slippage by the stop member. The rack for the gunvalve is created by adding a pair of longitudinally spaced cradles to the frame. The first cradle is added to the handle end of the frame and supports the pistol grip part of the gunvalve. The second cradle is added to the opposite end of the frame and supports the distal end of the gunvalve. A strap associated with the second cradle holds down the distal end.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to pressure washers. More particularly, it relates to structural improvements to pressure washer frames that enable storage of auxiliary items thereon.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Pressure washers deliver water under high pressure to a surface to be stripped, cleaned, or prepared for further treatment. Typically, they include a pump and a gasoline engine that are mounted on a frame. The frame is usually provided with a handle and wheels so that it may be transported over various surfaces.
An elongate pressure discharge hose extends from the pump, and a trigger-operated gunvalve having a pistol grip is releasably attached to the distal free end of the hose.
Since the primary function of the frame is to support the engine and the pump, and because there is no obvious way to modify the frame so that it can also support the hose and gunvalve, no practical means of modular design has ever been provided for carrying the gunvalve or the pressure discharge hose. Thus, the user of a conventional pressure washer is required to make two trips from the vehicle that carries the pressure washer to the job site; the first trip is made to wheel the pressure washer from the vehicle to the job site, and the second trip is made to carry the gunvalve and hose thereto.
Some individuals have welded various brackets onto pressure washer frames in an attempt to eliminate the second trip, but the welding process is time-consuming and inconvenient.
Pressure washers mounted on frames equipped with wheels and a handle for pushing the frame have been known for decades, but a practical means for modifying a pressure washer frame to accommodate both the gunvalve and the hose has eluded those of ordinary skill in the art. The conventional wisdom is that the status quo is acceptable, because said wisdom holds that the cost of redesigning the standard pressure washer frame so that it could carry the hose and gunvalve would probably be cost prohibitive.

Pressure washer frame having gunvalve and hose rack


A processor is provided for determining the layout of a branch of a bank or the like. On the basis of the determined layout, the processor further determines a moving route of a transaction processing apparatus to be moved. The transaction processing apparatus is moved to a predetermined position along the determined moving route. In that case, the transaction processing apparatus recognizes its own position and at the same time controls a driving mechanism so that the transaction processing apparatus is moved along the moving route. The driving mechanism is incorporated in the transaction processing apparatus.

The present invention relates to a transaction processing system and a transaction processing method which customers utilize for transactions such as the deposit/withdrawal of savings, the sending of money to an account for the payment of public utility charges at a branch of a bank or the like. The present invention further relates to a change of the layout of the branch.
A conventional transaction processor or transaction processing apparatus uses a power supply cable for providing electric power and a communication cable for facilitating communication of transaction data with a central processing unit, however, it is not provided with driving means and drive controlling means necessary for movement of the transaction processing apparatus. Also, there is not known any transaction processing apparatus the place of installation of which can be changed in accordance with the crowdness of customers in a branch of a bank.
An existing self-navigating vehicle is known as a self-navigating unmanned vehicle. A technique of detecting the current position of a moving body represented by the unmanned vehicle is disclosed by, for example, JP-A-55-88105. A technique of calculating the amount of control for drive of the moving body from a deviation of the current position of the moving body from a predetermined route is disclosed by JP-A-59-11412. According to these techniques, if the unmanned vehicle is furnished with a route where the vehicle is to run, the unmanned vehicle can automatically move on that route.

Transaction processing system and method


The present invention is generally directed to various advanced process control methodologies for thermal oxidation processes, and various systems for accomplishing same. In one illustrative embodiment, the method comprises measuring an ambient pressure of an environment external to an oxidation chamber, determining a correction factor based upon at least the measured ambient pressure, determining at least one parameter of a thermal oxidation process to be performed in the oxidation chamber based upon the determined correction factor, and performing the thermal oxidation process comprised of the determined parameter on at least one substrate positioned in the oxidation chamber.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to semiconductor manufacturing, and, more particularly, to various advanced process control methodologies for thermal oxidation processes, and various systems for accomplishing same.
2. Description of the Related Art
The manufacturing of semiconductor devices may involve many process steps. For example, semiconductor fabrication typically involves processes such as deposition processes, etching processes, thermal growth processes, various heat treatment processes, ion implantation, photolithography, etc. Such processes may be performed in any of a variety of different combinations to produce semiconductor devices that are useful in a wide variety of applications.
In general, there is a constant drive within the semiconductor industry to increase the operating speed and efficiency of various integrated circuit devices, e.g., microprocessors, memory devices, and the like. This drive is fueled by consumer demands for computers and electronic devices that operate at increasingly greater speeds and efficiency. This demand for increased speed and efficiency has resulted in a continual reduction in the size of semiconductor devices, e.g., transistors, as well as the packing density of such devices on an integrated circuit device. That is, many components of a typical field effect transistor (FET), e.g., channel length, junction depths, gate insulation thickness, and the like, are reduced. For example, all other things being equal, the smaller the channel length of the transistor or the thinner the gate insulation layer, the faster the transistor will operate. Thus, there is a constant drive to reduce the size, or scale, of the components of a typical transistor to increase the overall speed of the transistor, as well as integrated circuit devices incorporating such transistors. There is also a constant demand for memory cells or devices with enhanced access times and read/write capabilities.
As a result of the rapid advance in semiconductor manufacturing technology and the performance of semiconductor devices, it is very important that manufacturing processes employed in modern semiconductor manufacturing operations enable the repeated production of semiconductor devices to very exacting dimensions and standards. Even minor variations in processing can adversely impact device performance. For example, in the context of field effect transistors, the formation of a gate electrode to the desired critical dimension is very important. If the critical dimension of the gate electrode is larger than a desired target value, then the transistor may have a lower operating speed than is desired. Conversely, if the critical dimension of the gate electrode is smaller than the target critical dimension, there may be undesirable leakage currents in excess of allowable values. Accordingly, such devices may be less than desirable for many mobile applications, i.e., laptop computers, telephones, etc.
As indicated above, thermal growth processes are employed frequently in the manufacture of semiconductor devices. For example, thermal growth processes may be performed to form a gate insulation layer on a field effect transistor, or a tunnel oxide layer on a memory cell. The formation of such layers may be critically important to the performance of such devices. This is even more true given the continual reduction in the feature size of the semiconductor devices that has occurred in recent years. For example, if the thickness of a thermally grown gate insulation layer or tunnel oxide layer varies from a target value, then the resulting device may not meet target performance characteristics established for such a device. Moreover, it should be understood that, in modern semiconductor devices, such gate insulation layers may have a thickness on the order of approximately 30–100 Å (3–10 nm). Thus, establishing process control techniques that enable a manufacturer to reliably and repeatedly reproduce thermally grown process layers to such exacting requirements is a very challenging undertaking.
The present invention is directed to various methods and systems that may solve, or at least reduce, some or all of the aforementioned problems.

Advanced process control of thermal oxidation processes, and systems for accomplishing same


This invention relates to novel potassium channels and genes encoding these channels. More specifically the invention provides isolated polynucleotides encoding the KCNQ4 potassium channel, cells transformed with these polynucleotides, transgenic animals comprising genetic mutations, and the use of the transformed cells and the transgenic animals for the in vitro and in vivo screening of drugs affecting KCNQ4 containing potassium channels.

