An object shell console attaches to an executing computer application. The object shell console extracts information from the executing application without interrupting or terminating the executing application. The information is displayed to a user on a graphical user interface. The user can choose to have more detailed information about the executing application displayed by request, if such information exists.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of diagnostic tools for computer software. More specifically, the present invention relates to real-time analysis of a computer application while it is executing without terminating or interrupting the application's execution.
2. Background of the Invention
Web-based software applications often execute on application server platforms. Examples of such application server platforms include systems such as iPlanet or Weblogic. Due to their nature, it is desirable to keep web-based applications highly available. Thus, minimizing their downtime is a critical goal. However, this goal can pose significant problems in the trouble-shooting and maintenance environment of most IT facilities. Downtime is often required to diagnose and correct software errors or to upgrade systems. Downtime to maintain systems or find and repair errors can have enormous impacts on IT facilities' operations and viability.
Conventional debugging tools do not adequately solve the problem of analyzing an application during its normal unimpeded execution. These tools are generally limited to assisting users in locating software errors in the logic of written computer software. When used, these tools do not allow analysis of the computer software operating in its normal mode of operation. Rather, the operation of the software is controlled by the debugging tool. Thus, the debugging tool interferes with and/or interrupts the natural execution of the software. An immediate difficulty with using such tools is diagnosing performance problems. This is because performance problems generally arise from the effect of external system dynamics acting software during its normal operation, rather than from erroneous computer software. Because conventional debugging tools interfere with an application's natural operation, they do not provide insight into what problems are giving rise to performance-related issues. Thus, conventional debugging tools tend to be of little value for addressing performance-related problems. Consequently, there is a need for a computer software diagnostic tool that can provide users with information to analyze executing web-based applications without terminating or seriously impeding their normal operation.

System and method for analyzing executing computer applications in real-time


A letter opening device is provided. The letter opening device includes a generally rectangular body having a letter opening blade for opening envelopes. The body is formed from a molded plastic material and is suitable for being hand held, and the letter opening blade is molded partially within the plastic molded body. The device further includes a sheet-like material cutter having a coupon cutting blade. A portion of the coupon cutting blade is exposed exteriorly of the body whereby the exposed portion can be manipulated to selectively separate sections of sheet-like materials such as paper and plastic sheets.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to letter opener devices for opening envelopes and to devices for cutting sheet-like materials such as paper sheets.
2. Background of the Invention
Documents and other sheet-like elements are often received in an envelope. Letter openers, generally in the form of a knife having a handle and blade, are used to open the envelope. Documents or other sheet-like elements such as letters, bills, flyers, and coupons are usually enclosed in such envelopes. Occasionally, a section or sections of a sheet need to be separated from the rest of the sheet. In these circumstances, scissors are usually used to cut out the desired section or sections. At the office or home, it is sometimes inconvenient to open the envelope with a letter opener, and then cut portions of the enclosed material with scissors. Fewer operating steps may be required to open an envelope and cut the enclosed sheet or sheets if a single device is capable of performing both these functions. Also, the inconvenience of locating both devices is somewhat reduced by having a single device which can open envelopes and separate sections of the sheet.
A problem often arises when using scissors to remove an interior section of a paper sheet without cutting the exterior portion. For example, binders for sales presentations and reports may include a front cover display sheet. The display sheet is generally presented in a pleasing manner by including a presentation frame, and the frame can be formed by removing the mid-portion of a paper sheet. If scissors are used to remove the mid-portion, at least a single cut through the frame has to be made in order to remove the mid-portion of the sheet. Other devices such as a knife-like cutter can be used, but they present other problems.
In addition to convenience, a safety issue arises when using knife-like letter openers, and when using scissors or knife-like cutters to cut sheet-like materials. At home, class rooms, and other places where children are present, these devices can present a dangerous situation due to the relatively long and pointed blade of knife-like letter openers, the relative long cutting edges and pointed tips of the two opposing scissors blades, and the relatively long, sharp, and pointed blade of a knife-like cutter.
Another problem which has not been resolved is the ability to conveniently and safely carry both a letter opener and a sheet-like material cutter. Often times, a need arises to open an envelope or cut portions of a paper sheet when away from the home or office. For example, coupons may be provided at the grocery market which need to be cut and separated prior to use. The shopper usually does not have scissors available to separate the printed coupon portion from the paper sheet and tries to improvise by folding the paper sheet along the dotted lines to form a crease, and tears along the crease. If the coupon is torn improperly, the shopper may discard the coupon rather than redeeming it at the cashier. Another situation where a carry-type sheet-like material cutter would be desirable is cutting newspaper articles when away from the home or office.
Carrying a separate letter opener and scissors in the front shirt pockets, coat pockets, or pant pockets can be uncomfortable and dangerous. The convenience and safety requirements are somewhat reduced when these devices can be carried in a briefcase, day-planner, purse, handbag, backpack, or the like. However, it is still preferable to carry as few items as possible, and also to carry items which are relatively small and lightweight. Reducing the number of items can be partially resolved by carrying multi-purpose devices. There is also the possibility of being pricked by the knife-like letter opener or scissors when searching for an item carried in the above mentioned bags.
The problem of conveniently and safely carrying a letter opener is resolved to a limited extent in U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,419. This application describes a letter opener having a flat and rectangularly shaped body with a utility type razor blade mounted between the body and an envelope flap insertion point. This letter opener can be easily carried in the pocket or bag without the possibility of being injured because the blade is relatively inaccessible to the operator. The body is formed from a molded plastic material and is suitable for being hand held by virtue of its size and light weight. However, the device described in the application is not designed to separate sections of sheet-like materials such as paper sheets.
Thus, there remains a need to provide a device which can open letters and cut sheet-like materials in a quick, easy, and safe manner. A need also exists for providing such a device which can be conveniently and safely carried in a pocket or bag.

Combined letter opener and sheet-like material cutter tool


A printer using double sheets of pressure sensitive paper includes a casing having an opening at its upper portion, a paper guide disposed in the opening of the casing, and a paper support disposed under the opening of the casing. The paper guide separates the printed double sheets of pressure sensitive paper into a receipt sheet and a journal sheet. The paper guide also operates to introduce the receipt sheet out of the casing through the opening and to guide the journal sheet in a predetermined direction within the casing with a front surface of the journal sheet exposed toward the opening. The paper support upwardly supports a rear surface of the journal sheet. Since the front surface of the journal sheet is exposed through the opening of the casing, a confirmation signature and/or correction signature can be handwritten on the front surface of the journal sheet.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer for electronic equipments such as POS (point of sales) terminals and electronic registers, and, in particular, to a printer using double sheets of pressure sensitive paper.
2. Description of the Background Art
FIGS. 1 and 2 show an example of an electronic register used as a banking terminal or teller terminal. The electronic register includes a cabinet 1, an input keyboard 2, a display 3 and a printer 4.
As shown in FIG. 2, the printer 4 accommodates a supply roll 16, a printing unit 7 and a collecting reel 18. The supply roll 16 feeds double sheets of pressure sensitive paper 6 to the printing unit 7, which carries out printing on the double sheets of pressure sensitive paper 6.
Double sheets of pressure sensitive paper 6 discharged from the printing unit 7 are separated into a lower journal sheet 6a and an upper receipt sheet 6b by a guide 17 formed at an inner end of a journal filter 12. The journal sheet 6a is wound around a collection roll 18. The receipt sheet 6b is discharged through a discharge slit 19 toward a position above the cabinet. The discharge slit 19 is provided at its forward edge with a cutter 11 for cutting off the receipt sheet 6b.
The illustrated printer of the prior art is designed to prevent the receipt sheet 6b separated by the guide 17 from rolling up inside the cabinet when the double sheets of pressure sensitive paper 6 are fed forward after the receipt sheet 6b is cut by the cutter 11. For this purpose, the discharge slit 19 has a small width, and the guide 17 is elongated downwardly. Therefore, the receipt sheet 6b fed upwardly through the discharge slit 19 is completely separated from the journal sheet 6a by the journal filter 12.
In some cases, it is necessary to handwrite an confirmation signature and/or correction item on both the receipt and journal sheets 6b and 6a or only the journal sheet 6a. In the conventional printer, it is necessary to open a printer cover 5 every time the handwriting is required. This operation is troublesome.
In order to supply a new roll of the double sheets of pressure sensitive paper into the printer, such an operation is required that the leading edge portions of the double sheets of pressure sensitive paper are separated into the receipt sheet and journal sheet, and the separated receipt sheet is inserted from the inner side of the printer into the discharge slit 19. In the conventional printer, however, the discharge slit 19 has the small width, so that the inserting operation cannot be carried out smoothly and requires a long time.

