In the slider 1 on which a transducer 5 is mounted and which moves above a recording surface 4, in order to generate different vibration modes according to various situations such as vertical lift-off and landing, and breaking away from stiction, etc. A plurality of piezo-electric elements 8A, 8B, 8C, and 8D are disposed on the slider 1 and means for supplying a different AC voltage to each of the piezo-electric elements 8A, 8B, 8C, and 8D is provided.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slider on which a transducer for a disk apparatus, etc. is mounted and which moves relatively above a recording surface, and more particularly, to a slider on which piezo-electric elements are disposed and a disk storage apparatus having the slider.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a magnetic disk apparatus, a slider with a mounted transducer is raised by a high-speed air flow caused by a disk that rotates at a high speed and data is written or read to or from the recording surface of the disk during relative motion of the transducer and the disk. Such a slider is fixed to a suspension. In order to keep the slider flying at a predetermined height (sub micron) above the recording surface, resilient force urging the slider toward the recording surface against the buoyancy of the high-speed air flow is always applied to the slider by the suspension.
Therefore, if the speed of rotation of the disk decreases and the buoyancy of the high speed air flow becomes no longer enough to support the slider, the slider will run into the recording surface and recorded data will be destroyed. To avoid this, when the disk is at rest or its rotation is not enough for the buoyancy, conventionally, a mechanism for raising and supporting the slider above the recording surface is provided, or the slider is moved into an area (landing zone) not used for recording data on the disk but used for landing or sliding.
The latter method in which the slider retreats to the landing zone at the rest time of the disk and slides on the landing zone when the buoyancy is not enough, is called contact start and stop method (CSS). This method is widely used because it has the advantages of greater simplicity in construction and reduced cost in comparison with the former method in which the slider is raised and supported by a mechanism.
However, in the contact start and stop method, at the time when the disk starts to rotate from its rest state torque requirement, that is, power requirement increases due to friction between the disk and the slider, or if the slider is stuck into lubricant film applied on the landing zone when it is at rest, this phenomenon is called stiction, the slider and the lubricant film may be damaged if the slider is forced to break away the lubricant film. Further, it would be a problem that rubbing of the slider which slides on the landing zone causes dust to be blown up and results in contamination. Still further, when the slider slides on the landing zone, smooth sliding is not actually done so that the slider will collide repeatedly with the surface of the disk many times and the disk and the slider will receive a shock. Therefore, both of them are required to have mechanical strength to some extent.
To solve such problems, prior art makes the air bearing surface (ABS) of the slider contacting the recording surface convex or to fabricate the landing zone rough, that is, fine convexities and recessions are provided on the surface, in order to decrease the area of contact between the slider and the recording surface so far as the extent allows and to reduce friction or stiction. However, the above method leaves room for discussion in terms of the accuracy of works.
Further, conventionally, it is proposed that piezo-electric elements are mounted on the slider. The piezo-electric elements are used for arbitrarily changing the degree of the evenness of the air bearing surface (ABS) (Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Applications (PUPAs) No. 1-166382 and No. 3-144979) or for making a transducer element projected form the ABS while the slider is flying and making it retreated at the time of slider's landing (Japanese PUPA No. 61-194684).
In which case of Japanese PUPAs No. 1-166382, No 3.-144979, and No. 61-194684, piezo-electric elements are disposed on a slider of contact start and stop type and stiction to a landing zone can be weakened and the floating height can be adjusted by changing the shape of the ABS, but if a disk rotates at less than the rotational velocity enough to support the slider, it would be a problem that sliding occurs between the slider and the disk and results in the increase of torque due to friction and occurrence of contaminating particles due to rubbing.
Further, it is conventionally known that a film of compressed air is formed by vibrating piezo-electric elements at a high frequency, and thereby an object is supported (Refer to Pages 172 to 216 of TRIBOLOGY Friction, Lubrication, and Wear Edited by A.Z.Szeri, Copyright 1980 Hemisphere Publishing Corporation).
Still further, an attempt to dispose one piezo-electric element on the slider of a disk storage apparatus to raise the slider by applying AC voltage to the piezo-electric element was made by W.D.Koperski and G.A.Domoto at Columbia University in New York in 1981.
Construction attempted by Koperski et al is such that high-frequency vibration caused by the piezo-electric element vertically raises and lowers the slider and has the possibility of solving, by one effort, the above problem on sliding between the disk and the slider at the time when the disk rotates at less than the rotational velocity to support the slider.
However, in the construction attempted by Koperski et al, only one piezo-electric element is disposed on the slider, and therefore the number of modes, in which the slider is vibrated by the piezo-electric element, is very restricted and it is scarcely possible to change the vibration mode of the slider according to situation.
For example, when stiction occurs between a slider and a disk, rolling (oscillation around the longitudinal axis of the slider) or pitching (oscillation around the transversal axis of the slider) motion for removing the slider from the disk shows a more effect than even up-and-down motion. In the construction attempted by Koperski et al, however, it is difficult to generate vibration of such various modes in the slider.
Besides, if the slider floats through the high-speed air flow while the disk rotates at an operational velocity, it is difficult for the construction attempted by Koperski et al to apply a controlled AC voltage (for example, of the same or reverse phase, etc.) to each of piezo-electric elements disposed at a plurality of positions of the slider in order to change the floating height and posture of the slider.

Magnetic disk slider having piezo-electric vibration elements

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention is a panel seaming device that can seam both curved and straight panels. The panel seaming device accomplishes this task by incorporating a unique mechanical drive configuration that includes two gear box driven by a single motor and connected by a universal joint. This mechanical drive configuration and particularly, the universal joint allows the gear boxes to pivot amongst one another, thereby accommodating for the panel""s profile change. In other words, as the panel passes through the seaming device and its profile changes, especially from a straight portion to a curved portion and vice versa, the gear boxes pivot amongst each other and accommodate for such change. Additionally, each gear box includes two portions, which also pivot amongst each other in a direction perpendicular to the direction that each of the first and second gear boxes is pivot. In other words, the portions of the gear boxes pivot in a direction perpendicular to the seam. This pivoting action is made possible by utilizing worm gears within the gear box. Accordingly, the universal joint allows the gear boxes to pivot amongst each other in one direction and the worm gear arrangement of the gear boxes allows the left and right hand portions of the gear boxes to pivot amongst each other in a perpendicular direction, which is parallel to the panel seam.

