In the process for partially shaping, a glass/glass ceramic article (5) is held on a planar support plate (1) by suction. The glass/glass ceramic article is heated to soften it, so that it has a viscosity below 106 dPa·s. After the softening one or more shaping dies (4) is or are moved upward through an opening or respective openings (3) in the support plate to form raised regions in the softened glass/glass ceramic article (5). The suction force is produced by a low pressure in a hollow compartment (2) below the support plate (1) and acts on the glass/glass ceramic article (5) by means of a gap (G) formed between each shaping die (4) and the support plate. Additional openings can be provided in the support plate and/or in one or more of the shaping dies to assist in applying the suction force to the glass/glass ceramic article. After solidification of the softened glass/glass-ceramic article the shaping die or dies (4) is or are withdrawn. Then the partially shaped glass/glass ceramic product is removed by compressed air and/or mechanically with lifting members (8). An apparatus for performing this process is also described.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for partial shaping of flat glass or comparable glass-ceramic articles. It also relates to an apparatus for performing that process.
2. Description of the Related Art
A pre-shaped flat glass article, which comes in the form of a table or in the form of an endless sheet, and/or a correspondingly formed glass-ceramic article, frequently must be partially shaped for certain application purposes. This shaping includes, for example, the formation of a turned up or raised edge region around a hole, the flanging of an outer edge or the formation of depressed or raised regions in glassy table tops, glass doors or glass-ceramic cook tops.
In practice different shaping methods have been used for this purpose. The shaping techniques according to the prior art include sinking under its own weight, pressing, imprinting or vacuum drawing.
A substantial disadvantage of the method of sinking under its own weight is the limited degree of shaping that can be obtained. Only limited forms can be obtained, especially sharp edged shapes or narrow radii.
The main disadvantage of the pressing and imprinting methods is that a forming material or tool must come into contact with the surface of the glass or the glass-ceramic part so that there is an inherent quality loss at the surface.
The disadvantage of vacuum drawing is the necessity of positive contact with the edge region or rim of the glass or glass-ceramic part around the shaping region, so that no vacuum loss arises at the onset of the shaping process. Usually the process is exclusively used for drawing softened glass and/or glass-ceramic masses into cavities of a mold that is planar at the edges.
A process and associated apparatus for making glass bodies for electronic tubes, especially display screen parts, are disclosed in DE 25 28 421 A1. In this process a substantially planar glass plate is received in a holding or clamping unit at its rim or edge region as a starting product (semi-finished product). It is then heated over the softening point of the glass in a burner and then shaped by means of a suitably formed die or press member. The holding or clamping unit is generally formed so that overpressure or under pressure can be produced in the space under the glass plate, whereby the shaping process of the glass plate can also be influenced. In case of an under pressure an actual vacuum drawing method is described.
These known methods however cannot be used for the partial shaping of flat glass and/or comparable glass-ceramic articles or parts.

Process for partial shaping of flat glass or glass-ceramic articles and apparatus for performing same


A hearing aid system includes a first hearing aid configured to communicate with a second hearing aid, wherein the first hearing aid comprises a microphone and an A/D converter for provision of a digital input signal in response to sound signals received at the microphone, a processor that is configured to process the digital input signal in accordance with a signal processing algorithm into a processed digital output signal, the processor including a compressor, a D/A converter and an output transducer for conversion of the processed digital output signal to an acoustic output signal, and a transceiver for data communication with the second hearing aid, wherein, a gain of the compressor of the first hearing aid is controlled by a first compressor control signal with a value that is substantially equal to a value of a second compressor control signal controlling a gain of a compressor in the second hearing aid, whereby a sense of direction is maintained.

A hearing impaired person typically suffers from a loss of hearing sensitivity that is frequency dependent and dependent upon the sound level. Thus, a hearing impaired person may be able to hear certain frequencies, e.g., low frequencies, as well as a person with normal hearing, but unable to hear sounds with the same sensitivity as the person with normal hearing at other frequencies, e.g. high frequencies. At frequencies with reduced sensitivity, the hearing impaired person may be able to hear loud sounds as well as the person with normal hearing, but unable to hear soft sounds with the same sensitivity as the person with normal hearing. Thus, the hearing impaired person suffers from a loss of dynamic range.
Typically, a compressor in a hearing aid is used to compress the dynamic range of sound arriving at the hearing aid user in order to compensate the dynamic range loss of the user by matching the dynamic range of sound output by the hearing aid to the dynamic range of the hearing of that user. The slope of the input-output compressor transfer function (ΔI/ΔO) is referred to as the compression ratio. Generally the compression ratio required by a user is not constant over the entire input power range, i.e. typically the compressor characteristic has one or more knee-points.
Typically, the degree of dynamic hearing loss of a hearing impaired user is different in different frequency channels. Thus, compressors may be provided to perform differently in different frequency channels, thereby accounting for the frequency dependence of the hearing loss of the intended user. Such a multi-channel or multi-band compressor divides an input signal into two or more frequency channels or frequency bands and then compresses each channel or band separately. The parameters of the compressor, such as compression ratio, positions of knee-points, attack time constant, release time constant, etc. may be different for each frequency channel.
Efficient hearing of a person with normal hearing is binaural in nature and thus, utilizes two input signals, i.e. the binaural input signal, namely the sound pressure levels as detected at the eardrums in the right and left ear, respectively.
For example, human beings detect and localize sound sources in three-dimensional space by means of the binaural input signal. It is not fully known how the hearing extracts information about distance and direction to a sound source, but it is known that the hearing uses a number of cues for the determination. Among the cues are coloration, interaural time difference, interaural phase difference and interaural level difference.
A user listening to a sound source positioned at an angle to the right of the forward looking direction of the user will receive sound with a sound pressure level at the right ear that is higher than the sound pressure level received at the left ear. The sound will also arrive at the right ear prior to arrival at the left ear. Interaural level difference and interaural time difference are considered to be the most important directional cues used by the binaural hearing to determine the direction to the sound source.
The interaural level difference is highly frequency dependent. At low frequencies, where the wavelength of the sound is long relative to the head diameter, there is hardly any difference in sound pressure at the two ears. However, at high frequencies, where the wavelength is short, there may well be a 20-dB or greater difference due to the so-called head-shadow effect, where the far ear is in the sound shadow of the head.
For the determination of the azimuth direction to a sound source, it is believed that the interaural level difference ITD and the interaural time difference ILD are complementary. At low frequencies (below about 1.5 kHz), there is little ILD information, but the ITD shifts the waveform a fraction of a cycle, which is easily detected. At high frequencies (above about 1.5 kHz), there is ambiguity in the ITD, since there are several cycles of shift, but the ILD resolves this directional ambiguity.
Another aspect of binaural hearing is explained in U.S. Pat. No. 7,630,507 disclosing that loud sounds received at one ear of a person with normal hearing has a masking effect to sounds received at the other ear of the human, i.e. the sensitivity to sounds is reduced at the other ear. Binaural compression algorithms are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,630,507 for use in a binaural hearing aid system for restoring the binaural masking of normal hearing.

Binaural compressor preserving directional cues


Clusters of plant genes that are regulated in response to one or more stress conditions are provided, as are isolated plant stress-regulated genes, including portions thereof comprising a coding sequence or a regulatory element, and to consensus sequences comprising a plant stress-regulated regulatory element. In addition, a recombinant polynucleotide, which includes a plant stress-regulated gene, or functional portion thereof, operatively linked to a heterologous nucleotide sequence, is provided, as are transgenic plants, which contain a plant stress-regulated gene or functional portion thereof that was introduced into a progenitor cell of the plant. Also provided are methods of using a plant stress-regulated gene to confer upon a plant a selective advantage to a stress condition, methods of identifying an agent that modulates the activity of a plant stress-regulated regulatory element, and methods of determining whether a plant has been exposed to a stress.