Printer using double sheets of pressure sensitive paper


A delivery system and method for inserting hemostatic material through a channel of a laparoscopic cannula, and for directly applying the material to an internal tissue site, includes a hollow sheath having a cross-section and configuration that permits sliding passage thereof through the channel of the laparoscopic cannula. The sheath is charged with hemostatic material, and the hemostatic material is advanced through the lumen of the sheath and mechanically applied at the tissue site by an applicator. The hemostatic material may be in the form of compressed loose fibers, a sponge, a powder, a paste, a sheet, or a combination thereof, and may be composed of resorbable collagen.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to laparoscopic and similar surgical procedures, and more particularly to a hemostat delivery system and method for using same in a laparoscopic procedure.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Laparoscopic, arthroscopic and endoscopic cannulae and surgical procedures are known. Initially, it should be understood that the delivery system of the present invention is independent of the nature of the specific medical procedure being performed. Thus, "laparoscope" is used here as a generic term which is meant to encompass other similar type devices including the arthroscope and endoscope. Similarly, references herein to a "laparoscopic" procedure should be understood as encompassing "arthroscopic" and "endoscopic" procedures as well.
Normally, preparatory to initiating a laparoscopic procedure, several cannulae are inserted into the body. These cannulae serve as channels through which various instruments are inserted One generally serves to pass the laparoscope itself (i.e., the fiber optic device which carries light to the site for illumination and back from it for viewing) Another can serve as the gas delivery/ventilating channel and the rest will generally serve as working channels to pass the implements used to perform the procedure.
Laparoscopes have been employed to perform a wide range of surgical procedures. Many of these procedures can result in a considerable amount of internal bleeding. For example, recently a laparoscopic procedure has been developed for removing gall bladders, which procedure requires severing the vascularized stem containing the artery that supplies blood to the gall bladder as well as numerous arterioles, venuoles, and capillaries. The larger, major vessels are ligated or tied off via clips introduced through a working channel or otherwise, and cautery is used to seal off any remaining bleeding of the ligated vessels and as much of the bleeding "bed" as possible. Cautery has its own risks and limitations which can include incomplete or irregular sealing of vessels and which can contribute to problems of postoperative bleeding, one of the three most significant complications of the procedure. In order to avoid the drawbacks of cauterization and other similar procedures, the present invention uses collagen.
Of course, it is well known to use collagen to stanch bleeding. Specifically, in traditional surgical procedures, hemostasis initially is achieved by mechanical means, i.e., collagen is applied with direct mechanical pressure around the bleeding site. Immediately, the collagen material begins to interact with clotting elements in the blood and tissue of the site and initiates biochemical hemostasis. Once the hemostasis becomes sufficiently strong, e.g., strong enough to withstand blood pressure at the site, mechanical pressure can be removed.
Thus, bleeding during traditional surgical procedures, which often occurs as a result of cutting minor arteries, veins and capillaries, generally can be stanched by direct manual application of a hemostatic material, such as collagen, and digital pressure through the surgical opening. However, when surgery is performed by a laparoscopic procedure, for example, when removing a gall bladder, access to the bleeding site is far more restricted.

Laparoscopic hemostat delivery system and method for using said system


A data transfer device includes a FIFO memory and a control unit which obtains a data amount of the FIFO memory to control the FIFO memory and outputs a selection signal corresponding to the obtained data amount of the FIFO memory. An output data generation unit generates output data including either one of the second output data and an interpolation data selected based on the selection signal, and a first output data stored in a frame memory.

A conventional electronic device, such as a digital still camera, includes a display unit which displays image data and a data transfer device which transfers the image data from a memory to the display unit. The data transfer device includes a plurality of FIFO (first in first out) memories and manages data transfer from the plurality of memories to the display unit. See, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication Nos. 2003-348175 and 2007-114489.


A level detector, a voltage generator, and a semiconductor device are provided. The voltage generator includes a level detector that senses the level of an output voltage to output a sensing signal and a voltage generating unit that generates the output voltage in response to the sensing signal. The level detector may include a first reference voltage generator configured to divide a first voltage and to output a first reference voltage, a second reference voltage generator configured to divide a second voltage in response to the output voltage and to output a second reference voltage that varies as a function of temperature, and a differential amplifier configured to receive the first and second reference voltages and to output a sensing signal in response to a sensing voltage generated by amplifying a difference between the first and second reference voltages.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to voltage generators, and more specifically, to a level detector in which the sensing level varies as a function of temperature, a voltage generator having the same and a semiconductor device having the voltage generator.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In general, semiconductor devices include various voltage generators. For example, a semiconductor memory device can include a high voltage generator, an internal voltage generator, a substrate bias voltage generator, and the like. Further, the voltage generators generally include a level detector which senses a generated voltage to output a sensing signal. For example, the substrate bias voltage generator generates a substrate bias voltage Vbb applied to a p-type well in which an NMOS transistor constituting a cell transistor or sense amplifier of the semiconductor memory device is formed, and the substrate bias voltage Vbb generally has a negative voltage level. Therefore, the substrate bias voltage generator includes a level detector which senses the level of the substrate bias voltage Vbb to output a sensing signal that is activated when the substrate bias voltage Vbb reaches a predetermined level or more.

Level detector, voltage generator, and semiconductor device


A mount assembly having a first carrier and a first insulator disposed about the first carrier for isolating movement of a frame relative to a vehicle body in a first direction. A second carrier engages the first carrier for coupling the second carrier to the first carrier. A second insulator is disposed about the second carrier for further insolating the movement of the frame relative to the vehicle body in the first direction. A sleeve is disposed about both of the first and second carriers and is coupled to the first carrier. The sleeve is formed of an elastomeric material for isolating movement of the frame relative to the vehicle body in a second direction transverse to the first direction such that the isolation of movement about the first and second directions are accomplished by separate and independent components of the assembly.

1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to a mount assembly for a vehicle having a frame and a vehicle body wherein movements of the frame relative to the vehicle body in various directions are isolated by separate and independent components of the mount assembly.
2. Description of Related Art
Mount assemblies for vehicles are well known in the art. Examples of such assemblies are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,809,427; 4,286,777; and 6,361,096. Each of these assemblies include upper and lower insulators for coupling a frame of the vehicle to a vehicle body. The insulators are typically formed of an elastomeric material such as rubber. Washers or flanges are provided on outward surfaces of the insulators and a fastener interconnects the washers or flanges to the vehicle body for sandwiching the insulators between the washers or flanges and for coupling the frame to the vehicle body. A metallic tube or sleeve can be disposed between the washers or flanges to provide structural support and to provide a passageway for the fastener.
The prior art mount assemblies, with the above described characteristics, can operate effectively. However, this construction has limitations. The forces and movement of the frame relative to the vehicle body are frequently transmitted in multiple directions. In particular, the movement of the frame relative to the vehicle body can be transverse to the general plane of the frame and vehicle body, i.e., vertical. Further, the movement of the frame relative to the vehicle body can be parallel with the general plane of the frame and vehicle body, i.e., horizontal or fore, aft, and/or lateral. Of course, the movement of the frame relative to the vehicle body is also frequently some combination thereof. Each insulator of the prior art mount assemblies are designed to isolate movement in both directions. In other words, the vertical movement and the fore, aft, and/or lateral movement is intertwined in these insulators. The design of each of the insulators is therefore a compromise between the optimal design for isolating vertical movement and the optimal design for isolating fore, aft, and/or lateral movement. Hence, the designs of the prior art mount assemblies cannot be finely tuned and the versatility of these mount assemblies is limited.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to develop a mount assembly that can have greater flexibility, can be tuned to meet optimal design criteria, and continues to adequately isolate movement of a frame relative to a vehicle body.


An adaptive variable fidelity media provision system and method are provided herein.