Potassium channels participate in the regulation of electrical signalling in excitable cells, and regulates the ionic composition of biological fluids. Mutations in the three known genes of the KCNQ branch of the K+-channel gene family underlie inherited cardiac arrhythmia's, in some cases associated with deafness, and neonatal epilepsy.
Hearing loss is the most frequent sensory defect in humans. Hearing loss can be due to environmental and genetic factors, and the progressive hearing loss of the elderly (presbyacusis) most often seems to be due to a combination of both.
Inherited deafness can be classified as non-syndromic (isolated hearing loss) or syndromic (associated with other anomalies). Several hundred syndromes, consisting of hearing loss associated with defects in a variety of other organ systems, have been described. Non-syndromic deafness is classified according to its mode of inheritance as DFN, DFNA, and DFNB (X-linked, autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive, respectively). In general, autosomal recessive deafness has an early onset and is very severe. Autosomal dominant deafness, by contrast, more often develops slowly over several decades and may become apparent only in adulthood. It is hoped that genes identified in families with dominant deafness may also—with different types of mutations—underlie some forms of presbyacusis.
A bewildering number of loci for non-syndromic deafness were identified in the last four years. There are at least 19 loci for autosomal dominant deafness (DFNA1 to DFNA19), and 22 loci for DFNB. Sometimes, depending on the particular mutation, the same gene can be involved in dominant or recessive deafness. This large number of loci reflects the complexity of the inner ear. Identification of these genes and characterisation of their products will significantly advance our understanding of the molecular basis of the physiology of this sensory organ.
Several genes involved in syndromic and non-syndromic deafness have already been identified and are reviewed by Petit [Petit C: Genes responsible for human hereditary deafness: symphony of a thousand; Nature Genet. 1996 14 385-391] and Kalatzis & Petit [Kalatzis V & Petit C: The fundamental and medical impacts of recent progress in research on hereditary hearing loss; Hum. Mol. Genet. 1998 7 1589-1597]. Among others, their gene products include transcription factors, unconventional myosin isoforms, α-tectorin (an extracellular matrix protein), diaphanous, a protein interacting with the cytoskeleton, connexin 26 (a gap junction protein), and two genes encoding potassium channel subunits, KCNQ1 and KCNE1.
Ion channels play important roles in signal transduction and in the regulation of the ionic composition of intra- and extracellular fluids. Mutations in ion channels were since long suspected as possibly underlying some forms of hearing loss. In the cochlea (the auditory sensory organ), the transduction current through the sensory cells is carried by potassium ions and depends on the high concentration of that ion in the endolymph. So far only two genes encoding potassium channel subunits, KCNQ1 and KCNE1, were found to be mutated in syndromic hereditary deafness. The gene products of both genes, the KCNQ1 (or KvLQT1) and the minK (or IsK) protein, respectively, form heteromeric potassium channels.
KCNQ1 is a typical member of the voltage-gated potassium channel superfamily with 6 transmembrane domains and a pore region situated between the fifth and the sixth transmembrane domain. The minK protein has a single transmembrane span and cannot form potassium channels on its own. However, as a β-subunit it enhances and modifies currents mediated by KCNQ1. These heteromeric channels participate in the repolarization of the heart action potential. Certain mutations in either KCNQ1 or KCNE1 cause a form of the autosomal dominant long QT syndrome (LQTS), a disease characterised by repolarization anomalies of cardiac action potentials resulting in arrhythmias and sudden death. Interestingly, other mutations in either gene lead to the recessive Jervell and Lange-Nielsen (JLN) syndrome that combines LQTS with congenital deafness. In order to cause deafness, KCNQ1/minK currents must be reduced below levels that are already sufficiently low to cause cardiac arrhythmia.

Potassium channels and genes encoding these potassium channels


A system for monitoring a plurality of machines of a facility is disclosed. The system comprises a plurality of data network devices configured to communicate with one another via at least one network. The data network devices are configured to collect machine data from the plurality of machines and distribute the machine data via the at least one network. The system further comprises data display devices configured to provide a graphical user interface that enables a user to view and analyze the machine data that is collected and distributed by the data network devices.

Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to the prior art by inclusion in this section.
An industrial facility generally comprises a large environment with a wide array of machines and work areas that are operated and monitored by a large number of employees. Due to the large scale and complexity of many industrial facilities, effective management and monitoring of the macro-level concerns of the facility, such as safety, productivity, and efficiency, can become difficult or impossible. Accordingly, what is needed is a system for real-time monitoring of the facility that provides the detail necessary to quickly identify and address issues in the facility.

System for monitoring machinery and work areas of a facility


A storage control device, and method, the storage control device including storers, such as buffers, which store data and a storage controller. The storage controller, in response to a data issue request identifying an issue order, selects one of the storers. Data is output that corresponds to a particular address in the selected storer. The storage control method includes providing a data issue request identifying an issue order, and comparing identifications of storers, with the identification in the data issue request. The method further includes selecting a storer and outputting data from the selected storer that corresponds to an address.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storage control devices and storage control methods, and more particularly to a storage control device and a storage control method that include a plurality of store buffers and store or fetch with respect to the plurality of store buffers.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional processing unit includes a store buffer to temporarily maintain data that is to be written to cache memory or main memory. A store process can be completed by providing the store buffer, before a preparation of writing, the data to cache memory or main memory.
In the processing unit, when it is detected that store data is in the store buffer, which has not completed writing data to cache memory or main memory is subjected to a fetch for a following process, a retriever for retrieving data to be fetched from the store buffer retrieves the store data in the store buffer. Using the retriever, a fetch request can be completed before the store data is written in the cache memory or the main memory.
In the case described above, to check whether or not one store area indicated by one fetch request overlaps another store area indicated by another fetch request, the fetch request, a store request, an address, and a byte mark to be processed are checked.
Accordingly, if it is required to repeatedly execute a plurality of instructions in response to a request for improving a process performance of a device, a plurality of store requests or a plurality of fetch requests with respect to the same area at the same time occurs. In this state, when a store buffer is selected to fetch by an address and a byte mark, data in a different store buffer is required for each of the fetch requests in a case in which each of the fetch requests indicates the same area to fetch. Thus, it is difficult to accurately indicate the store buffer storing data to be fetched for each of the fetch requests occurring at the same time.
Accordingly, in a state in which there are a plurality of store requests and a plurality of fetch requests that operate on the same storage area, there is a problem in that in order to properly process a current fetch request, the current fetch request is required to wait until other preceding store requests are actually processed, that is, until only one preceding store request remains in the store buffer and it completes writing to cache memory or main memory.

Storage control device and storage control method


The present disclosure relates to a modular firearm frame adapter that aid in making compatible a slide associated with a first firearm and a frame associated with a second firearm. The compatibility is such that the slide associated with a first firearm and a magazine associated with a second firearm being able to function properly as a single integrated firearm. This system includes an adapter, and one or more adapter elements that aids allowing the modular firearm to function properly.