Microarray technology is a powerful tool that can be used to identify the presence and level of expression of a large number of polynucleotides in a single assay. A microarray is formed by linking a large number of discrete polynucleotide sequences, for example, a population of polynucleotides representative of a genome of an organism, to a solid support such as a microchip, glass slide, or the like, in a defined pattern. By contacting the microarray with a nucleic acid sample obtained from a cell of interest, and detecting those polynucleotides expressed in the cell can hybridize specifically to complementary sequences on the chip, the pattern formed by the hybridizing polynucleotides allows the identification of clusters of genes that are expressed in the cell. Furthermore, where each polynucleotide linked to the solid support is known, the identity of the hybridizing sequences from the nucleic acid sample can be identified.
A strength of microarray technology is that it allows the identification of differential gene expression simply by comparing patterns of hybridization. For example, by comparing the hybridization pattern of nucleic acid molecules obtained from cells of an individual suffering from a disease with the nucleic acids obtained from the corresponding cells of a healthy individual, genes that are differentially expressed can be identified. The identification of such differentially expressed genes provides a means to identify new genes, and can provide insight as to the etiology of a disease.
Microarray technology has been widely used to identify patterns of gene expression associated with particular stages of development or of disease conditions in animal model systems, and is being applied to the identification of specific patterns of gene expression in humans. The recent availability of information for the genomes of plants provides a means to adapt microarray technology to the study of plant gene expression.
Plants and plant products provide the primary sustenance, either directly or indirectly, for all animal life, including humans. For the majority of the world's human population and for many animals, plants and plant products provide the sole source of nutrition. As the world population increases, the best hope to prevent widespread famine is to increase the quantity and improve the quality of food crops, and to make the crops available to the regions of the world most in need of food.
Throughout history, a continual effort has been made to increase the yield and nutritious value of food crops. For centuries, plants having desirable characteristics such as greater resistance to drought conditions or increased size of fruit were crossbred and progeny plants exhibiting the desired characteristics were selected and used to produce seed or cuttings for propagation. Using such classical genetic methods, plants having, for example, greater disease resistance, increased yield, and better flavor have been obtained. The identification of plant genes involved in conferring a selective advantage on the plant to an environmental challenge would facilitate the generation and yield of plants, thereby increasing the available food supply to an increasing world population. The involvement of these genes in a single organism to responses to multiple stress conditions, however, remains unknown. Thus, a need exists to identify plant genes and polynucleotides that are involved in modulating the response of a plant to changing environmental conditions. The present invention satisfies this need and provides additional advantages.

Stress-regulated genes of plants, transgenic plants containing same, and methods of use


The disclosure discloses a calibration method and device, a storage medium and a processor. The method includes that: a calibration point is controlled to move on a predetermined motion track; a gaze track of a target object is acquired in a movement process of the calibration point; and a specified parameter is calibrated according to the predetermined motion track and the gaze track, the specified parameter is configured to predict a gaze point of the target object.

In an existing gaze estimation method, a manner usually adopted is to estimate a gaze point by use of a 3-Dimensional (3D) approximately spherical model of an eyeball and a light refraction and reflection principle.
According to the method, a pupil center position v in an image and positions u1 and u2 of two infrared glints are detected to estimate a gaze point position g, where a relationship between g and each of v, u1 and u2 may be represented by a formula g=fR,K,α,β, n1 (v,u1,u2).
In the formula, R is a radius of curvature of a cornea, K is a distance between a center of the eyeball and a center of curvature of the cornea, n1 is a refractive index of aqueous humor and the cornea, and α and β are two compensation angles in a gazing direction. For different people, parameters such as R, K, n1, α and β are different. Therefore, an eye tracking device is required to perform parameter calibration before use.
A common manner for a parameter calibration process before the eye tracking device is used is to arrange multiple calibration points for calibration. Herein, the number of the calibration points is usually 9 or 15. However, if the 9 or 15 calibration points are adopted for calibration, the calibration process is relatively high in time consumption and inconvenient for most users.
For example, if calibration time of three seconds is required by each calibration point, calibration time of totally 27 seconds or 45 seconds is required to be consumed. If the number of the calibration points is reduced, the problem of poor calibration effect caused by insufficient training samples may be brought. In addition, another problem of the calibration method based on the 9 points or the 15 points is that these calibration points are mutually independent and, once some calibration points are greatly deviated, it is impossible to detect them by use of position information of the other calibration points.
For a problem of incapability of an existing calibration manner in rapid calibration, no effective solution has been provided yet.

Calibration method and device, storage medium and processor


A mobile apparatus is disclosed. The mobile apparatus includes a user interface unit which is selected with a web page to be printed, an obtaining unit which obtains a size of the selected web page, a calculating unit which calculates a plurality of capture areas regarding the web page based on the obtained size of the web page so that there is not repeated area, an image processing unit which generates a capture image regarding the web page per calculated plurality of capture area, and combines the generated capture images to generate a print image, and a communication interface unit which transmits the generated print image to the image forming apparatus.

1. Field
Embodiments relate to a mobile apparatus and print controlling method, and more particularly, to a mobile apparatus for printing a webpage in an image capture method and a print controlling method having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an image forming apparatus refers to an apparatus which prints print data generated in a terminal such as a computer on recording paper. A copier, printer, facsimile, and multi function peripheral (MFP) which embodies multi functions of a copier, printer, and facsimile in one apparatus are examples of such an image forming apparatus.
Nowadays, as it is possible to connect to the internet in a mobile apparatus such as a mobile phone, PMP, and MP3 player, it also became possible to perform a printing operation of a webpage in a mobile apparatus. However, since a printer driver is not installed in a mobile apparatus unlike in a print controlling terminal such as a PC, in a mobile apparatus, a printing operation is performed by generating a plurality of capture images of a webpage, combining the generated capture images, and transmitting the combined images to the image forming apparatus.
More specifically, an image is generated by capturing a portion of a webpage while scrolling the webpage by portions using a capture API inside a browser installed in a mobile apparatus, cutting out repetitive areas among a plurality of captured images, and then combining them.
However, this conventional method takes a long time due to the process of cutting out repetitive areas among the plurality of captured images.
In addition, the capturing process also takes a long time since capturing a webpage depends on whether or not scrolling is possible. Moreover, in the conventional method, printing operation itself is not possible in a browser which does not have a capture API.

Mobile apparatus and print controlling method


An on-axis four mirror anastigmat telescope includes an entrance pupil configured to receive light from an image, and a mirror assembly. The mirror assembly has a first reflective surface having a central aperture formed therein, a second reflective surface, a third reflective surface having a central aperture formed therein, a fourth reflective surface, and an aperture stop. The mirror assembly is configured to receive light from the image on a common axis and to reflect the light successively by the four coaxial reflective surfaces through the aperture stop. The telescope further comprises a detector configured to receive light from the mirror assembly. The central aperture formed in the first reflective surface defines a field stop to limit the field of view.

This invention relates generally to optical systems and, more particularly, to an on-axis four mirror anastigmat telescope with enhanced stray light suppression.
There are off-axis reflective anastigmat telescope designs which offer excellent imaging performance while minimizing stray light issues. An example of such an off-axis anastigmat telescope design is generally indicated at 2 in FIG. 1. However, off-axis geometry does not fit well within a tight cylindrical volume. In addition, off-axis telescope designs generally have higher polarization sensitivity. There exist on-axis reflective anastigmatic telescopes; however, these designs are typically beset with significant stray light issues. Reference can be made to WO 2006/015273 as an example of an all-reflective telescope having a positive optical-power primary mirror, a negative optical-power secondary mirror, a positive optical-power tertiary mirror, a negative optical-power quaternary mirror, and a positive optical-power field lens. The mirrors and the lens of the telescope are axisymmetric about a beam axis. Reference can also be made to U.S. Pat. No. 3,455,623, which discloses a telescope having four spheroidal reflective surfaces that are axially aligned to form an anastigmat with light passing from a second to a third surface through central apertures in first and fourth surfaces.

On-axis four mirror anastigmat telescope


A apparatus and method for determining minimum line widths of free standing structures built by a semiconductor (S/C) manufacturing process. Free standing structures are created in a semiconductor device and subjected to an aerosol process which is tuned and centered with respect to a critical line width for the free standing structures. The S/C manufacturing process is tuned responsive to failure of free standing structures of sub-critical line widths.

This invention relates to semi-conductor manufacturing processes, and more particularly to an aerosol process for inspecting free standing structures.
As minimum semiconductor design feature sizes decrease from 90 nm to 65 nm to 40 nm, structures such as those created by traditional lithography-etching become mechanically less and less stable. Unstable structures will cause defects that result in electrical opens or shorts, preventing circuit operation. The use of new ultra short wavelength lithography/resist systems makes across chip line width variation (ACLV) control difficult, such that lines within a chip, or portions of such lines, can easily be 10% smaller than the average. The necessity for on-mask corrections further compounds the problem, because imperfect optical proximity correction (OPC), which compensates a design for lithographic image variation due to local environment, actually can make the local line variation worse.
The industry has relied predominately on electrical and critical dimension measurements via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to determine average line widths across a chip or wafer. Realistically, measurements are preformed on structures in nested, semi-nested and isolated local environments that mimic the product chip to obtain a fairly good understanding the line widths on the product chip.
Ideally, all local environments should be measured on a product chip or wafer to ensure an accurate understanding of line width. Since this is not feasible, line width variations and/or failures may exist and will ultimately be detected in the product through electrical characterization and subsequent failure analysis. This procedure, however, is a costly, time consuming, and resource intensive solution.
Thus there is a need in the art for an improved method for identifying specific regions on a wafer or chip where free standing structures of a specific width, such as poly-Si gates, resist trenches, or trenches in a low K material such as SiLK, fail to maintain structural integrity.

System and method for determining line widths of free-standing structures resulting from a semiconductor manufacturing process

International Business Machines Corporation


The present application discloses a brake actuator for applying tension to a brake cable. The actuator includes: a mounting bracket; a brake actuator lever mounted for pivotal movement relative to the mounting bracket in brake applying and brake releasing directions; and a cam-and-drum member mounted for rotation relative to relative to the brake actuator lever. The cam-and-drum member is formed as one integral part including a protruding drum portion and a cam portion integral with the drum portion. The present application also discloses a brake actuator with a one-piece cam member.