The number of devices capable of playing media is growing at a staggering rate. Virtually all modern personal computers and many modern cell phones, personal digital assistants, personal media players, set-top boxes, game consoles, and even refrigerators are capable of media playback. Such disparate devices can differ widely in their memory and processing capabilities, screen sizes, power consumption restraints, and available communications bandwidth. Such devices may receive media for playback via any number of communications technologies, including cable and DSL, fiber to the home, Wi-Fi, BlueTooth, 2.5G and 3G mobile phone networks, and the like.
Now that consumers have so many different connected media playback devices, many wish to be able to access all of their content at any time, from anywhere. But at the same time, few consumers wish to educate themselves about the technical details of their communications interfaces or device constraints.
Similarly, few content providers wish to or are able to encode, store, and select from multiple versions of each piece of media to provide a version appropriate to provide to a particular client device. This approach is burdensome in part because it is often difficult for a content provider to ascertain the playback capabilities of any particular playback device, yet in most cases, the consumer is also unwilling or unable to ascertain and provide such information.
Another approach to the problem has been to encode each piece of media into multiple independent streams at varying bitrates, then switch between those streams to address varying bandwidth capacities. Technologies such as SureStream, developed by Real-Networks, Inc. of Seattle Wash., take such an approach, monitoring delivery rates and attempting to predict which bitrate stream to deliver as network capacity varies over time. Still, this approach is complex to implement and addresses only the bandwidth dimension of the differences between playback clients.
A better solution may be to utilize variable-fidelity media, encoding each piece of media a single time into a base layer and a set of additive layers that enhance the quality, size, or other attributes of the base layer.
The concept of variable fidelity, scalable, or layered media is well known in the art. According to this concept, a piece of media or a presentation comprising multiple pieces of media is split up into a set of layers, each layer containing information that builds on top of one or more of the layers below it.
Layered media or layered presentations have become commonplace in certain contexts, while remaining obscure in others. One simple example of a commonly encountered form of layering is a web page that may comprise a base layer (e.g., basic text and html layout information) and one or more enhancement layers, for example a CSS style sheet layer, a scripting layer, and/or one or more media layers (e.g., individual image files). A client device may choose to display some or all of these layers, depending on the capabilities of the client and/or network conditions. For example, a mobile phone browser may obtain and display only the base text layer, whereas a desktop computer web browser may obtain and display all layers. For another example, a client device may disable bandwidth-heavy media layers when using a slow network connection.
Many audio and video compression/decompression ("codec") specifications include support for scalable or layered modes, although few scalable modes are in common usage. For example, the MPEG-2 standard defines several profiles that include support for signal-to-noise ratio ("SNR") and/or spatial scalable modes. For another example, the H.264 standard with the Scalable Video Coding extension defines profiles that provide for temporal, spatial, and SNR scalability. These three types of scalability have the following general characteristics:                Temporal scalability: media is coded at multiple frame rates (video) or sampling rates (audio). For example, a base layer may provide video encoded at 7.5 frames per second (FPS) video, while enhancement layers can be added to improve the frame rate to 15 FPS and 30 FPS.        Spatial scalability: video is coded at multiple spatial resolutions. For example, a base layer may provide video encoded at a resolution of 320×240, while multiple enhancement layers may increase the resolution to 640×480 and 800×600.        SNR scalability: media is coded at multiple degrees of fidelity or clarity. For example, a base layer may provide audio encoded at 8 bits per sample, while enhancement layers increase the bit depth to 16 and 24 bits per sample.
In the audio/video context, the promise of layered media codecs has remained largely unrealized. Disclosed are methods and systems which use layered media to improve the distribution of media using client-server, peer-to-peer ("P2P") and/or hybrid (mixed client-server and P2P) models.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Adaptive variable fidelity media distribution system and method


Embodiments for calibrating a radiofrequency (RF) test station with a portable RF test station calibration device are disclosed. In one example, a portable RF test station calibration device comprises an RF power meter, a power sensor, and a computing device. The computing device may be configured to connect to the RF test instrument and to the RF power meter. The computing device may further comprise instructions executable by a logic subsystem to control the RF test instrument to transmit one or more RF signals having requested transmission values, receive measured transmission values from the RF power meter, determine a difference between the requested transmission values and the measured transmission values, and send a calibration value to the RF test instrument to be stored at the RF test instrument, the calibration value derived from the difference between the requested transmission values and the measured transmission values.

Wireless devices may be tested at a test station during manufacturing in order to ensure operation in accordance with various regulations and product safety requirements. In some cases, a testing process may be used to determine maximum settings for the wireless device, such as a maximum power level. However, some amount of uncertainty may be associated with the testing process. To help manage this uncertainty, the test station equipment may be periodically calibrated (e.g. once a day). However, the calibration process may be time-consuming, and also may itself include some level of uncertainty. Therefore, a maximum power level for a wireless device under test may be set at a lower level to compensate for the uncertainties in the testing and calibration processes.

Wireless device test station calibration


The packaging machine includes a wrapping tunnel, adapted to form a tube of plastic film around a group of articles and a feed conveyor, adapted to feed articles to be packaged toward the wrapping tunnel. An elevator is positioned between the feed conveyor and the wrapping tunnel, and is movable vertically from a lower position, to receive articles coming from the feed conveyor, to a higher height, to transfer articles to the wrapping tunnel. A pusher is arranged to push articles to be packaged from the elevator into the wrapping tunnel. An auxiliary conveyor is also provided between the feed conveyor and the elevator. An upender is associated with the auxiliary conveyor, adapted to be arranged selectively in an active position, to co-act with the auxiliary conveyor to upend articles coming from the feed conveyor and transfer them toward the elevator, and in a deactivated position.

In the field of packaging tissue paper, such as rolls of toilet tissue, rolls of kitchen towel, facial tissues and paper napkins, the production of packaged articles, each comprising a plurality of products ordered in groups, such as a plurality of rolls of tissue paper, is well known. These articles, intended for distribution to the final consumer, are in turn packaged in bags formed by a plastic film by means of a "wrapping tunnel", in which a web of plastic film is transformed into a tube of plastic film, which is subsequently filled with articles each formed by ordered groups of packs of rolls, and subsequently welded at the ends. The bags thus formed are intended for transportation to final distributors, such as department stores or the like. Here the bags can be opened and the single articles, each containing a plurality of rolls, are displayed on shelves for sale.
In other cases, the bags can contain single tissue paper products, packaged directly in the bags and not previously wrapped in a pack.
EP 1979235 discloses a packaging machine of this type, with a wrapping tunnel and a group of members for feeding ordered groups of products to be packaged.
The single rolls of tissue paper can be arranged according to various geometries and in variable number inside each pack that forms the single article to be packaged in the tube of plastic film. Different feed systems must be used depending upon the size, the shape, the orientation and the arrangement of the articles to be grouped and packaged in the tube of plastic film, in other words, depending upon the format to be produced.
Current machines have limits in terms of flexibility and capacity for adaptation of the machine to the type of pack to be packaged and to the arrangement and number of articles for each pack.
EP 0654429 describes a packaging machine comprising in sequence: a feed conveyor; an auxiliary conveyor that transfers articles to be packaged from the feed conveyor to an upender; a series of conveyors and deflectors, that form a layering device, to mutually superimpose layers of articles to be packaged and that transfers stacks of superimposed layers of articles to be packaged to an elevator. This machine is particularly complex and requires large spaces, as superimposing of layers of articles is carried out by a chain of members arranged in sequence in a space between the upender and the elevator. Moreover, the upender can be withdrawn into an idle position, i.e., deactivated. For this purpose, the upender can move downward from an operating level to a withdrawn level. The auxiliary conveyor is transferred together with the upender downward into a deactivated position and the auxiliary conveyor is replaced by a different and longer conveyor, to transfer the articles from the feed conveyor to the layering system. This increases the cost of the machine and its vertical extension.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide more flexible machines, capable of being easily and automatically adapted to produce packs of variable size and shape.

Packaging machine with upending and stacking devices


A white noise suppressing circuit for suppressing white noise contained in a received voice of a speaker telephone apparatus includes a filter for suppressing white noise contained in an aural input signal input to an aural signal line, a switch for short-circuiting the filter, a detecting circuit for detecting the aural input signal, and a comparator for comparing an output of the detecting circuit with a preset voltage and for controlling the switch on the basis of the results of the comparison. When it is determined by the comparator that there is a voice input, the switch is short-circuited to make the filter inoperable. When there is no voice input, the switch is opened so as to make the filter operate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to white noise suppressing circuit for suppressing white noise of a voice received by a speaker telephone apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
When receiving signals arriving via a communication line are passed through a speaker telephone apparatus, noise caused by the circuit elements in the speaker unit is added to the signal. Such noise is amplified by the speaker amplifier and is noticed as a hiss when there is no receiving signal. The receiving signal has the frequency spectrum shown in FIG. 1, and is transmitted over a bandwidth ranging between 0.3 KHz and 3.4 KHz. However, the noise generated in the speaker unit is homogeneous in terms of frequency and is therefore close to white noise.
When there is a voice input, the voice level is far higher than that of white noise and white noise can thus be ignored. However, when there is no voice input, only white noise is amplified by the speaker amplifier and is output. It is therefore heard as undesired noise. Such a problem involving white noise has conventionally been overcome by the use of a circuit which employs a low-pass filter. That is, a receiving signal line is constructed of, for example, a receiving voice input terminal 1, a receiving amplifier 2, a hand-free (HF) circuit 3, a low-pass filter 4, a speaker amplifier 5 and a receiving voice output terminal 6, as shown in FIG. 2, so that all the frequencies above a certain cutoff point are attenuated by the low-pass filter 4. Alternatively, a switch 11 is provided in the speaker amplifier 5, as shown in FIG. 3. When there is no voice input, the switch 11 is turned off to stop the operation of the speaker amplifier 5.
However, when the voice is passed through the structure shown in FIG. 2 in which the high frequency components of the voice are attenuated by the low-pass filter 4 inserted in the receiving signal line, it is muffled and conversations or the like are thus made obscure. In that case, adjustment of the cutoff frequency of the low-pass filter 4 does not work, because increasing clearness of the voice is incompatible with suppression of white noise. Also, in the structure shown in FIG. 3 in which the speaker amplifier 5 is turned off when there is no voice input, the difference in the sound level between when there is a voice input and when there is no voice input is great, and the user may have an unnatural feeling.