The first firearms use began in the 14th century and were essentially miniature cannons small enough to be held by a man. These firearms required a match, spark, or ember to light a flash pan that held primer powder to be able to fire these primitive firearms. In time, a matchlock mechanism was developed which lowered a match to the flash pan of the firearm when a trigger was pulled. This allowed the user to hold and aim the gun while waiting for it to fire. Even though the matchlock mechanism allowed the user to aim the firearm, an external fire source to light the matchlock was still necessary to ignite gunpowder when the trigger was pulled. The flintlock mechanism improved upon the matchlock because the flintlock mechanism created a spark, on demand, when the trigger was pulled to ignite the primer powder in the flash pan. The problem with the flintlock mechanism is that the mechanism often misfired in inclement weather and failed to ignite wet powder making the reliability of firearms with a flintlock mechanism questionable. This prompted the creation of a percussion cap. Percussion caps contained a dry mixture of chemicals which were explosively sensitive to shock (e.g., from a falling hammer on a firearm) and allowed a user to fire reliable regardless of the weather. Percussion caps, containing a shock-sensitive explosive, ignited upon the impact of a hammer that was released when the trigger was pulled which allowed fire created by the explosion to ignite gunpowder within the firearm and fire a bullet.
As firearms improved so did the ammunition used with the firearms. Ammunition like that used in a cannon was round (e.g., a ball) and advanced from stone to iron and later to lead. Cannon balls were installed in a barrel and rammed into a seated position on top of gunpowder in the cannon, or on a wad between the gunpowder and the cannon ball. These cannon balls were wildly inaccurate because of an unpredictable spin that occurred when the cannon balls were fired. Firearms of the era were also "smoothbore" (e.g., lacking grooves) which caused unpredictable spin on a lead ball or cannon ball. To improve accuracy, helical rifle grooves were machined into the inside of barrels in both cannons and firearms. Machining these grooves was called rifling and was not initially very popular because rifling made cleaning barrels a substantially more difficult task. Refinements in gunpowder technology and the development of ammunition cartridges increased the popularity of rifled barrels because shooters benefited from the accuracy improvements while also reducing the work associated with cleaning a firearm barrel.
The development of an ammunition cartridge, which contained all the components necessary to fire a projectile from a firearm in one object, revolutionized firearms technology. Ammunition cartridges include a metallic case, preferably brass, fitted to accept a primer, gunpowder, and a projectile. More commonly, an ammunition cartridge is referred to as a "bullet" even though the projectile, the bullet, is but one element of an ammunition cartridge. One of the reasons for this clarification is that ammunition cartridges are made in different sizes. The sizes are often labeled by the diameter of the bullet also referred to as a caliber. Caliber was originally used to define the diameter of a barrel bore and now it is often used to describe bullets corresponding to the bore diameter. For example, a brass case may be a particular size, provide a primer pocket for receiving a primer of a particular size, have an internal volume of a specific size to receive gun powder, and may further accept a bullet of a particular caliber typically measured in tenths or thousandths of an inch in the United States and using metric diameter measurements in countries that use metric measurements.
The development of ammunition cartridges further improved the moving of ammunition into a chamber of a firearm and the speed of firing. Two devices were created to hold ammunition in a usable position within a firearm, a clip and a magazine. A clip groups ammunition cartridges together, but has no moving parts. Firearms that use clips contain mechanisms to move the ammunition cartridge from the clip and inserts the round into a firing position in the chamber. The magazine, often mistakenly identified as a clip, aids in not only storing rounds but also moving the round into firing position by use of spring tension, pushing magazines towards a top of the magazines. The dimensions of magazines depend on many ammunition cartridge and firearm characteristics, including the caliber of bullet, the length of the firearm frame, the angle of magazine port, the number of ammunition rounds, the firearm retrieval site, the type of bolt, the size and shape of the slide, the size and shape of the magazine port, the weight preferences etc. The dimensional specifications of magazines makes modularity extremely difficult in that a magazine designed for a particular firearm will only operate within that particular firearm model. Any seemingly minor change in the dimensions of a magazine or a of a slide from one model to another renders such magazine useless to any other firearm model even if it contains ammunition of the same caliber.
To accommodate for different dimensional specifications for magazines, firearms manufacturers have created different models of firearms that are designed for shooters with different grip preferences or hand sizes. For example, a user may prefer a wider grip, while another likes a longer grip, another may wish to conceal a and desire a smaller grip profile while others may desire a magazine that holds a desired number of ammunition cartridges. All of these alterations change the dimension of the firearm magazine and in so doing changes the mechanisms for receiving the cartridges stored in the magazine.
To further explain using an automatic pistol, a pistol can be grouped into two major parts an upper portion referred to herein as an upper or slide portion and a lower or frame portion. In some embodiments, the slide portion may include a slide, barrel, guide rod, recoil spring, firing pin, ammunition receiving port, receiver rail, and ammunition ejector port to name a few. In some embodiments, the frame portion may include trigger group, grip, magazine receiver port, magazine, magazine ejector button, ejector button, connector rail, disassembly pin and lever, and etc. Both the slide portion and frame portions are interconnected and interrelated. A receiver rail in the frame and a connector rail in the slide must both be aligned or a slider portion cannot connect with a frame portion. If a slide removal pin is not aligned correctly, the pistol could not be taken apart (field stripped) to allow for a more thorough cleaning. A trigger assembly in the frame portion does not work if it does not interact with the firing pin in the slide portion. Finally, the ammunition feed port where a magazine offloads a bullet into a receiving chamber of the firearm cannot function properly if not aligned correctly. In other words, if a magazine is not precisely positioned within a firearm, the firearm will not successfully load an ammunition cartridge to be fired. Further, magazines with dimensional specifications that include even very minor differences cannot be used in a firearm for which the magazine is not intended because ammunition cartridges will not properly exit the ammunition feed port in the magazine into the chamber of the firearm due to misalignment of the magazine and the firearm. Any of these misalignments may not only keep the pistol from firing properly but may also cause misfires or cause ammunition cartridges to detonate at an improper location putting both the user and any bystanders in mortal danger.
It is, therefore, one object of this disclosure to describe an example of a modular portion of a firearm to receive a magazine associated with the lower portion of a firearm and combine it with an upper portion of a firearm that is not normally compatible with the lower portion while providing satisfactory operation of the firearm. It is another object of this disclosure to provide a grip module which provides an adapter that allows a magazine that is not intended for a use with a particular slide portion to be properly installed and fitted to the particular slide portion while providing satisfactory operation of the firearm.

Modular firearm adapter system and device


A system and method for detecting and classifying cardiac arrhythmias based on cardiac pressure signals or the combination of cardiac electrical and cardiac pressure signals. A cardiac electrogram signal is sensed to derive a cardiac rate from which an arrhythmia detection is made when the cardiac rate meets arrhythmia detection criteria. An intracardiac pressure signal is sensed to derive an indicator of tachycardia based on an analysis of the pressure signal in either the time domain or frequency domain. The detected arrhythmia is classified as tachycardia or fibrillation based on the tachycardia indicator wherein the tachycardia indicator is compared to tachycardia detection criteria and the arrhythmia is classified as tachycardia if tachycardia detection criteria are met and the arrhythmia is classified as fibrillation if the tachycardia detection criteria are not met.