This invention relates to a seaming device and more particularly, to a seaming device capable of seaming a panel that contains both curved and straight portions.
Most buildings are constructed of a combination of columns (i.e., posts) and beams, which are covered by plywood or some sort of metal or plastic sheeting. In an effort to reduce the overall construction time, however, contractors often construct buildings, and particularly, the exterior walls of buildings, as with prefabricated building panels. Constructing a building with such panels increases efficiency because rather than assembling individual components on site, entire wall panels are manufactured on the construction site so that they can be swiftly combined and installed. These prefabricated panels are typically manufactured from steel sheet metal. Thereafter, two panels are placed adjacent to one another and the sides of the panels engage and form a sealed joint.
These interconnected panels may by straight or arched (i.e., curved) or both. Arched panels are typically used to construct an entire metal building. For example, the roof panels are completely arched and extend to the foundation. The design of these buildings is such that the roof panels continue downward and also form the side walls of the building, thereby creating a semi-circular shaped building when viewed from the end.
Regardless of whether the panel is arched or straight, it has a similar cross sectional profile. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a cross section of a known building panel 100, which includes a central portion 102 and two inclined side wall portions 104, 106 extending from opposite ends of the central portion 102. The building panel 100 also includes two wing portions 108, 110 extending from the inclined side wall portions 104, 106, respectively. A hem portion 114 extends from one wing portion 110, and a complementary hook portion 112 extends from the other wing portion 108.
Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown a building structure 200 comprising two building panels 100 interconnected by the complementary hem 114 and hook portions 112. Referring to FIG. 2A, which is an enlarged view of the interconnected hook and hem portions, the hem portion 114 comprises an inclined hem section 120 and an end section 122. The hook portion 112 comprises a complementary inclined section 124, an intermediate section 126 parallel to the wing portions, and an end section 128. As discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,173, which is hereby incorporated by reference, the end section 122 of the hem portion 114 snaps into place adjacent the intermediate section 126 of the hook portion 112. After the hem portion snaps in place, a seaming device bends the end section 128 of the hook portion 112 up and in toward the end section 122 of the hem portion 114. Bending the end section 128, therefore, seams the two panels 100 together to form a single building structure 200.
As mentioned above, the interconnected panels may be straight or curved, an example of which is illustrated in FIG. 3. Additionally, some panels may include both straight and curved portions. The seaming devices currently used in the art, however, are unable to easily and effectively seam together panels comprised of both straight and curved sections. Such panels passing through a known seaming device and particularly, the portion of the panel that transitions from a straight to a curved portion or vice versa, tends to dislodge from or become jammed in the seaming device. When such events occur, they typically result in damaging the panel, which is an undesirable result.
Furthermore, when the panel becomes dislodged from the seaming device, it is often time consuming and difficult to reinstall the panel within the device. Moreover, most seaming devices are cumbersome to operate. Therefore, the time required to reinstall the panel can be prolonged, thereby further decreasing operational efficiency.
As previously mentioned, a sealed joint is formed by bending the end section 128 of the hook portion 112 up and in toward the end section 122 of the hem portion 114. This bending action is achieved by passing the hook and hem portions through a seaming device and particularly, between two seaming wheels. However, the building panels 100 are often wide, thereby requiring an operator to guide the seaming device across the entire width of the structure 200 to seam the interconnected joint. After the operator finishes seaming two building panels 100 together, the operator would traditionally, walk around the building structure before seaming another two building panels. This process consumes a substantial amount of time, and in an effort to increase efficiency, the operator desires to begin seaming the next two panels beginning on the side of the structure he just completed. Unfortunately, doing so requires the operator to swap the seaming wheels before seaming the next two panels. Most current techniques for switching seaming wheels are often time consuming and difficult, thereby calling into question whether it is more efficient to have the operator walk around the structure to begin seaming the next two panels rather than begin on the side which he just completed.
The foregoing features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in light of the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
It is an object of the invention to seam a wide range of shaped panels using a singular seaming device.
It is another object of the invention to seam a panel comprised of both curved and straight panels.
It is another object of the invention to minimize the frequency that a panel becomes dislodged from the seaming device.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce the damage a seaming device imparts upon a panel.
It is a further object of the invention to improve the ease with which a panel can be reinstalled within a seaming device in to the event the panel becomes dislodged.
It is even a further object of the invention to improve the efficiency of switching seaming wheels within the seaming device.
The present invention is a panel seaming device that can seam both curved and straight panels. The panel seaming device accomplishes this task by driving two gear box and wheel assemblies with a single motor and connecting the gear boxes with a universal joint. Specifically, a motor drives a gear box, which is connected to one end of a universal joint. The other end of the universal joint is connected to a second gear box. This mechanical drive configuration and particularly, the universal joint, allows the gear boxes to pivot in at least one axial direction, thereby accommodating for the profile change of the panel. In other words, as the panel passes through the seaming device and its profile changes, especially from a straight portion to a curved portion and vice versa, the gear boxes pivot amongst each other and accommodate for such change.
Therefore, the panel seaming device of the present invention can seam a wide range of shaped panels including those that are both straight and curved.
Accordingly, the panel seaming apparatus, comprising a motor, a first gear box connected to the motor, a first wheel connected to the first gear box, a second wheel connected to the first gear box, the first and second wheels rotating in opposite directions and seaming two panels together as portions of the panels pass therebetween, a second gear box located downstream of and aligned with the first gear box along a particular axis, the second gear box connected to the first gear box via a universal joint, thereby allowing the first and second gear boxes to pivot amongst each other, a third wheel connected to the second gear box, and a fourth wheel connected to the second gearbox, the third and fourth wheels rotating in opposite directions and further seaming the panels together as the portions of the panels pass therebetween.
The gear boxes of the present invention also include two portions, which pivot amongst each other in a direction perpendicular to the direction that each of the first and second gear boxes pivot. In other words, the portions of the gear boxes pivot in a direction perpendicular to the seam. This pivoting action is made possible by utilizing worm gears within the gear box. Specifically, the worm gear arrangement allows each portion to pivot among the main worm gear shaft, which is parallel to the seam.
Because a wheel assembly is connected to each portion of the gear box, the wheel assemblies pivot along with the gear box portions. This gear box pivoting mechanism, therefore, allows the wheel assemblies to easily pivot into the appropriate seaming position. Additionally, the pivoting mechanism provides an operator access to the seaming device in the event that the panel becomes dislodged or if a jam occurs. Furthermore, once the jam is cleared, the seaming device can be quickly reinstalled around the seamed portion of the panel.
Accordingly, an alternate embodiment of the panel seaming apparatus of the present invention comprises a motor, a gear box connected to the motor, the gear box comprising a first portion and a second portion, a control lever connected to and pivoting about the first portion of the gear box, an extension arm comprising a first end and second end, the second end connected to the second portion of the gear box, and the first end connected to the control lever such that when the control lever pivots about the first portion of the gear box, the first and second gear box portions pivot amongst one another, a first wheel connected to the first portion of the gear box, and a second wheel connected to the second portion of the gear box, the first and second wheels rotate in opposite directions and seam two panels together as portions of the panels pass therebetween.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, the seaming device includes a quick release mechanism that allows the seaming wheels to be quickly and easily removed from the shafts of the gear boxes. The quick release design of the shaft and seaming wheels allows an operator to efficiently switch seaming wheels within a seaming device. This embodiment of the invention is made possible by including a cam-type design between the shaft and seaming wheel. Particularly, the shaft includes two winged portions at its end that connect to the seaming wheel. The seaming wheel includes a complementary opening and bore design that allows the shaft to turn and lock into place after entering through the opening within the seaming wheel.
Accordingly, the other alternate embodiment of the panel seaming apparatus of the present invention comprises a gear box, means for driving the gear box, a first shaft comprising a first end and a second end, the first end connected to the gear box, the second end comprising at least two winged portions, a first wheel comprising a hub, the hub comprising, an opening for receiving the second end of the first shaft, and a butterfly it shaped bore for allowing the second end to turn within the first wheel after entering through the opening, a second shaft comprising a first end and a second end, the first end connected to the gear box, the second end comprising at least two winged portions, and a second wheel comprising a hub, the hub comprising an opening for receiving the second end of the second shaft, and a butterfly shaped bore for allowing the second end of the second shaft to turn within the second wheel after entering through the opening, the first and second wheels rotate in opposite directions and seam two panels together as portions of the panels pass therebetween.


Apparatus and method for obscuring round 1 power consumption of hardware implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. Additional hardware circuitry will provide consistent power consumption during round 1 of the AES algorithm. This prevents the opportunity to determine the AES key value during a side channel power attack.

This invention relates to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) outlined in the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 197. The AES standard defines the FIPS-approved algorithm that is used to encrypt and decrypt 128 bits of data using a 128, 192, or 256 bit key. When data is encrypted (enciphered) the output data is called ciphertext and when data is decrypted (deciphered) the output data is called plaintext.
Referring to FIG. 1, the AES algorithm executes a number of rounds that are dependent on the key size. For 128 bit key 11 rounds are executed, for 192 bit key 13 rounds are executed, and for a 256 bit key 15 rounds are executed. The AES algorithm for encryption consists of four transformations: 100 AddRoundKey; 101 SubBytes; 102 ShiftRows; and 103 MixColumns.
Referring to FIG. 2, the AES algorithm for decryption consists of four transformations: 100 AddRoundKey; 201 InvShiftRows; 202 InvSubBytes; 203 InvMixColumns. The AES algorithm also defines a method of key expansion that creates a round key for each round execution of the algorithm. These round keys are utilized in the 100 AddRoundKey transformation.
Referring to FIG. 3, the 100 AddRoundKey transformation is specified as a simple bitwise exclusive or operation executed on the plaintext (encryption)/ciphertext (decryption) and round key. Each data bit 300 and each round key bit 301 are combined in exclusive OR operation 302 and stored in flip flop 303, for all 128 data bits. Round 1 of the AES algorithm only executes the AddRoundKey transformation, while all remaining rounds execute multiple transformations. This leaves round 1 vulnerable to side channel power attacks.

Apparatus and method to prevent side channel power attacks in advanced encryption standard

The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force


A dangling web page processing system ranks dangling web pages on the web. The system ranks dangling web pages of high quality that cannot be crawled by a crawler. In addition, the system adjusts ranks to penalize dangling web pages that return errors when links on the dangling web pages are crawled. By providing a rank for dangling web pages, the present system allows the concentration of crawling resources on those dangling web pages that have the highest rank in the uncrawled region. The system operates locally to the dangling web pages, providing efficient determination of ranks for the dangling web pages. The system explicitly discriminates against web pages on the basis of whether they point to penalty pages, i.e., pages that return an error when a link is followed. By incorporating more fine-grained information such as this into ranking, the system can improve the quality of individual search results and better manage resources for crawling.