Circuit for suppressing white noise in received voice


A computer system includes an interface and a processor. The interface is adapted to receive a request from another computer system for identification of the first computer system. The adapter also furnishes a hash value that identifies the first computer system to the other computer system. The processor is coupled to the interface and is adapted to encrypt an identifier that identifies the first computer system with a key associated with the other computer system to provide the hash value.

The invention relates to computer system identification.
A server (an Internet server, for example) may furnish a web site that provides a particular service. In this manner, a user of the web site may communicate with the web site via a client computer system. Sometimes the server may control access to the web site so that only a select group of users may access the service provided by the web site.
The ubiquitous use of e-mail and the rapid growth of community and chat-based web sites allow Internet users to reach out and interact with people whom they have never met. Unfortunately, not all individuals who participate in these forums are well-intentioned. Despite the fact that most chat-rooms use such access controls as a user name and password to control access to the community, a few users, after being denied access for inappropriate behavior, may circumvent these access controls. For example, a banned user may assume a new user name to regain access to the chat area and continue the disruptive behavior. This circumvention may allow single individuals to destroy the efforts of a group of people and lessen their enjoyment of the online experience.
An embedded identifier, such as a processor serial number (hereinafter called a "processor number"), may offer an effective means of deterring the above-described behavior by identifying the computer system that accesses the web site. For special chat rooms which require extra accountability, such as chat rooms for minors, web sites may create responsible chat environments where codes of conduct are enforceable and reliable by requiring that individuals provide their processor number (in addition to their name and password) to gain access to the chat room. If every member of a chat area volunteers his or her processor number, the net result is a more secure community that may more effectively deal with potentially threatening behavior. After all, if problem users volunteer to participate in a room that not only encourages but enforces responsible behavior via the use of processor numbers, their ability to regain denied access to the chat room may be thwarted, even if the problem users change their user names.
Unfortunately, the use of an embedded identifier to identify the client computer system may present difficulties. For example, the number may be used to build a trail of information that links the user to different databases that are maintained on the Internet. These databases, in turn, may be correlated to build a vast database of private information about the user. Although, it is unlikely that such a database could be built given the fact that the user may have the capability to disable the processor number identification, there is a continuing need to enhance the user's privacy protection.


A lightweight directory access protocol workflow management system. The invention converts a logical process into a reusable Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory representation. The directory representation is a hierarchical tree structure where each process element in the process is represented as an LDAP directory entry and is assigned a unique distinguished name and is stored in a Directory Server database or filesystem. The tree structure of the LDAP representation allows the sharing of LDAP trees or subtrees among users. The LDAP trees and subtrees can be remotely located and distributed among different LDAP servers. Another preferred embodiment of the invention provides a graphical user interface for creating a Workflow process definition which is comprised of process elements: activities; actions; and entry/exit points. The user constructs a Workflow process using the process elements, logically interrelating each activity. Once the Workflow process is defined it is converted into an LDAP directory representation and stored in a Directory Server database or filesystem.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the storage of business processes in a computer environment. More particularly, the invention relates to the conversion and storage of Workflow processes into a reusable directory hierarchy in a computer environment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to compete in today's fast-paced world, businesses need strong support for their processes. Getting tasks completed quickly and efficiently is the goal of business software.
Ultimately, tasks are completed at a business because people work together. Business productivity software has typically focused on supporting the activity of the specialist in isolation of others. However, individuals do not accomplish business goals in complete isolation, no matter how much sophisticated equipment is placed in front of them. The challenge, therefore, is to bring together a collection of people who may specialize in different fields, and to provide a means to coordinate their different activities toward the accomplishment of a common goal. It is worth thinking of the collection of people as a team that is working toward a common goal while still retaining separate roles.
Business processes (and the Workflow systems that support them) range from mission-critical to administrative. A good example of a mission-critical business process is order fulfillment. Here, a customer places an order which comes into the company. The product is either built or retrieved from a warehouse, it is delivered to the originator, a bill is sent, and the money collected. It is easy to recognize mission-critical business processes because they are so central to what the company does as a business.
In addition to these mission-critical processes, are a multitude of lesser noticed processes which all contribute to the smooth functioning of an organization. Workers submit timecards for processing, submit status change requests of various sorts; run inventories of the warehouse or supply cabinets; produce brochures, manuals, advertisement copy, and notices; handle customer complaints or requests for help; and balance and maintain the accounting books. There are even processes to monitor and change processes in management. Essentially, whenever there is more than one person involved in completing a particular goal, it can be viewed as a process. The processes that are not directly part of the main business, but nevertheless support it, are known as administrative processes.
Manual business processes are slow and unreliable. For a manual business process to work the members of a team need to know not only their own activity, but must also have an understanding of what has happened before this step, and what needs to happen next. Success requires that all of the members have the same understanding of the process. If different members have different understandings, then the process can break down. A document may sit indefinitely in a person's in-box who does not understand the urgency of the situation. A form can be routed to the wrong person and subsequently lost. Some studies have shown that a large part of an organization's time is spent locating misplaced documents.
Manual processes are opaque. When a person submits a request into a manual process, e.g., to purchase something, it is commonly the case that any status of the process will not be available until the very end, when the purchased item does or does not arrive. This lack of information on the progress of the process makes it difficult to plan related activities appropriately. Calling each participant to check up on the status of a request can be very time consuming, both for the originator as well as the person performing the current activity.
Manual processes are difficult to change. All process participants need to be informed of the new process policies. Their compliance can not be guaranteed because of each person's varying interpretation and understanding of the changes. A great deal of time and effort may be expended on improving the way an organization takes care of manual processes.
Many organizations have already recognized the importance of coordination and have launched initiatives to automate business processes. They discover quickly that canned solutions are not possible, especially in the case of white collar workers where the actual business process depends upon the unique skills and capabilities of the individuals in the organization, the business domain, and the culture of the organization. These should be viewed not as random differences between organizations, but rather evidence that the organization has adapted to the specific talents of the individuals available.
The process that an organization uses is often a key differentiator which gives them an edge over their competition. The result is that organizations need to either customize standard solutions or create new custom, applications to support their processes.
An organization has many choices for implementing their custom applications, particularly with regard to main-line business activities. Support for administrative processes is a little more constrained; the value of a given process is modest so it is not worth a large expense to implement a custom application. At the same time there are a large number of these administrative processes, so a significant amount of organizational time could be dedicated to these processes. To support administrative processes, the organization needs a fast and easy way to customize processes to fit their needs; and to change those processes as their needs evolve.
The problem is bringing these processes together into a cohesive, accessible system. An organization's intranet provides connectivity to a vast number of documents and services. The challenge is to have the ability to give access to Workflow processes across the extranet to partners, suppliers, and customers. This would allow the Workflow to extend beyond the organization's employees. The key is to be able to share Workflow processes.
It would be advantageous to provide a lightweight directory access protocol workflow management system that takes a Workflow process and converts it to a reusable format that can be easily shared between entities. It would further be advantageous to provide a lightweight directory access protocol workflow management system that allows the user to easily create Workflow processes in a graphical environment, thereby enhancing the ability to create reusable processes.

Lightweight directory access protocol workflow management system


A media processing device includes: a hopper for supporting a stack of media units (e.g. cards), the hopper including (i) a gate wall configured to abut leading edges of the media units and (ii) an outlet defined at an end of the gate wall; a pick roller at the outlet for engaging an outer one of the media units in the stack and dispensing the outer media unit from the hopper to a media processing path; the gate wall including a flexible gate at the outlet, the flexible gate configured to deflect toward the media processing path responsive to the outer media unit being driven into the flexible gate by the pick roller, wherein the outer media unit deflects when passing by the flexible gate, permitting the outer media unit to be dispensed from the hopper.