There is an ever-present pressure in the automotive industry to lower costs, both with respect to the overall cost of the vehicle, and the various parts and components used in the vehicle. With respect to brake actuators, these devices are found in many vehicles, but their design is relatively complex, which leads to relatively high costs. The present invention endeavors to provide improvements to a brake actuator that enable part count and manufacturing complexity to be reduced relative to known brake actuators.


A method of manufacturing a chip-type ceramic electronic component having stable electrical properties and excellent mechanical strength includes the steps of providing a plurality of green sheets having predetermined cutting positions, coating inorganic paste including the same ceramic material as that included in ceramic green sheets, and an inorganic material having higher resistivity than that of the ceramic material, on a region of each ceramic green sheet, and laminating a predetermined number of the ceramic green sheets to form a ceramic laminated product. Then, the ceramic laminated product is cut into a chip at the predetermined cutting positions and sintered to form a ceramic sintered compact, and external electrodes are formed at both ends of the ceramic sintered compact.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a chip-type ceramic electronic component that is suitable for surface mounting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrolytic plating of external electrodes of a chip-type ceramic electronic component has the problem of changing characteristics due to corrosion and dissolution of an exposed surface of a ceramic sintered compact. Therefore, in electrolytic plating, an insulating layer such as a glass layer is previously formed on the surface of the ceramic sintered compact, for preventing corrosion of the ceramic sintered compact.
FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing a conventional chip-type ceramic electronic component (chip-type thermistor). As shown in FIG. 6, a chip-type thermistor 11 includes a ceramic sintered compact 12, a glass diffused layer 13 located near the outer surface except at both ends of the ceramic sintered compact 12, and external electrodes 14 disposed at both ends of the ceramic sintered compact 12. Each of the external electrodes 14 includes an underlying electrode layer 14a formed by baking Ag, and a plated layer 14b formed on the underlying electrode layer 14a and including two layers of Ni and Sn (refer to, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-124007).
The ceramic sintered compact 12 is obtained by laminating a plurality of ceramic green sheets, and press-bonding the ceramic green sheets to form a ceramic laminated product, and then sintering the ceramic laminated product. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 7, a predetermined number of ceramic green sheets 16a each having glass paste 15 coated at both side ends of a main surface are laminated, and ceramic green sheets 16b each having the glass paste 15 coated over the entire main surface are placed at the top and bottom of the laminate of the ceramic green sheets 16a, and then the resultant laminate is press-bonded to form a ceramic laminated product.
In sintering the ceramic laminated product, the glass components contained in the glass paste 15 diffuse to the vicinity of the outer surface of the ceramic sintered compact 12, forming the glass diffused layer 13.
However, when the ceramic laminated product is sintered at a high temperature, the glass components of the glass paste are likely to excessively diffuse to the vicinity of the outer surface of the ceramic sintered compact. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 8, cavities 17 occur in the glass paste-coated portions in the ceramic sintered compact 12. As a result, in electrolytic plating of the external electrodes 14, a plating solution enters into the ceramic sintered compact 12 through the cavities 17 to cause the problem of corrosion of the ceramic sintered compact 12.

Method of manufacturing chip-type ceramic electronic component


An image forming apparatus which can quickly remove remaining toner even after it has been emergently stopped when it forms an image by the use of an intermediate transfer member. An image forming apparatus for primary-transferring a toner image formed on a photosensitive drum to an intermediate transfer belt by a primary transfer roller, and secondary-transferring the primary-transferred image to a recording material to thereby form an image has a secondary cleaning portion for applying a bias to a plurality of fur brushes, wherein during ordinary image forming, biases of different polarities are applied to the plurality of fur brushes to thereby effect cleaning, and during a returning operation after emergent stoppage, biases of the same polarity are applied to the plurality of fur brushes to thereby effect cleaning.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an image forming apparatus adapted to form a toner image on an image bearing member, and transfer this toner image to a recording material, and particularly to an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic type or an electrostatic recording type.
2. Description of Related Art
As a plural-color or full-color image forming apparatus of a conventional electrophotographic type, in recent years, there has been proposed an image forming apparatus of an intermediate transfer type in which toner images of respective colors formed on a photosensitive drum are successively superposed on an intermediate transfer member (intermediate transfer belt) to thereby form a color image, which is then collectively transferred to a recording sheet.
In this intermediate transfer type, a toner image is formed on the photosensitive drum by charging means, exposing means and developing means disposed around the photosensitive drum, and is electrostatically transferred to the intermediate transfer belt by transferring means in a primary transferring portion. When a color image is to be formed, toner images are successively transferred to the intermediate transfer belt, whereby a full-color image can be formed on the intermediate transfer belt.
The toner image transferred to the intermediate transfer belt is conveyed to a secondary transferring portion by the rotation of the intermediate transfer belt, and is electrostatically transferred to a recording medium. As methods of removing toner not transferred to the recording medium at this time, but remaining on the intermediate transfer belt, there have been proposed a method of pushing a cleaning blade against the intermediate transfer belt to thereby remove the remaining toner, a method of applying a bias to fur brush cleaning means to thereby electrostatically remove the remaining toner, etc.
The afore described fur brush cleaning is advantageous to such problem as the influence upon the life of the intermediate transfer belt which poses a problem in the blade cleaning means, or the load fluctuation by the fluctuation of frictional resistance, but the untransferred remaining toner after the secondary transfer includes some toner charged to the plus (+) polarity by the secondary transfer bias and some toner charged to the minus (−) polarity by the secondary transfer bias and therefore, there arises the problem that not all of the untransferred remaining toner can be completely collected by a single fur brush and by the application of a bias of one polarity. Against this problem, there has been proposed a method of applying bias voltages of different polarities, i.e., plus (+) and minus (−) polarities, to a plurality of fur brushes to thereby collect untransferred remaining toner after the secondary transfer (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-207403).
In such an image forming apparatus as described above, it sometimes happen that the image forming operation is interrupted by the faulty conveyance or the like of a recording material while the toner image on the photosensitive drum is being transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt, or while the toner on the intermediate transfer belt is being transferred to a recording sheet. In this case, the image forming apparatus has the return sequence of eliminating the cause, and thereafter performing the returning operation of collecting a toner image already developed on the photosensitive drum, or the toner image already transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt by cleaning means to thereby prepare for the next image formation.
In the toner image transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt at the point of time whereat the image forming has been interrupted, if it is of full-color, there exist toner images of maximum n colors (n>1) comprising monochromatic toner images on the photosensitive drum superposed one upon another. It is necessary to collect these toner images by the return sequence, but the electrostatic fur brush cleaning, unlike a cleaning blade, is limited in the amount of toner it can collect.
In the electrostatic fur brush cleaning, for example, when the charging polarity of the toner is minus (−), toner collecting capability can be increased by making the polarity of the bias applied to the fur brush opposite to the polarity of the toner, namely, into the plus (+) polarity, and increasing the intensity of the bias, but if the intensity of the bias is too much increased, the toner charged to the minus (−) polarity during the collection thereof is charged to the plus (+) polarity by charge injection or discharge, and this leads to the problem that the toner cannot by collected by the fur brush but is discharged onto the intermediate transfer belt. Therefore, the lower limit value of the bias setting of the electrostatic fur brush cleaning means is set to bias intensity by which the untransferred remaining toner can be collected, and the upper limit value thereof is set to bias intensity at which it is difficult for the toner to be reversed during the collection. As the result, the upper limit of the bias intensity puts an upper limit to the collecting capability.
Consequently, if an attempt is made to collect the remaining toner on the intermediate transfer belt by the above-described bias set valve and the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-207403, when the toner is charged to the minus (−) polarity, a bias of the minus (−) polarity is applied to an upstream fur brush and therefore, almost all of the toner repulses and slips through, and a bias of the plus (+) polarity is applied to a downstream fur brush and therefore, the toner is collected, but due to the great amount of toner, much toner cannot be completely collected but slips through. Consequently, to collect all of the toner, it becomes necessary to make the remaining toner image on the intermediate transfer belt pass through the fur brush cleaning many times, and much time is required for the return.


By reversing the direction of a first build material fed into an extruder, the first build material can be wholly or partially evacuated from the extruder before a second material is introduced. This approach mitigates transition artifacts and permits faster, more complete changes from one build material to another.

Three dimensional printers can create physical models from digital designs. While current printers can use a variety of different colors of build materials for greater flexibility in realizing aesthetic or functional objects, attempts to switch between different colors have generally provided unsatisfactory results in extrusion-based processes, typically resulting in transition artifacts such as streaking and protracted variations in color. There remains a need for improved color switching techniques.

Color switching for three-dimensional printing


Disclosed are a composite graphite heat insulating material with improved thermal conductivity in the thickness direction and a method for manufacturing the same. The composite graphite heat insulating material according to the present invention comprises: an expanded graphite matrix which is compressed in the thickness direction; and high-density compressed and expanded graphite particles which are filled in the pores within the compressed and expanded graphite matrix and have a density of 0.1 g/cm3 or more.