Graphs are used in the representation and analysis of many information structures. Ranking nodes in such graphs by their quality or importance is of great value. For example, the World Wide Web (WWW) is comprised of an expansive network of interconnected computers upon which businesses, governments, groups, and individuals throughout the world maintain inter-linked computer files known as web pages. Users navigate these web pages by means of computer software programs commonly known as Internet browsers. Due to the vast number of WWW sites, many web pages have a redundancy of information or share a strong likeness in either function or title. The vastness of the unstructured WWW causes users to rely primarily on Internet search engines to retrieve information or to locate businesses. These search engines use various means to determine the relevance of the information retrieved to a user-defined search. Thus, ranking of web pages by their importance or authoritativeness is an important task.
A typical search engine has an interface where the user enters an alphanumeric search expression or keywords. The search engine sifts through available web sites for the search terms, and returns the search results in the form of web pages in, for example, HTML. Each search result comprises a list of individual entries that have been identified by the search engine as satisfying the search expression. Each entry or "hit" comprises a hyperlink that points to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) location or web page.
An exemplary search engine is the Google® search engine. An important aspect of the Google® search engine is the ability to rank web pages according to the authority of the web pages with respect to a search query. One of the ranking techniques used by the Google® search engine is the PageRank algorithm. Reference is made to L. Page, et al., "The PageRank citation ranking: Bringing order to the web," Technical report, Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project, 1998. Paper SIDL-WP-1999-0120. The PageRank algorithm calculates a stationary distribution of a Markov chain induced by hyperlink connectivity on the WWW. This same technique used by the PageRank algorithm applies to other directed graphs where edges or links imply endorsement or trust.
In addition to scoring of pages on the world wide web, the technique of PageRank also applies to scoring of nodes in other types of networks. Examples include the scoring of patents by the scores of other patents that contain citations to it, the scoring of scientific literature that contains bibliographic citations, and the scoring of trust among individuals using the knowledge of trust relations between individuals.
Although the PageRank algorithm has proven to be useful, and is applicable to other information graphs as well as the Web, it would be desirable to present additional improvements. In many graphs, including the web, nodes may either have no outlinks or their outlinks are not accessible to a ranking processor; these nodes are known as "dangling nodes". A node may be dangling for a variety of reasons. For example, in the context of the web graph, the web page may have not yet been crawled. In other cases, the node may genuinely have no outlinks, etc.
A web page is further considered a dangling web page when protected by a robots.txt file. Use of a robots.txt file by a web page places the web page "off-limits" under a standard practice of crawling. However, such web pages may comprise high-quality information that is of great interest to readers and worthy of indexing.
In certain cases, particularly in the context of World Wide Web analysis, ranking of certain kinds of dangling nodes might be particularly important. For instance, some web pages become dangling when they are deleted from the web by their author. Paradoxically, there may be very good reasons to calculate a rank of a web page that was deleted (e.g., a significant document that was removed for political or legal reasons).
Even if a web page cannot be crawled, it can still be indexed using its anchor text. While anchor text is not a substitute for full text indexing, it has proved to be remarkably effective in satisfying most web search queries. Reference is made to N. Craswell, et al., "Effective site finding using link anchor information," In Proc. of the 24th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on research and development in information retrieval, web pages 250-257, New Orleans, La., USA, September 2001, Association for Computing Machinery; N. Eiron, et al., "Analysis of anchor text for web search," In Proc. of 26th ACM SIGIR, web pages 459-460, 2003; and R. Fagin, et al., "Searching the workplace web," In Proc. 12th World Wide Web Conference, Budapest, 2003.
Another source of dangling nodes is nodes that have no outlinks. For example, in the Web graph, most PostScript and PDF files on the web contain no embedded outlinks, yet the content may be of relatively high quality. A URL may also be a dangling web page if it has a meta tag requesting that links not be followed from the web page. Further, a URL may be a dangling web page if it requires authentication (e.g., most of the Wall Street Journal site). Other reasons for dangling web pages comprise those links to pages that return a 500-class or 400-class error response at crawl time indicating that the web page is not available. Furthermore, some links may point to servers that are not resolvable in DNS, experience routing problems, etc. A 400-class error response comprises non-existent web pages, web pages requiring a password for access, etc. A 500-class error response comprises configuration problems, load problems, etc. In other information graphs, similar situations exist. In a citation graphs for scientific literature, for example, some works may only cite other works that are outside the field being analyzed. In a trust network, some of the nodes may represent people for which the list of people they trust is unavailable.
Conventional graph ranking techniques treat all types of dangling nodes identically. Conventional graph ranking techniques remove dangling nodes from the graph before calculating the ranking and then add the dangling nodes back into the graph ranking analysis. Reference is made to L. Page, et al., "The PageRank citation ranking: Bringing order to the web," Technical report, Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project, 1998. Paper SIDL-WP-1999-0120 (version of Nov. 11, 1999); and S. Kamvar, et al., "Exploiting the block structure of the web for computing pagerank," Technical report, Stanford University, 2003.
Another conventional graph ranking technique removes the dangling nodes entirely. Reference is made to S. Brin, et al., "What can you do with a web in your pocket?," Data Engineering Bulletin, 21:37-47, 1998; and T. Haveliwala, "Efficient computation of pagerank," Technical report, Stanford University, 1999. Removing the dangling nodes entirely skews the results on the non-dangling nodes somewhat since the outdegrees from the non-dangling nodes are adjusted to reflect the lack of links to dangling nodes.
Conventional approaches to ranking with dangling nodes do not account for the various types of dangling nodes. Further, the effect of the dangling nodes is not propagated to other parts of the graph, neglecting the effect of the dangling nodes on the rankings of non-dangling nodes. Moreover, if a decision needs to be made on how to further explore a partial graph with limited resources, such as in the case of a web crawler that needs to decide which links to dangling web pages should be followed first in its crawl strategy, it becomes important to assign ranks to dangling web pages to efficiently manage crawling resources. Reference is made to S. Abiteboul, et al., "Adaptive on-line web page importance computation," In Proc. 12th World Wide Web Conference, web pages 280-290, 2003; and J. Cho, et al., "Efficient crawling through url ordering," In Proc. of 7th World Wide Web Conference, 1998.
In certain information network graphs it appears that there is a growing trend toward "node rot", where certain nodes that used to be valuable turn out to later reflect negatively on nodes linking to them. For example, in a graph for patent citations, when a patent is invalidated, the ranking of patents citing it should probably be degraded. In the case of the Web graph, several studies have forecast the half-life of a URL at between four and five years. When a page is deleted, links that point to it will become "broken". The existence of broken links on a page may be taken to be an indication of low standards on part of its author. Reference is made to J. Markwell, et al., "Link rot limits the usefulness of web-based educational materials in biochemistry and molecular biology," Biochem. Mol. Biol. Educ., 31:69-72, 2003; and D. Spinellis, "The decay and failures of web references," Comm. ACM, 46(l): 71-77, 2003. In one crawl of over a billion web pages approximately 6% of all web pages returned a 404 HTTP error code. These presumably reflect a fraction of web pages that are no longer maintained or were poorly authored. As time passes, this problem will only worsen as an increasing fraction of web pages on the web fall into disrepair.
Dangling nodes may also appear in other types of networks besides the world wide web. Examples include scientific papers that cite no other papers, patents that cite no other patents, or people who trust nobody else. In addition, other types of networks may have nodes that qualify as penalty nodes. An example is provided in trust networks between individuals, in which a person may have expressed trust in a person who is convicted of a crime. In this case, the person who trusted the criminal may themselves have their own trust level decreased in acknowledgment of their ill advised trust in the criminal. Another example is provided in scientific literature that cites a paper that is later discredited for some reason (e.g., fraudulent data or improper experimental methodology). In this case, the discredited literature becomes a penalty node, and papers that cite it for their own evidence may have their score decreased accordingly.
What is therefore needed is a system, a computer program product, and associated methods for: (a) ranking dangling nodes in a graph; and (b) adjusting the rank of "penalty pages". The need for such a solution has heretofore remained unsatisfied.

System and method for ranking nodes in a network

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention relates to a method using a node, a system comprising a node and a node for filtering signals in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical communications system, especially for re-configurably adding and dropping signals to and from an optical fibre path. The node comprising a drop filter, an add filter, a signal channel receiver, and a signal channel transmitter each being connected to a switch for signal channel relaying between said network, and signal channel dropping and adding from and to said network. The node provides low loss for relayed signals by allowing the drop filter to have a low crosstalk isolation, and provides high crosstalk isolation for dropped signal channels by connecting said receiver to the switch through an additional filter with high filtering characteristics for at least one predetermined signal channel of said signal.

1. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to a method, a system and a node for filtering signals in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical communications system, especially for re-configurably adding and dropping signals to and from an optical fiber path.
2. Description of Related Art
Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is a method for high bandwidth transmissions in optical fibre communication systems. In WDM, the optical transmission spectrum is divided into a number of separated wavelength bands, where each wavelength supports a single communication channel. Several channels can be transmitted simultaneously on the same optical fibre. WDM can be used for point-to-point communication where two nodes, one in each end of the fibre, are connected, or for multipoint-to-multipoint communication where several nodes share the transmission capacity on one fibre or one pair of fibres. In the case of multipoint-to-multipoint communication the fibre path usually forms a closed loop (a ring) in order to have two different routes in between a certain pair of nodes in the case of fibre or other equipment failure. But bus networks where end nodes are located in different places are also possible. An example of an add-drop node in such a ring or bus WDM network is provided in application EP 0905936 A2.

Optical filtering by using an add-drop node


There is provided a therapeutic method and system for utilizing full spectrum of natural solar radiations with an optimum balance of ultra-violet (UV), visible and infrared (IR) radiations. The disclosed therapeutic method comprising collecting and concentrating the natural solar radiations using a natural solar radiations concentrator; transporting the concentrated natural solar radiations using a transporting medium to an indoor device; optimizing a spot size, an intensity and an ultra-violet range of the natural solar radiations; and directing the optimized natural solar radiations to a desired body part using the indoor device; wherein the full spectrum of natural solar radiations has an optimum balance of ultra-violet, visible and infrared radiations. The disclosed therapeutic system comprising an outdoor device for collecting and concentrating the natural solar radiations; and an indoor device in optical communication with the outdoor device for adjusting and directing an optimized amount of the natural solar radiations to a desired body part.