Media processing devices configured to process discrete media units, such as card printers configured to print identity cards, may be required to accommodate various methods of media unit supply, while consistently dispensing media units from the supply for processing. Such requirements can lead to increased complexity and cost of the media processing devices.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding embodiments of the apparatus and methods disclosed herein so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.

Input handling for media processing devices


An interface device for a memory module comprising a plurality of DRAMs includes a memory configured to store DRAM test program instructions, and a programmable processing device coupled to the memory, wherein the programmable processing device is configured to receive input data and input memory addresses from an external processor, wherein the programmable processing device is configured to provide data and memory addresses to the plurality of DRAMs, and wherein the programmable processing device is programmed to perform operations specified by the DRAM test program instructions.

The present invention relates generally to solid state memory techniques. More particularly, the present invention provides methods and devices for repairing a "bad memory cell" with a substitute cell for a memory device such as a dynamic random access memory ("DRAM") device or others.
In memory systems, two general classes of memories exist. Such classes include low latency memories. The low latency memories have effectively infinite endurance or usage-cycles and do not degrade with respect to age or repeated accesses. Additionally, such classes also include relatively longer latency memories that do not have infinite endurance or usage cycles, and may degrade with respect to age or repeated accesses. In the case of the relatively long latency memories, sophisticated multi-error detection and correction algorithms have been implemented to correct for data cells that can degrade over the lifetime of the device due to aging effects or repeated accesses. In the case of low latency memories such as DRAM devices, however, effectively infinite endurance or usage-cycles are assumed so once weak bits or bad bits are mapped out by the device manufacturer, no errors should occur due to degradation of data cells due to aging effects or repeated accesses.
As is known, the conventional DRAM memory cell has an access transistor and a storage capacitor. The access transistor connects with the storage capacitor to a bitline when switched-on such that the capacitor stores the logic value placed on the bitline. Due to the tendency of a capacitor to lose its charge over time, DRAM memory cells must be periodically 'refreshed', which serves to maintain the value stored in each storage capacitor at its desired value. The amount of time that a cell can retain its logic value is referred to as its "data retention time".
A trend in the development of memory cells is that the cells have been shrinking due to advancements in process technology and the demand for ever larger memory capacity. This necessarily results in a reduction in the sizes of the access transistor and storage capacitor, which can lead to several limitations. For example, each access transistor exhibits leakage which acts to slowly drain stored charge from the storage capacitor. This leakage characteristic—and thus each cell's data retention time—varies from transistor to transistor; however, this variability increases as the size of the access transistors is reduced. Another problem is that a shrinking memory cell results in a smaller storage capacitor, and thus a reduced storage capacitance. This can also adversely affect the data retention time characteristics of the cells.


A method of making a lower cost active matrix display. In a particular embodiment, the method includes providing at least one first conductor upon a substrate and depositing a gate dielectric upon the first conductor and substrate. At least one paired second conductor and a pixel electrode are deposited upon the gate dielectric, with the second conductor crossing the first conductor and with a narrow gap between the paired second conductor and the pixel electrode. A semiconductor material is deposited over the paired second conductor and pixel electrode, filling the narrow gap. The narrow gap shelters a portion of the semiconductor material, which serves as a semiconductor bridge capable of functioning either as an insulator or as a channel region of a field effect transistor. The remaining, unsheltered semiconductor material is removed. A liquid crystal layer is then deposited upon the paired second conductor, the pixel electrode and the sheltered semiconductor material, and a translucent conductor is deposited upon the liquid crystal display layer. An associated display is also provided.

Socially and professionally, most people rely upon video displays in one form or another for at least a portion of their work and/or recreation. Cathode ray tubes (CRTs) larger and heavier than comparable displays composed of liquid crystal devices (LCDs) or light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which can provide a visual image of comparable resolution without the traditional bulk and weight associated with CRTs.
More specifically, as they typically do not include a tube, an LCD or LED display may be quite thin and light weight, improving portability of laptop computers, video displays in vehicles and airplanes, and information displays that are mounted or set in eye catching locations.
A typical CRT display also requires more power to operate then does a comparably sized LED display. For example a 14″ CRT display may require 110 watts of power, whereas a 14″ LED display may require 30˜40 watts or less. This difference in power consumption may be significant in the field of portable devices that must operate from a battery. In addition, power conservation and low profile aspects are increasingly in demand for home and office products, where the savings in energy may total several hundred dollars per year.
A CRT operates by a scanning electron beam used to excite phosphorous-based materials on the back side of the screen. The intensity of each pixel may be associated with the intensity of the electron beam. With an LCD display, each pixel is a transient light emitting device that may be selectively adjusted to permit light to shine through the pixel.
Generally speaking, to create an LCD 100, as shown in FIG. 1, a first and second polarized glass plate 101, 103 are provided, each having microscopic grooves in the surface opposite from, but in line with, a polarizing film 105, 107. The first and second polarized glass plates 101, 103 are parallel to one another with the respective polarizing film of each transverse to the other. For illustrative purposes, the polarizing film 105 and grooves of first glass plate 101 run parallel to the page, such that they are represented as solid line. In contrast, the polarizing film 107 and grooves of second glass plate 103 are perpendicular to the page, such that they are represented as parallel cross sections.
Nematic liquid crystals 109 are then added between the first and second glass plates 101, 103. The grooves will cause the layer of molecules of liquid crystals 109 that are in contact with the grooved glass plates 101, 103 to align with the grooves. As the grooves of one glass plate 101 are transverse to the grooves of the other glass plate 103, the Nematic liquid crystal 109 will twist. In the 2-D illustration of FIG. 1 this twisting is represented as nematic liquid crystal 109 appearing to change in size as it progresses from glass plate 101 to glass plate 103.
As light 111 provided by light source 113 strikes first glass plate 101, it is polarized. The molecules in each layer of nematic liquid crystal 109 then guide the light 111 from layer to layer within nematic liquid crystal 109, and in so doing, twist the light 111 to align with the grooves and the polarized filter of the second glass plate 103.
If an electric charge is applied across nematic liquid crystal 109, the molecules of nematic liquid crystal 109 will untwist. As nematic liquid crystal 109 straightens out, the angle of the light 111 passing through from first glass plate 101 to second glass plate 103 also changes, and the cross polarization orientation between the first and second polarized plates 105, 107 blocks the passage of light 111. In an alternative configuration, glass plate 103 may be optionally replaced with a reflective surface, such as a mirror 115, or a mirrored surface. When the nematic liquid crystal 109 is properly aligned by a field, light 111 will enter the first glass plate 101 and be reflected off mirror 115 and back out through first glass plate 101. By changing the applied field and thus the twist in nematic liquid crystal 109, the amount of light reflected may be reduced and/or blocked entirely.
By varying the degree of twisting, the LCD 100 utilizing nematic liquid crystal 109 can control how much of light 111 passes through, thus providing a gray scale. When the external light 111 is colored, or the light 111 passes through a color filter before or after passing through the LCD 100, color images of varying intensity may also be provided.
Generally speaking, the cost of manufacturing an LCD display rapidly increases as the area of the display is increased. Nevertheless, consumer demand emphasizes ever-increasing display size and resolution. Typical manufacturing processes employed to provide the LCD components include photolithographic techniques and other semiconductor fabrication techniques suited to the fabrication of small-scale components established on wafer substrates, which may be only a few centimeters in diameter. Even with such small substrates, it is not uncommon to move, align and repeat the masking/structure defining process.
As a common LCD display for a laptop computer may have approximately a 12″ viewing area and a large screen display may be multiple times larger, the re-alignment tolerances of photolithographic processes permit the introduction of defects that may render the entire display unusable. As such, quality control measures discard a high percentage of displays before they are fully assembled. As such, displays, especially large displays, are generally more expensive than they might be if not for the manufacturer's need to recoup the costs for resources, time, precision tooling, and device failure rate.
Hence, there is a need for a process to provide a low cost active matrix display that overcomes one or more of the drawbacks identified above. The present invention satisfies one or more of these needs.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.


Charging/discharging control system for an electricity storage device includes motor/generator, electricity storage device, AC/DC conversion unit for performing AC/DC conversion processing between the AC power of motor/generator and the DC power of electricity storage device, and control device for controlling the charge and discharge of electricity storage device via AC/DC conversion unit. During charge control, in accordance with the charge state of electricity storage device, control device restricts the magnitude of the DC power that is obtained by converting the generation power generated by the regenerative braking of motor/generator at the deceleration and is supplied to electricity storage device.