In the past, atrial arrhythmias have been largely undertreated due to the perception that these arrhythmias are relatively benign. As more serious consequences of persistent atrial fibrillation have come to be understood, such as an associated risk of relatively more serious ventricular arrhythmias and stroke, there is a greater interest in providing implantable atrial or dual chamber cardioverter defibrillators for treating atrial arrhythmias.
Atrial fibrillation (AF) can be treatable with relatively high voltage defibrillation shocks, which are generally painful to the patient, or high frequency pulse bursts. Atrial flutter (AFL), also referred to herein as atrial tachycardia (AT) can be treated by anti-tachycardia pacing (ATP) therapies, pulse bursts or cardioversion shocks. Generally, it is preferred to initially treat AFL with a less aggressive therapy such as ATP, which is not painful to the patient and requires less battery energy than cardioversion shocks. Reliable discrimination between AFL and AF is important in selecting the appropriate atrial arrhythmia therapy and is also useful in monitoring a patient's arrhythmia disease status, managing medical therapy, and evaluating the effectiveness of arrhythmia therapies.
In AFL, the atria beat at an elevated rate that is highly regular, typically at 200 to 320 beats per minute. While beating at a pathologically high rate, the atrial contraction can be sufficiently coordinated to generate pressure within the atria. In AF, the atria depolarize at an elevated rate that can be regular or irregular. The atrial contraction is disorganized, however, and not efficient enough to generate pressure. AFL, characterized by a single depolarizing wavefront, is often treatable by anti-tachycardia pacing (ATP) therapies, whereas AF, characterized by multiple depolarizing wavefronts, is not treatable by ATP therapies.
Clinically, the efficacy of atrial ATP therapies is reportedly, on the order of less than 50%. This low efficacy rate may not reflect the effectiveness of atrial ATP therapies in successfully treating AFL, but instead reflect inappropriate AFL detections resulting in the delivery of atrial ATP therapies during a rhythm that is untreatable by ATP. If the rhythm is in fact AF, atrial ATP therapies will be ineffective. On the other hand, arrhythmias classified as AF that are in fact fast AFL may be unnecessarily treated with a more aggressive arrhythmia therapy such as a shock therapy, needlessly exposing the patient to shock pain and consuming battery energy. Improved specificity of atrial arrhythmia classification methods may therefore allow ATP therapy efficacy to be improved and conservative but appropriate use of defibrillation shock therapies.
Methods for specifically classifying atrial arrhythmias, for monitoring or therapy selection purposes, generally depend only on atrial rate information in current commercially available devices. Such information may include the atrial rate and the regularity of the atrial rate. A range of atrial rates may be specified for detecting AFL and a different, generally higher, range of atrial rates may be specified for detecting AF. However, because the atrial rate could be the same during AFL and AF, specified ranges for AFL and AF detection may overlap and therefore rate information alone is not always adequate for detecting and discriminating AFL and AF. When an atrial rate is detected in this overlap range, atrial cycle length regularity may be used for discriminating between AFL and AF. However, because the atrial cycle length can be regular during AF in some patients, atrial cycle length regularity may not always be a dependable distinguishing factor in discriminating AFL from AF either.
Therefore, what is needed is a method and device for discriminating between atrial arrhythmias when atrial rate information is ambiguous in discriminating AFL from AF.

Combination of electrogram and intra-cardiac pressure to discriminate between fibrillation and tachycardia


Inventory control and monitoring system uses an RFID reader to read tags on multiple lights passing through a portal. A light turns green after all the tags have been read. Information from those tags is added to an inventory database, which keeps track of which lights, and how many of each kind of light, is in stock. Locations of the lights can also be added to the inventory system.

Automated lights are often rented for use with events, which may use them for a short time or a long time. After the event has ended, the lights are returned. They need to then be returned to stock, so that they can be rented to someone else. Inventory management is extremely important, since inventory determines what products are available for rental at a subsequent time.


An assembly for cable conduits of a piece of workstation furniture having a plurality of different profile sections which can be inserted into one another, which have essentially planar outer sides, and which support connecting elements or connecting grooves, the elements or grooves being formed on the inner sides. The assembly has four different profile sections including a curved wall profile section, a side wall profile section, a wall termination profile section, and a cover profile section which can be inserted into one another to form different cable conduit structures using simple insertion elements.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a kit for cable conduits for a piece of workstation furniture having several different profiled sections, which can be plugged together, having essentially flat exteriors and support connecting strips or connecting grooves on the interior.
2. Description of Related Art
A kit of this type is known from German Patent Reference DE 196 10 347 C1. The connecting strips and connecting grooves formed on the interiors are used for fastening cables or built-in elements in the assembled cable conduit. Complex connecting and counter-connecting elements have been formed out of the free longitudinal edges of the profiled sections for connecting the profiled sections with each other. Also, it is only possible to plug together cable conduits of small receiving spaces with the different profiled sections.
It is one object of this invention to provide a kit of the type mentioned above but with cable conduits of different sizes in closed or partial embodiment, wherein only simple connecting elements need to be provided at the profiled sections for connecting the profiled sections.
In accordance with this invention, this object is achieved with a kit having four different profiled sections:
a) tub-shaped profiled sections of U-shaped cross section, wherein the lateral legs end in plug-in strips or plug-in grooves and form plug-in grooves or plug-in strips at the transition areas to the base leg, whose plugging directions are oriented in the plane of the lateral legs;
b) essentially flat partial profiled lateral wall sections having a plug-in groove on the one longitudinal edge and a plug-in strip on the other, and plugging directions oriented in the plane of the partial profiled lateral wall sections;
c) essentially flat profiled wall end sections with a plug-in groove or a plug-in strip on the one longitudinal edge and a hinge receiver on the other, wherein the plugging direction of the plug-in groove or the plug-in strip is oriented in the plane of the profiled wall end section; and
d) essentially flat profiled cover sections with a hinge strip on one longitudinal edge.
The connecting elements designed as plug-in strips and plug-in grooves are simple and provide, with an appropriately selected fitted and/or pressed seating, a sufficient support of the connection of the plugged together cable conduit. The base element in the form of a tub-shaped profiled section fixes the one dimension of the cable conduit, while the other dimension can be increased in steps by means of the partial profiled lateral wall sections. Also, louver-like covering walls can be created by means of the partial profiled lateral wall sections.
For obtaining defined plug-in connections, one embodiment matches the plug-in depth of the plug-in strips of the profiled sections to the depth of the plug-in grooves of the profiled sections, and in the plugged together cable conduit, they are symmetrically arranged in the mutual plug-in planes.
If strips, which form T-shaped connecting grooves, are formed on the interior of the profiled sections, it is possible to fix cables and built-in elements in place in the cable receiving space in the same way as with known cable conduits. The connecting grooves can have different dimensions.
Other connecting elements in a strip shape can also be formed on the interiors of the profiled sections. In one embodiment at least a portion of the connecting grooves of all profiled sections has the same dimensions and receives connecting elements plugged-in at the front. This is advantageous in connection with a horizontally oriented cable conduit, because then the cable conduit can be suspended on vertical columns of the furniture frame.
As a rule, the profiled wall end sections adjoin the lateral legs of the tub-shaped profiled section, or the last partial profiled lateral wall section which is connected with a lateral leg, in order to cover the top of the cable conduit with one or two profiled cover sections. In this case the profiled cover section can extend either over the entire width of the cable conduit, or only over half the width. For achieving a defined locking position of the profiled cover sections, the profiled wall end sections have contact strips, and in the area of the hinge strips, the profiled cover sections have contact strips, which limit and define at least one pivot position of the profiled cover section on the profiled wall end section, preferably the closed position of the cable conduit.