Sunlight has been extensively reported as a natural source of generating vitamin D that helps absorb calcium in the body to improve bone health as a direct outcome. Depending on the skin pigmentation, a whole body exposure of 10-60 minutes to sunlight outdoors in the midday without sunscreen can generate up to 10,000 international units (IU) of the vitamin D, being far more than the daily dosage requirement of 400-800 IU reported in various studies. Maintaining vitamin D regulates various functions in the human body that are associated to prevent several diseases including arthritis and cancer. A maintained level of vitamin D is reported to regulate blood pressure, decrease resting heart rate, increase cardiac output, reduce blood cholesterol, increase liver glycogen stores, reduce blood sugar, increase muscular strength and endurance, increase resistance to infections, increase oxygen carrying capacity of blood, increase stress tolerance and increase hormone activity.
Although solar radiation exposure is proven crucial for human health, yet substantial portion of the world population remains deprived of access to the same. The reduced solar exposure fundamentally is driven from two factors i.e. human factor and climatic factor. The human factor includes a number of instances. A busy lifestyle in urban settings that limits outdoor exposure and eventually reduces access to solar radiation. Increased indoor working environments under artificial lighting again deprives occupants from natural sunlight exposure, mobility restriction due to safety concerns in unattended children reduces their outdoor exposure to sunlight, physical conditions in elderly people due to age and illness limits their exposure to natural light and then cultural norms and clothing in certain societies reduces exposure to sunlight specifically in women. Additionally, the perception of skin discoloration discourages general population for outdoor exposure to sunlight in various societies.
The climatic factor is driven by latitude and altitude position of various geographical locations. The climatic conditions in most of the places being too near or too far from equator are so extreme that it either limits outdoor exposure to sunlight or renders it ineffective. For example, in countries lying between 0-30°, the radiation is so intense with extreme ambient temperature that unprotected outdoor solar exposure for a fairer skin is almost impossible in several months in summer. On the contrary, for countries lying beyond 60° latitude sunlight remains either unavailable or very low for several months in winter that it hardly contains enough ultra-violet (UV) rays required to generate vitamin D. On the other hand, exposure to unregulated or intense solar radiation for extended time durations is reported to involve health risks inclusive of sunburn, skin cancer and heat stroke in hot climates.
The increasing amount of ultra-violet (UV) rays in direct sunlight due to ozone depletion strengthens fear of unprotected solar exposure. Eventually, the reduced exposure or overly protected exposure to sunlight triggers a wide spread vitamin D deficiency in the general population leading to more serious health consequences inclusive of rickets, rheumatoid arthritis, cholesterol built up and heart arrest. There is a strong need of providing a safe way to expose to solar radiation eliminating all the risks of over as well as under exposure at the same time respecting the life style demand, protecting physical integrity and addressing cultural concerns.
Safe solar exposure outdoor is increasingly being advocated through sunscreens or sun blockers applied to exposed body parts comprising mainly synthetic chemical compositions. The practice protects from sunburns and associated skin risks but also blocks the useful part of UV radiation responsible for generating vitamin D. Additionally, most of the materials employed as sun blockers are toxic thereby polluting the water table and soil through waste water thereby by causing long term environmental sustainability issues. Alternatively, safe access to sunlight indoors has been traditionally practiced through modern architectural designs employing massive glazing as windows, skylight and transition tubes. Increased use of glazing often raises energy efficiency and privacy concerns that in turn is addressed by ensuring code compliance. The energy and privacy code compliance are being achieved by applying spectrally selective coatings on glazing that filter spectral solar radiation often blocking the beneficial part of UV light required to generate vitamin D. The ultimate consequences are recorded in terms of vitamin D deficiency in general masses working indoors for long hours under such even heavily glazed yet so called energy efficient buildings. As a replacement of natural vitamin D reserve achievable through solar exposure, nutrition supplements and fortified foods are extensively being recommended to treat vitamin D deficiency. Although, the supplements and fortification has ironed Vitamin D levels—their comprehensive effects are not well established. In some cases the supplements are reported to produce toxic effects over a longer period of use or else in case of administering excessive dosage.
Sunlight concentration through mirrors and transportation through fibre optics have been demonstrated through several patents. Among the aforementioned, U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,860A exploits only visible part of the solar spectrum to produce electrical energy. U.S. Pat. No. 7,982,956, US20070035841, US20100067114 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,297,000 exploits visible part of solar spectrum to be used as ambient lighting system for visual comfort indoors. CN1548854A exploits thermal part of solar radiations to produce heating systems and U.S. Pat. No. 6,603,069B1 exploits full spectrum sunlight for a hybrid ambient lighting and energy production system. The above mentioned inventions focus solely on energy production and visual comfort without considering physiological needs of human body. Kei Mori's patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,763,971A, 4,844,579A and 4,978,186 A) attempted to utilize solar radiations to illuminate the human body to address its physiological needs. However, it utilizes only the visible part of sunlight overlooking the ultra-violet (UV) and infra-red (IR) parts of which ultra-violet (UV) rays have a crucial role in generating vitamin D and preventing several diseases related to the deficiency condition. Additionally, the inventions have no control over intensity of the incoming radiations that involve the risk of exposure to intense, concentrated radiation leading to heat stroke or skin burns. US20140100489A1 discloses methods of applying radiations from an artificial light source for radiation therapy. The limitation lies in that fact that artificial light cannot compete with natural sunlight to release serotonin (a brain's hormone) believed to improve mood and to render calmness and focus to treat non-seasonal depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and pregnant women with depression. U.S. Pat. No. 6,129,438A discloses whole body exposure to adjustable UVB through artificial lamps to generate vitamin D. US20130144366A1 discloses an ultra-violet (UV) light therapy system through natural sunlight for the treatment of Vitamin D deficiency in a large enclosure, which only transports ultra-violet (UV) light that deprives human body from full spectrum natural light and the benefits of the same thereby involving concerns about health consequences over long terms exposures. Hence, traditional systems deal with transporting visible light which have no role in producing vitamin D, the sunlight exposure is not controlled and has no means of assuring safety, artificial light sources are applied which do not claim the true benefits of natural light and some cases only transport the ultra-violet part which again has no comprehensive effects on human body and the human body remains deprived of the benefits of a full spectrum solar radiation. Another concern is that the exposure of light to body parts is not in line with user preferences and privacy concerns.
The main limitations of traditional systems are that merely the visible part of sunlight is utilized. overlooking the ultra-violet (UV) and infra-red (IR) part of which the ultra-violet (UV) rays have the crucial role in generating vitamin D and preventing several diseases related to a deficiency condition. Additionally, the prior inventions have no control over intensity of the incoming radiations that may certainly involve the risk of exposure to intense, concentrated radiation leading to heat stroke or skin burn. Additionally, traditional systems do not monitor or inform the user of any exposure to the ultra-violet (UV) rays, which has associated risk of lack of vitamin D in case of under exposure and a risk of skin cancer in case of repeated over exposure. Traditional methods for preventing vitamin deficiency are also seen to employ artificial sources of radiations. Such systems are void of several challenges to achieve a desired intensity and spectrum. Further, prior inventions have no control on exposure time and therefore do not indicate safe exposure times or intensity limits to the user and the exposure of radiations to body parts is not in line with user preferences and privacy concerns.
Accordingly, there exists a need to provide a system to utilize a full spectrum of natural solar radiations as prevention or treatment of vitamin D deficiency.

Therapeutic method and system for treatment of vitamin D deficiency utilizing a full spectrum of natural solar radiations


A method and apparatus for scheduling the transmission of cells onto an network, or other packet switching network, is disclosed. The central feature of the scheduling mechanism is a quality of service engine (QoS Engine) which accelerates the processing of packets in a packet switching networks, such as an ATM network, by assisting the accurate pacing of many ATM virtual circuits. The QoS Engine allows the concurrent support of a wide variety of port speeds, traffic classes using different priorities and traffic parameters. quality of service engine (QoS Engine) works in conjunction with a network processor (NP) to allow it to maintain software flexibility, and for it to achieve accurate pacing.