It is known that the deterioration of an electricity storage device progresses when the charge and discharge due to high current occur or the frequency of the charge and discharge is high. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses that an engine control device of a hybrid vehicle detects the traveling state of the vehicle on the basis of the required power or the like required for vehicle traveling. Here, the required power is determined on the basis of various detection signals of the operation state of an accelerator pedal or brake pedal and the vehicle driving state such as the vehicle speed. In this disclosure, when the detection result indicates the traveling state in which the load variation of the vehicle is a predetermined value or more and the required power greatly varies, the vehicle is controlled so as to absorb the variation in the required power with the operation output of the engine, and hence the charge and discharge of the battery at a high power are suppressed.
Patent Literature 2 discloses that, in the control method of a hybrid vehicle, idle rotation is performed without stopping the engine in the case that the required power of the vehicle is lower than a threshold and the vehicle speed is low but is a threshold or higher. In this disclosure, in order to enable the engine to speedily respond to a rapid change of the required torque, the idle speed is increased with the increase in the vehicle speed, and hence the rapid change of the charge/discharge power of the battery is prevented to suppress the deterioration.

Charging/discharging control system for electricity storage device


The invention is for a DNA vaccine expressing the hemagglutinin (HA1) gene of equine-2 influenza virus. By engineering a stop codon within HA1, expression of HA1 is ensured. By encapsulation of the DNA vaccine in liposome and by intranasal inoculation, it is sufficient to elicit protective immunity at a significantly lower dosage compared to a DNA vaccine expressing the full length HA gene. Lower dosage reduces the risk of induction of anti-DNA antibodies. Intranasal inoculation directly to the respiratory epithelial cells reduces the risk of DNA integration. The inventive vaccine is advantageous over current inactivated or live attenuated vaccines, as updating of the vaccine requires only the replacement of the encoding sequence with the new virus.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to vaccines for equine influenza virus, and, more particularly, to a DNA vaccine comprising the HA1 encoding sequence of equine-2 influenza virus which may be administered intranasally of a lower than typical dosage to elicit good mucosal immunity.
2. Background
Equine influenza virus (EIV) is the leading etiological agent for upper respiratory infections in horses. It has been implicated as the cause of epidemic outbreaks of respiratory disease in the horse for centuries. Spread of the virus is rapid and morbidity is extremely high. Infected horses develop typical "flu" symptoms: rapid onset of respiratory distress, coughing, fever, and mucous discharge. In rare cases, fatalities result from secondary bacterial bronchial pneumonia. Although mortality rate is low, the effect of an equine influenza virus infection is significant. It is estimated that the suspension of horse racing in a 1992 Hong Kong outbreak resulted in a loss of US$120 million in revenue. The economic importance in other equine sports may be less, but outbreaks of equine influenza have interrupted international equine events on several occasions. An infected horse without clinical signs but undergoing strenuous training may suffer long term consequences such as reduced pulmonary function. Clinically ill horses suffer the obvious disadvantage of losing training time.
Equine influenza virus is type A influenza virus, a member of Orthomyxoviridae. The viral genome consists of eight segments of negative-stranded RNA. The viral capsid is enclosed in a lipid envelope anchoring two surface viral glycoproteins: hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). HA is believed to be the most antigenic viral protein of EIV. HA has a molecular weight of approximately 77 kD. This viral protein is synthesized as HA0, and it is cleaved by protease action and subsequent reduction of the single disulfide bond into an amino terminal HA1 portion (50 kD) and a carboxy terminal HA2 portion (27 kD). The HA2 portion is anchored onto the lipid bilayer of a membrane, and HA1 portion is bound to HA2 by non-covalent linkages. The hemagglutinin is involved in binding of the virus to the receptor at the host cell membrane, leading to the subsequent penetration and uncoating of the virus, hence initiating a viral replication. A major goal of vaccination is to induce immunity towards this viral encoded molecule.
There are two subtypes of equine influenza viruses. Type 1, or equine-1 influenza virus (H7N7), has not been isolated in developed countries for the last 15 years. Equine-2 influenza virus (H3N8), however, continues to circulate around the world despite massive vaccination programs. The success of H3N8 virus is probably due to antigenic drift: sequential changes of the antigenicity of HA by amino acid substitution [1]. Recent isolates of equine-2 influenza viruses can be classified into either "American" lineage or "Eurasian" lineage. Furthermore, more recent equine-2 influenza virus has diverged into multiple lineages [2], and that at least in North America, two evolutionary lineages circulate in alternate year [3].
Current EIV vaccines typically consist of formalin or β-propiolactone inactivated whole viruses. The antigenic constituent is composed of equine influenza virus type 1 and type 2. A/Eq/Prague/56 is the only vaccine strain for type 1, whereas, type 2 constituents are the prototype A/Eq/Miami/63 and a later strain such as A/Eq/Kentucky/81 or A/Eq/Fontainebleau/79. A recent meeting of WHO/OIE Consultations on Control of Equine Influenza affirmed the earlier recommendations that vaccines should include both an "American" virus (A/Eq/Kentucky/94) and a "Eurasian" virus (A/Eq/Newmarket/2/93), and that the prototype A/Eq/Miami/63 should be discontinued [4].
In recent prospective study, Morley et. al. [5] have shown that current commercial vaccines do not protect against virus infection, and only have marginal effect in the suppression of clinical symptoms. The lack of protection offered by current commercial vaccines is due to one, or more, of a combination of the following factors:                lack of imununogenicity;        poor choice of vaccine strains; and/or        eliciting an inappropriate immunity.
The continued evolution of equine-2 influenza virus (H3N8) requires periodic updating of the vaccine strain to elicit protective immunity. However, there is a wide spectrum of vaccine strain choices among different vaccine manufacturers.
Immunity generated by an earlier EIV will not be protective against later isolates due to a change of the antigenicity of HA, a result of amino acid substitutions (antigenic drift). This characteristic of the virus is the major obstacle to a "fail-proof" effective vaccine. Updating of vaccine by replacing with more recent virus strains and in a more frequent intervals had been recommended [6]. Some manufacturers still keep outdated virus strains in their products. Although antibodies specific for equine influenza virus are elicited, however, these vaccines are problematic. First, serum antibody level serves as a poor indicator for protection. Second, as the circulating virus strains are sufficiently different from the vaccine strain, there is minimal cross-reactivity. A "partial" immunity elicited by such outdated vaccine renders an infected host a non-symptomatic carrier, that is, the host is infected, but because of the partial immunity, clinical symptoms are suppressed. These infected hosts are not recognized, which facilitates the spread of the virus.
Influenza virus initiates infection by attachment to the ciliated epithelial cells at the upper respiratory tract. Therefore, mucosal antibodies provide an effective defense against the virus. In fact, the importance of nasal antibodies in protection against equine influenza virus has been recognized for many years. In a mouse model, it has been shown that transfer of IgA confers protection against influenza virus infection [7].
Whereas current vaccines elicit serum antibodies, none target mucosal immunity. The correlation between serum antibodies level and vaccine efficacy is unclear, due to the lack of standardization of the measurement for both the antigen and the antibodies [8].
Several strategies, including the use of immune stimulating complexes (ISCOMs) [9], and by direct inoculation to the mucosal area [10], have been used to boost mucosal immune response to current vaccines for equine influenza virus. However, the results showed only limited improvements using these strategies.
A recently licensed vaccine from Heska Corp. (Fort Collins, Colo.), based on recombinant cold-adapted (temperature-sensitive mutant) and attenuated equine influenza virus, is an attempt to elicit mucosal immunity. The vaccine is administered by intranasal inoculation to elicit mucosal immunity. Direct inoculation of cold-adapted attenuated virus to the mucosal site intranasally provides strong stimulation of the mucosal-associated lymphoid tissues (MALT). Therefore, this vaccine is highly immunogenic and elicits mucosal immunity. However, since the vaccine is based on recombinant virus through re-assortment, updating the vaccine requires re-engineering of the cold-adapted attenuated virus. All necessary safety and potency testing has to be done before the updated vaccine can be licensed.
The field of DNA vaccine, or genetic immunization, is a rapidly emerging technology. It was a serendipitous discovery that when a DNA plasmid containing the coding sequences of a protein is injected intramuscularly into a mouse, not only was the antigen expressed, but an immune response to the antigen was also elicited [11, 12]. It is believed that cells take up the DNA plasmid in vivo in a manner similar to that of a DNA transfection in vitro. The DNA plasmid does not replicate inside the host cells, but the encoded antigen is transcribed and translated by the host cell. The antigen is either expressed on the cell surface or secreted, and an immune response is elicited [13]. This new immunization methodolog has been shown to be effective by many investigators, and for a wide spectrum of infectious agents, including influenza virus in general [14], and specific for equine influenza virus [15]. It has been shown that a DNA vaccine expressing the HA gene of A/Eq/Kentucky/81, after administered via skin and mucosa, protected horses against a homologous virus challenge [15].
In the patent art, vaccines and methodologies against EIV are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,482,414; 6,436,408; 6,398,774; 6,177,082; 6,045,790; 4,920,213; 4,693,893; 4,689,224; 4,683,137; 4,631,191; and 4,619,827, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,920,213 and 4,631,191 are directed to recombinant vaccines for immunizing horses against equine influenza virus. DNA sequences encoding the HA and NA glycoproteins from two strains were used to construct vaccinia carried vaccines, to design synthetic peptides for primer and booster administration, and to permit recombinant synthesis of HA and/or NA protein based vaccines.
An ideal vaccine for equine influenza virus, by addressing the above deficiency of current vaccines, should be highly immunogenic, elicit a mucosal immunity, and be amenable to easy "updating".