Assembly for cable conduits of a piece of workstation furniture


In a system and method for grouping data, a processor may, with reference to metadata identifying relationships between sets of data to be displayed in columns of a table, generate a display template from the identified relationships, the template defining that related columns of data are presented adjacent to each other in groups and defining which types of graphical demarcations to display, may search among records corresponding to rows of the table to be displayed for records that satisfy a search criterion, and may display a table according to the display template, rows of the table arranged to display the records that satisfy the search criteria in a group separate from the other records.

A collection of data may include a number of groups of data. For example, a computer file may include a number of categories of data. Each category of data may further include sub-categories of data. A computer processor may output the data according to the categories and sub-categories via an output device.
For example, a computer memory may include a plurality of records. Each of the records may include data pertaining to a number of categories. The computer processor may arrange the data in a table, where each row may correspond to a particular record, and each column may correspond to a particular category. A number of columns may further correspond to a main category, so that the category to which each of the number of columns corresponds is a sub-category of the main category. The processor may output the table in any conventional manner. For example, the processor may output the table for display on a computer monitor, or transmit the table to a printer to print out the table. The grouping of the data into columns may identify the individual categories of information to a user. However, the column groupings do not identify which groups of columns belong to a particular main category.
It is conventional to include in a computer program, code for color-coding the columns according to main categories to which the columns belong. For example, when executing the code, the processor may group together and highlight in one color columns that belong to one main category, and may group together and highlight in a different color columns that belong to a different main category.
However, if the computer program is configured to run on one operating system and is then run on a different operating system, the program may display the columns with the wrong colors. For example, the program may display all columns with the same color, and may therefore fail to identify which groups of columns belong to a particular main category.
A user may search for data elements within groups of data that match particular search criteria. For example, the user may search for matches to a particular data string within the columns of data. As a result of the search, the processor may highlight all matching data elements, e.g., records including data within the searched columns that match the search criteria. To find the matching data elements, the user may scan the searched columns for all highlighted data elements. However, especially where a column includes a very large amount of data so that the user must scroll to see all of the data, it may be difficult for the user to find all of the matching data elements. The user may even mistakenly overlook some highlighted data.
It is conventional for the processor to provide a list of only the subset of records that include the matching data elements. However, to ascertain how the list of the subset of records relates to the original list of records, the user must perform a line-by-line comparison.
It is also conventional for a computer application to provide a way to sort columns by particular values, e.g., alphabetically. If each row of a column would include only one value that includes a single string, then the processor would group together all rows including a matching data string since the rows all include a data string that is positioned in the same way according to the sort. However, if rows include more than one value or more than one string, then rows including a matching string might not be grouped together. For example, the user may instruct the processor to sort records so that data of a particular column is alphabetically arranged. The user may search the column for records that include the string, "United States." A record that includes the string "Canada, United States" as the data corresponding to the searched column will not be grouped together with a record that includes the string "United States" as the data corresponding to the searched column.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a system and method for grouping data to identify categories of data and sub-categories of data in a platform-independent manner, and to aid a user in identifying data that match search criteria.


A macrocell including an adder block with a plurality of bit-slice adders, a bypass path and a control unit adapted to receive a carry of a first neighboring macrocell, and to output a carry by generation within the adder block or by passage of the carry of the first neighboring macrocell through the bypass path to a second neighboring macrocell. The control unit is adapted to signal a validity of the carry output of the macrocell depending on a logical combination of states of the two carry output lines. The control unit is further adapted, depending on a validity signal of the first neighboring macrocell indicating a validity of the carry, to prevent forwarding the carry.

The invention relates to a macrocell and a method for adding. Macrocells can be used as functional units for processing data in, for example, microprocessors, controllers or co-processors. Macrocells can be used for building blocks like register files, multiplexers, arithmetic logic units (ALU) and shifters. A central processing unit (CPU) uses data paths for the interconnection of all functional units for processing data. Usual CPUs have data paths of a width of 8, 16 or 32 bits. In the field of crypto processors for public key cryptography calculating units for long number calculating are required. Crypto processors for public key cryptography, for example, may require arithmetic and logic units of a width of at least several hundred bits in order to enable the desired calculation speed in a range of milliseconds. This, in turn, poses a high effort in design, verification and layout of such units.


The present invention provides a biointerface membrane for use with an implantable device that interferes with the formation of a barrier cell layer including; a first domain distal to the implantable device wherein the first domain supports tissue attachment and interferes with barrier cell layer formation and a second domain proximal to the implantable device wherein the second domain is resistant to cellular attachment and is impermeable to cells. In addition, the present invention provides sensors including the biointerface membrane, implantable devices including these sensors or biointerface membranes, and methods of monitoring glucose levels in a host utilizing the analyte detection implantable device of the invention. Other implantable devices which include the biointerface membrane of the present invention, such as devices for cell transplantation, drug delivery devices, and electrical signal delivery or measuring devices are also provided.