The present invention relates generally to data communication networks and, more particularly, to transmission control mechanisms, including ATM communications processors and switches, and cell reception and header interpretation in asynchronous transfer mode systems/networks.
With the proliferation of the digital age, increasing need has arisen for a single versatile networking technology capable of efficiently transmitting multiple types of information at high speed across different network environments. In response to this need, the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT), and its successor organization, the Telecommunications Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T), developed Asynchronous Transfer Mode, commonly referred to as ATM, as a technology capable of the high speed transfer of voice, video, and data across public and private networks.
ATM utilizes very large-scale integration (VLSI) technology to segment data into individual packets, e.g., B-ISDN calls for packets having a fixed size of 53 bytes or octets. These packets are commonly referred to as cells. Using the B-ISDN 53-byte packet for purposes of illustration, each ATM cell includes a header portion comprising the first 5 bytes and a payload portion comprising the remaining 48 bytes. ATM cells are routed across the various networks by passing though ATM switches, which read addressing information included in the cell header and deliver the cell to the destination referenced therein. Unlike other types of networking protocols, ATM does not rely upon Time Division Multiplexing in order to establish the identification of each cell. That is, rather than identifying cells by their time position in a multiplexed data stream, ATM cells are identified solely based upon information contained within the cell header.
Further, ATM differs from systems based upon conventional network architectures such as Ethernet or Token Ring in that rather than broadcasting data packets on a shared wire for all network members to receive, ATM cells dictate the successive recipient of the cell through information contained within the cell header. That is, a specific routing path through the network, called a virtual path (VP) or virtual circuit (VC), is set up between two end nodes before any data is transmitted. Cells identified with a particular virtual circuit are delivered to only those nodes on that virtual circuit. In this manner, only the destination identified in the cell header receives the transmitted cell.
The cell header includes, among other information, addressing information that essentially describes the source of the cell or where the cell is coming from and its assigned destination. Although ATM evolved from Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) concepts, cells from multiple sources are statistically multiplexed into a single transmission facility. Cells are identified by the contents of their headers rather than by their time position in the multiplexed stream. A single ATM transmission facility may carry hundreds of thousands of ATM cells per second originating from a multiplicity of sources and traveling to a multiplicity of destinations.
The backbone of an ATM network consists of switching devices capable of handling the high-speed ATM cell streams. The switching components of these devices, commonly referred to as the switch fabric, perform the switching function required to implement a virtual circuit by receiving ATM cells from an input port, analyzing the information in the header of the incoming cells in real-time, and routing them to the appropriate destination port. Millions of cells per second need to be switched by a single device.
Importantly, this connection-oriented scheme permits an ATM network to guarantee the minimum amount of bandwidth required by each connection. Such guarantees are made when the connection is set-up. When a connection is requested, an analysis of existing connections is performed to determine if enough total bandwidth remains within the network to service the new connection at its requested capacity. If the necessary bandwidth is not available, the connection is refused.
In order to achieve efficient use of network resources, bandwidth is allocated to established connections under a statistical multiplexing scheme. Therefore, congestion conditions may occasionally occur within the ATM network resulting in cell transmission delay or even cell loss. To ensure that the burden of network congestion is placed upon those connections most able to handle it, ATM offers multiple grades of service. These grades of service support various forms of traffic requiring different levels of cell loss probability, transmission delay, and transmission delay variance, commonly known as delay jitter. It is known, for instance, that many multimedia connections, e.g., video streams, can tolerate relatively large cell losses, but are very sensitive to delay variations from one cell to the next. In contrast, traditional forms of data traffic are more tolerant of large transmission delays and delay variance, but require very low cell losses. This variation in requirements can be exploited to increase network performance.
In particular, the following grades of service are preferably supported in modern ATM networks: constant bit rate ("CBR") circuits, variable bit rate ("VBR") circuits, and unspecified bit rate ("UBR") circuits. These categories define the qualities of service available to a particular connection, and are selected when a connection is established. More specific definitions of each of these categories are set forth below.
A CBR virtual circuit is granted a permanent allocation of bandwidth along its entire path. The sender is guaranteed a precise time interval, or fixed rate, to send data, corresponding to the needed bandwidth, and the network guarantees to transmit this data with minimal delay and delay jitter. A CBR circuit is most appropriate for real-time video and audio multimedia streams which require network service equivalent to that provided by a synchronous transmission network. From the perspective of the source and destination, it must appear as if a virtual piece of wire exists between the two points. This requires that the transmission of each cell belonging to this data stream occur at precise intervals.
A VBR virtual circuit is initially specified with an average bandwidth and a peak cell rate. This type of circuit is appropriate for high priority continuous traffic which contains some burstiness, such as compressed video streams. The network may "overbook" these connections on the assumption that not all VBR circuits will be handling traffic at a peak cell rate simultaneously. However, although the transmission rate may vary, applications employing VBR service often require low delay and delay jitter. The VBR service is further divided into real-time VBR (rt-VBR) and non-real-time VBR (nrt-VBR). These two classes are distinguished by the need for an upper bound delay (Max CTD). MaxCTD is provided by rt-VBR, whereas for nrt-VBR no delay bounds are applicable.
A UBR virtual circuit, sometimes referred to as connectionless data traffic, is employed for the lowest priority data transmission; it has no specified associated bandwidth. The sender may send its data as it wishes, but the network makes no guarantee that the data will arrive at its destination within any particular time frame. This service is intended for applications with minimal service requirements, e.g., file transfers submitted in the background of a workstation.
A particular end-node on the network may have many virtual circuits of these varying classes open at any one time. The network interface at the end-node is charged with the task of scheduling the transmission of cells from each of these virtual circuits in some ordered fashion. At a minimum, this will entail pacing of cells from CBR circuits at a fixed rate to achieve virtual synchronous transmission. Additionally, some form of scheduling may be implemented within some or all of the switches which form the ATM network. Connections which have deviated from their ideal transmission profile as a result of anomalies in the network can be returned to an acceptable service grade.
The design of conventional ATM switching systems involves a compromise between which operations should be performed in hardware and which in software. Generally, but not without exception, hardware gives optimal performance, while software allows greater flexibility and control over scheduling and buffering, and makes it practical to have more sophisticated cell processing (e.g., OAM cell extraction, etc.).
Additional background information pertaining to ATM can be found in a number of sources and need not be repeated directly herein. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,279 (Milway et al.), assigned to the assignee of the present invention, provides a thorough description of ATM and is incorporated herein by reference. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 5,953,336 (Moore et al.), also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, provides background on ATM traffic shaping, among other things, and is likewise incorporated herein by reference.
Relative to traffic shaping, the small size of ATM cells allows fine-grain interleaving of multiple data streams on a single physical connection, which means that it is possible to maintain the contracted quality of service individually for each stream. However, this is hard to achieve in practice, as the data streams will have different traffic parameters, different priorities, and the data to be transmitted may be arriving from multiple sources, and may be a mixture of ready-formatted cells and buffers which must be segmented.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art of ATM networking for a more flexible method and system for shaping ATM traffic and ensuring adequate quality of service guarantees.

System and method for providing quality of service in asynchronous transfer mode cell transmission


A disposable urine management device including a bag having an aperture which is surrounded by an adhesively-faced flange for releasable attachment to the uro-genital area of the wearer. An absorbent material is contained within the bag.

This invention relates to disposable urine management devices, and more particularly, to disposable urine management devices with improved fit and conformability.
Disposable urine management devices in the form of urine incontinence protection devices or in the form of urine collection devices for medical purposes are known in the art.
Representative devices of the former type are disclosed in EP 0 140 470 and WO 85/0328, both of which disclose disposable devices which include a water-impervious barrier sheet formed as a bag, an opening to be located next to the wearer""s uro-genital area to receive the discharged urine, and containing an absorbent material to absorb the discharged urine. EP 0 140 470 additionally discloses the presence of a wicking layer between the opening and the absorbent material. Neither of these references disclose the use of an adhesive member or flange surrounding the aperture for securing the bag to the body of the wearer.
Representative of the urine collector art is U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,377 which discloses a urine collector device for infants or small children having a flexible collection bag and an adhesively-faced attachment member joined to the bag. The urine collectors in general by definition do not contain any absorbent material as they are designed to collect urine; they must be of sufficient dimension to contain a full discharge, and are therefore, bulky. Furthermore, they are not designed to be worn for any length of time next to the body, or to be worn inside an undergarment or diaper.
It is now been found that a superior disposable urine management device can be designed, which ensures perfect fit and conformability to the wearer, and is designed to be worn in lieu of a diaper by a baby, small child or incontinent adult.
The invention is a disposable urine management device. The disposable urine management device comprises a bag having an aperture which is surrounded by an adhesively-faced flange for releasable attachment to the uro-genital area of the wearer. An absorbent material is contained within said bag.


The disclosed knee shield is a durable, easy-to-install protective barrier that is fastened underneath sink bottoms. It protects the knees of a wheelchair user from rough and abrasive surfaces and extreme temperatures as mandated by the ADA and other federal, state, and local buildings codes. The knee shield is slotted so that it fits around the drain assembly, without requiring the removal of the sink; drain assembly, or plumber's putty that may already exist.