DNA vaccine expressing HA1 of equine-2 influenza virus

Board of Regents for Oklahoma State University


A system for treating a contaminated gas stream is provided that includes a comminution device 204 operable to effect size reduction of a plurality of sorbent particles and form a plurality of comminuted particles, a plurality of nozzles 224 distributed through the gas stream and operable to introduce the plurality of comminuted particles into the gas stream, and a particle removal device 104 operable to remove at least most of the introduced comminuted particles and form a treated gas stream. The comminution device is in direct fluid communication with the nozzles.

Each year, the emission of air toxics from combustion sources is being subjected to increasingly strict regulations. These regulations include not only existing regulations, such as the U.S. Clean Air Act as amended in 1970, 1977, and 1990, the National Energy Act, and the National Primary and Secondary Ambient Air Quality Standards, but also pending regulations that will require the removal of certain air toxics from utility plant flue gas. Title III of the Amendments governs air toxics. As used herein, an "air toxic" refers to the 189 chemicals listed in the Clean Air Act. Air toxics are present in the flue gas of combustion sources and appear both as particulate metals such as nickel, arsenic, and chromium in flyash particles and as vapor phase metals such as mercury, selenium, halogens, and halides and organic vapors. Vapor phase air toxics are commonly present in flue gas in trace concentrations of parts per million or less and therefore can be difficult to remove to comply with pertinent regulations.
Several systems have been developed to remove trace quantities of air toxics from flue gas. The systems have had varying degrees of success.
In one system, activated carbons and carbons treated chemically to produce sulfide or iodide compounds with mercury are injected into a gas stream ahead of a particulate collection device, such as a Fabric Filter (FF), ElectroStatic Precipitator (ESP), Spray Dry Absorber (SDA), and Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) device. The activated carbon is typically introduced into the gas stream by blowing the carbon, in a dry particulate form, into the gas stream. While in flight, the carbon reacts with the entrained air toxics and binds the air toxics to the surfaces of the carbon. The air toxic-containing carbon is then removed by the FF, ESP, SDA, and/or FGD.
The carbons used for the mercury removal process are generally of high surface area and ground by the manufacturer to a small particle size, typically in the range of 10 microns to 100 millimeters. Manufacturers make different grades of carbon depending on the specific properties desired for a particular application. Activated carbon is manufactured in a finished form at centralized manufacturing locations. The material is then shipped in bulk form over long distances to end user locations using various means, such as supersacks, rail car and truck.

Apparatus and process for preparing sorbents for mercury control at the point of use


Fibers having improved resistance to moisture at elevated temperatures comprise at least two elastic polymers, one polymer heat-settable and the other polymer heat-resistant, the heat-resistant polymer comprising at least a portion of the exterior surface of the fiber. The fibers typically have a bicomponent and/or a biconstituent core/sheath morphology. Typically, the core comprises an elastic thermoplastic urethane, and the sheath comprises a homogeneously branched polyolefin, preferably a homogeneously branched substantially linear ethylene polymer.

Materials with excellent stretchability and elasticity are needed to manufacture a variety of durable articles such as, for example, sport apparel and furniture upholstery. Stretchability and elasticity are performance attributes that function to effectuate a closely conforming fit to the body of the wearer or to the frame of the item. Maintenance of the conforming fit during repeated use, extensions and retractions at body temperatures is very desirable.
A material is typically characterized as elastic where it has a high percent elastic recovery (that is, a low percent permanent set) after application of a biasing force. Ideally, elastic materials are characterized by a combination of three important properties: a low percent permanent set, a low stress or load at strain, and a low percent stress or load relaxation. That is, elastic materials are characterized as having the following properties (1) a low stress or load requirement to stretch the material, (2) no or low relaxing of the stress or unloading once the material is stretched, and (3) complete or high recovery to original dimensions after the stretching, biasing or straining is discontinued.
Spandex is a segmented polyurethane elastic material known to exhibit nearly ideal elastic properties. However, not only is spandex cost prohibitive for many applications, it also exhibits poor resistance to moisture at elevated temperature. This, in turn, compromises the ability to dye fabrics made from it using conventional aqueous dying processes. For example, the thermosol dying process is an aqueous process that employs temperatures in excess of 200 C. Fabrics made from spandex cannot withstand the conditions of this process without a diminution in their elastic properties and as such, fabrics made from spandex must be processed at a lower temperature. This results in higher process costs and less uptake of dye into the fabric.
Elastic materials comprising polyolefins, e.g., polyethylene, polypropylene, polybutylene, etc., are known. These include, among others, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,425,393, 4,957,790, 5,272,236, 5,278,272, 5,324,576, 5,380,810, 5,472,775, 5,525,257, 5,858,885, 6,140,442 and 6,225,243 all of which are incorporated herein by reference. These disclosures notwithstanding, however, a present need exists for cost-effective elastic articles having good resistance to moisture at elevated temperatures.

Elastic, heat and moisture resistant bicomponent and biconstituent fibers


Dihydrocaffeic acid derivatives are here disclosed which are applicable as medicines having excellent absorbency in the case of oral administration and good concentration retention in blood.. The disclosed compounds have the function to induce the production and secretion of a nerve growth factor (NGF) in the brain tissue, and therefore they are effective as medicines for the progression inhibition and therapy of regressive disorders of the central nervous system.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dihydrocaffeic acid derivatives and use as medicines thereof. More specifically, it relates to dihydrocaffeic acid derivatives having the ability to induce the production and secretion of nerve growth factor (hereinafter abbreviated as "NGF") in the local tissue of the brain, and to prophylactic and therapeutic preparations for regressive disorders of the central nervous system containing these derivatives as active ingredients.

Dihydrocaffeic acid derivatives and pharmaceutical preparation containing same


A male connector is disclosed having an adjustable diameter for insertion in a socket. The connector includes an internal sleeve having a rotary sleeve. An external sleeve partially surrounds the internal sleeve and the rotary sleeve. A finger is attached to the external sleeve. In response to a rotation of the rotary sleeve, the finger moves laterally to change the connector diameter. Both the finger and the rotary sleeve do not move longitudinally. The connector further includes a locking device to maintain the rotary sleeve in a desired position. The locking device has a first series of teeth along an outer surface of the internal sleeve for cooperating with a second series of teeth along an inner surface of the external sleeve. In addition, the connector includes a cam having a profile which allows the diameter to change when the finger follows the cam profile in response to the rotation of the rotary sleeve.

The invention relates to a male connector for electrically connecting to a socket, notably of the cigarette lighter type of an automotive vehicle, intended to be adapted to various diameters of the socket, comprised between a minimum and a maximum diameter, said male connector comprising:
an internal sleeve, PA0 an external sleeve surrounding the internal sleeve, PA0 at least one locking finger positioned on the outside of the male connector, PA0 a displacement means permitting of radially displacing the locking finger for adapting to the diameter of the socket.
There are a great many electric or electronic appliances, such as electric household appliances, telecommunication equipment, audio apparatus, video apparatus etc., intended to be connected to a socket, notably of the cigarette lighter type of an automotive vehicle. As the diameter of these cigarette lighter sockets is not a standard diameter in the world, it depends on the country in which the vehicle is manufactured. For example, vehicles manufactured in Europe generally have a cigarette lighter socket whose diameter is larger than that of the cigarette lighter sockets of vehicles manufactured in the United States and in Japan.

Male connector adaptable to various socket diameters


A method is described that includes during runtime of a semiconductor die, determining that a next BIST test sequence of a storage component embedded on the die is appropriate. The method further includes applying a BIST test sequence to each valid entry in the storage component. The method also includes marking any newly invalid entries in the storage component as invalid and configuring a respective replacement entry for each of the newly invalid entries.