One of the most heavily investigated analyte sensing devices is an implantable glucose sensor for detecting glucose levels in patients with diabetes. Despite the increasing number of individuals diagnosed with diabetes and recent advances in the field of implantable glucose monitoring devices, currently used devices are unable to provide data safely and reliably for long periods of time (e.g., months or years) [See, e.g., Moatti-Sirat et al., Diabetologia 35:224-30 (1992)]. There are two commonly used types of implantable glucose sensing devices. These types are those which are implanted intravascularly and those implanted in tissue.
With reference to devices that may be implanted in tissue, a disadvantage of these devices has been that they tend to lose their function after the first few days to weeks following implantation. At least one reason for this loss of function has been attributed to the fact that there is no direct contact with circulating blood to deliver sample to the tip of the probe of the implanted device. Because of these limitations, it has previously been difficult to obtain continuous and accurate glucose levels. However, this information is often extremely important to diabetic patients in ascertaining whether immediate corrective action is needed in order to adequately manage their disease.
Some medical devices, including implanted analyte sensors, drug delivery devices and cell transplantation devices require transport of solutes across the device-tissue interface for proper function. These devices generally include a membrane, herein referred to as a cell-impermeable membrane that encases the device or a portion of the device to prevent access by host inflammatory or immune cells to sensitive regions of the device.
A disadvantage of cell-impermeable membranes is that they often stimulate a local inflammatory response, called the foreign body response (FBR) that has long been recognized as limiting the function of implanted devices that require solute transport. Previous efforts to overcome this problem have been aimed at increasing local vascularization at the device-tissue interface with limited success.
The FBR has been well described in the literature and is composed of three main layers, as illustrated in FIG. 1. The innermost FBR layer 40, adjacent to the device, is composed generally of macrophages and foreign body giant cells 41 (herein referred to as the barrier cell layer). These cells form a monolayer 40 of closely opposed cells over the entire surface 48a of a smooth or microporous (<1.0 .mu.m) membrane 48. The intermediate FBR layer 42 (herein referred to as the fibrous zone), lying distal to the first layer with respect to the device, is a wide zone (30-100 microns) composed primarily of fibroblasts 43 and fibrous matrix 44. The outermost FBR layer 46 is loose connective granular tissue containing new blood vessels 45 (herein referred to as the vascular zone 46). A consistent feature of the innermost layers 40 and 42 is that they are devoid of blood vessels. This has led to widely supported speculation that poor transport of molecules across the device-tissue interface 47 is due to a lack of vascularization near interface 47 (Scharp et al., World J. Surg. 8:221-229 (1984), Colton and Avgoustiniatos J. Biomech. Eng. 113:152-170 (1991)).
Patents by Brauker et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,741,330), and Butler et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,913,998), describe inventions aimed at increasing the number of blood vessels adjacent to the implant membrane (Brauker et al.), and growing within (Butler et al.) the implant membrane at the device-tissue interface. The patent of Shults et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,001,067) describes membranes that induce angiogenesis at the device-tissue interface of implanted glucose sensors. FIG. 2 illustrates a situation in which some blood vessels 45 are brought close to an implant membrane 48, but the primary layer 40 of cells adherent to the cell-impermeable membrane blocks glucose. This phenomenon is described in further detail below.
In the examples of Brauker et al. (supra), and Shults et al., bilayer membranes are described that have cell impermeable layers that are porous and adhesive to cells. Cells are able to enter into the interstices of these membranes, and form monolayers on the innermost layer, which is aimed at preventing cell access to the interior of the implanted device (cell impenetrable layers). Because the cell impenetrable layers are porous, cells are able to reach pseudopodia into the interstices of the membrane to adhere to and flatten on the membrane, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, thereby blocking transport of molecules across the membrane-tissue interface. The known art purports to increase the local vascularization in order to increase solute availability. However, the present studies show that once the monolayer of cells (barrier cell layer) is established adjacent to the membrane, increasing angiogenesis is not sufficient to increase transport of molecules such as glucose and oxygen across the device-tissue interface.
One mechanism of inhibition of transport of solutes across the device-tissue interface that has not been previously discussed in the literature is the formation of a uniform barrier to analyte transport by cells that form the innermost layer of the foreign body capsule. This layer of cells forms a monolayer with closely opposed cells having tight cell-to-cell junctions. When this barrier cell layer forms, it is not substantially overcome by increased local vascularization. Regardless of the level of local vascularization, the barrier cell layer prevents the passage of molecules that cannot diffuse through the layer. Again, this is illustrated in FIG. 2 where blood vessels 45 lie adjacent to the membrane but glucose transport is significantly reduced due to the impermeable nature of the barrier cell layer 40. For example, both glucose and its phosphorylated form do not readily transit the cell membrane and consequently little glucose reaches the implant membrane through the barrier layer cells.
It has been confirmed by the present inventors through histological examination of explanted sensors that the most likely mechanism for inhibition of molecular transport across the device-tissue interface is the barrier cell layer adjacent to the membrane. There is a strong correlation between desired device function and the lack of formation of a barrier cell layer at the device-tissue interface. In the present studies, devices that were observed histologically to have substantial barrier cell layers were functional only 41% of the time after 12 weeks in vivo. In contrast, devices that did not have significant barrier cell layers were functional 86% of the time after 12 weeks in vivo.
Consequently, there is a need for a membrane that interferes with the formation of a barrier layer and protects the sensitive regions of the device from host inflammatory response.

Membrane for use with implantable devices


An integrated semiconductor junction antifuse is formed from either adjacent regions of opposite doping types or spaced apart regions of similar doping type within a substrate. In its unblown state, the junction antifuse forms an open circuit that blocks current from flowing while in the blown state, the junction antifuse conducts current. The junction antifuse is blown by applying a breakdown voltage sufficient to overcome a semiconductor junction so that current flows across the reverse-biased semiconductor junction. As current flows across the reverse-biased junction, dopant migration forms a conductive path so that the junction antifuse no longer forms an open circuit.

Typical integrated memory circuits include arrays of memory cells arranged in rows and columns. In many such integrated memory arrays, several redundant rows and columns are provided to be used as substitutes for defective locations in memory. When a defective bit location is identified, rather than treating the entire array as defective, a redundant row or column is substituted for the defective row or column. This substitution is performed by assigning the address of the defective row or column to the redundant row or column such that, when an address signal corresponding to the defective row or column is received, the redundant row or column is addressed instead.
To make substitution of the redundant row or column substantially transparent to a system employing the memory circuit, the memory circuit includes an address detection circuit. The address detection circuit monitors the row and column addresses and, when the address of a defective row or column is received, enables the redundant row or column instead.
One type of address detection circuit is a fuse-bank address detection circuit. Fuse-bank address detection circuits employ a bank of fuse based sense lines where each sense line corresponds to a bit of an address. The sense lines are programmed by blowing fuses in the sense lines in a pattern corresponding to the address of the defective row or column. Addresses are then detected by first applying a test voltage across the bank of sense lines. Then, bits of the address are applied to switches in the sense lines. If the pattern of blown fuses corresponds exactly to the pattern of address bits, the sense lines all block current and the voltage across the bank remains high. Otherwise, at least one sense line conducts and the voltage falls. A high voltage thus indicates the programmed address has been detected. A low voltage indicates a different address has been applied.
Typically, the fuses are blown by laser cutting the fuse conductors to remove the conductive paths through the fuses. One problem with such an approach is that laser cutting of the fuses is time consuming, difficult, and imprecise. As a consequence, the cost and reliability of memory devices employing fuse bank circuits can be less than satisfactory.
To eliminate the cost, difficulty, and expense of laser cutting, memory devices have recently been developed that employ antifuses in place of conventional fuses. Typical antifuses are parallel-plate capacitive structures that, in their unblown states, form open circuits. Such antifuses are "blown" by applying a high voltage across the antifuse. The high voltage causes a dielectric region of the parallel-plate capacitive structure to break down, forming a conductive path through the antifuse. Therefore, blown antifises conduct and unblown antifuses do not conduct.
Parallel-plate capacitive antifiuses can consume significant amounts of surface area on an integrated circuit die. Moreover, parallel-plate capacitive antifises can require different sequences of processing steps from the processing steps for fabricating the remainder of the integrated circuit die. Consequently, the space consumption and processing incompatibility of antifuses can make antifuses an undesirable alternative to the fuses.


The present invention relates to a method of treatment of hot flushes with a 5-HT2C receptor agonist and in particular to the use of the selective 5-HT2C receptor agonists 1-[6-chloro-5-(trifluoromethyl)-2-pyridinyl]-piperazine and (S)-(+)-3-[(2,3-dihydro-5-methoxy-1H-inden-4-yl)oxy-pyrrolidine or pharmaceutically acceptable acid addition salts thereof for the manufacture of a pharmaceutical formulation adapted for the treatment of hot flushes.