An integrated circuit or a light emitting display has been used in various electronics including computers, notebooks, tablet PCs, cell phones and display panels, and generates a lot of heat during its operation.
Such a heat should be emitted to the outside through a suitably emitting means. Otherwise, the electronics may undergo the deterioration of reliability and durability by excessive temperature rise.
As an emitting material, metals or graphite having good thermal conductivity have been used. Among these, the graphite is favorable in term of weight lightening and coast saving as the emitting material for various products.
Generally, heat-emitting materials comprising graphite have been obtained in the form of a sheet or a gasket by bringing exfoliated natural graphite itself into compression molding.
However, as the compressed natural graphite is anisotropic, it has very high thermal conductivity in the direction of its plane but exhibits insufficient thermal conductivity in the direction of its thickness.
Korean Patent No. 10-0755014 (registered on Aug. 28, 2007) discloses a heat-emitting graphite sheet coated with a thermal conductive adhesive and a preparation thereof.

Composite graphite heat insulating material containing high-density compressed and expanded graphite particles and method for manufacturing same


A fluid reservoir for providing a supply of a lubricating fluid for an internal combustion engine, specifically for use in marine environments. The reservoir includes a housing for containing and protecting, a ventless flexible liner for housing a supply of fluid, where the flexible liner is located within the housing, and an orifice and conduit that extends through the ventless flexible liner and the housing for permitting the introduction of fluid into the ventless flexible liner and for permitting the removal of fluid therefrom. The fluid reservoir is constructed and arranged such that the ventless flexible liner is in a generally collapsed state until a fluid is introduced therein through the orifice. The introduction of fluid into the ventless flexible liner through the orifice expands the ventless flexible liner, while the removal of fluid from the ventless flexible liner collapses the ventless flexible liner proportionally as the fluid is removed and delivered to the engine. The present invention eliminates the need for a vent, thus eliminating the problems associated with the prior art vented fluid reservoirs.

The present invention relates generally to a fluid reservoir and more particularly to a ventless fluid reservoir for use with an internal combustion engine in a marine environment. However, it is contemplated as being within the scope of the invention that the disclosed device may be used in other environments, especially those types of environments in which there is a tendency for moisture or debris to be drawn into a conventional vented reservoir.
In the prior art, a known design for oil tanks used with outboard marine motors includes a generally rigid container of plastic or metal construction. In this prior art design, oil is withdrawn from the container by some type of pumping mechanism, which is typically driven by the engine. In order to maintain a constant pressure in the interior of the rigid container as the oil is withdrawn, a vent is normally provided on the container. Thus, as the oil is withdrawn from the container, air is pushed by atmospheric pressure through the vent and into the tank. In a marine environment, the ambient air may also contain significant amounts of moisture that may also be drawn into the container with the air, resulting in contamination of the oil and possible damage to the engine. In addition to the moisture problem, foreign material, such as seaweed, dust, debris or the like, may also be drawn toward the vent. This foreign material may cause problems in either of two ways. First, the foreign material may be drawn into the container through the vent and contaminate the oil and damage the engine. Second, the foreign material may block the vent, resulting in a reduction or elimination of the oil flow to the engine, which may also cause damage to the engine. While some of the problems associated with vents may be partially overcome through the use of screens, filters or other similar types of protective devices, these solutions have not proven entirely effective in eliminating the problems associated with vented fluid reservoirs.
Consequently, a primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved fluid reservoir that will not allow moisture or other foreign matter into the reservoir.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved fluid reservoir that does not require a vent, and thus eliminates the problems associated with vented reservoirs.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide an improved ventless fluid reservoir that is unaffected by moisture or foreign matter found in the surrounding environment.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an improved ventless fluid reservoir that is suitable for use in a marine environment.


An apparatus that can determine the water wettability of fluid at simulate downhole conditions. For example, a spacer fluid and a drilling mud mixture can be tested under a specified pressure and a specified temperature that simulate downhole conditions. Additionally, a shear rate may be applied to the fluid mixture that is substantially identical to the shear rate that will be exerted on the mixture due to downhole geometries and conditions. The apparatus may also provide the viscosity of the fluid under the designated pressure, at the specific temperature, and under the specified shear rate. The apparatus may also be used to determine the amount of spacer fluid that would need to be added to a drilling mud to improve the rheological properties of the mixture to provide adequate water wettability as well as the displacement of the mixture during the cementing process of a wellbore.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus that can determine the viscosity and water wettability of a spacer fluid and drilling mud mixture at downhole shear rate conditions. For example, the spacer fluid and drilling mud mixture can be tested under a specified pressure, at a specified temperature, and a shear rate may be applied to the mixture that is substantially identical to the shear rate that will be exerted on the mixture due to downhole geometries and conditions. The apparatus may also provide the viscosity of the spacer fluid and drilling mud mixture under a designated pressure, at a specific temperature, and under a specified shear rate. The apparatus may be used to determine the optimal composition and amount of spacer fluid that needs to be added to drilling mud to improve the rheological properties of the mixture to provide adequate water wettability as well as displacement of the drilling mud during the cementing process of a wellbore.
2. Description of the Related Art
Oil and gas wells typically include steel casing or steel tubing, hereinafter steel casing, cemented into the wellbore to provide support to the wellbore and prevent the wellbore from collapsing. The steel casing also allows for a hydraulic seal to be maintained within the wellbore to hydraulically isolate different sections of the well. The cement is important to support the wellbore formation as well as to help protect the steel casing from being damaged.
The first process in creating an oil or gas well is to drill the wellbore or at least a portion of the wellbore. The industry typically uses a drilling mud to aid in the drilling process to remove the drill cuttings from the wellbore. Drilling mud is generally water based mud or oil based. An oil based drilling mud does not provide sufficient water wettability properties, which may result in improper displacement of the drilling mud during the cementing process as well as possibly a decrease in the shear bond strength of the cement.
After the wellbore has been drilled to the desired depth, the drilling apparatus is removed and steel casing is inserted into the wellbore. The insertion of the steel casing displaces the drilling mud both between the steel casing and the wellbore as well as inside the steel casing. Cement is then pumped into the wellbore to cement in the steel casing. The cement within the wellbore needs to have adequate strength to support axial casing loads that may be present throughout the life of the well. It is known that the shear bond strength of the cement decreases if the wellbore is oil wet during the cementing process in comparison to a wellbore that is water wet. Thus, an oil based drilling mud may lower the shear bond strength of the cement if proper steps are not taken to ensure the wellbore is water wet. A spacer fluid may be added to the wellbore to water wet the wellbore. The addition of a spacer fluid may also be necessary to ensure proper displacement of the drilling mud during the cementing process.
Improper displacement of drilling mud within the wellbore can leave a significant amount of drilling mud at the interface between the cement and the wellbore formation. This can lead to poor cement bonding or multiple problems such as hydrocarbon loss due to migration from one zone to another or to the earth's surface, interactions of the corrosive well fluid to the steel casing, channels of undisplaced mud created "defects" in the cement sheath, and not properly supporting the wellbore. A spacer fluid is often pumped down the wellbore before the cement is pumped into the wellbore to properly displace the drilling mud and water wet the formation and external surface of the casing. Although spacer fluids help in the cementing process, one problem is determining the rheological properties of the spacer fluid to ensure its ability to properly water wet the formation and the casing as well as properly displacing the drilling mud. Additionally, it is difficult to determine the optimal formulation of the spacer fluid, the amount of spacer fluid needed, and/or the amount of surfactant in the spacer that needs to be pumped into the wellbore.
A Water Wetting Capability Tester (WWCT) as set forth in API RP 10B-2, First Edition, may be used to determine the water wettability of a fluid or fluid mixture at atmospheric pressure and at temperatures up to 200° F. The WWCT uses a conductivity probe to determine the water wettability of the tested fluid. It is known in the industry that the water wettability of a fluid may be determined by the conductivity of the fluid. As such, the WWCT includes a conductivity probe placed in the fluid cavity of the apparatus. A spacer fluid may be first tested in the WWCT to determine the conductivity index or water wettability of the spacer fluid. The WWCT can then evaluate the mixture of a known amount of a spacer fluid with a known amount of drilling mud. Typically, enough spacer fluid will be added until the mixture has a water wettability that is substantially equal to the water wettability of the spacer fluid alone.
Although the WWCT may be used to determine the water wettability of the combined mixture, it takes multiple tests. Additionally, the WWCT cannot simulate the downhole conditions above 200° F. and at pressures greater than atmospheric pressure, which are typical conditions that the spacer fluid and drilling mud mixture will be under. The WWCT does include a rotating blade to ensure that the mixture (drilling mud and spacer) are mixed properly during testing. However, while the rotational speed of the blade can be varied to quickly homogenize the added fluids and prevent static areas from forming, the shear rate at which the fluids are being exposed may not be determined due to the geometry of the mixing blades and the configuration of the mixing container. Thus, the WWCT cannot simulate the shear rate under which the fluid mixture will be exposed in the casing or in the casing-formation annulus. The WWCT does include a heater, but the heater is limited to temperatures below to 200° Fahrenheit to avoid boiling the fluid mixture. Tests using the WWCT are conducted at ambient pressure not at pressures present in the wellbore. Presently, no commercial laboratory apparatus can measure continuously the combined effects of temperature and pressure on the spacer to water wet an oil-based coated surface and measure the rheological properties of the spacer, oil-based drilling mud, and/or the combined fluids.
The WWCT also does not provide any information as to the viscosity of the combined mixture. The viscosity of the mixture will vary depending upon the viscosity of the base spacer and the drilling fluids and the proportions of spacer and drilling fluids in the fluid mixtures. The viscosity of the combined mixture at a certain mud to spacer ratio can be determined if desired with a separate apparatus. However, this apparatus can only evaluate a single mixture and cannot capture the change in viscosity as the proportion of spacer and drilling fluid changes. Nor can the existing apparatus conduct this type of evaluation under pressurized conditions.
In light of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus that may continuously determine the Theological properties, such as water wettability and viscosity, under simulated wellbore conditions. Further it would be desirable to provide an apparatus that can be used to simultaneously determine the rheological properties of a second fluid and then determine the rheological properties of a mixture of the two fluids during a real time basis under simulated wellbore conditions. It would also be desirable for an apparatus that may be used to determine the affect specific downhole conditions have on the rheological properties of a fluid.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing the effects of, one or more of the issues set forth above.