Semiconductor chips or single packages containing multiple semiconductor chips often include one or more caching layers to keep information localized to the circuits that are processing the information. By keeping the information localized overall system operation is improved because slower external accesses for the information (e.g., off die or outside the package) are avoided.
Besides performance, another consideration is power consumption. Here, generally, a power efficient chip/package as opposed to a power hungry chip/package is desirable. One technique for reducing power consumption of a semiconductor chip is to reduce its supply voltage. Here, for a same clock frequency, the power consumption of a chip having a lower supply voltage will consume less power than a semiconductor chip having a higher supply voltage.

Semiconductor chip with adaptive BIST cache testing during runtime


An electromagnetic relay includes a winding, a magnetic core disposed within the winding, and an armature mounted for movement at a first end of the winding. At least one movable circuit contact is operably associated with the armature and movable with respect to at least one stationary contact mounted in the relay responsive to motion of the armature. An end plate is mounted at an opposing end of the winding and an insulating sheet is folded about a portion of the winding. The insulating sheet has first and second sides, with the first side being secured on one end to the end plate, and the second end disposed between the armature and the first end of the winding. An outer frame covers at least a portion of the insulating sheet. The insulating sheet functions to reduce the occurrence of voltage breakdown within the relay.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electromagnetic relays and more particularly, to relays having improved voltage breakdown characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical electromagnetic relay generally includes a bobbin having a winding, a magnetic core disposed within the winding, and an armature mounted for movement at one end of the winding. A movable contact is typically linked to the armature. Pivot motion of the armature in response to electromagnetic forces produced by the winding and core causes the movable electrical contact to make or break electrical contact with one of a plurality of stationary contacts. As such, electrical connection is selectively made between one of the stationary contacts and a terminal point connected to the movable contact member to perform switching functions.
An exemplary relay of the above-noted type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,151,675, assigned to the assignee herein, which is directed to an electromagnetic relay having a contact spring mounted on an armature with improved spring flex to obviate problems of welding or adhesion of the electrical contacts. The improved spring flex is achieved by designing the contact spring with a constricted width near the free edge of the armature and broadening into a T-shaped end to provide a double contact or bridge contact. Also, a pair of supporting tabs are used to transmit a jolt of force to the armature during opening of the contacts to break any welding or adhesion of the contacts.
One problem inherent in the above type of relay is that, due to the typical close proximity of the contacts and the core, there is a possibility of voltage breakdown between the contacts and coil during voltage surges. For example, such voltage surges may occur during lightning storms.
Hence, there is a need for an electromagnetic relay with improved resiliency to voltage surges, and which is of a simple and compact design that is readily manufacturable

Siemens Electromechanical Components, Inc.


The present technology includes an optimized b-tree. To improve concurrent access, a read lock can be applied to traversed nodes of a b-tree in a lock coupling. A read locked node can be promoted to a write locked node upon a determination that the node is likely to be modified, wherein the locked node first restricts access to further functions and then applies a write lock to the node when all existing functions accessing the node end. If one of the other functions attempts to promote the later function can be canceled and removed from the tree. A node can be promoted if the node is likely to be modified when considering multiple factors such as type of function, whether it is a leaf node, the number of keys in the node, or the number of keys in a child node.

1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to b-trees and more specifically to concurrent access of b-trees.
2. Introduction
Computers are relied upon to store and offer access to large amounts of data. Accordingly, being able to access the data faster and more efficiently is an ongoing goal of modern developers. To achieve this goal, computing data structures have been developed to achieve this end.
One data structure which has been commonly used to manage data is a binary tree. Binary trees store data in nodes connected in a tree structure. Each tree begins with a single root node that stores a single data element and can have no more than two child nodes. The child nodes are commonly referred to as the left child and right child. Each child node can likewise store one data element and have two child nodes. Data is stored in a binary tree using the value in each node as a key. For example, if a binary tree holds integers as values, the tree is organized such that each integer is stored in a node to the left of a node containing a larger integer, but to the right of a node containing a smaller integer. This way the contents of each node of the tree can be used as a key to quickly traverse the tree and find data.
Many variations of the binary tree have been developed. One variation that is commonly used when managing very large amounts of data is a b-tree. As known to a person of ordinary skill in the art, a B-tree (referred to as "b-tree" throughout this document) is a variation of the binary tree that allows for multiple keys and children per node. Some b-trees can be configured to have hundreds of keys and children per node, thus having millions of nodes in a tree with a fairly short depth. These types of large b-trees are commonly used by file-systems to represent files and directories.
One variation of a b-tree has been developed by Ohad Rodeh and has been disclosed in his paper B-trees, Shadowing, and Clones (ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, Vol. V, No. N, August 2007), which is incorporated by reference, herein, in its entirety.
To increase the speed and efficiency of accessing data within a b-tree, concurrent access to a tree can be granted to multiple functions. Granting concurrent access, however, can lead to errors if a node is modified while being accessed by another node. To alleviate this problem, multiple locking schemes have been used to limit errors while allowing as much concurrent access as possible.
In the past, different types of locks, providing different levels of security, have been used. For example, functions have been differentiated between functions that modify the tree (write function) versus those that only request data from the tree (read function) and different types of locks have been configured to restrict access from certain types of functions attempting to access a node. For example, when a read function accesses a node, a read lock can be placed on the node which allows only other read functions to access the node concurrently and restricts access to all write functions. When a write function accesses a node, a write lock can be placed which restricts access to all other functions, both read and write.
One common solution to allowing concurrent access to a b-tree is to lock each node as it is traversed by the function. For example, in some embodiments, for every node traversed by a read function, a read lock is applied to the node. Conversely, for every node traversed by a write function a write lock can be applied to the node. This solution, although effective, is inefficient and slow because each function must enter the tree by the root node and so the root node must always be locked when the tree is accessed by a function. In the case of a write function, the result is that no other functions can access the tree until the write function has completed and the lock is removed.
To remedy this problem, the b-tree disclosed by Ohad Rodeh incorporates a lock coupling technique wherein individual nodes are locked as they are traversed and can then be released after the appropriate child node is locked if it is determined that the parent node will not be modified. Similar to the method described above, a read lock is used when the tree is traversed by a read function while a write lock is used when the tree is traversed by a write function.
The lock coupling method is beneficial because a node is not locked unless it is being accessed, or it is likely that the node will be modified. The root node, therefore, is often not locked when the tree is accessed by a function and the tree can therefore be accessed by both reader and writer functions concurrently.
Lock coupling does provide a more efficient system of allowing concurrent access to a tree; however the restrictive nature of a write lock still fails to allow sufficient concurrent access and ultimately impedes performance. Accordingly, a need exists for a less restrictive locking technique associated with concurrent access to b-trees that still provides adequate protection against errors.


A multifunction ophthalmic apparatus, capable of efficiently measuring and examining eye characteristics respectively, has an measurement part including a unit blowing fluid to a cornea via a nozzle for measuring intraocular pressure of an examinee's eye, a reflection member having a reflection surface, arranged insertably and removably between the eye and the nozzle, an examination part storing an optical system, which photo-receives reflection light from the eye reflected by the member for examination, a main body storing the parts, a first unit moving the body relative to the eye in working distance direction, a second unit moving the measurement part relative to the body in the direction, a third moving unit inserting and removing the member, a device for emitting a switching signal between a first mode for examination and a second mode for measurement, and a unit controlling driving of the second and third moving units on the signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ophthalmic apparatus for measuring and examining different eye characteristics of an eye of an examinee, more particularly to an ophthalmic apparatus for measuring and examining intraocular pressure and other eye characteristics.
2. Description of Related Art
In ophthalmologic diagnoses, different eye characteristics such as eye refractive power, a corneal shape and intraocular pressure are measured and examined in general (photographing of a fundus or the like is included therein). And, dedicated ophthalmic apparatuses are in widespread use, each of which objectively measures and examines the eye characteristics individually. However, the individual measurements and examinations by each dedicated apparatus bring trouble in relocation of an examiner and an examinee between the apparatuses and cause a waste of installation spaces. Therefore, proposed is a multifunction ophthalmic apparatus capable of measuring and examining the different eye characteristics.
For example, as an apparatus capable of measuring the intraocular pressure and the eye refractive power, conventionally proposed is an apparatus integrating an intraocular pressure measurement part storing an intraocular pressure measurement system with an eye refractive power measurement part storing an eye refractive power measurement system which are vertically arranged (see Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. Hei1-265937).
However, the conventional apparatus described above has a constitution where the measurement parts are integrally brought in vertical movements, and alignment in the vertical direction of the measurement parts with an eye of an examinee is performed respectively. Therefore, a larger amount of vertical movements is required than the vertical movements of the measurement part of the dedicated apparatus, and this apparatus has problems such as upsizing of a moving mechanism and long time required for the alignment.