As the population ages, and more individuals survive with physically disabling diseases and paralyzing or disabling injuries, the use of assertive technology, and specifically mobility devices, is key to maintaining independence in society. In June 2000 research findings (Kay, 2000) were available to the US Department of Education. The report, Disability Statistics Report-Mobility Device Use in the United States, states that approximately 6.8 million non-institutionalized Americans utilize mobility assertive devices. This includes wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, and canes. Nearly 1.7 million persons are either wheelchair or scooter users. The number of wheelchair and walker users has roughly doubled between 1980 and 1990 (LaPlante, 1996). The medical conditions associated with wheelchair and scooter usage include multiple sclerosis, paraplegia, quadriplegia, and cerebral vascular disease.
In 1990, the US Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Several years later, Congress enacted The Americans with Disabilities Act Accessible Guidelines (ADAAG) for Buildings and Facilities. This document contains scoping and technical requirements for accessibility to buildings and facilities by individuals with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. These scoping and technical requirements are to be applied to the design, construction, and alteration of buildings and facilities covered by titles II and III of the ADA to the extent required by regulations issued by federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation, under the ADA. Along with other federally mandated accessibility building codes, each state has adopted their own codes for new construction and the rehabilitation of existing buildings. Many of these state codes mirror those of the ADAAG.
Both federal and state buildings codes mandate a percentage of the total number of covered multi-family residential apartments to be fully accessible for persons with mobility impairments. Institutional buildings, university housing, and other private, state and federally owned buildings must have accessibility code compliant public restrooms and other "common use" areas. Both federal (ADAAG) and state building codes mandate burn and rough surface protection devices for sinks in these covered buildings. This includes hot and cold water supply lines under sinks, and waste pipes and garbage disposals under sinks. These same federal and state accessibility codes require available knee space under kitchen sinks for wheelchair users. The mandated clear knee space, the hot and cold pipe and sink temperatures, and the rough surfaces under sinks creates high risk for those confined to wheelchairs.
ADA, 4.24.6 Exposed pipes and surfaces. Hot water and drain pipes exposed under sinks shall be insulated or otherwise configured so as to protect against contact. There shall be no sharp or abrasive surfaces under sink.
References:
Kaye, H. S.; Kane, T.; LaPlante, M. P., Disability Statistics Report-Mobility Devise Use in the United States, June 2000. Washington D.C.: US Department of Education, National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research.
LaPlante, M. P.; Carison, D., Disability in the United States: Prevalence and Causes, 1992. Washington D.C.: US Department of Education, National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research.
The many different type enclosures on the market are mostly used as a decorative appearance to sinks. Enclosures that are said to protect wheelchair users do not meet the federal and state requirements for "availed knee space under sinks." Sink base cabinet doors and cabinet fronts are removed to allow better access for someone in a wheelchair. U.S. D375,154 does not allow the wheelchair user access under the sink for better access to the sink or sink faucets. The installation of this product requires fasteners, i.e., (8)-#6×1.2″ screws. It also makes it difficult to access a garbage disposal reset switch. Also this product requires a rear-draining sink, which is more expensive than the conventional "builder grade" center draining sinks.


A method for stabilizing or inactivating a detrimental and moiety in curable, cross-linkable, and thermoplastic polymers which comprises mixing 100 parts by weight of acid moiety containing polymer with from about 0.1 to about 40 parts by weight of tricalcium aluminum hexahydrate and the resulting composition are disclosed.

Many polymeric systems are known to contain trace amounts of acidic moieties which over time or processing produce undesirable side effects, e.g., color instability, odor, physical degradation, irregular cure patterns or corrosion of processing equipment. In order to overcome these limitations in polymeric systems, a type of additive, generally referred to as an acid acceptor or acid scavenger, is incorporated therein to preferentially react with these acid moieties to prevent or delay these undesired side effects.
It is known that thermoplastic polymers, which embrace both homopolymers and copolymers blend/alloys and elastomers, containing halogens derived from polymerization catalysts and/or attributed to the after-halogenation of the polymers, such as olefin polymers or copolymers produced by using Ziegler-type catalysts comprising a halogen-containing compound as a catalyst component and/or a carrier component, or the after halogenated products of these polymers, frequently corrode processing or compounding machines during their molding operation, or discolor or degrade the resulting molded articles, because of the halogens contained therein.
Compositions of poly(arylene sulfide) also often suffer from mold corrosion difficulties. It would be desirable to produce a poly (arylene sulfide) molded composition which exhibited low mold corrosiveness, improved insulating properties and retention of strength in moist environments.
It also has been found that when post-consumer thermoplastic polyolefin articles are subject to the recompounding and recycling process, offensive odors from absorbed contaminants (e.g. milk, halogens) inpart an offensive odor. Further, many post-consumer polyolefins suffer from unacceptable cross-linking during reprocessing as a result of these contaminants. Acid acceptors may also be used in post-consumer thermoplastics such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), PBT, polyphenyl sulfide, and polyvinyl chloride, which contain undesirable organic acids from impurities, acidic moieties released during extensive processing or halogen containing polymer contaminants. Accordingly, acid acceptors may be employed to counter or ameliorate these difficulties.
An acceptable acid acceptor should preferentially react with the undesired acid moiety but should not have detrimental effects on the physical or mechanical properties of the polymers in which it is placed. Typical acid acceptors used in polymeric systems include hydrotalcite, lead oxide, calcium sterate, etc. Cross-linking polymer systems which typically employ acid acceptors include halogenated polyolefins, such as polyvinyl chloride, chlorofluoropolymers, and polyarylene sulfide which for purposes of this patent is considered a polyolefin.
The present invention provides for synthetic acid acceptor pigments which are particularly suitable for use in thermoplastic polymers containing trace amounts of detrimental acidic moieties or in curable thermoplastic polymers which utilize acid acceptors.

Acid acceptor for polymers containing acid moieties


An edge reflection longitudinally coupled surface acoustic wave filter utilizing an SH-type surface wave includes a piezoelectric substrate having two opposing edge surfaces, and first and second interdigital transducers each having a plurality of electrode fingers and being arranged on the piezoelectric substrate such that a shear horizontal surface wave excited by one of the first and second interdigital transducers is reflected between the two opposing edge surfaces to form a standing wave. Attenuation poles of frequency characteristics of the first and second interdigital transducers are adjacent to the frequency position of spurious responses determined by the distance between the two opposing edge surfaces.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface acoustic wave filter utilizing a shear horizontal (hereinafter abbreviated as SH) type surface wave, and more particularly, to a longitudinally coupled surface acoustic wave (hereinafter abbreviated as SAW) filter.
2. Description of the Related Art
A longitudinally coupled double-mode SAW filter utilizing a surface wave has been known as one type of various SAW devices. An example of this type of longitudinally coupled SAW filter is shown in FIG. 1.
A SAW filter 51 has a construction in which first and second interdigital transducers (hereinafter abbreviated as IDTs) 53 and 54 are disposed on a rectangular piezoelectric substrate 52. Reflectors 55 and 56 are disposed on both sides of the IDTs 53 and 54 along the propagation direction of a surface wave excited by the IDTs 53 and 54.
In the SAW filter 51, one of the comb-shaped electrodes 53a of the IDT 53 is an input end, and one of the comb-shaped electrodes 54a of the other IDT 54 is an output end. The other comb-shaped electrodes 53b and 54b of the IDTs 53 and 54 are connected to the ground potential.
When an input voltage is applied to the IDT 53, a surface wave is excited and propagates in a direction which is perpendicular to the direction in which an electrode finger of the IDT 53 extends. The surface acoustic wave is then reflected between the reflectors 55 and 56, and becomes a standing wave. An output based on such a standing wave is extracted by the IDT 54. In this case, as a surface wave, a fundamental mode and a high-order mode (asymmetrical mode) are generated. Therefore, the SAW filter 51 operates as a longitudinally coupled double-mode SAW filter.
The conventional longitudinally coupled SAW filter 51 has the problem that the overall dimensions of the filter are excessively large because of the presence of the reflectors 55 and 56. Also, in the SAW filter 51, since an electromechanical coupling coefficient of a piezoelectric substrate 2 is not very large, only a narrow band filter can be achieved.
An edge reflection type longitudinally coupled surface acoustic wave filter utilizing an SH-type surface wave shown in FIG. 2 is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 9-69751. This filter can allegedly solve the above problems experienced by the filter shown in FIG. 1.
The SAW filter 61 shown in FIG. 2 includes a rectangular piezoelectric substrate 62. The piezoelectric substrate 62 has two opposing edge surfaces 62a and 62b. First and second IDTs 63 and 64 are disposed on the top surface 62c of the piezoelectric substrate 62. The IDTs 63 and 64 have a pair of comb-shaped electrodes 63a and 63b, and 64a and 64b, respectively, and the numbers of pairs of electrode fingers are almost the same.
In order that an SH-type surface wave, such as a BGS (Bleustein-Gulyaev-Shimizu) wave, is excited and reflected between the two opposing edge surfaces 62a and 62b, one of a pair of outermost electrode fingers of the comb-shaped electrode 63a is arranged so as to be flush with the edge surface 62a of the piezoelectric substrate 62. In a similar manner, one of a pair of outermost electrode fingers of the comb-shaped electrode 64b is arranged so as to be flush with the edge surface 62b of the piezoelectric substrate 62. One of the comb-shaped electrodes 63a of the first IDT 63 is an input end, and one of the comb-shaped electrodes 64a of the IDT 64 is an output end, and the comb-shaped electrodes 63b and 64b are connected to a ground potential.
When an input voltage is applied to the IDT 63, a surface wave is excited and propagates in a direction that is perpendicular to the direction in which the electrode fingers of the IDT 63 extends. That is, the surface wave propagates in a direction which connects the two opposing edge surfaces 62a and 62b. This surface wave is reflected by the edge surfaces 62a and 62b, and becomes a standing wave. An output based on this standing wave is extracted from the IDT 64.
Therefore, in the edge reflection-type SAW filter 61 utilizing an SH-type surface wave, since a reflector is not required, a longitudinally coupled double-mode SAW filter has a greatly reduced overall size and a loss caused by the presence of a reflector does not occur. Thus, a surface acoustic wave filter having wider band characteristics can be achieved with this structure.
However, in the SAW filter 61, there is a problem in that spurious responses which are dependent upon the distance between the two opposing edge surfaces 62a and 62b appear over the outside of the passband in the filter characteristics, and, in particular, relatively large spurious responses appear in a frequency region in the vicinity of a passband and outside the passband. This problem is specific to an edge reflection-type SAW filter. The SAW filter 51 shown in FIG. 1 having the reflectors 55 and 56 does not usually suffer from such a problem since the spurious response can be suppressed by adjusting the material, thickness, width of the electrode fingers and number of the electrode fingers of the IDTs and reflectors or selecting an appropriate substrate.