A mounting apparatus for securing a storage device (50) with a mounting hole (522) defined therein includes a bracket (20) for receiving the storage device, an operating member (40), a fastening member (30) and a resilient member (60) compressed by the fastening member. A through opening (248) is defined in the bracket. The operating member movably engages with the bracket includes a pressing portion. The fastening member pivotably attaches to the bracket includes a locking portion. The locking portion extends through the through opening of the bracket and engages in the mounting hole of the storage device under the pressure of the pressing portion of the operating member. When the operating member is pulled off, the resilient member rebounds to rotate the locking portion, thereby disengaging the locking portion from the mounting hole of the storage device.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mounting apparatuses, and more particularly to a mounting apparatus for conveniently securing storage device into a computer enclosure and later removing therefrom.
2. Background of the Invention
Usually, a storage device, such as hard disk is simply screwed to a bracket of a computer enclosure. This conventional mounting means substantially wastes the time, and thus adds the complexity and difficulty of assembling the storage device to the computer enclosure and later disassembling therefrom.
An apparatus is disclosed for removing mass storage devices from a internal support frame in a computer system. The support frame defines a plurality of openings in side walls. The apparatus has resilient, side-mounted engagement members adapted for receipt in openings of the support frame to lock the storage device in position. To remove the storage device, a rotatable lever is connected to one side wall of the support frame. The lever includes one projection member positioned adjacent the opening through the side wall to which the lever is connected. To remove the storage device from the support frame, the lever is rotated so that the projection member contacts the engagement member. Continued rotation of the lever causes the engagement member to be urged inwardly and out of the opening in the side wall. As a result, the storage device is unlocked from the frame. This mounting means described above is convenient to secure the storage device. However, the side-mounted engagement members increase gaps between the storage device and the side wall of the support frame which increases the leakiness of EMI (electro magnetic interference).
What is needed, therefore, is a mounting apparatus for securing conveniently a storage device to a computer chassis and facilitating to prevent the leakiness of EMI.

Mounting apparatus for securing storage device

Bao-an District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province

Hong Fu Jin Precision Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.


Aqueous laundry detergent compositions comprising a solubilized ethoxylated fatty acid diester as a detergency booster and/or a defoamer. Preferred compositions include a nonionic surfactant, preferably ethoxylated fatty acid monoester, as at least part of the surfactant in the composition, and also functioning as the solibilizer for the ethoxylated fatty acid diester.

Liquid laundry detergents are popular with the consumers. Despite numerous liquid detergent products on the market, however, a continuous consumer need exists for lower cost without compromising the performance of the detergent, or even providing improved performance at the same cost.
Ethoxylated fatty acid di-esters (hereinafter "EFADs") may be co-produced with ethoxylated fatty acid mono-ester, as shown in "Group Selectivity of Ethoxylation of Hydroxy Acids" by A. J. O'lenick, Jr., www.zenitech.com/documents/castor-oul.pdf. M. Stjerndahl et. al. disclosed a method of preparing high purity of ethoxylated fatty acid via esterification with excess of Polyethylene glycol in "Synthesis and Chemical Hydrolysis of Surface-Active Esters", J. of Surfactants and Detergents, Vol 6, No. 4 (October, 2003) pages 311–318. The same method may be used for making high purity of di-ester with excess of fatty acid chloride. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,884,946 6,300,508 B1 disclose the products of ethoxylated fatty acid including 2.3% or less of di-ester as a by-product. There are patents, such as US 2002/0042352 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 3,232,506, U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,268, U.S. Pat. No. 3,231,505, U.S. Pat. No. 5,279,313, U.S. Pat. No. 5,854,201, WO 96/29389, WO 96/23049, WO 00/31221, and GB 2,141,965A, disclosed of using ethoxylated fatty acid mono-ester for various applications.
EFADs are not generally regarded as detergent surfactants, due to their relatively low HLB values. Furthermore, EFADs have low to none water-solubility. See for instance EP1092761, which discloses the use of EFADS to generate pearly luster—which means that the EFAD is not solubilised. Thus, the laundry detergent art does not provide any motivation and/or expectation of success for inclusion of EFADs into aqueous, isotropic laundry detergent compositions.
The present invention is based at least in part on the discovery that the inclusion of relatively small quantities of EFADs into aqueous laundry detergent compositions boosts the detergent surfactant performance. By virtue of the surprising boosting effect of EFADs the surfactant amount in the formulation can be decreased (resulting in lower cost of manufacture), while maintaining soil removal performance of the detergent, or even improving it on some types of soil. Furthermore, EFADs provide economical de-foaming benefits without adverse effects, such as haziness, caused by a silicone defomer.

Aqueous detergent composition containing ethoxylated fatty acid di-ester

Unilever Home & Personal Care USA Division of Conopco, Inc.


A surgical guide for use with an image guided surgery includes first and second surfaces. At least three signaling devices such as infrared emitters are disposed on the first surface, and a cylindrical mounting boss is disposed on the second surface. A guide aperture is perpendicular to the first and second surfaces and extends between them. The guide aperture is configured to support a surgical tool such as a biopsy needle. A sleeve may be placed in the aperture to support additional tools.

The present invention relates to the medical diagnostic and surgical arts. It finds particular application in conjunction with neurosurgery and will be described with particular respect thereto. It will be appreciated, however, that the invention finds application in conjunction with biopsies, endoscopic procedures, orthopedic surgeries, other medical procedures, industrial quality control procedures, and the like in which a tool or device must be accurately positioned in relation to an object.
Image guided surgery systems are particularly well adapted to intra-cranial and spinal surgery. These systems use diagnostic images of the patient to assist the physician with presurgical planning and to provide information relating to the position and orientation of the anatomy and instrumentation during a surgical procedure. Image guided surgery systems are a well-suited for use in connection with magnetic resonance ("MR") and computerized tomography ("CT") images, as well as with other imaging modalities.
In cranial applications, a patient reference frame may defined using three or more points fixed in relation to the patient's head. According to one method, at least three markers visible to the imaging device are affixed to the skin prior to imaging. According to another method, anatomical reference points are used. According to a third method, fiducial markers may be affixed to the skull, for example as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,991,579, Method and Apparatus for Providing Related Images of the Anatomy over time of a Portion of the Anatomy Using Fiducial Implants, to Allen, issued Feb. 12, 1991. Similar techniques may be used to define a patient reference frame with respect to other portions of the anatomy.
An image of the patient having an image reference frame is then obtained. Based on the location of the three or more markers within the image data, the image and patient reference frames can be correlated. Hence, the position of a feature of interest within the image can be determined with respect to the patient reference frame. After image acquisition is complete, the patient can be moved as desired. The patient is subsequently placed in an operating room environment, for example on an operating table.
The patient and operating room reference frames are correlated or "zeroed" by touching the surgical tool to the at least three markers. The position of the tool with respect to the cameras, and hence the position of the markers, is then determined. Inasmuch as the relationship between the patient, operating room, and image frames of reference is known, the position of the tool with respect to the image reference frame can then be determined. Relevant images, with the position of the surgical tool indicated thereon, are then displayed on a monitor. The surgeon is thus provided with a real time indication of the position of the surgical tool with respect to the previously obtained image.
Various surgical procedures require accurate placement of surgical tools in relation to the body. The accurate placement of these devices requires the determination of the trajectory and depth to the intended target. When the trajectory and depth information is determined, it is necessary to preserve that information, and then effectively use it for placement of the surgical device. One potential problem is that the orientation of the surgical device may intentionally or unintentionally change during placement of the device.
Hence, a surgical guide usable in connection with an image guided surgery system and which can be used to accurately place a surgical tool is needed. Such a device should allow the surgeon to readily determine the trajectory and position defined by the guide prior to the insertion of the tool. The guide should be unobtrusive, easy to use, and usable with a variety of surgical tools. Once a desired position has been determined, the guide should also be stable so as to reduce the likelihood of inadvertent changes in position.