The most well-known complaints of the (post)-menopausal syndrome are due to changes in temperature regulation, causing sudden crises of feelings of excessive body heat (hot flushes). These symptoms are highly disturbing for a large proportion of menopausal women, leading to therapy requests to the medical profession. Usually, replacement of estrogens is selected as remedy. Less commonly and more recently explored is the selection of non-hormonal compounds as medicine for treating hot flushes. For example, the use of serotonergic uptake inhibitors and serotonin (=5-hydroxy-tryptophan=5-HT) antagonists for the treatment of hot flushes is discussed in Berendsen, Maturitas Vol 36, pp 155-164, 2000. Some beneficial effects of 5-HT2A antagonists and serotonin uptake inhibitors were reported. The beneficial effect of the serotonin reuptake inhibitors sertraline and paroxetine were described in Plouffe et al., Delaware Medical Journal 69: pp 481-482, 1997, Roth and Scher, PsychoOncology 7, pp 129-132, 1998, and Stearns et al., Annals of Oncology 11, pp 17-22, 2000.

Use of serotonergic compound for a method of treatment of hot flushes in post-menopausal women


A process and system for efficiently producing reference data that can be fed into a predictive model for predicting quality attribute concentrations in cell culture processes. A perfusion bioreactor is operated at pseudo-steady-state conditions and one or more attribute influencing parameters are manipulated and changed over time. As the one or more attribute influencing parameters are manipulated, one or more quality attributes are monitored and measured. In one embodiment, multiple quality attributes are monitored and measured in parallel. The quality attribute information is recorded in conjunction with the changes in the attribute influencing parameters. This information is then fed to the predictive model for propagating cell cultures in commercial processes and maintaining the cell cultures within desired preset limits.

Bioreactors, which are apparatuses in which biological reactions or processes can be carried out on a laboratory or industrial scale, are used widely within the biopharmaceutical industry. Bioreactors can be used to produce all different types of bioproducts. Bioproducts can include, for instance, cell cultures and materials derived from cell cultures including beverages, biofuels, bioenergy, biochemicals, antibiotics, amino acids, enzymes, monoclonal antibodies, monomers, proteins, food cultures, biopolymers, alcohols, flavorings, fragrances, and the like. In some embodiments, cell cultures can be grown for cell therapy. Cell therapy is the prevention, treatment, cure or mitigation of disease or injuries in humans by the administration of autologous, allogeneic or xenogeneic cells that have been manipulated or altered ex vivo. One goal of cell therapy is to repair, replace or restore damaged tissues or organs.
Cell cultures are typically grown in batch processes where the biological material remains in the bioreactor until the end of the reaction time. In certain of these processes, fluid medium contained within the bioreactor can be periodically or continuously removed and resupplied in order to replenish nutrients contained within the fluid medium and for possibly removing damaging by-products that are produced during the process.
During the growth of cell cultures, the regulation of key components, such as metabolites in the medium can have a direct impact on the quality of the product that is produced. Product quality is subject to process disturbances. These process disturbances themselves are very difficult to prevent. For example, metabolic behavior of cells can often drastically change with small unmeasured changes in cell culture media raw materials. Since the source of this variation is difficult to prevent, and its effect on the product quality is often poorly understood, it is desirable to have the ability to directly control product quality, such that consistent product quality is obtained despite the presence of these disturbances.
Historically, bioprocesses have been monitored by removing samples that are then analyzed for one or more quality attributes. Should a particular quality attribute be outside desired limits, various different controls may be implemented in order to influence the behavior of the quality attribute in the cell culture. Unfortunately, however, many problems are identified too late in the process to enact successful remedial action.
Recently, those skilled in the art have attempted to design predictive control models in order to control one or more quality attributes in a cell culture. An overview of commercially available model predictive control technology, for instance, is disclosed in an article entitled "A survey of industrial model predictive control technology" by Quin et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. Zupke et al., published an article entitled "Real-time product attribute control to manufacture antibodies with defined N-linked Glycan levels" and discusses using nonlinear model predictive control. Sommeregger et al., published an article entitled "Quality by control: towards model predictive control of mammalian cell culture bioprocesses" which is directed to implementing process analytical technology to move to a more flexible quality design approach.
Various problems have been experienced in designing predictive models. For instance, most predictive models are developed and based upon historical data collected from previous cell cultures. Unfortunately, however, in some applications, the historical data is insufficient to provide accurate predictive control and/or the historical data is not reliable due to various anomalies that may occur in any individual cell culture. Another limitation, often encountered in bioprocessing when manual sampling and analysis is performed, is that the sampling frequency of attribute influencing parameters and quality attributes is insufficient to develop the dynamic model required by a control strategy. In such instances, one knows where one started and where one wound up, but don't have enough resolution into the path taken to get there (from which one could determine the dynamics of the system). Developing a functional control system requires developing a model that can accurately determine the path of the quality attributes, given the paths of the attribute influencing parameters. Thus, in order to improve the quality in predictive models, a need exists for a system and method of producing reference data that may be used in predictive models. For example, a need exists for a method of producing reference data for predictive models wherein the reference data is reliable, improves the predictive model performance and/or can be obtained efficiently and in a relatively short period of time.

Process for creating reference data for predicting concentrations of quality attributes


The disclosure is related to reception and configuration of a downlink control channel. Particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and an apparatus (e.g., user equipment) for receiving a downlink control channel located in a data region, and a method and an apparatus (e.g., a transmission/reception point) for configuring and transmitting the downlink control channel.

The present disclosure relates to reception and configuration of a downlink control channel. Particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and an apparatus (e.g., user equipment) for receiving a downlink control channel located in a data region, and a method and an apparatus (e.g., a transmission/reception point) for configuring and transmitting the downlink control channel.
In order to efficiently use limited resources in a wireless communication system, control channels might be required. However, resources of a control region may correspond to system overhead, and therefore reduce resources of a data region available for data transmission. In a wireless communication system capable of transmitting data to more users, system capacity enhancement might be limited due to the limited resources of a typical control region.
Accordingly, in order to increase control channel resources, a method of transmitting/receiving multi-user control channels using a spatial division multiplexing scheme in the data region might be required. In this case, a search space of a user equipment might be required to be configured such that downlink control information (DCI) is received through the control channels.