Edge reflection type longitudinally coupled surface acoustic wave filter


A compact multiple diameter wafer testing device with a footprint of about 33 by 34 inches features on-chuck wafer calibration and integrated cassette-chuck transfer. It includes a five axes wafer handling system, a quick exchange chuck and a fixed through beam sensor fixed. Two of the five axes are provided by an X-Y stage, a third axis is provided by a rotary stage on top of the X-Y stage, a fourth axis belongs to a rotating effector and a fifth axis is provided by motion controlled pin lifters all combined with the X-Y stage. The quick exchange chuck may be easily changed for different wafer diameters and also calibrated by the through beam sensor. The through beam sensor provides on-chuck position calibration of the chucked wafers in conjunction with the X-Y stage and rotary stage. The compact wafer testing device handles wafers between six and twelve inches diameter.

Ever increasing competition in cost effective semiconductor fabrication results in a continuous demand for more compact and versatile fabrication devices. A significant step during semiconductor fabrication is the repeated inspection of the wafer surfaces during intermediate fabrication of semiconductor features as are well known in the art. For that purpose, wafers need to be inspected with high throughput rates. In the prior art, a number of wafer testing devices are provided with differing complexity and space consumption to provide more or less automated wafer inspection. Wafer testing devices need to operate within expensive laboratory space. One aspect of cost efficient wafer testing is the minimum required footprint of a wafer testing device. As result, compact wafer testing devices with a footprint of less than 3 by 3 feet have been introduced in the prior art. The downside of compact wafer testing devices may be reduced through put due to separate well known wafer pre alignment and/or eventual additional need for external robotic devices for wafer transfer between a chuck at which the wafer is fixed for inspection and a cassette where a number of wafers are stacked for transport between fabrication stages. Therefore, there exists a need for a compact wafer testing device without need for pre alignment outside the device's main footprint and integrated cassette-chuck transfer. The present invention addresses this need.
At the time of this invention, wafers for semiconductor fabrication are utilized in 150 mm, 200 mm and 300 mm diameters. Therefore and to maximize the functionality of a compact wafer testing device, there exists a need for a compact wafer testing device capable of testing wafers of multiple diameters with minimum modifications. The present invention addresses this need.
There are a number of wafer cassette systems including cassette elevators commercially available that are optimized for different size wafers and other fabrication particularities as are well known to anyone skilled in the art. Therefore, there exists a need for of compact wafer testing device that provides an interface for integrating one or more freely selectable commercial cassette elevators and respective cassette systems. The present invention addresses also this need.

Compact multiple diameters wafer handling system with on-chuck wafer calibration and integrated cassette-chuck transfer


The present invention relates to the inhibition of melanogenesis with para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) and its use in treating melanotic cancer.

Melanoma
The incidence of melanoma in most developed countries has risen faster, over the past 50 years, than any other cancer type. (Houghton A N, (2002) Cancer Cell; 2:275-278.) Approximately 45,000 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed each year in the United States, of which about 20% will eventually die secondary to metastatic disease. (Buzaid, A C. (2002) Crit Rev Ocol Hematol 44:103-108.) The prognosis for treatment of advanced melanoma is poor, with patient survival dictated primarily by the pace of progress of the disease. (Buzaid, supra.) Surgical intervention remains the most effective treatment option, but only if the disease is diagnosed and treated in its earliest stages. (Molife R et al. (2002) Crit Rev Oncol Hematol 44:81-102.) Hence, survival chances are excellent if melanoma is diagnosed and surgically removed in its earliest stages. Each successive stage of disease progression, however, witnesses a significant drop in the chance for survival as the risks of relapse and recurrence increase. (Molife et al, supra.) Thus, there is a need for new, more effective methods of treatment that are distinct from surgical intervention or enhance the efficacy of surgical intervention.
Clinical response rates to treatment are typically lower in patients with melanoma than in patients with other cancers. Clinical trials have shown malignant melanoma to be highly resistant to both chemotherapy as well as radiation treatment. A durable response rate of only about 10% was observed following current treatment modalities. (Flaherty L E et al. (2002) Semin Oncol 29:446-455.) An evaluation of biochemotherapy in previously treated patients documented a 6% response rate. (Chapman, et al. (2002) Melanoma Res. 12:381-387.)
The lack of therapeutic response to the existing treatment protocols for melanoma, is due largely to its cellular, biochemical, and molecular origins. (Ichihasyhi N et al. (2001) Br J Dermatol 144:745-750; Heere-Ress et al. (2002) Int J Cancer 99:29-34; Sinha P et al. (2000) Electrophoresis 21:3048-3057.) Melanomas arise from a very specific cell lineage: they are the product of the malignant conversion of melanocytes, which are themselves derived originally from mesenchymal neural crest cells. In contrast, carcinomas arise from the malignant conversion of epithelial cells. Furthermore, melanomas are not sex hormone dependent, while many carcinomas are (e.g., androgen-dependent prostate cancer and estrogen-dependent breast). Additionally, melanomas carry out the process of melanogenesis, while carcinomas exhibit this process rarely, if ever. One or more of the characteristic properties of melanomas must account for the resistance of melanomas to existing treatment protocols.
Melanogenesis
Melanogenesis is the process of synthesizing of melanin, which is responsible for cell pigmentation. Melanocytes, located in the skin, hair follicles, stria vascularis of the inner ear and uveal tract of the eye, are the cells of origin for melanomas and exhibit melanogenesis. Melanogenesis is a complex biochemical process initiated by the hydroxylation of the amino acid L-tyrosine, which results in the formation of L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA). L-DOPA is converted, in turn, to Dopachrome by the action of a specific melanocyte-associated enzyme: tyrosinase. Further oxidation and reduction reactions ultimately convert Dopachrome to melanin.
Studies have indicated that melanogenesis is associated with the enhanced resistance of pigmented melanoma cells to radiation therapy and to chemotherapy. (Kinnaert E et al. (2000) Radiation Res 154:497-502; Slominski A et al. (1998) Anti-Cancer Res 18:3709-3716.) These treatments are thus rendered ineffective against melanotic melanoma. A method to block melanogenesis would provide a clinically useful approach to render melanoma cells more sensitive to both chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Studies have also shown that many of the intermediate products produced during melanogenesis have toxic effects. (Slominski A et al. (1998), supra; Riley P A (1991) Eur J Cancer 27:1172-1177; Prota G et al. (1994) Melanoma Res 4:351-358.) Intermediates of melanogenesis can contribute to, for example, immunosuppression, fibrosis, and mutagenesis. Inhibition of melanogenesis will therefore enhance the efficacy of cancer treatments that require participation of the host's immune system, e.g., the killing of melanoma cells damaged by radiation or chemotherapy.
para-Aminobenzoic Acid
para-Aminobenzoic acid (PABA) has been commonly used in sunscreens for its capacity to absorb ultraviolet radiation. PABA has also been used in clinical trials for the treatment of connective tissue diseases (e.g. scleroderma; dermatomyositis) and in combination with salicylates for the treatment of rheumatic fever. U.S. Pat. No. 6,368,598 (the '598 patent) suggested the use of PABA as a non-essential part of a linking group in a drug complex for the treatment of prostate cancers. As set forth in the '598 patent, the function of PABA is to act as a leaving group that is separated from the cytotoxic therapeutic portion of the drug complex by the action of enzymes present at the site of the intended therapeutic action. There is no suggestion, however, that PABA has any anti-tumor activity or other therapeutic function on prostate or other types of cancer. According to Holt, PABA can increase methotrexate levels, activity, and side effects. (Holt GA (1998) Food & Drug Interactions. Chicago: Precept Press, 170.)
para-Aminomethylbenzoic acid (PAMBA), a methylated derivative of PABA, has been found to be useful as a proteinase inhibitor for reducing the invasiveness of transplantable melanoma metastases in hamsters (Zbytniewski Z, et al. (1977) Arch Geschwulstforsch 47:400-404). The action of PAMBA is to inhibit proteolysis by extracellular proteases, thus preserving the extracellular matrix as a physical barrier that reduces the invasiveness of cancer cells. Reducing invasiveness, however, does not inhibit the growth of an established metastatic tumor. There is no suggestion therefore that PAMBA inhibits the growth of primary or metastatic melanoma. Nor is there any suggestion that PAMBA inhibits melanogenesis, or that it can enhance the effect of radiation or the activity of chemotherapeutic agents known to be useful in treating melanoma.
Accordingly, primary and metastatic melanoma continue to be difficult to treat with existing therapies. There is therefore a continued need for new effective treatments for these conditions. It has now been surprisingly discovered that PABA acts as a potent inhibitor of melanogenesis and can be used to treat melanoma effectively when administered alone or in combination with other anti-cancer modalities such chemotherapy and radiation. This finding is surprising because melanoma has different cellular origins from other cancers, including other skin cancers, melanoma is known to be highly resistant to treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation, and because the concentrations of PABA that inhibited melanoma cell growth in vitro and in vivo were found to have the opposite effect of enhancing growth of a lung carcinoma.