A method and system for determining text coherence in an essay is disclosed. A method of evaluating the coherence of an essay includes receiving an essay having one or more discourse elements and text segments. The one or more discourse elements are annotated either manually or automatically. A text segment vector is generated for each text segment in a discourse element using sparse random indexing vectors. The method or system then identifies one or more essay dimensions and measures the semantic similarity of each text segment based on the essay dimensions. Finally, a coherence level is assigned to the essay based on the measured semantic similarities.

Practical writing experience is generally regarded as an effective method of developing writing skills. In this regard, literature pertaining to the teaching of writing suggests that evaluation and feedback, specifically pointing out strong and weak areas in a student's essay writing, may facilitate improvements in the student's writing abilities. This is particularly so with regard to essay coherence.
In traditional writing classes, an instructor evaluates student essays. This evaluation typically includes comments directed to specific elements of the essay. Similarly, with the advent of automated essay evaluation, a computer application can be configured to evaluate an essay and provide feedback. For particular writing errors, such as misspellings or subject-verb agreement, this process is straightforward. Word spellings, for instance, can be compared against a list of correctly spelled words. Any words not found in the list are determined to be incorrectly spelled. Errors in subject-verb agreement can be identified based on a corpus of annotated essays.
In contrast, providing feedback regarding a student's writing style is typically more subjective in nature. Essay coherence, where the correlation between segments of text is evaluated, is one area where subjective feedback is present. Cohesion relates to both the correlation of the text to various smaller segments within the text and relatedness of the text to a test prompt.
Essay coherence is related to semantic similarity between various segments of text. For example, words within sentences of a discussion section of an essay should be similar to the words used in a topic sentence for the discussion section in order for the essay to be coherent.
Determining whether two sentences in a text are related depends on many factors, such as whether the two sentences refer to the same entities, whether they relate to the same topic, and whether anaphoric connections exist between them. Given the current state of natural language understanding, a determination of whether two text segments are related requires a representation of the similarity of their semantic content. A semantic similarity metric based on the relatedness of sentences within an essay can be devised because related sentences in a text typically tend to use the same or similar words. Thus, the use of similar words functions as a predictor of relatedness.
One known method of evaluating an essay for coherence includes the use of a vector-based similarity calculation between text segments to measure relatedness. In such a method, vectors represent text segments after modeling. The cosine between each pair of adjacent sentences is then calculated. A very high cosine value would indicate excessive redundancy between the sentences. A low cosine value indicates a conceptual shift in the text. A conceptual shift can occur if the text is not well connected or if the essay writer switches to a new topic. A cohesive essay should have neither high nor low cosine values. The method can respond to these scenarios and provide the appropriate feedback to the student. By taking the average cosine between adjacent sentences, in a linear manner, a measure of the overall coherence of the text is evaluated.
Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is a method of representing text segments as vectors. LSA is a statistical model of word usage that compares the semantic similarity between text segments. In order to analyze an essay, LSA first generates a matrix of occurrences of each word in each document (sentences or paragraphs). LSA then uses singular-value decomposition (SVD), a technique closely related to eigenvector decomposition and factor analysis. The SVD scaling decomposes the word-by-document matrix into a set of k, typically 100 to 300, orthogonal factors from which the original matrix can be approximated by linear combination. Instead of representing documents and terms directly as vectors of independent words, LSA represents them as continuous values on each of the k orthogonal indexing dimensions derived from the SVD analysis. Since the number of factors or dimensions is much smaller than the number of unique terms, words will not be independent. For example, if two terms are used in similar contexts (documents), the terms will have similar vectors in the reduced-dimensional LSA representation.
One can interpret the analysis performed by SVD geometrically. The result of the SVD is a k-dimensional vector space containing a vector for each term and each document. The location of term vectors reflects the correlations in their usage across documents. Similarly, the location of document vectors reflects correlations in the terms used in the documents. In this space, the cosine or dot product between vectors corresponds to their estimated semantic similarity. Thus, by determining the vectors of two pieces of textual information, the semantic similarity between them can be determined.
In LSA, the rows (and the columns) of the frequency matrix can be interpreted as multi-dimensional context vectors where the elements are normalized frequency counts and the dimensionality is the number of contexts in the text data. Thus, the representations are local. The inherent problem with using local representations in natural language processing is that the size, or dimensionality, of the representations grows with the size of the data. This means that the model does not scale and that the co-occurrence matrix can become computationally intractable as the vocabulary and the document collection grow. In contrast, reducing the dimensionality of the matrix can make the method computationally feasible.
In LSA, a vector for a new document is obtained by making a sparse vector of the length of the vocabulary, indicating the frequency of each term in the document, and multiplying this vector by the term matrix T, in order to map the vector to the reduced space. The vector representation for a text segment (for example, a sentence) equals the vector sum of the term vectors for each word in the segment. The term vectors could have previously been normalized to unit length, and a stoplist can be used to prevent the vectors for function words from being included in the sum.
Several drawbacks exist for the known systems of text coherence evaluation which simply calculate the similarity between adjacent sentences in a text, assuming that the chain of text coherence is essentially linear.
Accordingly, it is necessary to develop a method of evaluating the coherence of an essay including various discourse elements and a plurality of text segments, wherein the essay is annotated, the text segments are represented by vectors, and the text segment vectors are compared in a more coherent manner than a simple linear comparison.
Additionally, it is necessary to develop a method of representing text segments as vectors that overcomes the limitations of previous technologies, such as LSA and calculating cosines between adjacent sentences.
Finally, it is necessary to develop a system that generates quantitative and/or qualitative feedback on discourse elements and essays.
The present invention is directed towards solving one or more of these problems.

Method and system for determining text coherence


A color electrophotographic printing system that uses one switched developer power supply for all developers and that enables a reduced size by reducing the interdocument zone. The interdocument zone is reduced by using a developer order in which the last used developers in a development cycle is physically located first. Beneficially, the developer that is used first is physically located last.