Reception and configuration of downlink control channel


A photo film cassette includes a spool core (4), on which the photo film is wound in a form of roll. A cassette shell (2a, 2b) contain the spool core in rotatable fashion. First and second disks (6a, 6b) are respectively provided with bearing holes (5) formed in a middle thereof, and respectively secured to ends of the spool core, for regulating positions of sides of the roll. A ring-like lip (11) is formed integrally with a periphery of the first disk, projected toward the roll, contacted on one edge of an outermost turn of the roll, and prevents the roll from being loosened. In a disk producing method, a sheet (21) of thermoplastic resin is heated and softened. Pressurization and/or suction is applied to the heated sheet to fit the sheet on a mold (23d), so as to form a pattern (19, 31, 58, 60) on the sheet. The pattern includes first and second groups of disk-like portions (19) and positioning portions (31, 58, 60) associated with the disk-like portions. The disk-like portions of the first group are cut out of the sheet with the pattern while the sheet is positioned by the positioning portions, to produce the first disk. The disk-like portions of the second group are cut out of the sheet with the pattern while the sheet is positioned by the positioning portions, to produce more of the first disk.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk producing method for a photo film cassette. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of producing a plastic disk with high quality to be used in a photo film cassette, of which a leader of the photo film is exited by rotation of a spool in an unwinding direction.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,423,943 discloses a type of photo film cassette, of which a leader of unexposed photo film is pre-contained in the cassette shell, and advanced to an outside of the cassette shell when a spool is rotated in an unwinding direction. The spool is constituted by a spool core and two disks, which are disposed on the spool core, for contact with the ends of a roll of the photo film, to render the turns of the photo film neat. In the cassette of the leader-advancing type, it is necessary to transmit rotation of the spool to the roll of the photo film. To this end, the disks of the spool are provided with respective ring-like lips formed on their periphery and projected toward one another. The ring-like lips are located to cover edges of the outermost turn of the photo film, and prevent the roll from being loosened. Such a cassette is suggested in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,834,306, 4,848,693 (corresponding to JP-A 2-18545), U.S. Pat. No. 5,271,577 (corresponding to JP-A 3-37645), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,146 (corresponding to JP-A 3-37645).
To advance the leader of the photo film, it is necessary to spread both disks in the vicinity of a photo film passageway, to release the ring-like lips from regulation. The disks are rotatable, and because they are thin, are usually deformed when they are rotated.
There is a suggestion of a forming method in U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,348 (corresponding to JP-A 4-251841 and 5-119436). A thin, continuous thermoplastic resin sheet is heated. The continuous sheet is deformed in accordance with vacuum forming. The continuous sheet is moved into a punch/die set, where a punch device and a die device cut a circular contour and a bearing hole at each disk-like portion, to form the disks. This known method has an effect of producing a thin disk with high efficiency.
To raise productivity, multiple disks should be cut out at one time precisely. It is important for disks to have precision in size of both its contour and its bearing hole. If a bearing hole of a disk is off-centered with respect to the contour, the disk, when contained in a cassette, cannot resist rotating in eccentric fashion about a spool core. It is then likely that the photo film leader will not advance to the outside, the disk receives excessive load and is broken, and is contacted on the disk contacts the cassette shell and is resistant to advancement of the leader.
It is also important in the disk producing method to set the position of the sheet in effecting the cutting precisely the same as the position in having effected the vacuum forming. If a bearing hole of a disk is off-centered with respect to an inner face of the ring-like lip, there may occur breakage of the disk, and high resistance to advancement of the leader. To overcome such difficulties, there is a suggestion in JP-A 61-51570: positioning holes are formed in the sheet at first. Regulating pins are inserted in the positioning hole to position the sheet, while the sheet is treated in the pressing forming, which is followed by a punching step.
In the disk production method discussed above, it is difficult to remove the punched piece from the sheet. There is a suggestion of a so-called "push-back method" in JP-A 63-196850, in which a punched piece is moved back into a punch hole formed in the sheet, which is transported to next station, where the punched piece is removed from the sheet.
A problem in the method of U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,348 (corresponding to JP-A 4-251841 and 5-119436) lies in low productivity of disks from a sheet. It is general in consideration of productivity that multiple disks should be treated at the same time both during the vacuum forming and during the punching. However a base plate at the base of a punch device should have a larger size than the punch device to keep precision in the punching. Hence, the interval between two adjacent punch devices can only be reduced by a certain amount. There is also a problem with cost. Resin for the disks which has high rigidity, high resistance to heat, and high resistance to flexural fatigue is somewhat expensive. Due to these factors, it is difficult to make a disk less expensive without increasing the productivity of the disc manufacture.
The method of JP-A 61-51570 also has shortcomings. The positioning holes operate to position the sheet in unchangeable fashion irrespective of the pressing forming. There may occur distortion in size of the sheet due to the pressing. The punching may be effected without consideration of the distortion. Punched pieces are likely to have various dimensions.
In the "push-back method " of JP-A 63-196850, it is difficult in stably retaining a thin piece inside the punch hole in the sheet. Punched pieces may be dropped from the sheet during the transport toward the removing station. Another problem is derived from the ring-like shape of the disk with a bearing hole. In particular is difficult or laborious to separate a scrap portion at the bearing hole from a ring-like piece of disk.

Disk producing method for photo film cassette


A system and method that covertly provides in-flight target update data to a large number of missiles. The system and method covertly guides the missiles using a transponder located on a satellite that relays encoded target update data to receivers located on each of the missiles. The target update data is derived from intelligence data acquired by a remote sensing device. The target update data is typically transmitted to the missile launch site where it is encoded and transmitted to the transponder on the satellite. The encoding is preferably accomplished using direct sequence spread spectrum/code division multiple access (CDMA) encoding produced using unique seeds that are supplied to pseudo random code generators that uniquely encode the data to be transmitted to each missile. The receivers on each of the missiles have pseudo random code generators that are loaded with the unique seeds. The present system and method enable rapid response to fast-changing battlefield environments, particularly where mobile or relocatable targets are involved.

The present invention relates to a system and method for covertly providing a large number of missiles with updated guidance data during their flight, which system and method are particularly useful in targeting the missiles at mobile targets.
A new generation of missiles (and missile applications) is under development by the assignee of the present invention that are designed such that a salvo of many missiles is launched at many targets in a battlefield area. More specifically, a new missile variant known as a Tomahawk Stops The Attacking Regiments (TSTAR) missile is under development to counter the movement of armored columns and other mobile targets into a battlefield area.
The TSTAR missile contains multiple heat-seeking submunitions that are deployed in proximity of the targets. However, during a TSTAR mission, an armored column can move approximately 3 kilometers in five minutes, and can move over 44 kilometers while the TSTAR missiles are en route. Because the targets have the ability to constantly change their location and direction during the flight of the missiles, when the missiles arrive at the projected target area, the mobile targets may have moved so that the heat-seeking submunitions are not able to acquire their targets.
Furthermore, it is highly desirable that the salvo of missiles be relatively undetectable while in flight to the target area. This requires that guidance signals sent to the respective missiles must not be readily detected. The present invention has been developed to address these two basic problems.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide for a system and method that covertly provides more accurate, updated guidance data to a large number of missiles during their flight to allow them to be more accurately guided to their target locations. It is an objective of the present invention to provide for a system and method that covertly guides a large number of missiles, with each individual missile receiving only information that is necessary for it.

System and method for simultaneously guiding multiple missiles


The beach/pool bag with hidden compartment has a hidden compartment positioned at the bottom of the bag that is equipped with a zipper-closable access. A flap is provided to cover and conceal the zipper, thereby presenting a false bottom and disguising the existence of the compartment underneath.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to receptacles, and particularly to a beach/pool bag with a hidden compartment located therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Spending fun time at the swimming pool or beach often requires the need for a plethora of ancillary items. Sunblock, comb, brush, extra pool/beach apparel, towels, first aid kit, etc. are just some of the items that are usually transported to the selected venue. The ubiquitous beach bag is the popular receptacle of choice to transport and house the array of above-mentioned items. Aside from the usual items, the beach bag may also be employed to transport refreshing beverages and house valuables, such as cash, jewelry and personal identification items (driver's license, medical insurance cards, etc.). However, keeping the beverages hot or cold and the valuables hidden from sight presents a problem for the beach bag user. A beach bag that could serve as a repository for the usual beach/pool paraphernalia and also provide a hidden insulated compartment for housing beverages and/or valuables would certainly be a welcome asset to a user. Thus, a beach/pool bag with a hidden compartment solving the aforementioned problems is desired.