Inhibition of melanogenesis and melanoma metastasis with p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA)


A memory device includes a substrate and a plurality of vertical storage nodes linearly spaced apart on the substrate along a first direction. The device further includes at least one support pattern abutting sidewalls of the storage nodes, the at least one support pattern having portions that bridge first pairs of adjacent ones of the storage nodes and openings therein that separate second pairs of adjacent ones of the storage nodes. First distances between the storage nodes of the respective first pairs may be greater than second distances between the storage nodes of the respective second pairs. Methods of fabricating such devices are also described.

Some embodiments of the inventive subject matter relate generally to a semiconductor memory devices and methods of fabricating the same and, more particularly, semiconductor memory devices including capacitors and methods of fabricating the same.
To meet a growing demand for lightweight, small, high-speed, multifunctional, high-performance, high-reliable, and low-cost electronic devices, it is desirable that semiconductor memory devices have a high integration density and reliability. Increasing capacitance of capacitors used as memory elements may be considered to improve the reliability of a semiconductor memory device using such capacitors. For example, the capacitance of a capacitor can be increased by increasing an aspect ratio of a capacitor lower electrode. For this reason, there have been ongoing efforts to increase an aspect ratio of a capacitor lower electrode.

Memory devices with vertical storage node bracing and methods of fabricating the same


A soft magnetic thin film of CoFe alloy having a high Br and low Hc is prepared by furnishing a plating tank including cathode and anode compartments which are separated by a diaphragm or salt bridge so as to permit charge transfer, but inhibit penetration of Fe ions, feeding a plating solution containing Co ions and divalent Fe ions to the cathode compartment, feeding an electrolyte solution to the anode compartment, immersing a substrate in the plating solution, immersing an anode in the electrolyte solution, electroplating, and heat treating the plated film at 100–550° C.; or by immersing a substrate and a soluble anode in a plating solution containing Co ions and divalent Fe ions, electroplating, and heat treating the plated film at 100–550° C.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates to methods for preparing soft magnetic thin films based on cobalt and iron, and soft magnetic thin films obtained therefrom.
2. Background Art
Soft magnetic thin films are currently on widespread use in electronic applications such as electronic parts including thin-film magnetic heads, thin-film inductors and thin-film transformers. In particular, in order for a thin-film magnetic head to perform high density magnetic recording, it is necessary to shrink recorded bits, which in turn, requires the thin-film magnetic head to produce a high strength magnetic field for writing. Then the soft magnetic thin film used in the thin-film magnetic head must be formed of a magnetically soft material having a high saturation flux density (Bs). With respect to thin-film inductors and thin-film transformers which are required to reduce their size and the thickness of film, a demand for a magnetically soft material having a high saturation flux density exists like the thin-film magnetic heads.
Magnetic thin films having a high saturation flux density are known in the art. For example, Japanese Patent No. 2,821,456 discloses a method for preparing a soft magnetic thin film of CoNiFe having a saturation flux density of 1.7 to 2.1 tesla (T) by electroplating. JP-A 2000-322707 discloses a method for preparing a soft magnetic film of CoFeNi having a saturation flux density of 2 to 2.3 T by electroplating.
Recently, for the purpose of increasing magnetic recording density or the like, there is a growing interest in the use of CoFe-based alloys having a high saturation flux density as compared with NiFe-based alloys and CoNiFe-based alloys used in the art as soft magnetic thin films.
The saturation flux density of CoFe alloys is described in R. M. Bozorth, "Ferromagnetism," D. Van Nostrand Co. Inc., N.Y., 1951. Theoretically, a saturation flux density of higher than about 2.2 T is available when the alloy composition is in the approximate range: 5 at %≦Co≦70 at % and 30 at %≦Fe≦95 at %. The saturation flux density reaches a maximum of about 2.4 T when the alloy consists of about 35 at % of cobalt and about 65 at % of iron. IEEE. Trans. Magn., 1987, vol. 23, p. 2981 describes that an electroplated CoFe alloy film formed of about 90 at % Co and about 10 at % Fe has a saturation flux density of about 1.9 T.
Also, IEEE. Trans. Magn., 2000, vol. 36, p. 3479 describes a CoFe alloy film composed of about 35 at % Co and about 65 at % Fe. Although this film has the composition alleged as exhibiting a highest saturation flux density, the saturation flux density is only about 2.0 T. That is, the saturation flux density is not so high as expected. This is probably because divalent Fe ions in the plating bath are oxidized.
It is then desirable to form a CoFe alloy film while controlling the oxidation of divalent Fe ions. For example, JP-A 6-96949 discloses a method for preparing a CoFe alloy film by electroplating in a plating solution while adding a reducing agent such as ascorbic acid, hypophosphorous acid, dimethylaminoboran, thiourea, or salts or derivatives thereof to the plating solution for preventing divalent Fe ions from being oxidized or for reducing trivalent Fe ions (formed as a result of oxidation) to a divalent state. The CoFe alloy film obtained by this method, however, has a less satisfactory saturation flux density.
The inventors proposed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-153252 to form a CoFe alloy film while adding a boron-based reducing agent to a plating solution for preventing divalent Fe ions from being oxidized. With this method, however, non-metallic components such as boron originating from the reducing agent are incorporated in the CoFe alloy film in addition to Co and Fe, detracting from its saturation flux density. A CoFe alloy film having an inherent saturation flux density is not available as well.


A pixel color conversion method applied to an output device includes: providing a trainable database for storing a plurality of data values corresponding to a set of indexes for use performing pixel color conversion; regarding at least one source image, training the trainable database; and according to the plurality of data values corresponding to the set of indexes in the trainable database, converting source samples of a source image into target samples for being outputted by the output device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to output devices of images/video signals, and more particularly, to pixel color conversion methods and systems applied to output devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A printer such as an inkjet printer is capable of respectively spraying small ink droplets corresponding to specific amounts on a plurality of locations on a paper to display color and/or gray level variations of a whole image to be outputted. A typical inkjet printer or a typical multi-function printer (MFP) of the like may have a plurality of ink colors such as cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) and may spray ink droplets corresponding to specific (C, M, Y, K) proportions on a specific location of a paper to display the color of the specific location, where blue can be displayed by utilizing cyan ink and magenta ink, red can be displayed by utilizing magenta ink and yellow ink, and green can be displayed by utilizing yellow ink and cyan ink, and theoretically, black can be displayed by utilizing cyan ink, magenta ink, and yellow ink.
On a specific location, if a certain color of ink within the cyan ink, the magenta ink, the yellow ink, and the black ink mentioned above is sprayed in excess, for example, a proportion of the certain color of ink is greater than a specific proportion, problems such as saturation may occur, which means no matter how much of the certain color of ink is increased, the color is substantially unvaried for the perception of human eyes. Similar situations may also occur regarding a laser printer. When a color laser printer applies too much toner powder corresponding to a certain color to a specific location on a paper, problems such as saturation may occur.
According to the related art, technologies such as gray component replacement (GCR) and under color removal (UCR) can be utilized for controlling the total regional ink amount or the total regional toner powder amount on the paper, where the GCR technology replaces at least one portion of colors representing details and shadows with black, while the UCR technology removes neutral gray generated by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow in the dark portion and replaces the neutral gray by applying a proper amount of black.
It is noted that according to the related art, it is supposed that the problems mentioned above can be solved by color replacement, so the output results thereof sometimes seem to be flat or unreal in the dark portion. In addition, the output effects generated by color replacement according to the related art may vary with respect to different kinds of papers and/or different kinds of images. As a result, even after many times of adjustment or calibration, the side effects due to color replacement may still exist. Therefore, the related art does not provide a real solution to the problems mentioned above.

Pixel color conversion method and system applied to output device


A mobile terminal is provided as a solution to a problem in which ease use is low. Display part 1A is provided on casing A, while display part 1B is provided on casing B. Detector 2 detects the attitude of at least one of casings A and B and the opening/closing angle between casings A and B. Execution section 3 executes an application. Controller 4 displays a view of the application on at least one of display parts 1A and 1B in a display style according to detection results detected by detector 2.

As a mobile terminal, there is a two-screen terminal equipped with two casings connected so as to be openable from and closable to each other and with a display screen on each casing. In some cases, a user using the two-screen terminal changes his/her style of using the terminal, for example, in the opening/closing angle between the casings and in the way of holding the two-screen terminal according to circumstances. Also, in some cases, the ease of seeing the display screens, the ease of using an application changes depending on the style of use.
Patent literature 1 discloses a display device that changes the contents of a display according to a change in a using style.
More specifically, the display device includes opening/closing detection means for detecting whether or not the opening/closing angle between two casings has become equal to 360°, and an angular velocity sensor that detects one of the two casings located below the other when the opening/closing angle becomes equal to 360°.
When the opening/closing angle between the casings having become equal to 360° is detected by the opening/closing detection means, display information displayed on the display screen provided on the casing located below and detected with the angular velocity sensor is displayed on the display screen on the casing located above.
In this way, the contents of a display on the display screen provided on the casing located below, at such a position as to be unseen from the user, can be checked through the display screen provided on the casing located above.

Mobile terminal and display control method