Electrophotographic marking is a well known and commonly used method of copying or printing documents. Electrophotographic marking is performed by exposing a light image representation of a desired document onto a substantially uniformly charged photoreceptor. In response to that light image the photoreceptor discharges so as to create an electrostatic latent image of the desired document on the photoreceptor's surface. Toner particles are then deposited onto that latent image so as to form a toner image. That toner image is then transferred from the photoreceptor onto a substrate such as a sheet of paper. The transferred toner image is then fused to the substrate, usually using heat and/or pressure. The surface of the photoreceptor is then cleaned of residual developing material and recharged in preparation for the production of another image.
The foregoing broadly describes a black and white electrophotographic printing machine. Electrophotographic marking can also produce color images by repeating the above process once for each color of toner that is used to make the composite color image. For example, in one color process, referred to herein as the REaD IOI process (Recharge, Expose, and Develop, Image On Image), a charged photoreceptive surface is exposed to a light image which represents a first color, say black. The resulting electrostatic latent image is then developed with black toner particles to produce a black toner image. A recharge, expose, and develop process is repeated for a second color, say yellow, then for a third color, say magenta, and finally for a fourth color, say cyan. The various color toner particles are placed in superimposed registration so that a desired composite color image results. That composite color image is then transferred and fused onto a substrate.
The REaD IOI process can be implemented in various ways. For example, in a single pass printer wherein the composite final image is produced in a single pass of the photoreceptor through the machine. A second implementation is in a four pass printer, wherein only one color toner image is produced during each pass of the photoreceptor through the machine and wherein the composite color image is transferred and fused during the fourth pass. REaD IOI can also be implemented in a five cycle printer, wherein only one color toner image is produced during each pass of the photoreceptor through the machine, but wherein the composite color image is transferred and fused during a fifth pass. Furthermore, in addition to the REaD process there are also other schemes for electrophotographically producing a color image. However, multiple developers can be expected.
In electrophotographic printing the developer actually conveys toner onto a latent image. In development, charged toner particles are applied to a latent image such that toner particles electrostatically adhere to the proper areas of the latent image. There are many types of developers. One is the so called magnetic brush developer that uses a two-component developer comprised of toner particles and magnetic carrier beads. The toner particles triboelectrically adhere to the relatively large magnetic carrier beads. When the developer material is placed in a magnetic field, the carrier beads and their toner particles form relatively long chains which resemble the fibers of a brush, thus the name. Electrostatic charges on the photoreceptor cause the toner particles to be pulled off the carrier beads and onto the photoreceptor. Another developer is the "scavengeless" developer, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,600 to Hays et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,019 to Folkins, U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,367 to Hays, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,875 to Folkins et al., and their citations. In scavengeless development toner is conveyed onto a latent image using AC electric fields that are applied to electrode structures, commonly wires, that are positioned between a toner loaded donor roll and the photoreceptor. A variation of the scavengeless developer is the "hybrid" scavengeless developer, or HSD. A HSD includes a developer housing with a toner reservoir, a transport roll, a donor roll, and an electrode structure. The transport roll operates like a developer roll, but instead of conveying toner particles directly onto the photoreceptor the transport roll conveys toner particles onto a donor roll that is disposed between the transport roll and the photoreceptor. The transport roll is electrically biased such that toner particles are attracted from the transport roll. When loaded with toner the donor roll can then convey toner particles toward the photoreceptor. To do so the electrode structure is AC-biased relative to the donor roll. That AC bias detaches toner from the donor roll into a toner powder cloud that forms in the gap between the donor roll and the photoreceptor. The latent image on the photoreceptor then attracts toner particles from the powder cloud, developing the latent image. It should be noted that when the donor roll bias and AC bias are removed the toner on the donor roll tends to leave the donor roll and move toward the transport roll and the toner reservoir.
No matter what type of color electrophotography or what type of developer, all of the developers require one or more electrical biases to operate. This requires some type of electrical power supply that must be provided for the developers. In the prior art it was common to provide a separate power supply for each developer. However, because of cost, reliability, and size constraints efforts were expended to develop systems in which only one power supply powered all of the developers. At least one manufacturer may have been successful. Konica's model 9028 is believed to use one power supply that is switched between developers as required.
It should be understood that by saying that only one power supply is used that does not mean that only one voltage is applied to the developers. Rather, that one power supply supplies electrical power required by the developers. For example, a power supply might supply AC for electrode wires, a DC bias for a donor roll, and both AC and a DC bias for a transfer roll. Similarly in some cases we might mean that only one power supply is used to supply only a portion of the biases required, e.g. that a single power supply provides the electrode wire AC but that the DC biases are separately supplied.
While using one power supply may reduce costs and improve reliability, in the prior art only partial success was achieved in reducing the overall system size. When the printing machine sits on a desk size reduction can be very important. One reason that only partial success was achieved has to do with the "standard developer order" (the first developer used is the first developer that a latent image passes, the second developer is the second, and so on). That order restricts the achievable size reduction.
To understand why the standard developer order restricts the achievable size reduction refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows four developers, the developers 28, 30, 32, and 34 around a photoreceptor 10 that rotates in the direction 12. The developers are powered by a single power supply 76 that is applied via a switch 78 to the individual developers as required. After a first latent image is formed at an exposure station 24 using a laser beam 26, that latent image is developed by the black toner developer 28. Then, a second latent image is formed and that second latent image is developed using the yellow developer 30. Then a third latent image is formed and developed by a magenta developer 32. Finally, a fourth latent image is formed and developed by a cyan developer 34. Note the order of developers, the physically first developer is used first, the physically second is used second, and so on. Also note the distance 80, which is three times the separation between adjacent developers.
After some contemplation it can be seen that, when using only one switched power supply and with the physical order shown in FIG. 1, the separation between the end of one latent image and the beginning of the next latent image, referred to herein as the interdocument zone, must be at least the distance 80. Basically, with only one switched power supply that can power only one developer the end of one latent image must be completely developed (by the developer 34) before the beginning of the next latent image is developed (by the developer 28). This is because generally a single power supply can not simultaneously provide power for more than one developer housing at a time since often either the setpoints of each developer housing are different from one another or the power supply does not have the capacity for multiple loads. In practice the interdocument zone must be somewhat larger since some time is required to switch the power supply between the developers and some more time is required for the developers to become enabled following switching.
Since using one switched power supply to power all of the developers of a color electrophotographic printing system is beneficial, since a small physical size is also beneficial, and since the interdocument zone limits the minimum physical size of a color electrophotographic printing system that uses one switched developer power supply, a technique of reducing the interdocument zone would be beneficial.

Reduced interdocument zone in a printing system having a single developer power supply


A multiple device management method and system that executes commands on one controller computer, such as in a data center, to initiate operations on controlled computers containing agent software. An operation may comprise the execution of script, execution of a binary program, or other operations. The mechanism works with sets of computers as if they were a single computer, whereby, for example, management of computing devices is greatly simplified, and the cost of managing computing devices in a data center is significantly reduced. The controller communicates with the nodes using a messaging format, and provides a schema to represent the available nodes in the data center, their organization into sets, and the results of ongoing and completed operations. The schema may also be used to manage jobs to perform on nodes and sets of nodes.

Data centers provide computing resources for many types of organizations, including enterprises and various Internet-related service providers, such as storage service providers, hosting service providers and application service providers. A typical data center contains anywhere from hundreds to many thousands of computers, performing a variety of roles for a variety of purposes.
Managing a large number of computers can be costly, time consuming, and error-prone. For example, many service providers find that running a data center is a labor-intensive business, as many routine processes are performed manually. By way of example, bringing a new server online for a new customer consists of having an engineer print-out the new customer's order, install an operating system, install any applications, configure the operating system and applications, and move the server machine into the data center to attach to the network and to a power source. Bringing a new server online is thus a lengthy and expensive process, and prone to error.
Similar manual processes are used when an existing server configuration is to be "reprovisioned" for a new customer via software. In fact, the cost of reprovisioning is so great that some service providers find it cheaper to not do so. Part of the expense it that such unused systems can normally only be located via an expensive manual audit of the data center. Similarly, rather than redeploying a computer that is no longer needed, it may be cheaper leave the server computer in the data center (running and consuming power), or completely disassemble the computer, rather than attempt redeployment.
In sum, running a data center requires making a number of compromises that are necessary for practical purposes but are not very desirable. For example, instead of redeploying computers, it may be cheaper not to, but this means that data centers have computer systems up and running (using power, air conditioning and network ports) even when they are no longer required for service.
As another example, although expensive, manually configuring various servers is still the way in which data centers operate. However, reducing such costs through automation is a significant undertaking that has heretofore not been very successful, as among other difficulties, such an attempt requires integration with multiple external products.

Multiple device management method and system


The present invention relates to the art of color space conversion technique, and discloses a method for processing RGB data and a system for the same. The method comprises: S1: converting input values of three colors RGB into a HSV color space; S2: adjusting a brightness value V while keeping a hue value H and a saturation value S unchanged in the HSV color space; S3: converting the H, S, V values processed by step S2 from the HSV color space to the R, G, B, W color space to display. By converting the RGB color space to the HSV color space firstly, then enhancing the brightness V while keeping H, S unchanged in the HSV color space, and finally converting the HSV color space to the RGBW color space, it can be achieved that the brightness for display is enhanced while better hue, color saturation and natural color transition are maintained at the same time.

In a display apparatus such as a Liquid Crystal Display, an Organic Light-Emitting Diode display, in general, a Red-Green-Blue (RGB) display technique is utilized to display; such technique has a disadvantage that the brightness for display is relatively low so that the power consumption of the display apparatus increases. If the RGB color space is converted to Red-Green-Blue-White (RGBW) color space to display, the brightness for display can be enhanced and thus the power consumption is saved; however, the RGBW display technique often brings about the issue of decreased color saturation and unnatural color transition and the like, and whether a display apparatus to which the RGBW technique applied can be manufactured massively depends on the display effect the RGBW technique brings about.
Therefore, how to enhance the brightness for display while maintaining better hue, color saturation and natural color transition at the same time is a technical problem to be solved urgently.

Method for processing RGB data and system for the same


A multi-function surgical instrument for facilitating ophthalmic surgery of the eye by laser means. Included are a lower ring and an upper ring. The lower ring includes a central aperture to capture the limbus and aid in positioning of the eye. Protuberances on the lower surface of the lower ring, application of vacuum between the lower surface of the ring and the eye, or both may be used to more firmly grip the eye. Ports disposed on the upper surface of the lower ring and connected to a vacuum source may be used to control hydration of the surgical field. Attached to and extending above the upper surface of the lower ring is a sterile platform for reposing temporarily removed tissues during the administration of laser pulses to other tissues. The upper ring is disposed above the surgical bed. Ports disposed along the upper ring and connected to a vacuum source may be used to control smoke and splatters resulting from the ablative procedure and create additional airflow to further control hydration of the surgical field.

In the field of ophthalmic surgery the use of lasers is well known. In laser assisted in-situ kerotomileusis pulses of laser light are used to ablate desired portions of the stromal bed following temporary removal of the outer tissues of the cornea. After replacement of the temporarily removed tissues the cornea is reshaped. During such procedure, and other ophthalmic procedures involving ablation of eye tissue, positioning and fixation of the eye against movement is important, as is proper tissue hydration, control of smoke and splatter, maintaining cleanliness of open tissues, etc. The invention disclosed and claimed herein relates to a multifunction instrument placed on the surface of the eye during ablative eye surgery to assist the ophthalmic surgeon perform laser ablative eye surgery.
In corneal surgery the use of lasers is well known. In such procedures precisely controlled pulses of laser light are used to remove thin layers of tissue by ablation. For instance, in photorefractive keratectomy (xe2x80x9cPRKxe2x80x9d) the cornea is reshaped by first removing the epithelium and Bowman""s layer (by various means) and ablating the stromal bed by laser (after which the epithelium and Bowman""s layer are left to re-form by healing). In laser assisted in-situ kerotomileusis (xe2x80x9cLASIKxe2x80x9d) the cornea is reshaped by temporarily removing the outer layers (epithelium, Bowman""s layer and a portion of the stromal bed) thereof by sharp instrument, ablating selected areas of the underlying stromal bed by laser and then replacing of the removed tissues. Various other corneal surgery are also performed using a laser to ablatively remove selected eye tissue.
These procedures encounter some common challenges. The eye must be positioned properly, and fixed against movement therefrom, so that the laser pulses are applied, consistently, to only the selected tissues. Ablation of eye tissue creates airborne plumes of smoke and splatter which can cause subsequent laser pulses to be applied non-uniformly and other adverse effects. Ablation of over-lying tissue can result in non-uniform or excess hydration of the underlying tissue which can result in total, partial and possibly non-uniform underdosage. Migration of exterior fluids into the surgical field can not only mask subsequent treatment, but can also increase the risk of infection or other contaminants.
In addition, in LASIK there are issues regarding placement of the temporarily removed tissues during administration of the laser pulses. To facilitate exact replacement of temporarily removed tissues to their original position at the conclusion of the surgery, they are typically not entirely removed at the beginning of the procedure, but rather left attached by a xe2x80x9chingexe2x80x9d of tissue (forming what is commonly called a corneal xe2x80x9cflapxe2x80x9d). During ablation this xe2x80x9cflapxe2x80x9d is typically folded over onto the sclera, where it is exposed to eye fluids, debris from ablated tissue, bacteria and other undesirable materials. In such position there is also the risk that excess eye fluids may float the flap into the laser field where it may be damaged. There is also a risk of damage to this sensitive flap during handling to replace it over the stromal bed.
Other art discloses ophthalmic tools which includes some, but not all, of the features of the multifunction tool herein disclosed and claimed. For instance U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,412 to Rosenbaum et al discloses a suction ring for attachment to the sclera in the limbus plane. This apparatus is used to guide a trepan perpendicularly to the limbus plane. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,980,543 to Carriazo et al a similar suction ring is used to guide a microkeratome parallel to the limbus. In neither of these patents is the suction ring used to fix the position of the eye in relation to a laser or structure not attached to the ring. In neither of these patents does the suction ring include a platform for xe2x80x9cstoragexe2x80x9d and replacement of a corneal flap during a surgical procedure. In neither of these patents are other attributes of the invention, such as plume and splatter evacuation means, means for creating flow of dehydrating gas over the aperture of the ring, means for improved irrigation for a surgical field, etc., disclosed.
Likewise U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,941, 873 and 5,971,977 to Korenfeld shows one, but not other, attributes of the invention disclosed and claimed herein. In these patents there is disclosed a device having a ring-shaped tube with a plurality of apertures disposed about the inner circumference thereof, to aid in smoke removal during an ablative procedure of the eye. These patents do not teach any structure for aspirating fluid away from an open stromal bed nor do they teach a sterile platform on which to repose a corneal flap during an ablative procedure of the eye.
The invention disclosed and claimed herein is a multifunction surgical instrument directed to each of the above-mentioned issues. It provides a means for fixing the position of the eye, as may be required, during surgery. It provides a means for controlling hydration of open and/or ablated eye tissue during surgery. It provides a means to aspirate fluids containing ablative debris from the surgical field. It provides a means to prevent potentially contaminated fluids from migrating from outside to the inside of the surgical field.
Also provided is a sterile platform, elevated above potentially contaminating fluids, upon which to repose a corneal flap (and protect it from smoke and splatters) during surgery. The invention disclosed also provides means for removing smoke resulting from ablation of tissue. Thus the invention disclosed and claimed herein is directed not only to more uniform and consistent application of laser pulses (by establishing good fixation of the eye, removing excess hydration and smoke from the surgical field) but better protects open and/or ablated tissue from contaminating debris and/or bacteria.

Multi-function surgical instrument for facilitating ophthalmic laser surgery


Duplicate copies of all or a portion of a display screen may be maintained at two or more computer systems with efficient use of memory, processor and bandwidth resources. The display screens are segmented into a two-dimensional matrix of blocks. A value, such as a CRC, is computed for each of the blocks and stored with a pointer to the corresponding block of the display screen. Changes in the display screen are detected by repeatedly calculating the values and comparing with previously stored values for the corresponding block. When the values are different, the pointers are temporarily stored until a predetermined period of time or all the blocks have been checked. When at least one of these criteria is met, adjacent blocks are transmitted as a group, preferably using compression.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to maintaining duplicate copies of at least a portion of a computer display screen at two or more physically remote locations and, more particularly, to efficiently communicating changes in one display screen to one or more other display screens.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are a number of applications which produce copies of all or a portion of a computer display screen on more than one data processing system. Examples include remote access software, application sharing and various types of teleconferencing. The simplest way to produce copies of a display screen on two computer systems is to send the entire contents of the screen on a periodic basis. This requires transmitting large amounts of data. For example, approximately 800 kilobytes are used to define a 1024.times.768 display screen having 256 colors. As video resolution and color depth continue to increase, the amount of data that must be transferred becomes prohibitive, especially when using a low bandwidth connection, such as a modem. Although compression can be used to reduce the amount of data that is sent, compression may require significant processor (CPU) resources and it is preferable to reduce the amount of data prior to compression.
Another alternative is to send the same instructions used to generate the display screen to the computer systems displaying a copy of the display screen. This requires that essentially the same software is being executed on all of the computer systems and that the appropriate screen commands can be intercepted or routed to the appropriate systems. Another technique is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,241,625 and 5,491,780 which depend upon "hooks" into the operating system software. Some operating systems, such as Windows NT, provide a secure operating system environment in which it is difficult to intercept commands that affect the display screen and therefore, the initial program generating the display must be capable of routing the display screen commands to remote location(s).
One way to decrease the amount of data that must be sent without intercepting system commands is to only send differences from the previous screen that was sent. Often, only a small area of the screen is changed and there is no need to send the entire contents of the screen each time, thereby significantly reducing the bandwidth required to update the remote display screen quickly. Assuming that two computer systems are using this technique to maintain copies of a window on local and remote display screens, the local system will transfer a copy of the entire screen to the remote system and store a copy as a reference image. Periodically, the local system will read the local display screen and perform a logical exclusive OR (XOR) with the reference image and store the result of this operation in what will be called a delta buffer. The delta buffer contains only the differences between the reference image and the current screen contents. The delta buffer is then compressed and transmitted to the remote system which decompresses the transmitted data and updates the remote display screen. Both the local and remote systems save the updated screen contents as a new reference image and the procedure is repeated.
The delta buffer technique has the distinct advantage of greatly reducing the amount of data that must be transmitted. This significantly improves the performance in limited bandwidth environments which is highly desirable today when screen data is often very dense compared to available bandwidth. However, the delta buffer technique has a drawback in the amount of memory required. Three blocks of memory the size of the video memory are required, one for the reference image, another for the current screen contents and another for the result of the logical XOR.

Display screen duplication system and method


A refuse vehicle includes a chassis having an engine, a body assembly defining an internal volume and coupled to the chassis, a tailgate pivotally attached to the body assembly and movable between an open position and a closed position to selectively expose the internal volume of the body assembly, a CNG fuel system including a CNG fuel tank coupled to the tailgate and moveable therewith, the engine configured to be powered by the CNG fuel system, at least one of one a non-structural conduit, a non-structural raceway, and a non-structural channel configured to contain at least one of wiring and a hydraulic line, and an impact mitigation system coupled to the tailgate. The impact mitigation system provides a protected region within which the CNG fuel tank is disposed.

Refuse vehicles collect a wide variety of waste, trash, and other material from residences and businesses. Operators use the refuse vehicle to transport the material from various waste receptacles within a municipality to a storage or processing facility (e.g., a landfill, an incineration facility, a recycling facility, etc.). Refuse vehicles may be powered by an internal combustion engine that burns gasoline, diesel fuel, or natural gas, among other types of fuel. Where the fuel is natural gas, various tanks provide fuel to a regulator, which reduces the pressure of the natural gas before it enters the engine. Mechanical regulators provide an inconsistent flow of natural gas that varies based upon the pressure of the fuel in the natural gas tanks The natural gas tanks may be positioned along the chassis and under the body assembly. Such positioning may require a longer vehicle wheel base. To isolate the natural gas tanks, an operator boards the refuse vehicle and engages valves positioned at the head of each tank. Despite these deficiencies, assemblies that provide variations in the natural gas flow and include tanks positioned along the vehicle chassis that must be individually isolated remain the primary fuel systems for natural gas powered refuse vehicles.

Refuse vehicle having tailgate-mounted CNG tanks